Crazy Cock

by Henry Miller

  “I adore that shirt you’re wearing,” Anita whispered, as she snuggled up close. She had dropped the Lopez after the second dance.

  Tony Bring looked at himself again in the mirror. “It’s the only shirt I’ve got,” he stammered.

  Hearing this, Miss St. Clair was in stitches. “His only shirt!” She repeated it several times, tossing her head back and holding her sides in order not to burst with laughter.

  “It’s the truth,” he declared. “I haven’t a red cent to my name.”

  Anita looked at him darkly and gave him a playful poke in the ribs. “I know,” she said, rolling her eyes demurely. “I’ve heard that before.”

  Dredge was taking it all in with a big grin. It didn’t matter much to him whether they were put out now or later. It was a good jest and nobody seemed depressed over it.

  The young ladies seemed to have bladder trouble—they excused themselves again. They were scarcely gone this time when the waiter appeared. It was a new waiter, more formally attired than the previous one, more hauteur to his bearing. Without addressing a single word to them he presented the bill. Dredge looked at the bill and then at the waiter. “We’re not going yet,” he said, trying to look unconcerned.

  Now it’s coming, thought Tony Bring.

  The waiter stood by stiffly while Dredge emptied his pockets. He slapped his withered-looking bills on the table. The waiter counted without seeming to touch them. Then, with a brusque, arrogant move, he seized the bill and shoved it under Dredge’s nose. “Fifty-five dollars!” he said.

  “For what?” said Dredge. “For what?”

  “Listen, Dredge, don’t argue about it!”

  “But where the hell am I going to get fifty-five dollars? You know what I’ve got. That’s what I’m giving him and that’s all he’s going to get.” Saying which he picked up the money and shoved it in his pocket.

  Presently the Greek was standing beside them, rubbing his paws. He had been taking it all in from a distance. “What seems to be the trouble?” he asked, his tone pleasant and conciliatory.

  The waiter mumbled in his ear.

  “Oh, that’s it?” He appeared completely taken by surprise. He turned to Dredge, his voice still cordial, conciliatory, smooth, and affable. He put a few polite questions forward and then, as if the idea had just occurred to him, he remarked: “Perhaps you’d better come with me and talk this over with the credit manager. We ought to be able to straighten this little thing out satisfactorily. It’s only a matter of fifty-five dollars.”

  Tony Bring sat tight and stared at the wall. He wondered how Dredge would handle “this little thing.” The girls had not returned. The music was still playing, but it sounded less intoxicating now. The glasses had been removed, the table was bare.

  Time dragged. Nobody came near him. He fidgeted about and rubbed his hands over his fuzzy beard. The button of his collar had come off.

  Presently Miss St. Clair appeared. Anita had been requested to sit at another table for a while. Wouldn’t he like to order her another cocktail? Just one? And where was his friend? All this with the most astonishing naivete. Told that Dredge was trying to settle the bill, she put her hand over her mouth and yawned.

  “Buy me just one little drink,” she pleaded.

  “But I can’t! I haven’t a cent on me.”

  “You mean that?” said Miss St. Clair. This time she seemed to sense the truth of his words. There was not only scorn in her voice, but fright, as if he had suddenly pulled a lizard out of his pocket and dropped it in front of her.

  An awkward moment or two intervened. They sat there without looking at each other, she drumming furiously with her fingertips, he looking at a mural over her head which portrayed a Svengali clawing at a group of dipsomaniacs with long pointed nails.

  When at last Dredge returned he was wreathed in smiles. He was escorted as before by the Greek, his factotum, and the regular waiter. “What’ll you have to drink?” were his first words. “A little Scotch for me,” he said to the waiter. And then, with a touch of irritation—“Where’s Anita? Tell her we want her.”

  He sat down. “Everything’s O.K.” he said. “Go ahead and enjoy yourself. If you don’t like Anita we’ll get someone else. We’re paying for service and we’re going to get it.”

  “Listen, Dredge, this is amusing, but what’s the dope? I’m sitting here on pins and needles.”

