Maggie, a Girl of the Streets and Other New York Writings Page 12

  The men turned their heads to glance at Zeusentell for a moment and then burst into a sustained clamor. “Hurray! Let ’er go! Come—give it t’ us! Spring it! Spring it! Let it come!” As Zeusentell made no advances, they appealed personally. “Come, ol’ man, let ’er go! Whatter yeh ’fraid of? Let ’er go! Go ahn! Hurry up!”

  Zeusentell was protesting with almost frantic modesty. O’Connor took him by the lapel and tried to drag him; but he leaned back, pulling at his coat and shaking his head. “No, no, I don’t know it, I tell yeh! I can’t! I don’t know it! I tell yeh I don’t know it! I’ve forgotten it, I tell yeh! No—no—no—no. Ah, say, lookahere, le’ go me, can’t yeh? What’s th’ matter with yeh? I tell yeh I don’t know it!” The men applauded violently. O’Connor did not relent. A little battle was waged until all of a sudden Zeusentell was seen to grow wondrously solemn. A hush fell upon the men. He was about to begin. He paused in the middle of the floor and nervously adjusted his collar and cravat. The audience became grave. “ ‘Patrick Clancy’s Pig,’ “ announced Zeusentell in a shrill, dry, unnatural tone. And then he began in rapid sing-song:

  “Patrick Clancy had a pig

  Th’ pride uv all th’ nation,

  The half uv him was half as big

  As half uv all creation——”

  When he concluded the others looked at each other to convey their appreciation. They then wildly clapped their hands or tinkled their glasses. As Zeusentell went toward his seat a man leaned over and asked: “Can yeh tell me where I kin git that.” He had made a great success. After an enormous pressure he was induced to recite two more tales. Old Bleecker finally led him forward and pledged him in a large drink. He declared that they were the best things he had ever heard.

  The efforts of Zeusentell imparted a gayety to the company. The men having laughed together were better acquainted, and there was now a universal topic. Some of the party, too, began to be quite drunk.

  The invaluable O’Connor brought forth a man who could play the mouth-organ. The latter, after wiping his instrument upon his coat-sleeve, played all the popular airs. The men’s heads swayed to and fro in the clouded smoke. They grinned and beat time with their feet. A valor, barbaric and wild, began to show in their poses and in their faces, red and glistening from perspiration. The conversation resounded in a hoarse roar. The beer would not run rapidly enough for Jones, so he remained behind to tilt the keg. This caused the black shadow on the wall to retreat and advance, sinking mystically to loom forward again with sudden menace, a huge dark figure controlled, as by some unknown emotion. The glasses, mugs, and cups travelled swift and regular, catching orange reflections from the lamp-light. Two or three men were grown so careless that they were continually spilling their drinks. Old Bleecker, cackling with pleasure, seized time to glance triumphantly at Jones. His party was going to be a success.

  IX

  Of a sudden Kelcey felt the buoyant thought that he was having a good time. He was all at once an enthusiast, as if he were at a festival of a religion. He felt that there was something fine and thrilling in this affair isolated from a stern world, and from which the laughter arose like incense. He knew that old sentiment of brotherly regard for those about him. He began to converse tenderly with them. He was not sure of his drift of thought, but he knew that he was immensely sympathetic. He rejoiced at their faces, shining red and wrinkled with smiles. He was capable of heroisms.

  His pipe irritated him by going out frequently. He was too busy in amiable conversations to attend to it. When he arose to go for a match he discovered that his legs were a trifle uncertain under him. They bended and did not precisely obey his intent. At the table he lit a match and then, in laughing at a joke made near him, forgot to apply it to the bowl of his pipe. He succeeded with the next match after annoying trouble. He swayed so that the match would appear first on one side of the bowl and then on the other. At last he happily got it directly over the tobacco. He had burned his fingers. He inspected them, laughing vaguely.

  Jones came and slapped him on the shoulder. “Well, ol’ man, let’s take a drink fer ol’ Handyville’s sake!”

