Plexus (28 page)

It was high time to quit the racket. Instead of accumulating a little nest egg we now owed our patron money. In addition I owed Maude a good sum for the homemade candy I had induced her to make for us. Poor Maude had entered into it with a will, thinking it would help us to meet the alimony bill.

In fact, everything was going screwy. Instead of getting up at noon we would lie abed till four or five in the afternoon. Mathias couldn't understand what had come over Mona. Everything was set for her to make a killing, but she was letting it all drift through her hands.

Sometimes amusing things happened, such as a sudden attack of hiccups which lasted three days and finally forced us to summon a doctor. The moment I lifted up my shirt and felt the man's cold finger on my abdomen I stopped hiccupping. I felt a little ashamed of myself for having made him come all the way from the Bronx. He pretended to be delighted, probably because he discovered that we could play chess. He made no bones about the fact that when he wasn't busy performing abortions he was playing chess. A strange individual, and highly sensitive. Wouldn't think of taking money from us. Insisted on lending us some. We were to call on him whenever we were in a jam, whether for money or for an abortion. He promised that the next time he called he would bring me one of Sholem
Aleichem's books. (At this period I hadn't heard of Moishe Nadir, else I would have asked him to lend me
My Life as an Echo.)

I couldn't help remarking after he left, how typical it was of Jewish physicians to behave thus. Never had a Jewish doctor pressed me to pay my bill. Never had I met one who was not interested in the arts and sciences. Nearly all of them were musicians, painters or writers on the side. What's more, they all held out the hand of friendship. How different from the run of gentile physicians! For the life of me I couldn't think of one gentile doctor of my acquaintance who had the least interest in art, not one who was anything but the medico.

“How do you explain it?” I demanded.

“The Jews are always human,” said Mona.

“You said it. They make you feel good even if you're dying.”

A week or so later, in urgent need of fifty dollars, I suddenly thought of my dentist, also of the Chosen Tribe. In my usual roundabout way, I decided to go to the 23rd Street office, where old man Creighton was working as a night messenger, and dispatch him to my friend with a note. I explained to Mona, on the way to the telegraph office, the peculiar tie which existed between this night messenger and myself. I reminded her of how he had come to our rescue that night at Jimmy Kelly's place.

At the office we had to wait a while—Creighton was out on a route. I chinned a bit with the night manager, one of those reformed crooks whom O'Rourke had in hand. Finally Creighton appeared. He was surprised to see me with my wife. In his tactful way he behaved as if he had never met her before.

I told the nightclerk I would be keeping Creighton for an hour or two. Outside I called a cab, intending to ride over to Brooklyn with him and wait at the corner until he had made the touch for me. We started rolling. Leisurely I explained the nature of our errand.

“But it isn't necessary to do that!” he exclaimed. “I have a little money put aside. It would be a pleasure, Mr. Miller, to lend you a hundred, or even two hundred, if that will help you out.”

I demurred at first but finally gave in.

“I'll bring it to you the first thing in the morning,” said Creighton. He drove all the way home with us, chatted a while at the door, then headed for the subway. We had compromised on a hundred and fifty dollars.

The next morning, bright and early, Creighton showed up. “You needn't be in a hurry to pay it back,” he said. I thanked him warmly and urged him to have dinner with us some evening. He promised to come on his next night off.

The following day there was a headline in the newspaper to the effect that our friend Creighton had set fire to the house he lived in and had been burned to death. No explanation for his gruesome behavior was offered.

Well, that was one little sum we would never have to return. It was my custom to keep a little notebook in which I recorded the sums we had borrowed. That is, those I knew about. To ascertain what Mona owed her “cavaliers” was practically impossible. However, I had firm intentions of paying the debts
I
had contracted. Compared to hers, mine were trifling. Even so, it made a staggering list. Many of the items were for five dollars or less. These little sums, however, were the important ones, in my eyes. They had been given me by people who could ill afford to part with a dime. For example, that measly three and a half which had been lent me by Savardekar, one of my ex-night messengers. Such a frail, delicate creature. Used to live on a handful of rice per day. He was undoubtedly back in India now, preparing for sainthood. Most likely he no longer had need of that three-fifty. Just the same, it would have done me good, infinite good, to be able to send it to him. Even a saint has need of money occasionally.

