The Iceman Cometh (5 page)

LARRY

Irritably
.

I’m telling you I don’t know anything and I don’t want to know. To hell with the Movement and all connected with it! I’m out of it, and everything else, and damned glad to be.

ROCKY

Shrugs his shoulders
—
indifferently
.

Well, don’t tink I’m interested in dis Parritt guy. He’s nuttin’ to me.

JOE

Me neider. If dere’s one ting more’n anudder I cares nuttin’ about, it’s de sucker game you and Hugo call de Movement.

He chuckles
—
reminiscently
.

Reminds me of damn fool argument me and Mose Porter has de udder night. He’s drunk and I’m drunker. He says, “Socialist and Anarchist, we ought to shoot dem dead. Dey’s all no-good sons of bitches.” I says, “Hold on, you talk’s if Anarchists and Socialists was de same.” “Dey is,” he says. “Dey’s both no-good bastards.” “ No, dey ain’t,” I says. “I’ll explain the difference. De Anarchist he never works. He drinks but he never buys, and if he do ever get a nickel, he blows it in on bombs, and he wouldn’t give you nothin’. So go ahead and shoot him. But de Socialist, sometimes, he’s got a job, and if he gets ten bucks, he’s bound by his religion to split fifty-fifty wid you. You say—how about my cut, Comrade? And you gets de five. So you don’t shoot no Socialists while I’m around. Dat is, not if dey got anything. Of course, if dey’s broke, den dey’s no-good bastards, too.”

He laughs, immensely tickled
.

LARRY

Grins with sardonic appreciation
.

Be God, Joe, you’ve got all the beauty of human nature and the practical wisdom of the world in that little parable.

ROCKY

Winks at
JOE
.

Sure, Larry ain’t de on’y wise guy in dis dump, hey, Joe?

At a sound from the hall he turns
as
DON PARRITT
appears in the doorway
. rocky
speaks to
larry
out of the side of his mouth
.

Here’s your guy.

PARRITT
comes forward. He is eighteen, tall and broad-shouldered but thin, gangling and awkward. His face is good-looking, with blond curly hair and
la
rge regu
la
r features, but his personality is unpleasant. There is a shifting defiance and ingratiation in his light-blue eyes and an irritating aggressiveness in his manner. His clothes and shoes are new, comparatively expensive, sporty in style. He looks as though he belonged in a pool room patronized by would-be sports. He glances around defensively, sees
larry
and comes forward
.

PARRITT

Hello,
LARRY
.

He nods to
rocky
and
JOE
.

Hello.

They nod and size him up with expressionless eyes
.

LARRY

Without cordiality
.

What’s up? I thought you’d be asleep.

PARRITT

Couldn’t make it. I got sick of lying awake. Thought I might as well see if you were around.

LARRY

Indicates the chair on the right of table
.

Sit down and join the bums then.

PARRITT
sits down
. larry
adds meaningfully
.

The rules of the house are that drinks may be served at all hours.

PARRITT

Forcing a smile
.

I get you. But, hell, I’m just about broke.

He catches
rocky’s
and jo
e’s
contemptuous glances
—
quickly
.

Oh, I know you guys saw—You think I’ve got a roll. Well, you’re all wrong. I’ll show you.

He takes a small wad of dollar bills from his pocket
.

It’s all ones. And I’ve got to live on it till I get a job.

Then with defensive truculence
.

You think I fixed up a phony, don’t you? Why the hell would I?

Where would I get a real roll? You don’t get rich doing what I’ve been doing. Ask Larry. You’re lucky in the Movement if you have enough to eat.

larry
regards him puzzledly
.

ROCKY

Coldly
.

What’s de song and dance about? We ain’t said nuttin’.

PARRITT

Lamely
—
placating them now
.

Why, I was just putting you right. But I don’t want you to think I’m

a tightwad. I’ll buy a drink if you want one.

JOE

Cheering up
.

If? Man, when I don’t want a drink, you call de morgue, tell dem come take Joe’s body away, ’cause he’s sure enuf dead. Gimme de bottle quick, Rocky, before he changes his mind!

ROCKY
passes him the bottle and glass. He pours a brimful drink and

tosses it down his throat, and hands the bottle and glass to
LARRY
.

ROCKY

I’ll take a cigar when I go in de bar. What’re you havin’?

PARRITT

Nothing. I’m on the wagon. What’s the damage?

He holds out a dollar bill
.

ROCKY

Fifteen cents.

He makes change from his pocket
.

PARRITT

Must be some booze!

LARRY

It’s cyanide cut with carbolic acid to give it a mellow flavor. Here’s

luck!

He drinks
.

ROCKY

Guess I’ll get back in de bar and catch a coupla winks before opening-up time.

He squeezes through the tables and disappears, right-rear, behind the curtain. In the section of bar at right, he comes forward and sits at the tab
le
and slumps back, closing his eyes and yawning
.

JOE

Stares calcu
la
tingly at
parritt
and then looks away
—
aloud to himself, philosophically
.

One-drink guy. Dat well done run dry. No hope till Harry’s birthday party. ’Less Hickey shows up.

He turns to
LARRY
.

If Hickey comes, Larry, you wake me up if you has to bat me wid a chair.