  Dredge extracted a cigar from his breast pocket, bit the end off leisurely, and between puffs proceeded to unbosom himself. “Simple,” he said. “They wanted to know if I had a bank account and where and how much. I gave them Keith’s bank. How can they tell? They made me wait until they investigated. Investigate! How the hell can they investigate at this hour of the night? Finally they said everything was jake and handed me a blank check to sign.”

  “Then everything’s O.K.?”

  “O.K. Have anything you like.”

  Anita returned with Miss St. Clair, sat down very sweetly, and bathed them in her warm, Andalusian blood. The night wore on. Champagne flowed, and Malaga—because Anita had succumbed to a fit of Heimweh. They spoke of bullfights which they had never seen, and Dredge tried to talk about interesting things like the Luneta in Manila and the chewing-gum mines in Mexico. Every so often a bouncer appeared and dragged some poor intoxicated devil to the rear where with the assistance of a cop and a taxi driver the third degree was administered.

  IT WAS dawn when Tony Bring said good-bye to Dredge. In the lower hall it was still dark. He tripped and fell against the door. The glass rattled. Then silence, a deep, mysterious silence. He pushed the door open and felt around in the dark for a candle.

  “Is that you?” came Hildred’s voice.

  He stumbled over to the bed with the candle in his hand. Someone was in the bed with Hildred, lying face downward, dead to the world.

  “Who’s that?” he demanded.

  “My God, but you’re drunk!” cried Hildred.

  “Never mind. . . . Who’s lying there? Is it Vanya?”

  “Shhhhh!”

  “Don’t shush me! Get her up . . . quick! Who told her she could sleep in my place? Hey, wake up there! Hey, Vanya!”

  Vanya turned over stupidly and blinked. He put the candle on the floor and, slipping his arms under her, started lugging her out of the bed.

  “Hold on! Wait a minute!” she cried. “What is this, anyway?” Suddenly she got a whiff of his breath. “Drunk again?”

  “Drunk nothing. Where do you come off sleeping in my bed?” And with this he pulled more violently.

  “Let go of me . . . you’re wrenching my arms out!” she screamed.

  Hildred tried to drag him off. He swung out blindly and caught her in the pit of the stomach. She gave a groan and sank to the floor. In an instant Vanya was beside her. “Quick . . . get some water!” she cried. “She’s hurt.”

  “Get it yourself! I didn’t touch her. A nice how-do-you-do, coming home and having to fight your way into bed. This is my bed, understand? Keep out of it hereafter.”

  Vanya rushed to the bathroom. Hildred was lying on the floor where she had tumbled, pressing her hands against her groin and moaning. Tony Bring collapsed on the bed. “Why do you people have to make such a scene?” he groaned. “Can’t a fellow have a little jag on once in a while without all this fuss? Come on, don’t lie there like a sick mule. Shake a leg!”

  He let out a tremendous lionlike roar and rolled over. “Jesus, everything’s spinning. That champagne . . . that was too much. Too much.” He began singing in a quavering falsetto. “Let me call you sweetheart, I’m in love with you-ou-ou . . .”

  “Shut up!” said Vanya, shaking him roughly. “You’ll wake the neighbors.”

  “Where’s Hildred? Why don’t she come to bed? I want this monkey business cut out. . . understand?”

  Vanya spoke to him gently, undid his clothes, and pushed him under the blankets. Then she got a wet towel and wrapped it around his head. “That’s fine,” he said. “Vanya, yo
u’re a brick.”

  A little later Vanya had to help him to the bathroom; she held him up while he bent over the tub and vomited. “That’s rotten,” he said, as he leaned against her and smiled wryly. “You get out of here . . . I’ll mop it up.” But as he bent over his very bile seemed to rise to his throat and he grew deathly sick. “What a pig I am! What a pig!” He begged her to leave him alone, he would be all right in a little while. It was then he noticed that he was standing before her in his underwear. He looked at her and smiled weakly, like Dredge—that foolish, insipid grin. He saw himself in the mirror, his face green, his eyes puffed and inflamed, his mouth soiled.

  “Where’s Hildred?” he said. “Did I hurt her? What did I do? I didn’t hit her, did I?”

  Vanya had taken the towel from his head and was cleaning the tub with it. The odor was vile.