  Kelcey was deeply affected. He looked at Jones with moist eyes. “I’ll go yeh,” he said. With an air of profound melancholy, Jones poured out some whiskey. They drank reverently. They exchanged a glistening look of tender recollections and then went over to where Bleecker was telling a humorous story to a circle of giggling listeners. The old man sat like a fat, jolly god. “—and just at that moment th’ old woman put her head out of th’ window an’ said: ‘Mike, yez lezy divil, fer phwat do yez be slapin’ in me new geranium bid?’ An’ Mike woke up an’ said: ‘Domn a wash-woman thot do niver wash her own bidclues. Here do I be slapin’ in nothin’ but dhirt an’ wades.’ ” The men slapped their knees, roaring loudly. They begged him to tell another. A clamor of comment arose concerning the anecdote, so that when old Bleecker began a fresh one nobody was heeding.

  It occurred to Jones to sing. Suddenly he burst forth with a ballad that had a rippling waltz movement, and seizing Kelcey, made a furious attempt to dance. They sprawled over a pair of outstretched legs and pitched headlong. Kelcey fell with a yellow crash. Blinding lights flashed before his vision. But he arose immediately, laughing. He did not feel at all hurt. The pain in his head was rather pleasant.

  Old Bleecker, O’Connor, and Jones, who now limped and drew breath through his teeth, were about to lead him with much care and tenderness to the table for another drink, but he laughingly pushed them away and went unassisted. Bleecker told him: “Great Gawd, your head struck hard enough t’ break a trunk.”

  He laughed again, and with a show of steadiness and courage he poured out an extravagant portion of whiskey. With cold muscles he put it to his lips and drank it. It chanced that this addition dazed him like a powerful blow. A moment later it affected him with blinding and numbing power. Suddenly unbalanced, he felt the room sway. His blurred sight could only distinguish a tumbled mass of shadow through which the beams from the light ran like swords of flame. The sound of the many voices was to him like the roar of a distant river. Still, he felt that if he could only annul the force of these million winding fingers that gripped his senses, he was capable of most brilliant and entertaining things.

  He was at first of the conviction that his feelings were only temporary. He waited for them to pass away, but the mental and physical pause only caused a new reeling and swinging of the room. Chasms with inclined approaches were before him; peaks leaned toward him. And withal he was blind and numb with surprise. He understood vaguely in his stupefaction that it would disgrace him to fall down a chasm.

  At last he perceived a shadow, a form, which he knew to be Jones. The adorable Jones, the supremely wise Jones, was walking in this strange land without fear or care, erect and tranquil. Kelcey murmured in admiration and affection, and fell toward his friend. Jones’s voice sounded as from the shores of the unknown. “Come, come, ol’ man, this will never do. Brace up.” It appeared after all that Jones was not wholly wise. “Oh, I’m—all ri’ Jones! I’m all ri’! I wan’ shing song! Tha’s all! I wan’ shing song!”

  Jones was stupid. “Come now, sit down an’ shut up.”

  It made Kelcey burn with fury. “Jones, le’ me alone, I tell yeh! Le’ me alone! I wan’ shing song er te’ story! G’l’m’n, I lovsh girl live down my shtreet. Thash reason ‘m drunk, ‘tis! She——”

  Jones seized him and dragged him toward a chair. He heard him laugh. He could not endure these insults from his friend. He felt a blazing desire to strangle his companion. He threw out his hand violently, but Jones grappled him close and he was no more than a dried leaf. He was amazed to find that Jones possessed the strength of twenty horses. He was forced skilfully to the floor.

  As he lay, he reflected in great astonishment upon Jones’s muscle. It was singular that he had never before discovered it. The whole incident had impressed him immensely. An idea struck him that he might denounce Jones for it
. It would be a sage thing. There would be a thrilling and dramatic moment in which he would dazzle all the others. But at this moment he was assailed by a mighty desire to sleep. Sombre and soothing clouds of slumber were heavily upon him. He closed his eyes with a sigh that was yet like that of a babe.

  When he awoke, there was still the battleful clamor of the revel. He half arose with a plan of participating, when O’Connor came and pushed him down again, throwing out his chin in affectionate remonstrance and saying, “Now, now,” as to a child.