He settles himself and immediately falls asleep
.

PARRITT

Who’s Hickey?

LARRY

A hardware drummer. An old friend of Harry
HOPE’s
and all the gang. He’s a grand guy. He comes here twice a year regularly on a periodical drunk and blows in all his money.

PARRITT

With a disparaging g
la
nce around
.

Must be hard up for a place to hang out.

LARRY

It has its points for him. He never runs into anyone he knows in his business here.

PARRITT

Lowering his voice
.

Yes, that’s what I want, too. I’ve got to stay under cover, Larry, like I told you last night.

LARRY

You did a lot of hinting. You didn’t tell me anything.

PARRITT

You can guess, can’t you?

He changes the subject abruptly
.

I’ve been in some dumps on the Coast, but this is the limit. What kind of joint is it, anyway?

LARRY

With a sardonic grin
.

What is it? It’s the No Chance Saloon. It’s Bedrock Bar, The End of the Line Café, The Bottom of the Sea Rathskeller! Don’t you notice the beautiful calm in the atmosphere? That’s because it’s the last harbor. No one here has to worry about where they’re going next, because there is no farther they can go. It’s a great comfort to them. Although even here they keep up the appearances of life with a few harmless pipe dreams about their yesterdays and tomorrows, as you’ll see for yourself if you’re here long.

PARRITT

Stares at him curiously
.

What’s your pipe dream, Larry?

LARRY

Hiding resentment
.

Oh, I’m the exception. I haven’t any left, thank God.

Shortly
.

Don’t complain about this place. You couldn’t find a better for lying low.

PARRITT

I’m glad of that, Larry. I don’t feel any too damned good. I was knocked off my base by that business on the Coast, and since then it’s been no fun dodging around the country, thinking every guy you see might be a dick.

LARRY

Sympathetically now
.

No, it wouldn’t be. But you’re safe here. The cops ignore this dump.

They think it’s as harmless as a graveyard.

He grins sardonically
.

And, be God, they’re right.

PARRITT

It’s been lonely as hell.

Impulsively
.

Christ, Larry, I was glad to find you. I kept saying to myself, “If I can only find Larry. He’s the one guy in the world who can understand—”

He hesitates, staring at
LARRY
with a strange appeal
.

LARRY

Watching him puzzledly
. Understand what?

PARRITT

Hastily
.

Why, all I’ve been through.

Looking away
.

Oh, I know you’re thinking. This guy has a hell of a nerve. I haven’t seen him since he was a kid. I’d forgotten he was alive. But I’ve never forgotten you, Larry. You were the only friend of Mother’s who ever paid attention to me, or knew I was alive. All the others were too busy with the Movement. Even Mother. And I had no Old Man. You used to take me on your knee and tell me stories and crack jokes and make me laugh. You’d ask me questions and take what I said seriously. I guess I got to feel in the years you lived with us that you’d taken the place of my Old Man.

Embarrassedly
.

But, hell, that sounds like a lot of mush. I suppose you don’t remember a damned thing about it.

LARRY

Moved in spite of himself
.

I remember well. You were a serious lonely little shaver.

Then resenting being moved, changes the subject
.

How is it they didn’t pick you up when they got your mother and the rest?

PARRITT

In a lowered voice but eagerly, as if he wanted this chance to tell about it
. I wasn’t around, and as soon as I heard the news I went under cover. You’ve noticed my glad rags. I was staked to them—as a disguise, sort of. I hung around pool rooms and gambling joints and hooker shops, where they’d never look for a Wobblie, pretending I was a sport. Anyway, they’d grabbed everyone important, so I suppose they didn’t think of me until afterward.

LARRY

The papers say the cops got them all dead to rights, that the Burns dicks knew every move before it was made, and someone inside the Movement must have sold out and tipped them off.

PARRITT

Turns to look
larry
in the eyes
—
slowly
.

Yes, I guess that must be true, Larry. It hasn’t come out who it was. It may never come out. I suppose whoever it was made a bargain with the Burns men to keep him out of it. They won’t need his evidence.

LARRY

Tensely
.

By God, I hate to believe it of any of the crowd, if I am through long since with any connection with them. I know they’re damned fools, most of them, as stupidly greedy for power as the worst capitalist they attack, but I’d swear there couldn’t be a yellow stool pigeon among them.

PARRITT

Sure. I’d have sworn that, too, Larry.

LARRY

I hope his soul rots in hell, whoever it is!

PARRITT

Yes, so do I.

LARRY

After a pause
—
shortly
.

How did you locate me? I hoped I’d found a place of retirement here where no one in the Movement would ever come to disturb my peace.

PARRITT

I found out through Mother.

LARRY

I asked her not to tell anyone.

PARRITT

She didn’t tell me, but she’d kept all your letters and I found where she’d hidden them in the flat. I sneaked up there one night after she was arrested.

LARRY

I’d never have thought she was a woman who’d keep letters.

PARRITT

No, I wouldn’t, either. There’s nothing soft or sentimental about Mother.

LARRY

I never answered her last letters. I haven’t written her in a couple of years—or anyone else. I’ve gotten beyond the desire to communicate with the world—or, what’s more to the point, let it bother me any more with its greedy madness.

PARRITT