Part 4

She turned and looked at him with twitching nostrils. “You’re so nambypamby, Billy.... I wish to heavens I’d married a man for a husband.”

He took her by the arm. “Let’s go up here,” he said gruffly with his face turned away.

They walked up a cross street between buildinglots. At a corner the rickety half of a weatherboarded farmhouse was still standing. There was half a room with blueflowered paper eaten by brown stains on the walls, a smoked fireplace, a shattered builtin cupboard, and an iron bedstead bent double.

* * * * *

Plates slip endlessly through Bud’s greasy fingers. Smell of swill and hot soapsuds. Twice round with the little mop, dip, rinse and pile in the rack for the longnosed Jewish boy to wipe. Knees wet from spillings, grease creeping up his forearms, elbows cramped.

“Hell this aint no job for a white man.”

“I dont care so long as I eat,” said the Jewish boy above the rattle of dishes and the clatter and seething of the range where three sweating cooks fried eggs and ham and hamburger steak and browned potatoes and cornedbeef hash.

“Sure I et all right,” said Bud and ran his tongue round his teeth dislodging a sliver of salt meat that he mashed against his palate with his tongue. Twice round with the little mop, dip, rinse and pile in the rack for the longnosed Jewish boy to wipe. There was a lull. The Jewish boy handed Bud a cigarette. They stood leaning against the sink.

“Aint no way to make money dishwashing.” The cigarette wabbled on the Jewish boy’s heavy lip as he spoke.

“Aint no job for a white man nohow,” said Bud. “Waitin’s better, they’s the tips.”

A man in a brown derby came in through the swinging door from the lunchroom. He was a bigjawed man with pigeyes and a long cigar sticking straight out of the middle of his mouth. Bud caught his eye and felt the cold glint twisting his bowels.

“Whosat?” he whispered.

“Dunno.... Customer I guess.”

“Dont he look to you like one o them detectives?”

“How de hell should I know? I aint never been in jail.” The Jewish boy turned red and stuck out his jaw.

The busboy set down a new pile of dirty dishes. Twice round with the little mop, dip, rinse and pile in the rack. When the man in the brown derby passed back through the kitchen, Bud kept his eyes on his red greasy hands. What the hell even if he is a detective.... When Bud had finished the batch, he strolled to the door wiping his hands, took his coat and hat from the hook and slipped out the side door past the garbage cans out into the street. Fool to jump two hours pay. In an optician’s window the clock was at twentyfive past two. He walked down Broadway, past Lincoln Square, across Columbus Circle, further downtown towards the center of things where it’d be more crowded.

* * * * *

She lay with her knees doubled up to her chin, the nightgown pulled tight under her toes.

“Now straighten out and go to sleep dear.... Promise mother you’ll go to sleep.”

“Wont daddy come and kiss me good night?”

“He will when he comes in; he’s gone back down to the office and mother’s going to Mrs. Spingarn’s to play euchre.”

“When’ll daddy be home?”

“Ellie I said go to sleep.... I’ll leave the light.”

“Dont mummy, it makes shadows.... When’ll daddy be home?”

“When he gets good and ready.” She was turning down the gaslight. Shadows out of the corners joined wings and rushed together. “Good night Ellen.” The streak of light of the door narrowed behind mummy, slowly narrowed to a thread up and along the top. The knob clicked; the steps went away down the hall; the front door slammed. A clock ticked somewhere in the silent room; outside the apartment, outside the house, wheels and gallumping of hoofs, trailing voices; the roar grew. It was black except for the two strings of light that made an upside down L in the corner of the door.

Ellie wanted to stretch out her feet but she was afraid to. She didnt dare take her eyes from the upside down L in the corner of the door. If she closed her eyes the light would go out. Behind the bed, out of the windowcurtains, out of the closet, from under the table shadows nudged creakily towards her. She held on tight to her ankles, pressed her chin in between her knees. The pillow bulged with shadow, rummaging shadows were slipping into the bed. If she closed her eyes the light would go out.

Black spiraling roar outside was melting through the walls making the cuddled shadows throb. Her tongue clicked against her teeth like the ticking of the clock. Her arms and legs were stiff; her neck was stiff; she was going to yell. Yell above the roaring and the rattat outside, yell to make daddy hear, daddy come home. She drew in her breath and shrieked again. Make daddy come home. The roaring shadows staggered and danced, the shadows lurched round and round. Then she was crying, her eyes were full of safe warm tears, they were running over her cheeks and into her ears. She turned over and lay crying with her face in the pillow.

