What's in It for Me? (14 page)

“Thanks, Martha. It was awfully nice of you to do that. I mean, to go to all that trouble.”

“It was nothing, Harry.” She looked at mother admiringly. “Isn't it wonderful, Harry, how your mother has improved?”

“Yeah,” I said.

Mother looked surprised.

“Improved?” she said. “What kind improved?”

“Miss Mills is an actress, Ma,” I said hastily. “She likes to crack jokes.”

“Oh,” Mother said.

“I sing also,” Martha said, beaming.

“You better say something quick, Ma, or she'll start, too.”

Mother shrugged and folded her hands in her lap.

“I like to hear singing. Maybe Miss—Miss—?”

“Mills,” Martha said sweetly.

“Maybe Miss Mills, she'll give us a little, you know, a little song, just for the two of us, Hershie?”

“Miss Mills has a bad sore throat, Ma.”

“Oh! Like that it's different. A person has a bad sore throat, say, you can't expect them to sing to an old woman from the Bronx!”

“But I don't mind,” Martha protested gaily.

“You're outvoted,” I said. “Two to one. No sing. And anyway, you were just going, weren't you?”

“Was I?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“To the doctor,” I said. “You were just on your way to have your sore throat painted, weren't you? When you dropped in, I mean?”

She jumped up at once.

“Oh, of course,” she cried. “How silly of me! My throat is probably crawling with germs and here I am, wasting time and offering to sing!”

She straightened her hat quickly and tugged at her gloves.

“So long, Martha,” I said. “Nice of you to drop in like this.”

She waved the thought aside.

“Not at all. Why don't you come over to the theatre some night after the performance, Harry? Tonight, for instance?”

“I might do that one of these days, Martha. But I can't tonight.” I stood up and faced her, with my back to my mother. “I'm going up to the Bronx tonight probably.” I winked at her. “Drop in again some time when you're passing by.”

“I will,” she said, “if I happen to think of it. Well.” She waved at mother. “Good-by, Mrs. Bogen. Glad toov met you.”

Mother beamed cheerfully.

“For me it was a bigger pleasure, Miss Mills.” She sat up sharply. “See?” she cried. “I remembered!”

“Good-by” Martha said again, smiling.

“Good-by.”

I closed the door behind her and turned back to face mother. She watched me closely as I crossed the room and sat down on the couch.

“That girl that went out,” she said finally. “That fancy little prize package that took me upstairs here, the actress, whatever she is. You know her very well?”

Nothing to speak of. Just six or seven months of intensive boffing, that's all.

“Fairly well,” I said. “Why?”

She shrugged.

“In the Bronx, a boy he says he knows a girl fairly well, so I know right away what he means. But here on Central Park West, where it's so
hoo-hah,
you know, I don't understand what it means to know a girl ‘fairly' well. How well you know this
girl?”

“Oh, well, you know, Ma. I see her once in a while. Just a coupla friends, that's all.”

“Like Walter Winchell, hah?”

My head came up sharply.

“Who?” Then I remembered. “Oh! No, not quite like that. I met Martha a coupla more times than I met Winchell.”

“Well, let me tell you something, Hershie. Don't be so friendly with her. Watch out for her. She's a—”

“Martha?” I said in surprise, “Why?”

“She's smart, that girl.”

“Aah, Ma, you're kidding me. Martha Mills smart? Aah, you don't think she's smart. I know what you think. You think she's—”

“Never mind, Hershie. A lot of things I need advice, but what I'm thinking in my own head, on that, thank God, I don't need advice yet. I know what I think. I know already from one look on her the kind girl she is.”

“I don't see how, Ma. When it comes to girls like Ruthie Ritling, all right, you're a specialist. But girls like Martha Mills, Ma, what do you know?”

“I know enough to know, Hershie, that a girl like that, you shake hands with her once, you gotta start counting your fingernails right away.”

I leaned back and roared and then suddenly I stopped. She was looking at me and I had to look back.

