Manhattan Transfer (20 page)

Joe Harland got to his feet and walked away.

It was almost dark; his knees were stiff from sitting still so long. As he walked wearily he could feel his potbelly cramped by his tight belt. Poor old warhorse you need a couple of drinks to think about things. A mottled beery smell came out through swinging doors. Inside the barkeep’s face was like a russet apple on a snug mahogany shelf.

‘Gimme a shot of rye.’ The whiskey stung his throat hot and fragrant. Makes a man of me that does. Without drinking the chaser he walked over to the free lunch and ate a ham sandwich and an olive. ‘Let’s have another rye Charley. That’s the stuff to make a man of you. I been laying off it too much, that’s what’s the matter with me. You wouldnt think it to look at me now, would you friend, but they used to call me the Wizard of Wall Street which is only another illustration of the peculiar predominance of luck in human affairs… Yes sir with pleasure. Well, here’s health and long life and to hell with the jinx… Hah makes a man of you… Well I suppose there’s not one of you gentlemen here who hasnt at some time or other taken a plunger, and how many of you hasnt come back sadder and wiser. Another illustration of the peculiar predominance of luck in human affairs. But not so with me; gentlemen for ten years I played the market, for ten years I didn’t have a ticker ribbon out of my hand day or night, and in ten years I only took a cropper three times, till the last time. Gentlemen I’m going to tell you a secret. I’m going to tell you a very important secret… Charley give these very good friends of mine another round, my treat, and have a nip yourself… My, that tickles her in the right place… Gentlemen just another illustration of the peculiar predominance of luck in human affairs. Gentlemen the secret of my luck… this is exact I assure you; you can verify it yourselves in newspaper articles, magazines, speeches, lectures delivered in those days; a man, and a dirty blackguard he turned out to be eventually, even wrote a detective story about me called the Secret of Success, which you can find in the New York Public Library if you care to look the matter up… The secret of my success was… and when you hear it you’ll laugh among yourselves and say Joe Harland’s drunk, Joe Harland’s an old fool… Yes you will… For ten years I’m telling you I traded on margins, I bought outright, I covered on stocks I’d never even heard the name of and every time I cleaned up. I piled up money. I had four banks
in the palm of my hand. I began eating my way into sugar and gutta percha, but in that I was before my time… But you’re getting nervous to know my secret, you think you could use it… Well you couldnt… It was a blue silk crocheted necktie that my mother made for me when I was a little boy… Dont you laugh, God damn you… No I’m not starting anything. Just another illustration of the peculiar predominance of luck. The day I chipped in with another fellow to spread a thousand dollars over some Louisville and Nashville on margin I wore that necktie. Soared twentyfive points in twentyfive minutes. That was the beginning. Then gradually I began to notice that the times I didn’t wear that necktie were the times I lost money. It got so old and ragged I tried carrying it in my pocket. Didnt do any good. I had to wear it, do you understand?… The rest is the old old story gentlemen… There was a girl, God damn her and I loved her. I wanted to show her that there was nothing in the world I wouldnt do for her so I gave it to her. I pretended it was a joke and laughed it off, ha ha ha. She said, Why it’s no good, it’s all worn out, and she threw it in the fire… Only another illustration… Friend you wouldn’t set me up to another drink would you? I find myself unexpectedly out of funds this afternoon… I thank you sir . . Ah that puts ginger in you again.’

In the crammed subway car the messenger boy was pressed up against the back of a tall blond woman who smelled of Mary Garden. Elbows, packages, shoulders, buttocks, jiggled closer with every lurch of the screeching express. His sweaty Western Union cap was knocked onto the side of his head. If I could have a dame like dat, a dame like dat’d be wort havin de train stalled, de lights go out, de train wrecked. I could have her if I had de noive an de jack. As the train slowed up she fell against him, he closed his eyes, didnt breathe, his nose was mashed against her neck. The train stopped. He was carried in a rush of people out the door.

Dizzy he staggered up into the air and the blinking blocks of lights. Upper Broadway was full of people. Sailors lounged in twos and threes at the corner of Ninetysixth. He ate a ham and a leberwurst sandwich in a delicatessen store. The woman behind the counter had buttercolored hair like the girl in the subway but she was fatter and older. Still chewing the crust of the last sandwich
he went up in the elevator to the Japanese Garden. He sat thinking a while with the flicker of the screen in his eyes. Jeze dey’ll tink it funny to see a messengerboy up here in dis suit. I better get de hell outa here. I’ll go deliver my telegrams.