As I sat there ruminating, it occurred to me that at one time or another almost every Hindu I had known had lent
me money. Always touching little sums extracted from battered-looking purses. There was one item, I noticed, for four dollars and seventy-five cents. Due Ali Khan, a Parsee, who had the habit of writing me extraordinary letters, giving his observations of conditions in the telegraph business as well as his impressions of the municipality in general. He had a beautiful hand and used a pompous language. If it was not Christ's teachings, or the saying of the Buddha, which he quoted (for my edification), it was a matter of fact suggestion that I write the Mayor and order him to have the street numbers on all houses illuminated at night. It would make it easier for night messengers to find street addresses, he thought.

To the credit of one, “Al Jolson,” as we called him, there was a total of sixteen dollars. I had fallen into the bad habit of touching him for a buck every time I ran into him on the street. I did it primarily because it made him so intensely happy to accommodate me with this little offering each time we met. The penalty I had to pay was to stand and listen to him while he hummed a new tune he had composed. Over a hundred of his ditties were floating around among the publishers of Tin Pan Alley. Now and then, on amateur nights, he appeared before the footlights in some neighborhood theater. His favorite song was “Avalon,” which he would sing straight or in falsetto, as you wished. Once, when I was entertaining a friend of mine—in “Little Hungary”—I had to call for a messenger to bring me some cash. It was “Al Jolson” who brought it. Thoughtlessly I invited him to sit down and have a drink with us. After a few words he asked if he might try out one of his songs. I thought he meant that he would hum it to us, but no, before I could stop him he was on his feet in the center of the floor, his cap in one hand and a glass in the other, singing at the top of his lungs. The patrons of course were highly amused. The song over, he went from table to table with cap in hand soliciting coins. Then he sat down and offered to buy us drinks. Finding this impossible, he
slyly slipped me a couple of bills under the table.
“Your percentage,”
he whispered.

The man I already owed a considerable sum to was my Uncle Dave. Several hundred dollars it was, to be augmented as time went on. This Dave Leonard had married my father's sister. He had been a baker for years and then, after losing two fingers, had decided to try something else. Though a born American, a Yankee to boot, he had had no education whatever. He couldn't even write his own name. But what a man! What a heart! I used to lie in wait for Dave outside the Ziegfeld Follies Theatre. He had become a ticket speculator, a racket that netted him several hundred a week—and without much fuss or bother. If he wasn't at the Follies he was at the Hippodrome or at the Met. As I say, I used to hang around outside these places, waiting to catch him during a lull. Dave had only to see me coming and his hand would be in his pocket, ready to flash the roll. It was an enormous wad he carried on him. He'd peel off fifty for me just as easily as ten. Never batted an eye, never asked me what I needed the money for. “See me any time,” he'd say, “you know where to find me.” Or else: “Stick around a while and we'll have a bite to eat.”
Or
—“Would you like to see the show tonight? I'll have a ticket up front for you, it's an off night.”

A regal guy, Dave. I used to bless his soul every time I parted from him.… When I told him one day that I was writing he became thoroughly excited. To Dave it was like saying—“I'm going to become a magician!” His reverence for language was typical of the illiterate man. But there was more than this behind his enthusiasm. Dave understood me, understood that I was different from the rest of the family, and he approved of it. He reminded me touchingly of how I used to play the piano, what an artist I was. His daughter whom I had given lessons to, was now an accomplished pianist. He was stunned to learn that I no longer played. If I wanted a piano he would get me one—he knew where to pick one up cheap.
“Just say the word
,
Henry!”
And then he would cross-examine me about the art of writing. Did one have to think it all out beforehand or did one just make it up as one went along? Of course, one had to be a good speller, he supposed. And one had to keep up with newspapers, eh? It was his idea that a writer had to be thoroughly informed—about everything under the sun. But the thought he loved to dwell on most was that one day he would see my name in print, either in a newspaper, a magazine, or on a book cover. “I suppose it's hard to write a book,” he would muse. “It must be hard to remember what you wrote a week ago, no?
And all those characters!
What do you do, keep a list of them in front of you?” And then he would ask my opinion of certain writers he had heard about. Or of some famous columnist who was rolling in money. “That's the thing, Henry… if you could only be a columnist, or a correspondent.” Anyway, he was wishing me well. He was sure I'd make the grade. I had a lot on the ball, and so forth. “You're sure now that that's enough?” (Refering to the bill he had handed me.) “Well, if you run short come back tomorrow. I'm not worrying about it, you know.” And then, as an afterthought—“Listen, can you spare a moment? I want you to meet one of my pals. He's dying to shake hands with you. He used to work on a newspaper once.”

