Tales From Gavagan's Bar (34 page)

             
[He gave it a dramatic pause, and Brenner said, "What do you mean?"]

             
What do I mean? I mean that Donald likes Alice all right but didn't want any part of mama. There weren't any thumpings or things like that—he must know she's a Spiritualist and would run him ragged if she got the chance—but it was unmistakable. The first night she was in the place there was a wind and one of the outside shutters banged and she didn't get a wink of sleep all night. The next night the water pipe in the bedroom over hers burst and she woke up swimming. Then when she went to bed, the edge of the rug was rolled up just inside the door and she tripped over it and nearly broke an ankle. Things like that; the kind of accidents that could happen anywhere. Only I knew they weren't accidents; they were Donald expressing his disapproval. He was letting me know that if that woman came to live there, there'd be hell to pay.

             
I suppose he was protecting me from Mrs. Hilton, you see, and I haven't a doubt he was right, and if we did have her living with us, there'd be hell to pay in more ways than one; but you can see the fix it put me in. If I told Mrs. Hilton what was really going on, she'd be all over the place with mediums and assorted Spiritualists before you could turn around, and I wouldn't dare call my name my own. If I didn't tell her, Donald would keep on giving her the works every time she came, and it would be just as bad. It's a shame you can't reason with a poltergeist.

             
So I went to George here, because I knew he'd been quite a student of that sort of thing, and he told me—

             
["I told him," said George, "that there wasn't anything to do but exorcise the ghost—put him right out of existence. He said he didn't want to do that to an old friend of the family, and I told him it was pretty much of a choice between the poltergeist and Alice the way things stood. So he agreed to
try it."]

             
Yes, I agreed [said Fries] and now I wish I hadn't. George dug out some old medieval manuals and came around to exorcise the ghost. It was very impressive, with bell, book, and candle, just as they say. He hadn't got more than three-quarters of the way through the ceremony, though, when one of the glass crystals fell off the chandelier and hit him on the head.

             
A ghost is supposed to be powerless in the face of an exorcism, so we sat down to figure that one out, and when we did, one of the chair legs gave way under George. Then we knew Donald had it in for George as badly as for Mrs. Hilton; probably on account of the exorcism, so we came over here to Gavagan's to figure it out. We decided that the poltergeist belonged to me and my house, and if anyone but a professional was going to exorcise it, it would have to be me.

             
You see, neither George nor I dared take a chance on letting the thing get out by calling in someone else, because if Mrs. Hilton got wind of it, she'd be down here like a ton of bricks, and the old battleaxe wouldn't want us to exorcise the ghost at all. I got George to show me how to do it and memorized what I had to say and then I tried it. It went off smooth as greased ice, with no crystals falling on my head, and there wasn't a sound in the place afterward, so I imagined the exorcism had succeeded and called up Alice long distance to ask her and her mother down for the weekend.

             
Luckily they couldn't make it and asked for a raincheck until next week. Because the exorcism hadn't worked at all. When I came down in the morning about half the books in the bookcase were pulled out and thrown around the floor and the pages of some of them were torn. George agreed with me that it was a warning, and said I must have done something wrong, but I went over the whole process with him watching, and I had it perfect.

             
We puzzled over it for a long time. Then he said: "What kind of bell did you use?"

             
I told him the little bell that stands on the dinner table
when I want to call Mrs. Harrison from the kitchen.

             
"Wrong," said he. "I've seen that bell, and it's brass. If you really want to exorcise a ghost, you'll have to get a silver bell."

             
Well, I got a silver bell—they're harder to find than you might think—and that night I tried the exorcism again. It worked no better than the first time. That is, there weren't any noises, but during the night a big piece of plaster dropped out of the ceiling in my bedroom and hit the pillow beside my head. George and I knew it was another warning, more in sorrow than in anger; Donald could just as easily have dropped that plaster on my head, only he didn't want to hurt me, just to discourage me from trying any more exorcisms.

             
So George and I checked over the whole procedure again. It couldn't be the bell was wrong, and George said it was absurd to believe that Donald was immune to exorcism. We had a long argument about it. Finally, he said, "What book did you use?"

             
"A Bible, of course, just as you told me," I said.

             
"Yes, but what Bible?" said he.

             
"The family Bible," I told him. "It's almost as old as the house, and I don't think there's any doubt about it."

             
He said: "But it's a King James Bible, isn't it? A Protestant Bible?"

             
"Of course," I said.

             
"That's probably the trouble, then," said George. "Most Protestant churches don't have any such thing as exorcism. Maybe some of them do, but to be on the safe side you need a Douai Bible. A Catholic Bible."