* * * * *

The gaslamps tremble a while down the purplecold streets and then go out under the lurid dawn. Gus McNiel, the sleep still gumming his eyes, walks beside his wagon swinging a wire basket of milkbottles, stopping at doors, collecting the empties, climbing chilly stairs, remembering grades A and B and pints of cream and buttermilk, while the sky behind cornices, tanks, roofpeaks, chimneys becomes rosy and yellow. Hoarfrost glistens on doorsteps and curbs. The horse with dangling head lurches jerkily from door to door. There begin to be dark footprints on the frosty pavement. A heavy brewers’ dray rumbles down the street.

“Howdy Moike, a little chilled are ye?” shouts Gus McNiel at a cop threshing his arms on the corner of Eighth Avenue.

“Howdy Gus. Cows still milkin’?”

It’s broad daylight when he finally slaps the reins down on the gelding’s threadbare rump and starts back to the dairy, empties bouncing and jiggling in the cart behind him. At Ninth Avenue a train shoots overhead clattering downtown behind a little green engine that emits blobs of smoke white and dense as cottonwool to melt in the raw air between the stiff blackwindowed houses. The first rays of the sun pick out the gilt lettering of DANIEL McGILLYCUDDY’S WINES AND LIQUORS at the corner of Tenth Avenue. Gus McNiel’s tongue is dry and the dawn has a salty taste in his mouth. A can o beer’d be the makin of a guy a cold mornin like this. He takes a turn with the reins round the whip and jumps over the wheel. His numb feet sting when they hit the pavement. Stamping to get the blood back into his toes he shoves through the swinging doors.

“Well I’ll be damned if it aint the milkman bringin us a pint o cream for our coffee.” Gus spits into the newly polished cuspidor beside the bar.

“Boy, I got a thoist on me....”

“Been drinkin too much milk again, Gus, I’ll warrant,” roars the barkeep out of a square steak face.

The saloon smells of brasspolish and fresh sawdust. Through an open window a streak of ruddy sunlight caresses the rump of a naked lady who reclines calm as a hardboiled egg on a bed of spinach in a giltframed picture behind the bar.

“Well Gus what’s yer pleasure a foine cold mornin loike this?”

“I guess beer’ll do, Mac.”

The foam rises in the glass, trembles up, slops over. The barkeep cuts across the top with a wooden scoop, lets the foam settle a second, then puts the glass under the faintly wheezing spigot again. Gus is settling his heel comfortably against the brass rail.

“Well how’s the job?”

Gus gulps the glass of beer and makes a mark on his neck with his flat hand before wiping his mouth with it. “Full up to the neck wid it.... I tell yer what I’m goin to do, I’m goin to go out West, take up free land in North Dakota or somewhere an raise wheat.... I’m pretty handy round a farm.... This here livin in the city’s no good.”

“How’ll Nellie take that?”

“She wont cotton to it much at foist, loikes her comforts of home an all that she’s been used to, but I think she’ll loike it foine onct she’s out there an all. This aint no loife for her nor me neyther.”

“You’re right there. This town’s goin to hell.... Me and the misses’ll sell out here some day soon I guess. If we could buy a noice genteel restaurant uptown or a roadhouse, that’s what’d suit us. Got me eye on a little property out Bronxville way, within easy drivin distance.” He lifts a malletshaped fist meditatively to his chin. “I’m sick o bouncin these goddam drunks every night. Whade hell did I get outen the ring for xep to stop fightin? Jus last night two guys starts asluggin an I has to mix it up with both of em to clear the place out.... I’m sick o fighten every drunk on Tenth Avenoo.... Have somethin on the house?”

“Jez I’m afraid Nellie’ll smell it on me.”

“Oh, niver moind that. Nellie ought to be used to a bit o drinkin. Her ole man loikes it well enough.”

“But honest Mac I aint been slopped once since me weddinday.”

“I dont blame ye. She’s a real sweet girl Nellie is. Those little spitcurls o hers’d near drive a feller crazy.”

The second beer sends a foamy acrid flush to Gus’s fingertips. Laughing he slaps his thigh.

“She’s a pippin, that’s what she is Gus, so ladylike an all.”

“Well I reckon I’ll be gettin back to her.”

“You lucky young divil to be goin home to bed wid your wife when we’re all startin to go to work.”

Gus’s red face gets redder. His ears tingle. “Sometimes she’s abed yet.... So long Mac.” He stamps out into the street again.