Thinking about Dave and his utter goodness it came to me that I hadn't seen my cousin Gene for a long, long time. All I knew about him was that he had moved from Yorkville some years ago and was now living on Long Island with his two sons who were growing up.

I wrote him a postcard, saying I'd like to see him again, and asked where we might meet. He wrote back immediately, suggesting an elevated station near the end of the line.

I had fully intended to take with me a good package of groceries and some wine, but the best I could do on setting out to meet him was to rake up a little change, just about enough to get there and back. If he's working, thought I to myself, he can't be so terribly hard up. At the last minute I tried to borrow a dollar from the blind newspaperman at Borough Hall, but in vain.

It was something of a shock I experienced when I saw Gene standing on the platform with his little lunch box in his hand. His hair had already turned gray. He wore a pair of patched trousers, a thick sweater, and a peak cap. His smile, however, was radiant, his handclasp warm. In greeting me his voice trembled. It was still that deep, warm voice which he had even as a boy.

We stood there gazing into each other's eyes for a minute or two. Then he said, in that old Yorkville accent: “You look fine, Henry.”

“You look good yourself,” said I, “only a little thinner.”

“I'm getting old,” said Gene, and he removed his cap to show me how bald he was getting.

“Nonsense,” I said, “you're only in your thirties. Why, you're still a youngster.”

“No,” he replied, “I've lost my pep. I've had a hard time of it, Henry.”

That's how it began. I realized at once that he was telling me the truth. He was always candid, frank, sincere.

We marched down the elevated stairs into the middle of nowhere. Such a Godforsaken spot it was; something told me it would become more so as we journeyed onward.

I got it slowly, piecemeal, more and more heartrending as the story progressed. To begin with, he was only working two or three days a week. Nobody wanted beautiful pipe cases any more. It was his father who had found a place for him in the factory. (Ages ago, it seemed.) His father hadn't believed in wasting time getting an education. I didn't need to be reminded of what a boor his father was: always sitting around in his red flannel undershirt, winter
or summer, with a can of beer in front of him. One of those thick Germans who would never change.

Gene had married, two children had been born, and then, while the kids were still little tots, his wife had died of cancer, a painful, lingering death. He had used up all his savings and gone deep into debt. They had only been in the country, as he called it, a few months when his wife died. It was just at this time that they laid him off at the factory. He had tried raising tropical fish but it was no go. The trouble was that he had to find work he could do at home because there was no one to look after the kids. He did the cooking, the washing, the mending, the ironing, everything. He was alone, terribly alone. He never got over the loss of his wife whom he had loved dearly.

All this as we wended our way to his house. He hadn't yet asked me a thing about myself, so absorbed was he in the narration of his miseries. When we got off the bus, finally, there was a long walk through dingy suburban streets to what looked like a vacant lot, at the very end of which stood his little shack, shabby, woebegone, exactly like the dwellings of the poor white in the deep South. A few flowers were struggling desperately to maintain life outside the front door. They looked pathetic. We walked in and were greeted by his sons, two good-looking youngsters who seemed somewhat undernourished. Quiet, grave lads, strangely somber and reserved. I had never seen them before. I felt more than ever ashamed of myself for not bringing something.