MRS1 The Under Dogs (17 page)

I bade her good-bye with a heavy heart.

Jessie's discouragement was but momentary. The greater the difficulties, the greater the demands upon her. She found herself able to rise to them. Her course of action was clear; apart from the detestable business of sex, she must make these men like her. Impossible as it might seem, they must meet on another plane than sex. She planned to unite them with herself by means of their common resentment against their inhuman taskmasters.

All the men came to the supper table, and in addition there appeared a new member of the gang, a big loutish fellow, whom they called Fingy Silo. He, with his thick lips and little swimming eyes, was the most frankly sensual of the lot. A sweep of dark hair obscured his low forehead, and his mouth generally hung open. He seemed to have scarcely more intelligence than an ape, and he had in addition that quality of brutality which is purely man's, and man's worst quality. Throughout the meal he stared at Jessie unabashed. Jessie, blandly ignoring it, treated him with the same offhand friendliness the others, but he only goggled at her stupidly. She was at a disadvantage in dealing with such a one; her methods were too fine for him.

It was a curious assortment that faced her, and she the only woman amongst them. Bill Combs had recovered his usual stolidity and his face gave nothing away. Skinny Sam was quieter than his wont, and glinted at Jessie through his lashes with evil eyes. Then there was the decayed Pap with his senile giggle; little white-faced Abell, who scarcely ever looked up from his plate; and finally this big lout, Fingy Silo. Jessie gallantly applied herself to the unpromising material.

"Gee! this is as cheerful as a funeral!" she cried. "Cheer up, boys! There'll be no wash in Heaven! Don't yeh never have a word to say wit' yer meals? I should think yer food would choke yeh. Me, I gotta talk or die. Pass the lobscouce, Pap."

Only Pap responded at first. "You're feelin' pretty good to-night, eh?" said he with his disagreeable smile. He did not intend it to be disagreeable, but he was a little warped.

"Feel good!" cried Jessie. "I'm desperate. I gotta holler and act the fool to keep my spirits up."

This struck an answering chord in Abell, who lifted his head with a faint smile on his white face. It was almost the first notice he had taken of Jessie. "Like a kid, when he walks by the cemetery," he said.

"Sure," said Jessie, waving her hand about the table. "Look at them corpses."

There was something between her and Abell that the others did not share in; the knowledge of a better way of living.

"Speaking of corpses," she went on, "did you ever hear the story of Crematory Johnson who riz and walked?" She told the droll negro tale with all the delicious mimicry for which she was famous in another sphere. Fun is fun just the same in any walk of life; Big Bill rumbled with laughter in his diaphragm, and Pap fairly squealed.

"Gee! Fuzzy-Wuz can tell a story all right," he said delightedly.

The name stuck.

Jessie capped it with another and another. Even Sam, seeing how the current was running, made haste to swim with it, and he, at least, made believe to laugh as heartily as the rest. The new-comer, Fingy Silo, continued to stare at Jessie like an animal.

Whatever a man's private griefs or passions, he can rarely resist an invitation to sociability. It worked a marvel around that gloomy board. Loud, cheerful talk became general, and all (excepting Fingy) beamed on each other in the most friendly fashion. No one could have supposed that a shadow lay on any of them. Both Abell, in his quiet way, and Bill Combs, in his stolid way, proved to have a talent for story-telling, and they added their contributions. Jessie was aware every minute that the ugly passions were only slumbering, and that a single wrong word would provoke an explosion. She ran the show.

In the middle of it, Abell said thoughtlessly: "This is just like old times!"

"What old times?" asked Jessie.

All the men turned silent and uncomfortable. Jessie thought: "They mean when Melanie was here!" She made haste to tell another story.

Some word brought up Woburn, and Jessie was induced to tell the story of her escape. The incident of the Warden's tea-party made the most successful story of all, because that was real, and it came close home to all of them.

After supper there was a general move downstairs to the kitchen to smoke. "So far, so good," thought Jessie. "It doesn't mean much, but it's a beginning. Should I go to my room now? ... No, it would risk what I have gained. I must see it through to the end."