  The change that had come over these men mystified Kelcey in a great degree. He had never seen anything so vastly stupid as their idea of his state. He resolved to prove to them that they were dealing with one whose mind was very clear. He kicked and squirmed in O’Connor’s arms, until, with a final wrench, he scrambled to his feet and stood tottering in the middle of the room. He would let them see that he had a strangely lucid grasp of events. “G’l’m’n, I lovsh girl! I ain’ drunker’n yeh all are! She——”

  He felt them hurl him to a corner of the room and pile chairs and tables upon him until he was buried beneath a stupendous mountain. Far above, as up a mine’s shaft, there were voices, lights, and vague figures. He was not hurt physically, but his feelings were unutterably injured. He, the brilliant, the good, the sympathetic had been thrust fiendishly from the party. They had had the comprehension of red lobsters. It was an unspeakable barbarism. Tears welled piteously from his eyes. He planned long diabolical explanations!

  X

  At first the gray lights of dawn came timidly into the room, remaining near the windows, afraid to approach certain sinister corners. Finally, mellow streams of sunshine poured in, undraping the shadows to disclose the putrefaction, making pitiless revelation. Kelcey awoke with a groan of undirected misery. He tossed his stiffened arms about his head for a moment and then leaning heavily upon his elbow stared blinking at his environment. The grim truthfulness of the day showed disaster and death. After the tumults of the previous night the interior of this room resembled a decaying battle-field. The air hung heavy and stifling with the odors of tobacco, men’s breaths, and beer half filling forgotten glasses. There was ruck of broken tumblers, pipes, bottles, spilled tobacco, cigar stumps. The chairs and tables were pitched this way and that way, as after some terrible struggle. In the midst of it all lay old Bleecker stretched upon a couch in deepest sleep, as abandoned in attitude, as motionless, as ghastly as if it were a corpse that had been flung there.

  A knowledge of the thing came gradually into Kelcey’s eyes. He looked about him with an expression of utter woe, regret, and loathing. He was compelled to lie down again. A pain above his eyebrows was like that from an iron-clamp.

  As he lay pondering, his bodily condition created for him a bitter philosophy, and he perceived all the futility of a red existence. He saw his life problems confronting him like granite giants and he was no longer erect to meet them. He had made a calamitous retrogression in his war. Spectres were to him now as large as clouds.

  Inspired by the pitiless ache in his head, he was prepared to reform and live a white life. His stomach informed him that a good man was the only being who was wise. But his perception of his future was hopeless. He was aghast at the prospect of the old routine. It was impossible. He trembled before its exactions.

  Turning toward the other way, he saw that the gold portals of vice no longer enticed him. He could not hear the strains of alluring music. The beckoning sirens of drink had been killed by this pain in his head. The desires of his life suddenly lay dead like mullein stalks. Upon reflection, he saw, therefore, that he was perfectly willing to be virtuous if somebody would come and make it easy for him.

  When he stared over at old Bleecker, he felt a sudden contempt and dislike for him. He considered him to be a tottering old beast. It was disgusting to perceive aged men so weak in sin. He dreaded to see him awaken lest he should be required to be somewhat civil to him.

  Kelcey wished for a drink of water. For some time he had dreamed of the liquid, deliciously cool. It was an abstract, uncontained thing that poured upon him and tumbled him, taking away his pain like a kind of surgery. He arose and staggered slowly toward a little sink in a corner of the room. He understood that any rapid movement might cause his head to split.

  The little sink was filled with a chaos of broken glass and spilled liquids. A sight of it filled him with horror, but he rinsed a glass with scrupulous care, and filling it, took an enormous drink. The water was an intolerable disappointment. It was insipid and weak to his scorched throat and not at all cool. He put down the glass with a gesture of despair. His face became fixed in the stony and sullen expression of a man who waits for the recuperative power of morrows.

  Old Bleecker awakened. He rolled over and groaned loudly. For awhile he thrashed about in a fury of displeasure at his bodily stiffness and pain. Kelcey watched him as he would have watched a death agony. “Good Gawd,” said the old man, “beer an’ whiskey make th’ devil of a mix. Did yeh see th’ fight?”

  “No,” said Kelcey, stolidly.

  “Why, Zeusentell an’ O’Connor had a great old mill. They were scrappin’ all over th’ place. I thought we were all goin’ t’ get pulled. Thompson, that fellah over in th’ corner, though, he sat down on th’ whole business. He was a dandy! He had t’ poke Zeusentell! He was a bird! Lord, I wish I had a Manhattan!”