“All right,” I said finally. “All right. Go ahead. Say it. I know I'm a louse. I know I'm a heel and all that. I know I said I'd start coming home and I didn't. I know I could have called up at least and explained why I didn't come, but I didn't do that either. Ma, stop looking at me like that, will you? I can't help it. I don't know what it is. Things just don't work out for me any more. Maybe when I get myself set in my new business I'll be able to do it, but now I can't I tried to do it and I couldn't. I just can't, Ma, that's all.”

“Maybe it's because you're not trying hard enough, Hershie,” she said quietly.

“Ma, I swear this is only temporary, just for the time being, till I get my business running again. After that, it'll be—”

“After that, Hershie, it'll be something else. And after that it'll be still harder. You want to get up, you want to get back, you must do it now. Even now it's hard. The longer you wait, the harder it'll be. Who knows if even now it's not too late?”

“Christ, Ma, the way you talk, the way you want me to do, you want me to quit everything and get myself a lousy shipping clerk's job again at fifteen bucks a week.”

She laughed.

“We got along on it once, we could get along on it again. Bird's milk we don't have to drink. Eggs from elephants we don't have to eat. Central Park West you don't have to live.”

Who said so?

“Aah, Ma, that's ridiculous. Who ever heard of such a—?”

“It's worth it, Hershie,” she said quietly. “Otherwise you'll never be happy. You'll never find even a rest. No matter how much money you make or how many tramps like that Miss Mills you know, you'll always be alone. You'll never find a minute—”

“She's only a friend, Ma,” I said quickly.

“I know, I know, Hershie. But with friends like that you'll never be happy.”

“I'm happy.”

“You're happy?”

She looked at me and I tried looking back, but I couldn't. I dropped my eyes.

“Tell me, Hershie.” She swung her hand around the apartment. “Things like this, things like that Miss Mills, she should grow with her head in the earth like an onion. Things like that, Hershie, where it's all going to end?”

“It doesn't have to end. It keeps on going.”

“To where? Tell me to where?”

“How should I know, Ma? After this, it'll be a bigger apartment. And after that, it'll be a—”

“A still bigger one. And a
still
bigger one. And the bigger it'll get, the bigger, the bigger, the lonelier you'll be, Hershie. You know, Hershie, the world is a funny place. It's big and it's rich, it's small and it's poor, it's got dopes and it's got smart ones, from everything it's got. And everybody thinks he knows what he wants from it. I look at you and I say to myself, you're my son, I raised you up, I know you through and through. The whole rest of the world, the rest of it I don't understand, maybe. But you, at least you, you I should be able to understand! But I don't, Hershie. Maybe I'm from the dopes, not from the smart ones. Maybe I don't see so good no more. What do you want from the world, Hershie? What can you get here on Central Park West that you can't get in the Bronx?”

“Aah, Ma, it's not just Central Park West. You know that. It's—”

“I don't know, Hershie. That's why I'm asking you. All I can see, here I can see you got something nicer to look out from the window than you got in the Bronx. Here you got a softer chair to sit on. Here you got instead of stairs, you got elevators.”

I looked all around the swanky room.

“I don't know, Ma, I guess it's just that I'm smarter than the average person, that's all. It's not my fault. I was born that way. That's the only answer I can give you.”

To my own mother I should be giving more than that.

“What kind answer is that?”

An honest one for a change, if she wanted to know.

“I don't know what it is, Ma, but the nearest I can figure it out, it's this way, I guess. If I were dumb, if I were a guy like Murray Herman, all right. I'd be satisfied with a job and a salary and things like that. But I don't know. I get jumpy just thinking of things like that. I've gotta be doing things, shoving people around, showing how smart I am. I pick up the papers, I see the names in it, the people that count, the people that're doing things, the big shots. How can you sit on a job and work for thirty or forty bucks a week and take that damn subway for a full hour twice a day, six days a week, when you see guys like Winchell, like Dempsey, like Clark Gable, people like that, they're big shots, they're in the money? I'm no actor, I'm no fighter, I'm no writer, but I'm smart. I know it. I feel it. It don't let me keep still. I gotta keep shoving ahead and trying. I can't sit still on a job. I can't be like Murray Herman. All right, so it makes me sound like a show-off to say it, Ma. But it's the truth. You asked me and I'm telling you. I can't sit still. I've gotta be running things.”