             
Well, I got one, and I tried all over again. That was last night, and now look at me—or rather, smell of me. I've turned into something no respectable goat would asso
ciate with, and the whole house smells the same way, and Alice and her mother are coming down, and Mrs. Harrison threatening to quit, and what I'm going to do, I don't know, and I want another Scotch—

             
#
★
#

             
Brenner said: "Why not give up the idea of ex
orcising Donald? From what you say he seems to be an intelligent sort of poltergeist, and I'm sure he'd understand."

             
"Mrs. Hilton!" said Fries in a strangled tone of voice, and drank again.

             
"I've looked it up in the best texts," said George, with a frown. "I can't imagine what the trouble is." He addressed Mr. Cohan. "Can you?"

             
"That I can," said the bartender readily, crossing his arms and leaning back. "One thing you'll be wanting and not having is a blessed candle, and that you can get at any parish house for the asking. But I'm thinking that even if you had it, it's little good the candle would be doing you. A black Protestant, and not in holy orders, go on with you! All you'll be doing is making magic, and your pollyghost will love the smell of it."

             
"But look here," said Fries. "I can't very well turn Catholic overnight to get rid of it. And Alice and her mother are coming."

             
"That, young felly, is your problem," said Mr. Cohan. "Would you care to be paying for your drinks now? That smell is bad for the trade."

-

             
"A good evening to you Mr. Councilman," said Mr. Cohan, ducking his head deferentially, and without orders, set out on the bar two glasses and a bottle of Irish whiskey.

             
Doc Brenner halted in the midst of trying to explain relativity to Mr. Witherwax, and both of them gazed at a big man, with an unlit cigar in one corner of his mouth and a figure that was making definite approaches to the pear. Without appearing to have noticed Mr. Cohan's greeting, this individual strode frowningly past to the end of the bar, removed the cigar from his mouth, and spat with great violence in the brass crock that was placed there.

             
The act seemed to cheer him up enormously. He turned a face crinkled with tiny red veins toward the others. "A fine good evening it is, Mr. Cohan," he said heartily, "and who is it I have the pleasure of meeting in your elegant establishment?" His hand came up; the whiskey went down; the other hand swished a chaser after it, and he beamed.

             
"Sure, Mr. Councilman, and these are good friends of mine and Gavagan's," said Mr. Cohan. "Mr. Witherwax, Doc Brenner, this is me friend, Councilman Maguire of the Fifth."

             
"And president of the Fifth Ward Fidelity Democratic Club," said Maguire, shaking hands. "Always glad to meet a friend of Mr. Cohan's. Any time the two of you would be in the Fifth, just drop in. Mr. Cohan, set up the glasses; it's a pleasure to be buying a drink for people in your place."

             
Doc Brenner said: "It's quite a way over here from the Fifth."

             
"So it is," said Mr. Cohan. "But Councilman Maguire is not the man to forget his old friends—nor his duties, neither."

             
"What duties?" asked Doc Brenner. "Spitting in that nightmare at the end of the bar?"

             
The cast-iron smile disappeared from Maguire's face, and he glanced quickly at Mr. Cohan, then rumbled in his throat.

             
"Tell them, Denny," said Mr. Cohan. "It will be a fine lesson to them. The two of them are after me half the time to get rid of that gobboon."

             
Witherwax said: "It don't belong in here. Look, I been reading a book about interior decorating, and it says that with a bar like this, you got to have furnishings in the same period." He swung his arm around. "It don't match nothing."

             
Brenner said: "It's insanitary. Mr. Councilman, I'm surprised that the city doesn't pass an ordinance against things like that in public places. It's all right if you have one in your home, but suppose somebody comes in here that has tuberculosis? Answer me that!"

             
Councilman Maguire glanced at Mr. Cohan, who nodded affirmatively; downed his second jorum of Irish, and appeared to make up his mind. "I will answer you that," he said, solemnly. "I will that, and Mr. Cohan here will bear me out. Insanitary that crock may be, if you say so [he nodded at Brenner], and no beauty, neither [he nodded at Witherwax]; but you wouldn't want to see a Republican administration in this town, would you? You would not. But that's what you'd be getting, if it weren't for that pot there, and me coming over at least once a month from the Fifth to spit in it. Look here now, will ye look at this? It will tell you the whole story."

             
He reached into his breast pocket and produced a wallet, from which he carefully extracted a small photograph.

             
Brenner glanced, turned the photograph over and handed it to Witherwax. "I don't see anything startling about it," he said. "It's a picture of you all right, but rather foggy, and not a good likeness."

             
"Right you are," said Maguire. "It's what isn't in the picture
that tells the story."