He tightened his belt as he walked down the stairs. Then he slouched up Broadway to 105th Street and east towards Columbus Avenue, noting doors, fire escapes, windows, cornices, carefully as he went. Dis is de joint. The only lights were on the second floor. He rang the second floor bell. The doorcatch clicked. He ran up the stairs. A woman with weedy hair and a face red from leaning over the stove poked her head out.

‘Telegram for Santiono.’

‘No such name here.’

‘Sorry maam I musta rung de wrong bell.’

Door slammed in his nose. His sallow sagging face tightened up all of a sudden. He ran lightly on tiptoe up the stairs to the top landing then up the little ladder to a trapdoor. The bolt ground as he slid it back. He caught in his breath. Once on the cindergritty roof he let the trapdoor back softly into place. Chimneys stood up in alert ranks all about him, black against the glare from the streets. Crouching he stepped gingerly to the rear edge of the house, let himself down from the gutter to the fire escape. His foot grazed a flowerpot as he landed. Everything dark. Crawled through a window into a stuffy womansmelling room, slid a hand under the pillow of an unmade bed, along a bureau, spilled some facepowder, in tiny jerks pulled open the drawer, a watch, ran a pin into his finger, a brooch, something that crinkled in the back corner; bills, a roll of bills. Getaway, no chances tonight. Down the fire escape to the next floor. No light. Another window open. Takin candy from a baby. Same room, smelling of dogs and incense, some kind of dope. He could see himself faintly, fumbling, in the glass of the bureau, put his hand into a pot of cold cream, wiped it off on his pants. Hell. Something fluffysoft shot with a yell from under his feet. He stood trembling in the middle of the narrow room. The little dog was yapping loud in a corner.

The room swung into light. A girl stood in the open door, pointing a revolver at him. There was a man behind her.

‘What are you doing? Why it’s a Western Union boy…’ The light was a coppery tangle about her hair, picked out her body
under the red silk kimono. The young man was wiry and brown in his unbuttoned shirt. ‘Well what are you doing in chat room?’

‘Please maam it was hunger brought me to it, hunger an my poor ole muder starvin.’

‘Isnt that wonderful Stan? He’s a burglar.’ She brandished the revolver. ‘Come on out in the hall.’

‘Yes miss anythin you say miss, but dont give me up to de bulls. Tink o de ole muder starvin her heart out.’

‘All right but if you took anything you must give it back.’

‘Honest I didn’t have a chanct.’

Stan flopped into a chair laughing and laughing. ‘Ellie you take the cake… Wouldnt a thought you could do it.’

‘Well didnt I play this scene in stock all last summer?… Give up your gun.’

‘No miss I wouldn’t carry no gun.’

‘Well I dont believe you but I guess I’ll let you go.’

‘Gawd bless you miss.’

‘But you must make some money as a messengerboy.’

‘I was fired last week miss, it’s only hunger made me take to it.’

Stan got to his feet. ‘Let’s give him a dollar an tell him to get the hell out of here.’

When he was outside the door she held out the dollarbill to him.

‘Jez you’re white,’ he said choking. He grabbed the hand with the bill in it and kissed it; leaning over her hand kissing it wetly he caught a glimpse of her body under the arm in the drooping red silk sleeve. As he walked, still trembling, down the stairs, he looked back and saw the man and the girl standing side by side with their arms around each other watching him. His eyes were full of tears. He stuffed the dollarbill into his pocket.

Kid if you keep on bein a softie about women you’re goin to find yourself in dat lil summer hotel up de river… Pretty soft though. Whistling under his breath he walked to the L and took an uptown train. Now and then he put his hand over his back pocket to feel the roll of bills. He ran up to the third floor of an apartmenthouse that smelled of fried fish and coal gas, and rang three times at a grimy glass door. After a pause he knocked softly.

‘Zat you Moike?’ came faintly the whine of a woman’s voice.

‘No it’s Nicky Schatz.’

A sharpfaced woman with henna hair opened the door. She had on a fur coat over frilly lace underclothes.

‘Howsa boy?’

‘Jeze a swell dame caught me when I was tidying up a little job and whatjer tink she done?’ He followed the woman, talking excitedly, into a dining room with peeling walls. On the table were used glasses and a bottle of Green River whiskey. ‘She gave me a dollar an tole me to be a good little boy.’

‘The hell she did?’

‘Here’s a watch.’

‘It’s an Ingersoll, I dont call ‘at a watch.’

‘Well set yer lamps on dis.’ He pulled out the roll of bills. ‘Aint dat a wad o lettuce?… Got in himmel, dey’s tousands.’