  Kelcey remained in bitter silence while old Bleecker dressed. “Come an’ get a cocktail,” said the latter briskly. This was part of his aristocracy. He was the only man of them who knew much about cocktails. He perpetually referred to them. “It’ll brace yeh right up! Come along! Say, you get full too soon. You oughter wait until later, me boy! You’re too speedy!” Kelcey wondered vaguely where his companion had lost his zeal for polished sentences, his iridescent mannerisms.

  “Come along,” said Bleecker.

  Kelcey made a movement of disdain for cocktails, but he followed the other to the street. At the corner they separated. Kelcey attempted a friendly parting smile and then went on up the street. He had to reflect to know that he was erect and using his own muscles in walking. He felt like a man of paper, blown by the winds. Withal, the dust of the avenue was galling to his throat, eyes, and nostrils, and the roar of traffic cracked his head. He was glad, however, to be alone, to be rid of old Bleecker. The sight of him had been as the contemplation of a disease.

  His mother was not at home. In his little room he mechanically undressed and bathed his head, arms, and shoulders. When he crawled between the two white sheets he felt a first lifting of his misery. His pillow was soothingly soft. There was an effect that was like the music of tender voices.

  When he awoke again his mother was bending over him giving vent to alternate cries of grief and joy. Her hands trembled so that they were useless to her. “Oh, George, George, where have yeh been? What has happened t’ yeh? Oh, George, I’ve been so worried! I didn’t sleep a wink all night.”

  Kelcey was instantly wide awake. With a moan of suffering he turned his face to the wall before he spoke. “Never mind, mother, I’m all right. Don’t fret now! I was knocked down by a truck last night in th’ street, an’ they took me t’ th’ hospital; but it’s all right now. I got out jest a little while ago. They told me I’d better go home an’ rest up.”

  His mother screamed in pity, horror, joy, and self-reproach for something unknown. She frenziedly demanded the details. He sighed with unutterable weariness. “Oh—wait—wait—wait,” he said shutting his eyes as from the merciless monotony of a pain. “Wait—wait—please wait. I can’t talk now. I want t’ rest.”

  His mother condemned herself with a little cry. She adjusted his pillow, her hands shaking with love and tenderness. “There, there, don’t mind, dearie! But yeh can’t think how worried I was—an’ crazy. I was near frantic. I went down t’ th’ shop, an’ they said they hadn’t seen anything ’a yeh there. The foreman was awful good t’ me. He said he’d come up this afternoon t�
�� see if yeh had come home yet. He tol’ me not t’ worry. Are yeh sure yer all right? Ain’t there anythin’ I kin git fer yeh? What did th’ docter say?”

  Kelcey’s patience was worn. He gestured, and then spoke querulously. “Now—now—mother, it’s all right, I tell yeh! All I need is a little rest an’ I’ll be as well as ever. But it makes it all th’ worse if yeh stand there an’ ask me questions an’ make me think. Jest leave me alone fer a little while, an’ I’ll be as well as ever. Can’t yeh do that?”

  The little old woman puckered her lips funnily. “My, what an old bear th’ boy is!” She kissed him blithely. Presently she went out, upon her face a bright and glad smile that must have been a reminiscence of some charming girlhood.

  XI

  At one time Kelcey had a friend who was struck in the head by the pole of a truck and knocked senseless. He was taken to the hospital, from which he emerged in the morning an astonished man, with rather a dim recollection of the accident. He used to hold an old brier-wood pipe in his teeth in a manner peculiar to himself, and, with a brown derby hat tilted back on his head, recount his strange sensations. Kelcey had always remembered it as a bit of curious history. When his mother cross-examined him in regard to the accident, he told this story with barely a variation. Its truthfulness was incontestable.

  At the shop he was welcomed on the following day with considerable enthusiasm. The foreman had told the story and there were already jokes created concerning it. Mike O’Donnell, whose wit was famous, had planned a humorous campaign, in which he made charges against Kelcey, which were, as a matter of fact, almost the exact truth. Upon hearing it, Kelcey looked at him suddenly from the corners of his eyes, but otherwise remained imperturbable. O’Donnell eventually despaired. “Yez can’t goiy that kid! He tekes ut all loike mate an’ dhrink.” Kelcey often told the story, his pipe held in his teeth peculiarly, and his derby tilted back on his head.