The morning has grown bleak. Leaden clouds have settled down over the city. “Git up old skin an bones,” shouts Gus jerking at the gelding’s head. Eleventh Avenue is full of icy dust, of grinding rattle of wheels and scrape of hoofs on the cobblestones. Down the railroad tracks comes the clang of a locomotive bell and the clatter of shunting freightcars. Gus is in bed with his wife talking gently to her: Look here Nellie, you wouldn’t moind movin West would yez? I’ve filed application for free farmin land in the state o North Dakota, black soil land where we can make a pile o money in wheat; some fellers git rich in foive good crops.... Healthier for the kids anyway.... “Hello Moike!” There’s poor old Moike still on his beat. Cold work bein a cop. Better be a wheatfarmer an have a big farmhouse an barns an pigs an horses an cows an chickens.... Pretty curlyheaded Nellie feedin the chickens at the kitchen door....

“Hay dere for crissake....” a man is yelling at Gus from the curb. “Look out for de cars!”

A yelling mouth gaping under a visored cap, a green flag waving. “Godamighty I’m on the tracks.” He yanks the horse’s head round. A crash rips the wagon behind him. Cars, the gelding, a green flag, red houses whirl and crumble into blackness.

III. Dollars

_All along the rails there were faces; in the portholes there were faces. Leeward a stale smell came from the tubby steamer that rode at anchor listed a little to one side with the yellow quarantine flag drooping at the foremast._

_“I’d give a million dollars,” said the old man resting on his oars, “to know what they come for.”_

_“Just for that pop,” said the young man who sat in the stern. “Aint it the land of opportoonity?”_

_“One thing I do know,” said the old man. “When I was a boy it was wild Irish came in the spring with the first run of shad.... Now there aint no more shad, an them folks, Lord knows where they come from.”_

_“It’s the land of opportoonity.”_

A leanfaced young man with steel eyes and a thin highbridged nose sat back in a swivel chair with his feet on his new mahogany-finish desk. His skin was sallow, his lips gently pouting. He wriggled in the swivel chair watching the little scratches his shoes were making on the veneer. Damn it I dont care. Then he sat up suddenly making the swivel shriek and banged on his knee with his clenched fist. “Results,” he shouted. Three months I’ve sat rubbing my tail on this swivel chair.... What’s the use of going through lawschool and being admitted to the bar if you cant find anybody to practice on? He frowned at the gold lettering through the groundglass door.

NIWDLAB EGROEG WAL-TA-YENROTTA

Niwdlab, Welsh. He jumped to his feet. I’ve read that damn sign backwards every day for three months. I’m going crazy. I’ll go out and eat lunch.

He straightened his vest and brushed some flecks of dust off his shoes with a handkerchief, then, contracting his face into an expression of intense preoccupation, he hurried out of his office, trotted down the stairs and out onto Maiden Lane. In front of the chophouse he saw the headline on a pink extra; JAPS THROWN BACK FROM MUKDEN. He bought the paper and folded it under his arm as he went in through the swinging door. He took a table and pored over the bill of fare. Mustn’t be extravagant now. “Waiter you can bring me a New England boiled dinner, a slice of applepie and coffee.” The longnosed waiter wrote the order on his slip looking at it sideways with a careful frown.... That’s the lunch for a lawyer without any practice. Baldwin cleared his throat and unfolded the paper.... Ought to liven up the Russian bonds a bit. Veterans Visit President.... ANOTHER ACCIDENT ON ELEVENTH AVENUE TRACKS. Milkman seriously injured. Hello, that’d make a neat little damage suit.

Augustus McNiel, 253 W. 4th Street, who drives a milkwagon for the Excelsior Dairy Co. was severely injured early this morning when a freight train backing down the New York Central tracks ...

He ought to sue the railroad. By gum I ought to get hold of that man and make him sue the railroad.... Not yet recovered consciousness.... Maybe he’s dead. Then his wife can sue them all the more.... I’ll go to the hospital this very afternoon.... Get in ahead of any of these shysters. He took a determined bite of bread and chewed it vigorously. Of course not; I’ll go to the house and see if there isn’t a wife or mother or something: Forgive me Mrs. McNiel if I intrude upon your deep affliction, but I am engaged in an investigation at this moment.... Yes, retained by prominent interests.... He drank up the last of the coffee and paid the bill.

