Ten North Frederick

by John O'Hara

  “What?”

  “Those little cups and cocktail shakers you pick up at golf tournaments, those cigarette boxes they give you for making a speech.”

  “Thirty pieces of silver has another connotation that I’m sure Joe doesn’t like any more than I do, Arthur,” said Edith.

  “It was unfortunate. However, to thine own self be true, and you can be a traitor to yourself, you know.”

  Joe moved in his wheelchair. “Ah, I’m glad you said that. I’m doing the exact opposite. If I didn’t make those trips, I wouldn’t be true to myself.” He turned to Edith. “Shall I tell him?”

  “I think you’re going to, so why ask me?”

  Joe lit a cigarette. “Arthur, in a way I am a traveling salesman. I’m peddling a commodity called Joe Chapin.”

  “I see.”

  “The trips have often been exhausting, but they’ve had a purpose, and not just the thirty pieces of silver.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” said Arthur.

  “Until this minute Edith has been the only other person to know what’s been behind the trips. Oh, I imagine there have been some guesses, but that’s all they’ve been. Guesses.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Unconfirmed guesses. The fact of the matter is, I’m running for office.”

  Arthur looked at Edith and laughed, but she did not smile. “I’m laughing because I was just saying to Edith, you appeared to be running for office.”

  “Well, you were right. I’m running for lieutenant governor.”

  Arthur rubbed his chin and stroked his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “It all becomes clear, once you clarify it,” he said. “An ambassador of good will, like Lindbergh. Mending fences before they’ve been broken.”

  “You might say,” said Joe.

  “Then I take it you’re planning to run next year? That’s the next time we vote on lieutenant governor.”

  “I hope to,” said Joe.

  “Am I to keep this a secret?”

  “Oh, yes indeed. I’m waiting for the psychological moment.”

  “To announce it to Mike Slattery and the others?”

  “Yes.”

  “How will you know the psychological moment has come?”

  “Well, to some extent I’m relying on instinct. When I’m satisfied that I have enough friends in all the counties of the state, then I’ll make my position known. You know, Arthur, I’ve made at least one appearance in every county in the state, and in some counties, like Allegheny and Lackawanna, Dauphin, Philadelphia, Berks, I’ve made as many as ten appearances.”

  “Good God, there are seventy-six counties in the Commonwealth. You have been busy.”

  “You’re damn right I have.”

  “Haven’t the professionals been suspicious?”

  “Suspicious, but careful. They’ve had nothing to go on. I’ve made no political speeches except for a few last year in support of Mr. Hoover.”

  “Thereby declaring yourself against Al Smith, and you did declare yourself all right.”

  “Well, I’m a Republican. That’s no secret, and I meant every word I said against Al Smith. The audacity. Tammany Hall.”

  “Well, we’ve had some rotten eggs in our own basket. However, that’s neither here nor there. Water under the bridge, they say. I’m more interested in your campaign. You think you’ll have enough of a following to be able to convince the Slatterys and people like that that you’re the man?”

  “That’s what I’m counting on.”

  “But for all you know, they’ve picked their candidate for next year.”

  “If they think I’m strong enough, they’ll change their minds.”

  “True.”

  “I notice you haven’t expressed any approval or disapproval,” said Joe.

  “You’ve always known how I feel about politics, but you’ll always know how I feel about you.”

  “Arthur, that’s all I wanted to know.”

  “I’ll back you with every word I can speak and every dollar I can rake up.”

  “Yes, I always believed that,” said Joe.

  “And I think I can guess why you want the job.”

  “I’ll tell you if you’re right.”

  “You want to be as good as your grandfather,” said Arthur.

  “Yes,” said Joe. He looked at Edith, who returned his look expressionlessly. He said no more.

  “Well, you are, in my opinion, without going to the bother of a political campaign, but I don’t write the history books and I guess that’s what you have in mind. As a matter of fact, Joe, now that I’ve had a moment to think it over, it’s a praiseworthy ambition. We’ve had some judges in our family, and I’ve often thought I’d like to go down in the books as a judge. But never enough to go into politics. However, your ambition, your pride, is stronger than mine, and I always knew that. They couldn’t hope to find a better man. But first—before you start mending fences, mend that leg. I must be going.”