  “Come,” he said weakly, “don’t bother about that, I’ll take care of it in the morning. Get hold of me . . . I’m weak as a cat.”

  Back in bed Vanya removed his soiled garments and wrapped him in the blankets. “That’s it,” she murmured, while he groaned and shivered. “That’s it . . . go to sleep! Everything is fine, Tony. Don’t worry. There . . . there . . .” And she padded the blankets about him snugly.

  He passed out immediately. Meanwhile Vanya slipped back to her room and squeezed into the narrow cot with Hildred. “It was nothing,” she murmured, as she put her arms about Hildred. “He just got sick and puked up.”

  Soon they too were sleeping peacefully. All was silent as a crypt—except in the street, where every now and then someone passed and gave a nervous, meaningless little cough.

  2

  A THIN coat of snow had fallen during the night. All over Christendom on this bright, frosty morning people were saying “Merry Christmas!” to one another and then going to church to shed a few tears. Not even the most hardened atheist could escape the infectious spirit of Christmas. For weeks the Salvation Army had kept its beggars posted at vantage points throughout the city; the men, looking like debauched monks, stood beside a huge caldron heaped with money and rang a little dinner bell; the women, too, rang their bells and held out tambourines with their thin, frozen fingers. The purpose of all this was to bring peace on earth, to keep the derelicts of the great metropolis from going astray, from drinking themselves to death, or joining the Communist Party. Everybody knew what a blessing the Salvation Army was and what godly work the rescue missions were doing down in the slums, in Chinatown, along the Bowery—everywhere that poverty, vice, and evil flourished. And everyone, as he passed these emaciated Kris Kringles, these dolorous sisters of mercy who sang so beautifully when the bass drum sounded, threw in a few coppers and felt that he had done something to help the good cause along.

  The department stores spoke of good Christmases and bad Christmases. In some vague, super-arithmetical way the profits were supposed to redound eventually to the Savior’s glory. All during the busy weeks that preceded the day, people spoke in terms of shirts, stickpins, books, cameras, etc. It was only at the eleventh hour, during that brief intermission when the choir wreaked its grief and anguish, that the Savior Himself was thought of. What a spectacle it was for Him up there in the clouds, sitting on the right-hand side of God the Father, listening to the bells pealing, seeing all those poor bums on the Bowery standing in line waiting for the big handout. And how precious were His feelings when He looked down over the dark places of the world, into the heathen lands, and saw there men who were not Caucasians—yellow men, black men, men with kinky hair, men with rings in their noses and breasts tattooed—saw all of them raising their eyes heavenward to bless His name, to sing their hallelujahs.

  Tony Bring was awake somewhat earlier than usual this bright, frosty morning. He was awakened by a terrific, unslakable thirst. They were all thirsty, as a matter of fact, only the effort of getting out of bed and going to the sink was too painful for the others. He reminded Hildred that it was time to get up, that it was growing late, but Hildred lay there like a log, gently pressing a wet towel against her eyelids.

  “Damn it,” he said, “we’re not going to disappoint them today. I won’t do it!”

  While Hildred feebly bestirred herself he took a seat beside the window and began browsing through the volumes of Proust which she had given him as a Christmas gift. On the gut table was an enormous bouquet of gardenias—Hildred’s gift to Vanya. The earthy, sensuous odor, combined with the insane procession that moved in a St. Vitus’ dance on the walls, produced in him an exquisite mélange of emotions, intensified by the sight of Hildred lying there in the dim light, her face white as a death mask, her lips parting now and then to emit a feverish groan. He fell to thinking about the man who had given to the world these inexhaustible volumes, the sick little giant chained to his bed who, with a dying strength, had written his precious entomology of society in a room hermetically sealed, his body wrapped in clothes and blankets, the table covered with notebooks, with medicines and drugs and opiates. Here was a man whose life had been filled with suffering, and by his supreme art he had converted it into music sublime and unforgettable.