Repeating 253 W. 4th Street over and over he boarded an uptown car on Broadway. Walking west along 4th he skirted Washington Square. The trees spread branches of brittle purple into a dovecolored sky; the largewindowed houses opposite glowed very pink, nonchalant, prosperous. The very place for a lawyer with a large conservative practice to make his residence. We’ll just see about that. He crossed Sixth Avenue and followed the street into the dingy West Side, where there was a smell of stables and the sidewalks were littered with scraps of garbage and crawling children. Imagine living down here among low Irish and foreigners, the scum of the universe. At 253 there were several unmarked bells. A woman with gingham sleeves rolled up on sausageshaped arms stuck a gray mophead out the window.

“Can you tell me if Augustus McNiel lives here?”

“Him that’s up there alayin in horspital. Sure he does.”

“That’s it. And has he any relatives living here?”

“An what would you be wantin wid ’em?”

“It’s a little matter of business.”

“Go up to the top floor an you’ll foind his wife there but most likely she cant see yez.... The poor thing’s powerful wrought up about her husband, an them only eighteen months married.”

The stairs were tracked with muddy footprints and sprinkled here and there with the spilling of ashcans. At the top he found a freshpainted darkgreen door and knocked.

“Who’s there?” came a girl’s voice that sent a little shiver through him. Must be young.

“Is Mrs. McNiel in?”

“Yes,” came the lilting girl’s voice again. “What is it?”

“It’s a matter of business about Mr. McNiel’s accident.”

“About the accident is it?” The door opened in little cautious jerks. She had a sharpcut pearlywhite nose and chin and a pile of wavy redbrown hair that lay in little flat curls round her high narrow forehead. Gray eyes sharp and suspicious looked him hard in the face.

“May I speak to you a minute about Mr. McNiel’s accident? There are certain legal points involved that I feel it my duty to make known to you.... By the way I hope he’s better.”

“Oh yes he’s come to.”

“May I come in? It’s a little long to explain.”

“I guess you can.” Her pouting lips flattened into a wry smile. “I guess you wont eat me.”

“No honestly I wont.” He laughed nervously in his throat.

She led the way into the darkened sitting room. “I’m not pulling up the shades so’s you wont see the pickle everythin’s in.”

“Allow me to introduce myself, Mrs. McNiel.... George Baldwin, 88 Maiden Lane.... You see I make a specialty of cases like this.... To put the whole matter in a nutshell.... Your husband was run down and nearly killed through the culpable or possibly criminal negligence of the employees of the New York Central Railroad. There is full and ample cause for a suit against the railroad. Now I have reason to believe that the Excelsior Dairy Company will bring suit for the losses incurred, horse and wagon etcetera....”

“You mean you think Gus is more likely to get damages himself?”

“Exactly.”

“How much do you think he could get?”

“Why that depends on how badly hurt he is, on the attitude of the court, and perhaps on the skill of the lawyer.... I think ten thousand dollars is a conservative figure.”

“And you dont ask no money down?”

“The lawyer’s fee is rarely paid until the case is brought to a successful termination.”

“An you’re a lawyer, honest? You look kinder young to be a lawyer.”

The gray eyes flashed in his. They both laughed. He felt a warm inexplicable flush go through him.

“I’m a lawyer all the same. I make a specialty of cases like these. Why only last Tuesday I got six thousand dollars for a client who was kicked by a relay horse riding on the loop.... Just at this moment as you may know there is considerable agitation for revoking altogether the franchise of the Eleventh Avenue tracks.... I think this is a most favorable moment.”

“Say do you always talk like that, or is it just business?”

He threw back his head and laughed.

“Poor old Gus, I always said he had a streak of luck in him.”

The wail of a child crept thinly through the partition into the room.

“What’s that?”

“It’s only the baby.... The little wretch dont do nothin but squall.”

“So you’ve got children Mrs. McNiel?” The thought chilled him somehow.

“Juss one ... what kin ye expect?”

“Is it the Emergency Hospital?”

“Yes I reckon they’ll let you see him as it’s a matter of business. He’s groanin somethin dreadful.”

“Now if I could get a few good witnesses.”

“Mike Doheny seen it all.... He’s on the force. He’s a good frien of Gus’s.”

“By gad we’ve got a case and a half.... Why they’ll settle out of court.... I’ll go right up to the hospital.”

A fresh volley of wails came from the other room.

“Oh, that brat,” she whispered, screwing up her face. “We could use the money all right Mr. Baldwin....”

“Well I must go.” He picked up his hat. “And I certainly will do my best in this case. May I come by and report progress to you from time to time?”