  When he had gone Edith said: “I was afraid—”

  Joe nodded. “I was going to tell him everything. I could tell that. But I feel much better now that I’ve told him that much. It isn’t that we can’t trust Arthur, but I think it might shock him to know what I really have in mind.”

  “Oh, he was shocked anyway,” said Edith. “He doesn’t like it.”

  “And that’s the proof that he’s a real friend. He’ll support me in spite of his true feelings about politics.”

  “What else could he do?” said Edith.

  The visits of Dr. English were becoming as much punctilio as medico. There was little he could do to hasten Nature, and his thrice-weekly calls at 10 North Frederick were scheduled to coincide with the serving of a cup of tea.

  “I brought my chauffeur with me, I hope it’s all right,” he announced one afternoon. He was followed into the den by his son Julian.

  “Hello, Julian, how nice of you to drop in,” said Joe.

  “Hello, Mr. Chapin. I’m sorry you had such tough luck, but you’re in capable hands. At least that’s what my father tells me.”

  “Really, Julian. I don’t talk that way,” said the doctor.

  “Would you like a Scotch and soda?” said Joe.

  “He would not,” said the doctor. “He very kindly offered to be my chauffeur, just for this afternoon, but he knew what that entailed. No chauffeur of mine drinks.”

  Julian and his father rose as Edith came in. “Oh, it’s Julian,” she said. “How are you?”

  “Fine, thank you, Mrs. Chapin. Sorry to be so healthy with Mr. Chapin laid up.”

  “Would you like a Scotch or something?”

  “That problem’s just been settled, thanks,” said Julian.

  “How’s Caroline?” said Joe.

  “Great,” said Julian English. “She’s been wanting to come and see you, but your physician discourages visitors. Did you know that?”

  “Not Caroline,” said Joe. “Billy, don’t you know a pretty girl is the best tonic in the world?”

  “Well, while we’re on that subject, you have one in this house. Ann,” said Julian. “If Caroline ever acts up, I’ll wait around for Ann to grow up. She’s a knockout. What is she now, eighteen?”

  “Yes, a little young for you, Julian,” said Edith.

  “More’s the pity, and say, speaking of the Chapin younger generation, I guess you’re all getting ready to retire on Joby’s earnings.”

  “Joby’s earnings?” said Joe. “I can’t even get him to caddy for me.”

  “Caddy for you? In two more years he’ll be making records,” said Julian.

  “What kind of records? The hundred-yard dash?” said Joe. “He scoots out of the house fast enough to break that record today, but I have no idea where he’s in such a hurry to get to.”

  �
�Seriously, am I the first to tell you you have a damn near genius in your family?”

  “You must be,” said Joe. “What at, may I ask?”

  “At the eighty-eight. The piano,” said Julian.

  “Why I’ve never heard him play anything but popular jazz, what we used to call ragtime.”

  “Oh, Mr. Chapin, come on,” said Julian. “That boy could sit in with any dance orchestra—well, almost any dance orchestra. He plays better piano right now than anyone else in Gibbsville.”

  “No, I don’t think he plays anything but that jazz stuff,” said Joe.

  “But that’s exactly what I’m talking about, Mr. Chapin. I’ll tell you where he goes when he leaves here. He goes to Michael’s Music Shop and listens to Victrola records, and all he has to do is hear a record played once and he can duplicate Roy Bargy, Arthur Schutt, Carmichael. Have you ever heard him play ‘In a Mist’?”

  “Is that the name of a tune?” said Joe.

  “If you have to ask that question, I’m sorry. You don’t know about Joby. You must have heard him play ‘Rhapsody in Blue,’ by George Gershwin. He’s been playing that for at least two years.”

  “Yes, I rather like that one,” said Joe. “Is that the one . . .” He hummed the four notes of the great theme.

  “That’s the one. ‘Rhapsody in Blue,’ by George Gershwin.”