“You can't run the world, Hershie.”

“Why not?”

“Because you're only one person, Hershie. There are other people in the world.”

“They never seem to give me much trouble, Ma.”

“Because you're not looking right. Remember, Hershie while you're making your plans, while you're working, the rest of the world it's making plans and working, too.”

“Let them work, Ma. I'm not worrying.”

“Just because you close your eyes, Hershie, and you don't want to look, that doesn't mean they're not there. All it means, it means you'll wake up, some day, surprised, and you'll find there they are, they were working the same like you, and now they beat you.”

I shook my head.

“Ma, I got a lotta respect for you, you know that. I think you're one of the smartest people I ever met. You know that, too. But I don't know. I don't follow you any more.”

She stopped and narrowed her eyes. “You know what I think, Hershie?”

“What?”

“The last time I saw you, you asked me something if Ruthie Ritling, if she still lives there on Fox Street. You remember you asked me?”

I looked at her curiously.

“Yeah, Ma, but didn't you tell me you didn't want me to go butting in where—?”

“She still lives there on Fox Street,” she said quietly.

I
DIDN'T STOP AT
the office the next morning. I called Miss Vinegard and asked her if there was anything special.

“I arranged your mail on the desk, Mr. Bogen. Doesn't look like anything special. All look like regular orders.”

“Any messages?”

“A Mr. Yaz—wait a minute, I've got it written down. Oh, yes, a Mr. Yazshmaybian or something like—?”

“Yazdabian,” I said. “What did he want?”

“Nothing. He just asked if you were in and asked to have you call back. He had an awful nice voice, Mr. Bogen.”

“I know. It stinks with charm. Anything else?”

“That's all, Mr. Bogen. Except that Mr. Yazdabian seemed very anxious to talk to you.”

With the overhead he had, and a showroom as empty as his was, he'd stay that way.

“All right. I won't be in until late in the day, Miss Vinegard. I'll call you back later, though.”

“All right, Mr. Bogen.”

I took the subway downtown to Dun & Bradstreet, Inc.

“I'd like to draw a report on Hrant Yazdabian, Inc., 550 Seventh Avenue. This city,” I told the clerk.

“Spell that, please?”

I did and he wrote the name on a slip of paper.

“It's a corporation,” I said.

“Yes, sir. What line of business, please?”

“Manufacturers. Women's dresses.”

“Just a moment, please.”

He disappeared and returned in a few minutes with several sheets of paper closely mimeographed in blue ink.

“Is there a balance sheet in that?” I asked.

He ruffled the pages quickly.

“Yes, sir.”

“How late?”

“December 31. Less than two months ago. Our files are pretty much up to date on the garment center, sir.”

“All right. I'll take it.”

I paid for it and sat down on a bench in the waiting room to look through it. The first thing I examined was the balance sheet. It showed a net worth of $11,487.22 as of the end of the previous year. Which was almost exactly what I'd suspected, and therefore just dandy. Twenty thousand bucks I should give him for a half interest in a business worth eleven. I got up and went down to a phone booth in the lobby and made a call.

“Hello,” I said. “Charlie?”

“Yes, sir. Who's this?”

“Mr. Bogen, Charlie. Connect me with Miss Mills, will you?”

“She's not in, Mr. Bogen. She just went out.”

“When she comes in again, Charlie, tell her I called and tell her to wait for me. I'll be coming up to the apartment and I want to talk to her.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You got that now? Put it down on a message slip.”

“Yes, sir, I've got it.”

I hung up and went out to the phone book.

“Hello?” I said. “Rector Theatre?”

“Yes.”

“I'd like to talk to Frank Dumpor, please.”

“Speaking. Who's this?”

“This is Mr. Bogen, Frank.”

“Oh, yes, Mr. Bogen. How are you?”