“I hope you will.”

When they shook hands at the door he couldn’t seem to let go her hand. She blushed.

“Well goodby and thank you very much for callin,” she said stiffly.

Baldwin staggered dizzily down the stairs. His head was full of blood. The most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen in my life. Outside it had begun to snow. The snowflakes were cold furtive caresses to his hot cheeks.

The sky over the Park was mottled with little tiptailed clouds like a field of white chickens.

“Look Alice, lets us go down this little path.”

“But Ellen, my dad told me to come straight home from school.”

“Scarecat!”

“But Ellen those dreadful kidnappers....”

“I told you not to call me Ellen any more.”

“Well Elaine then, Elaine the lily maid of Astalot.”

Ellen had on her new Black Watch plaid dress. Alice wore glasses and had legs thin as hairpins.

“Scarecat!”

“They’re dreadful men sitting on that bench. Come along Elaine the fair, let’s go home.”

“I’m not scared of them. I could fly like Peter Pan if I wanted to.”

“Why dont you do it?”

“I dont want to just now.”

Alice began to whimper. “Oh Ellen I think you’re mean.... Come along home Elaine.”

“No I’m going for a walk in the Park.”

Ellen started down the steps. Alice stood a minute on the top step balancing first on one foot then on the other.

“Scaredy scaredy scarecat!” yelled Ellen.

Alice ran off blubbering. “I’m goin to tell your mommer.”

Ellen walked down the asphalt path among the shrubbery kicking her toes in the air.

Ellen in her new dress of Black Watch plaid mummy’d bought at Hearn’s walked down the asphalt path kicking her toes in the air. There was a silver thistle brooch on the shoulder of the new dress of Black Watch plaid mummy’d bought at Hearn’s. Elaine of Lammermoor was going to be married. The Betrothed. Wangnaan nainainai, went the bagpipes going through the rye. The man on the bench has a patch over his eye. A watching black patch. A black watching patch. The kidnapper of the Black Watch, among the rustling shrubs kidnappers keep their Black Watch. Ellen’s toes dont kick in the air. Ellen is terribly scared of the kidnapper of the Black Watch, big smelly man of the Black Watch with a patch over his eye. She’s scared to run. Her heavy feet scrape on the asphalt as she tries to run fast down the path. She’s scared to turn her head. The kidnapper of the Black Watch is right behind. When I get to the lamppost I’ll run as far as the nurse and the baby, when I get to the nurse and the baby I’ll run as far as the big tree, when I get to the big tree.... Oh I’m so tired.... I’ll run out onto Central Park West and down the street home. She was scared to turn round. She ran with a stitch in her side. She ran till her mouth tasted like pennies.

“What are you running for Ellie?” asked Gloria Drayton who was skipping rope outside the Norelands.

“Because I wanted to,” panted Ellen.

* * * * *

Winey afterglow stained the muslin curtains and filtered into the blue gloom of the room. They stood on either side of the table. Out of a pot of narcissus still wrapped in tissue paper starshaped flowers gleamed with dim phosphorescence, giving off a damp earthsmell enmeshed in indolent prickly perfume.

“It was nice of you to bring me these Mr. Baldwin. I’ll take them up to Gus at the hospital tomorrow.”

“For God’s sake dont call me that.”

“But I dont like the name of George.”

“I dont care, I like your name, Nellie.”

He stood looking at her; perfumed weights coiled about his arms. His hands dangled like empty gloves. Her eyes were black, dilating, her lips pouting towards him across the flowers. She jerked her hands up to cover her face. His arm was round her little thin shoulders.

“But honest Georgy, we’ve got to be careful. You mustn’t come here so often. I dont want all the old hens in the house to start talkin.”

“Dont worry about that.... We mustn’t worry about anything.”

“I’ve been actin’ like I was crazy this last week.... I’ve got to quit.”

“You dont think I’ve been acting naturally, do you? I swear to God Nellie I’ve never done anything like this before. I’m not that kind of a person.”

She showed her even teeth in a laugh. “Oh you kin never tell about men.”

“But if it weren’t something extraordinary and exceptional you dont think I’d be running after you this way do you? I’ve never been in love with anybody but you Nellie.”

“That’s a good one.”

“But it’s true.... I’ve never gone in for that sort of thing. I’ve worked too hard getting through lawschool and all that to have time for girls.”

“Makin up for lost time I should say.”

“Oh Nellie dont talk like that.”