‘Lemme see.’ She grabbed the bills out of his hand, her eyes popping. ‘Hay ye’re cookoo kid.’ She threw the roll on the floor and wrung her hands with a swaying Jewish gesture. ‘Oyoy it’s stage money. It’s stage money ye simple saphead, you goddam…’

Giggling they sat side by side on the edge of the bed. Through the stuffy smell of the room full of little silky bits of clothing falling off chairs a fading freshness came from a bunch of yellow roses on the bureau. Their arms tightened round each other’s shoulders; suddenly he wrenched himself away and leaned over her to kiss her mouth. ‘Some burglar,’ he said breathlessly.

‘Stan…’

‘Ellie.’

‘I thought it might be Jojo;’ she managed to force a whisper through a tight throat. ‘It’ll be just like him to come sneaking around.’

‘Ellie I don’t understand how you can live with him among all these people. You’re so lovely. I just dont see you in all this.’

‘It was easy enough before I met you… And honestly Jojo’s all right. He’s just a peculiar very unhappy person.’

‘But you’re out of another world old kid… You ought to live on top of the Woolworth Building in an apartment made of cutglass and cherry blossoms.’

‘Stan your back’s brown all the way down.’

‘That’s swimming.’

‘So soon?’

‘I guess most of it’s left over from last summer.’

‘You’re the fortunate youth all right. I never learned how to swim properly.’

‘I’ll teach you… Look next Sunday bright and early we’ll hop into Dingo and go down to Long Beach. Way down at the end there’s never anybody… You dont even have to wear a bathingsuit.’

‘I like the way you’re so lean and hard Stan… Jojo’s white and flabby almost like a woman.’

‘For crissake don’t talk about him now.’

Stan stood with his legs apart buttoning his shirt. ‘Look Ellie let’s beat it out an have a drink… God I’d hate to run into somebody now an have to talk lies to ’em… I bet I’d crown ’em with a chair.’

‘We’ve got time. Nobody ever comes home here before twelve… I’m just here myself because I’ve got a sick headache.’

‘Ellie, d’you like your sick headache?’

‘I’m crazy about it Stan.’

‘I guess that Western Union burglar knew that… Gosh… Burglary, adultery, sneaking down fireescapes, cattreading along gutters. Judas it’s a great life.’

Ellen gripped his hand hard as they came down the stairs stepping together. In front of the letterboxes in the shabby hallway he grabbed her suddenly by the shoulders and pressed her head back and kissed her. Hardly breathing they floated down the street toward Broadway. He had his hand under her arm, she squeezed it tight against her ribs with her elbow. Aloof, as if looking through thick glass into an aquarium, she watched faces, fruit in store-windows, cans of vegetables, jars of olives, redhotpokerplants in a florist’s, newspapers, electric signs drifting by. When they passed cross-streets a puff of air came in her face off the river. Sudden jetbright glances of eyes under straw hats, attitudes of chins, thin lips, pouting lips, Cupid’s bows, hungry shadow under cheekbones, faces of girls and young men nuzzled fluttering against her like moths as she walked with her stride even to his through the tingling yellow night.

Somewhere they sat down at a table. An orchestra throbbed. ‘No Stan I cant drink anything… You go ahead.’

‘But Ellie, arent you feeling swell like I am?’

‘Sweller… I just couldnt stand feeling any better… I couldnt keep my mind on a glass long enough to drink it.’ She winced under the brightness of his eyes.

Stan was bubbling drunk. ‘I wish earth had the body as fruit to eat,’ he kept repeating. Ellen was all the time twisting about bits of rubbery cold Welsh rabbit with her fork. She had started to drop with a lurching drop like a rollercoaster’s into shuddering pits of misery. In a square place in the middle of the floor four couples were dancing the tango. She got to her feet.

‘Stan I’m going home. I’ve got to get up early and rehearse all day. Call me up at twelve at the theater.’

He nodded and poured himself another highball. She stood behind his chair a second looking down at his long head of close ruffled hair. He was spouting verses softly to himself. ‘Saw the white implacable Aphrodite, damn fine, Saw the hair unbound and the feet unsandaled, Jiminy… Shine as fire of sunset on western waters. Saw the reluctant… goddam fine sapphics.’

Once out on Broadway again she felt very merry. She stood in the middle of the street waiting for the uptown car. An occasional taxi whizzed by her. From the river on the warm wind came the long moan of a steamboat whistle. In the pit inside her thousands of gnomes were building tall brittle glittering towers. The car swooped ringing along the rails, stopped. As she climbed in she remembered swooningly the smell of Stan’s body sweating in her arms. She let herself drop into a seat, biting her lips to keep from crying out. God it’s terrible to be in love. Opposite two men with chinless bluefish faces were talking hilariously, slapping fat knees.