  “But it’s only jazz, Julian. He never plays anything worthwhile.”

  “Worthwhile! I’ve heard about prophets without honor, et cetera. But this is almost fantastic, your not knowing about Joby. The sad part is, I don’t think you’ll appreciate him even after my outburst.”

  “And it is an outburst,” said the doctor.

  “And I don’t apologize for it. I hear you’re sending him to St. Paul’s, which is an all-right school for ordinary boys. But Joby ought to be going to some place like Juilliard or Curtis.”

  “I’ve never heard of either one of them,” said Edith.

  “I’ve heard of Curtis, so I guess the other’s a music school too,” said Joe. “But I think we’ll go on with our plans to send him to St. Paul’s. I’m certainly not going to encourage him to play that jazz stuff.”

  “No, I don’t imagine you will,” said Julian, in tones of such disgust that his father rose.

  “I won’t bother to take your temperature or your blood pressure now, Joe,” said the doctor. “I’m sure my own’s gone up to the danger level.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, Mr. Chapin, and Mrs. Chapin. The fact of the matter is, Joby’s what I wish I’d been. He’s a great jazz piano player, whether you like it or not.”

  “Well, frankly, Julian, I don’t,” said Joe. “But it’s always nice to know we have some talent in the family. I’ll try to appreciate it.”

  “I won’t,” said Edith. “I’m free to admit.”

  “No. You have a Steinway, and it isn’t even in tune,” said Julian.

  With that remark there was no further effort to simulate cordiality, and the doctor and his son left.

  “And that’s what Caroline Walker has to put up with every day,” said Edith.

  “He makes it very difficult to defend him,” said Joe.

  “Not many people try any more. And those that do, they’re like you, fond of his father.”

  “No, not altogether that, Edith. He has that certain indefinable thing called charm. And the whole thing started over his well-intentioned overpraise of Joby’s piano-playing. His motive was all right, but his enthusiasm and impatience got the better of him. Impatience, that’s what it is.”

  “Oh, rot. It’s common, ordinary bad manners by an ungrateful spoiled brat. Caroline can be glad they have no children. That’s going to make it easier when the time comes.”

  • • •

  A conversation at the Gibbsville Club on an afternoon in 1930:

  ARTHUR MC HENRY: Billy, is there anything organically wrong with Joe?

  DR. ENGLISH: No, why?

  MC HENRY: Are you sure? You can tell me.

  ENGLISH: And I would. He’s on his feet. Walks almost normally. What do you think is wrong?

  MC HENRY: He’s never come back since his accident. I don’t mean to the office, of course. I mean—well, he has no pep.

  ENGLISH: Has anybody any pep these days? You told me yourself Joe lost the better part of two million dollars.

  MC HENRY: Hell, Billy, we’re all in that together.

  ENGLISH: Yes, but some of us are taking it harder than others. We haven’t all got your disdain for money.

  MC HENRY: Disdain, my ass. But it’s gone and there’s nothing we can do about it. We’re lucky to have anything left.

  ENGLISH: Those that have anything left. I wanted to retire this year, go abroad, but I’m going to have to stay in harness the rest of my life. I’ll be extremely fortunate if I don’t end up as an old quack, treating gonorrhea, examining men for lodge insurance. I wish I had Joe’s money.

  MC HENRY: I’ll bet he’d give it to you if you could make him his old self.

  ENGLISH: Arthur, damn it all, Joe’s nearly fifty. By the normal optimistic life expectancy his life is two-thirds lived. That’s the optimistic outlook. Well, at the two-thirds mark he has had a serious accident, and aside from the things that we know that happened, there are millions of things about the body that haven’t been discovered. Millions. I don’t know what’s the matter with Joe. Something, yes, of course. When I go there to dinner I see it, as a friend as well as a doctor. It’s almost as though he’d been dropped, like a magnet, and demagnetized. Not as bad as that, but—

  MC HENRY: Sometimes it is as bad as that.