On the way downstairs she happened to be next to Abell. He slipped his hand under her arm, and whispered with a touching burst of confidence: "You know, I got a fine boy twelve years old. You wouldn't think it, would you? I was married when I was nineteen. He's most ready for High School already. That boy's going to make something of himself!"

"Isn't that bully!" Jessie whispered back, greatly moved. To herself she whispered exultantly: "I am making progress!"

In the kitchen Pap piled all the dishes in the sink, "until morning." Somebody suggested a game of Bridge. Bridge in a thieves' kitchen! This struck Jessie as comic. There were six of them, and only four could play; a dispute arose as to who should be included. The situation was too hazardous for Jessie to think of keeping her mind on cards, and she said: "Count me out. I ain't got no card sense."

Whereupon the dispute was reversed. Neither Bill, Sam, nor Fingy wanted to play then. Finally the game was given up in disgust. At this moment Sam, unluckily, happened to finger the bump on the back of his head tenderly. This induced Bill to tell the story of Sam's discomfiture that day. Sam retired from the room white with rage. The evening appeared to be spoiled. Jessie couldn't whoop up sociability again, for to be successful that sort of thing must appear to come about naturally. So she made believe to be bored.

"Can't anybody raise a song?" she said.

It transpired that Abell possessed a ukelele. He was sent to fetch it.

Totally unregardful of his listeners, Abell sat slumped down in a kitchen chair, his head brooding over his instrument, his eyes half closed. He sang coon songs in a droning, nasal voice, but with charm. He made no effort to please; he had temperament, as they call it; he gave himself up to his singing, and they all listened with pleasure.

It was a queer enough scene under the single gas-get. Every now and then air came through the gas-pipe, and the jet hissed and flared. The walls and ceiling of the room had been painted a ghastly blue, which was now much discoloured by greasy kitchen smoke. The edges of the cupboard doors were black with finger-marks, and most of the doors were hanging by a single hinge. Bill, Pap, and Fingy were sitting roughly in a row with their backs to the outside door and window, all three balancing on the hind legs of their chairs. The first-named was smoking an ancient pipe, much charred around the edge of the bowl; the other two lit one cigarette from the butt of the last. Abell sat across the room from the two stoves, his heels on the edge of a dresser. Jessie sat alone facing the three, with two doors at her back. One of these doors led to a pantry, the other to the basement hall.

Without appearing to, Jessie, while she smoked her cigarette, was studying Fingy Silo, who presented a new problem to her. He was still young, but a man of that coarse type loses the attractiveness of youth before he is out of boyhood—if, indeed, he had ever had it. He was immensely powerful without being well-shapen; his neck looked thicker than the head it bore. Jessie had scarcely heard him open his mouth; but her intuition told her that as a result of his long, brutal stare, he would presently act. How could one handle a man so impervious? You couldn't reach him from the outside. He was moved regardless, by slow, dim forces within.

Between songs, while Abell was tuning his instrument, Fingy arose, and coolly picking up his chair, carried it across the room and placed it beside Jessie's. This act had all the effect of a direct challenge to Bill, but Jessie saw that Fingy did not intend it as such. With perfect egotism, it never occurred to him that any other man might prefer a claim to the girl. Bill said nothing at the moment, but his pained eyes began to burn dangerously, and the air of the room became charged as with thunder.

Abell, with no thought apart from his instrument, began another song. Fingy behind his hand, with absurd obviousness, whispered to Jessie: "Fuzzy-Wuz, you're a damn good-lookin' girl."

"Cut it out," said Jessie indifferently. "I'm not interested."

It did not penetrate.

From across the room came Bill's voice. The big man was still keeping a hold on himself. "If you got anything to say, Fingy, speak out."

Fingy looked at him with a surprised, black scowl. Then he looked at Jessie. It took him some moments to figure the situation out. Meanwhile Abell went on with his song.

Once more Fingy put up his hand. "Come on out in the yard," he whispered. "You can hear just as good out there."

"I told you to cut it out," said Jessie, giving him her full glance. "You may as well get it through your head. There's nothing doing."

But his little eyes gloated on her without giving a sign of having heard.

"Hold up a minute, Abie," said Bill, putting up his palm. The musician looked up in surprise.