  Parallel with these speculations there developed in his mind another train of thought—the realization that in a little while he would be standing before his aged parents, meeting their questioning eyes, endeavoring by a futile chaffering to drive from their minds the harassing awareness of his wasted years. It was this which made every Christmas a time of bitterness and regret, of melancholy and remorse. Each year that they gathered around the creaking table a sort of silent reckoning went on, a review of the past, of its follies and emptiness, of its griefs and disappointments. It was inevitable that sometime during the course of this solemn day mention should be made of the past, of the promise he had once shown, of the hopes they had placed in him, and so on. It was as if somewhere in that past—when he could no longer remember—there had been a line drawn, a division that placed hope on the far side, beyond the Alps, and despair on the near side, in the gray, desolate valley of the future. And yet there was mingled with this atmosphere of gloom a tender sort of forgiveness, inexplicit, reserved, a melancholy sympathy such as is lavished on the insane or the blind.

  The volume which he held in his hands grew heavy. His eyes, reverting to the text, saw there these curious words: “We are attracted by every life that offers us something unknown, by a last illusion to be destroyed. . . .” It was at this moment that Vanya came out of her room, clad in nightgown and knee boots. “To be destroyed . . . to be destroyed . . .” The words repeated themselves, like a refrain—better still, like a note held by an invisible singer when some minute obstacle in the path of the needle prevents it from moving along its destined course. As she stood before him, a bedraggled, hoydenish slut, the phonograph in his brain kept singing—“to be destroyed . . . to be destroyed . . .” Enchanted by the thought of what a queer effect would be produced were he then and there to explode this ringing note, he suddenly burst out laughing—a tremendous, uncontrollable roar that brought Hildred to her feet.

  “That’s a hell of a way to get me out of bed!” she yelled.

  “Merry Christmas!” he yelled. “And get the cowbells out!”

  “He’s still drunk,” said Vanya, affecting an air of disgust.

  “Listen, old hook and ladder, I’m not drunk . . . and by the way, thanks for the shirt . . . it’s swell, only it’s not my size.”

  While they toddled off to the bathroom he got busy, lit a candle, and began to inspect the mattress. What a night it had been! Gardenias and Chartreuse, Marcel Proust and the odor of fumigation . . . and Dredge dropping in to wish them “a Merry Christmas,” but remaining until four A.M. to talk about lice and the microcosmic hosts in the petroleum beds. He turned from the mattress to the gut table. It was strewn with cigarettes, empty bottles, broken chess pieces, sandwiches, gardenias, Sodom and Gomorrah, mistletoe, caricatures by the Bruga woman, the Firebird in smithereens. In the armchair were the gifts Hildred had
received from her admirers: silk hose, brassieres, perfume, shawls, cigarettes, books, candy, bottles of liqueur (all empty), manicure sets, cold cream jars, black stepins . . . enough to fill a few pages of Sears Roebuck’s catalogue. He sorted out a few objects with the intention of presenting them to the family. His mother always admired the stockings Hildred wore; it didn’t matter if the size was a little off—they were expensive, that was the principal thing. For the old man he laid aside a carton of Camels, for his sister a manicure set which she would probably never use but which she would be thankful for just the same. For these trifles lifted from the swag he would be sure to receive the most effusive thanks from the old folks. His mother would be sure to murmur that they had been extravagant.

  It was noon when the three of them marched down the stoop, their arms loaded with bundles. Hildred was dressed a little more conventionally than usual, but Vanya was in her usual rig—bare knees, black shirt, hair flung loose, etc. As they sailed out the bells commenced pealing. A little way down the street, in front of an ugly Lutheran church which had been given a fresh coat of mustard for the holidays, a knot of worshipers was breaking up and hastening away to heavy Lutheran repasts. Their eyes blazed as they caught sight of the incongruous trio standing on the comer, involved in a heated dispute.

  A dispute on Christmas morning? Just so. All because Hildred felt bad about seeing Vanya go off alone.

  “But supposing she changes her clothes?” Hildred was saying.

  “It’s too late. We’ll have to take a cab as it is.”

  “Then I’m not going,” and with this Hildred dropped her bundles in the street.

  “Damn you!” shouted Tony Bring. “You’re not going to leave me in the lurch now. What am I going to tell them?”

  Vanya begged them to wait just a few minutes—she would go inside and change quickly.