  ENGLISH: Well, all right. Maybe it’s Edith. Maybe it’s a personal matter too delicate for him to discuss, even with you. When men begin to lose certain powers—and you know perfectly well what I’m talking about—they sometimes seem to age overnight. And to all intents and purposes that’s what they do. But of course I can’t bring that up with Joe until he asks me about it, and even if he should, I’d probably send him to a G.U. man or a psychiatrist, and Joe wouldn’t go to a psychiatrist. I know that in advance, and I can’t say I blame him. Don’t worry so much about him. A bad fall shakes you up, and the older you are, the longer it takes to recover from it. You must have noticed that elderly people seem to go on forever until one thing happens—they get a fall. And invariably that’s the beginning of the end. It shakes up their insides, disarranges everything, including the unknown, undiscovered elements I spoke of. An elderly person almost never recovers from a fall. Well, Joe’s not an elderly person, but he’s forty-eight. There’s a lot of good sound medical advice in that old saying, watch your step.

  MC HENRY: I suppose so.

  ENGLISH: We’ve got him walking again and he may just be taking a long time making a complete recovery. Although I don’t look for a complete recovery, frankly. If he tried to run to catch a train, or if he tripped stepping off a curbstone—no good. It’ll be another year at least before I give him permission to drive a car. No more horseback riding, at least for several years, and I’d just as soon he forgot about it for good. As to his spirit, if you really want to know what I think, I think one trouble is he misses his daughter, Ann.

  MC HENRY: You know, Billy, I think so too.

  ENGLISH: Oh, I’m pretty sure of it, pretty sure. But he’s going to have to get used to that. I never had a daughter. Wish I had. But I can readily understand how a father could get so attached to one. Why, the way I’ve got attached to Caroline, and to her all I am is an old ogre that’s stingy with Julian.

  MC HENRY: Oh, I don’t think that’s how Caroline feels.

  ENGLISH: Spare me your consolation, Mr. McHenry. I’m much wiser than you think. But I’m sure we’re right about Joe. He misses Ann. But we can’t very well go to a friend of ours and tell him to take his daughter out of boarding school.

&n
bsp; MC HENRY: No.

  ENGLISH: You and your father always seemed to hit it off very nicely, but that isn’t usually the case. It’s usually father and daughter that get along well, and Joe and Ann do, only more so. However, when you have an attractive, sweet creature like Ann, you’re going to lose her eventually, so this may turn out to be a blessing in disguise.

  MC HENRY: Let’s hope so. Let’s hope some good will come of it.

  • • •

  It was the custom among the younger set of Gibbsville to form a group for a swim, a picnic supper, and a visit en masse to one of the amusement parks to dance to the music of the name bands. A band would be booked so that in five successive nights it was never more than seventy-five miles from Gibbsville. After the World War all of the famous bands were booked into the coal regions—Earl Fuller, Fletcher Henderson, Red Nichols, Jean Goldkette, Garber-Davis, Lopez and Whiteman, the Great White Fleet, Waring, Ted Weems, the Scranton Sirens, Art Hand, the Original Dixieland, Ted Lewis, Paul Specht, Ellington, among the readily recognizable names, and others, on their way up, like Charley Frehofer’s, which had made a couple of recordings that placed the band among the promising. It was the summer of “Sweet and Lovely,” which Frehofer had recorded, and anyone who had an interest and an ear could tell that the unbilled piano soloist had technique, imagination, taste, and heart. The style anticipated Duchin but was a fuller, two-handed discourse, and Joby Chapin brought the record home and played it over and over again on his portable.

  “This fellow’s good,” said Joby.

  “What’s his name?” said Ann.

  “I’ve written to find out but I haven’t got an answer yet.”

  “He is good.”

  “I’ll play his solo again. The last chorus is all band, all out for Swedish Haven. Everybody. But I can’t get enough of that piano. Listen.”

  Ann heard the record so many times that when a party was being organized to hear Frehofer, she mentioned the fact to her brother.

  “No use my asking if I can go. They won’t let me. But will you try to find out the name of the piano-player?”

  “All right,” said Ann.

  At the dance pavilion Ann moved up to the stand and at the end of a set she asked a saxophone-player to tell her the name of the pianist.