"I got a word to say to Fingy," Bill went on. "We all know that this sort of business is against the rules. Well, none of us cares so damn much about the rules as that. But we can't all break this rule, and nachelly the rest of us isn't goin' to stand by and see one get away with it."

"That's just talk," said Fingy. "You mean you want the girl yourself."

"All right," said Bill sticking out his jaw. "What about it?"

"You'll have to fight me for her," said Fingy. There was something impressive about such simplicity.

"Any time," said Bill.

Jessie picked up her chair, and planted it with its back to the gas-stove, exactly between the two parties. "You can fight if you want," she said indifferently, "but it will do you no good. I don't want either of you. The winner means no more to me than the loser. I mean to keep myself to myself. Go on with your song, Abie."

The ukelele set up its whining again, but after a moment or two Fingy said to Bill in the same tone as before: "Well, are you man enough to fight for her?"

Bill said nothing at all, but got up with a surprising alacrity, an eager glitter in his eyes. Jessie was enraged by their attitude towards women. Obviously, her feelings meant nothing to either of them. But she had wit enough to see that the situation had passed out of her influence, and she kept her mouth shut. Abell got up with an air that said it was none of his concern, and went out through the hall. Jessie heard him mount the stairs with a sinking heart. The most nearly civilised one in the house!

She considered whether she should go to her room. But, no! One of them would only follow her there later, and she had no means of keeping him out. She must see the thing through on the spot.

Neither Bill nor Fingy had worn a coat in the kitchen. They now unlaced their shoes and kicked them off, eyeing each other. Pap was in great excitement. He took up his stand in the doorway leading to the hall, where he could see all that went on, yet keep an ear open for the possible return of Mrs. Pullen. Jessie leaned against a table, affecting to look out of the window. But she was not as superhumanly indifferent to the scene as she appeared. By keeping a little to one side of the window, she could see all that happened reflected in the glass.

She gathered that these affairs were conducted according to a code of their own. All contestants were in honour bound to make as little noise as possible; hence the stocking feet. There was no punching; that made too much noise; they wrestled; and, apparently, any foul grip and dirty trick was permissible, if you could get away with it.

The two men circled the floor, watching each other for an opening with dehumanised fighting faces. They were well enough matched; Bill was the more powerful, but Fingy was perhaps fifteen years younger. Their sagging clothes rendered their bodies hideous; their ugly flat feet seemed to adhere to the floor. There promised to be nothing glorious about this fight. Jessie shivered—not with fear, but with repulsion.

Pap, biting his fingers in the doorway, could not stand the suspense. "A-ah! Mix it! Mix it!" he quavered.

Suddenly they came together. Bill had his mighty arms locked around the other's body, while Fingy, pushing with all his strength against Bill's chest, sought to raise his knee high enough between them to break Bill's hold. One forgot their cumbering clothes then; they were rather magnificent. Jessie was reminded of a pair of figures in a Grecian frieze that she had seen. That same pose had been caught twenty-five hundred years ago.

And Fingy succeeded; Bill's arms were burst asunder. Before he could recover, Fingy, making a half turn, hooked his throat within his left elbow, and catching the elbow with his right hand, dragged Bill's head back gagging, until Jessie thought his neck must break. He had his knee in the middle of Bill's back for a fulcrum. Back, and still back, Bill struggling in vain to turn within that strangling grip, his great chest bursting. Bill got an arm over Fingy's head, and his hand groped for Fingy's face; he found it; his flexed fingers found Fingy's eyes, and Jessie closed her eyes in horror. The pain forced Fingy to let go. Once more they circled for an opening. Jessie expected to see two bloody holes in Fingy's face, but apparently his eyes were uninjured. Bill was sobbing for breath. That was where his age told against him. Fingy, snatching for a hold, missed, and tore Bill's shirt half off his back. The vast back was too fat.

And so it went. Bill had plenty of strength, but he was slow of movement, and his wind was not over good. Still, in a rough and tumble like that, mere bulk was an advantage. Fingy could not throw him. He fell on Fingy once, knocking the wind out of him, and savagely banged his head against the floor, until Jessie turned sick with disgust, but bit her lips to keep from crying out. She was not going to betray the least interest in the outcome, though they tore each other's flesh to ribbons. However, Fingy succeeded in wriggling free, before he was beaten into unconsciousness.