Ladies In The Parlor

by Tully, Jim

  “Now remember—nothing garish—you’ve seen his house,” Mother warned.

  For several days the girls looked at apartments until they located one on a top floor. The windows of the living-room overlooked the lake. While Alice bargained, Leora watched the vast white and blue body of water and saw a ship, far out, going, she wondered where.

  “Would you like this one, Leora?” Alice asked.

  “I’d love it—I could spend hours at this window.” “Then we’ll take it,” said the business-like Alice. On their way to Mother Rosenbloom’s, Alice said to her cousin, “Now if the judge disappears for a few days, it’ll be because he’s drinking. He snaps out of it in three days—and Mr. Everlan told me it came over him about every month—but he’s always kind.—I’ve seen him that way—”

  “I don’t care what he does,” Leora assured Alice, “I love him.”

  “How changed you are,” observed Alice.

  The professor brought a letter from Farway. He asked Leora to return and marry him.

  She started to write to him at once—to tell him that she loved another man. Then she hesitated. Instead, she talked it over with Alice.

  “Tell him you want time to consider,” was her advice. For the next week Leora was like a bride, selecting, with Alice, the furniture for the apartment.

  When all was ready in the new home, the desire for drink came over Slattery.

  Accompanied by Alice and Mr. Everlan, he came to Mother Rosenbloom’s in a heavy rainstorm.

  The door banged open after they entered the parlor. A gust of wind swept in. Raindrops rattled loudly against the window panes.

  “What a night,” exclaimed Mother Rosenbloom, “it would drown a duck.”

  The rattle of the rain and the crash of thunder dimmed the professor’s music.

  Though sex was still for sale, there were no buyers on such a night.

  Leora came into the parlor with Selma and ran to Slattery’s arms. Mary Ellen and Doris followed.

  Several hours of merrymaking passed. Mother Rosenbloom accompanied the professor at the piano.

  The rain could be heard splashing during the intervals of merriment.

  During a silence Alice looked at her wrist-watch and said to Mother Rosenbloom, “We must be going soon.”

  “What,” exclaimed Mother, “on such a night—you’ll need a boat.”

  The judge looked at Mr. Everlan, “No, old pal, you’re not going—and leave me alone here with all these women—why I would never forgive you.”

  Mr. Everlan hesitated.

  “Why dear me, no,” said Mother Rosenbloom. “Your driver is sound asleep. You would be drowned getting to the car.” Mother Rosenbloom looked sternly at Alice, “You must stay.”

  “All right, Mother,” returned Alice obediently. “Pour us all a drink,” commanded the judge. “I’ll do it, Mother,” said Leora.

  When another hour had passed, Mother Rosenbloom said, “Well, I think I’ll retire.” She looked at her guests. “Now please stay until morning and maybe the rain will let up—you and Mr. Everlan take the end room, Alice.”

  The judge and Mr. Everlan rose.

  A maid followed Mother Rosenbloom to her rooms. When all had gone, Leora held Slattery’s hand. “I think we had better go too,” she suggested.

  “All right,” the judge said, rising, “We will have liquor sent to the room.”

  Leora led him to her room.

  A knock came at the door.

  The maid placed liquor on a small serving table.

  She placed an arm about him, kissed him quickly and said, “I’ll be so happy in the lovely apartment overlooking the lake—and I’ll love you so.”

  His hand went along the curve of her body. She helped him to the bed.

  “Now be a good boy and lie here just a moment while I put on a robe,” she said, placing her hands upon his shoulders and pressing him backward. “I’m not leaving you,” she soothed.

  His head was on the pillow. She stroked his hair. He breathed deeply.

  “Don’t leave me,” he said.

  His hand bent her body to him.

  She kissed his eyes.

  “Get me some liquor, Leora,” he said.

  She brought it to him at once.

  “I’m sorry for this,” his voice was soft.

  “You don’t need to be.”

  “You mean that?” He emptied the glass.

  “From the bottom of my heart,” was her reply. “Do you really like me?” he asked.

  “I love you.”

  “Do you tell them all that?”

  “You’re the only one I’ve ever ,told that.” Her voice was full of candor.

  “Well, it’s a good story.” He asked for more liquor.

  “Yes, I knew you’d say that,” she bit her lip

  “Now I want to be honest with you,” she said. He remained quiet while she told the story of her life. After she had finished telling of the two seductions, he said, “Well, the moon’s as far from both of us—I didn’t expect to find you a virgin, and neither did I expect this.”

  “But it’s my nature,” Leora explained, “I’ve got to play square when I love.”

  “Oh well,” he smiled, “don’t worry about a few seductions—I’d rather have had you first, but I can’t be everywhere at once—we can’t change things, even if we try until the stars fall.”

  He asked for more liquor.

  “I’ve wanted you so much,” went on Leora, “and when I have you alone here with me you’ve been drinking too much.”

  “Not too much,” responded Slattery. “My head’s clear—I’ve wanted you before—but I don’t dare get too excited—” he stopped, “maybe it’s better to go out in a blaze.”

  “You do need me, don’t you?” Leora huddled close to him— ”I’d like to be just your slave—I’d wait on you all the time—I’d give you everything I had—everything —Mother Rosenbloom once told me you could charm a bird out of a tree, even if a cat was waiting for it—won’t you let me be your bird?—Do say you need me—do say it—I'll be so happy.”

  He pulled her closer. “Yes, I do need you—very much—I’m a very lonely man—a very, very lonely man—“

  His tone of voice changed.

  “It’s funny how we need people,” he said, reaching for the glass. “Here I’m a horse, and I lean on a lovely fly like you—but it’s all in fun,” he sighed, with an effort at banter, and was calm a moment before he resumed, “Just stand by me, dearie—just you and me.

  “They can’t make a law in this state without me, dear. I put them in and I take them out—and believe me—I know what it’s all about. I made Jack Harris governor just like that.” Leora heard his fingers snap. “And I’ll tell you why—he was good to me when I was a kid… He was a Jew boy, and the Jews and the Micks have always been pals. My mother gave me twenty cents, and Harris and I were going to the bootjacks to get our papers. We stopped in an alley to shoot craps with two Niggers and a Wop kid, and I won eighty cents and the two Nigger kids beat me up and took the eighty cents and my twenty cents besides. Well, Harris and the Wop kid began to battle, and they knocked the Niggers out, and got my dollar back, and they didn’t take a nickel that belonged to the Nigger kids—’Thanks,’ I said, ‘Jackie,’ and he said, ‘Don’t thank me, you little Mick—let’s go and get our papers or your ma and mine’ll knock the living hell out of us’—and so we all three went and got our papers— That’s been thirty-four years ago.

  “By the time I was twenty-three I owned a saloon—and had my hands on a dozen houses like this. My pal, Harris, the Jew boy, went in for books and studied law—I didn’t give a damn about books… it was people I liked. What the hell can any book tell me about people? I’m forty-eight years old and I run a state—and I can’t dig a girl like you out of a book.”

  As a reward for the compliment, Leora pressed her lips against his mouth. He took the kiss with a sigh, and went on, “Harris is all the time spouting things to me, but when
he wants anything done fast he comes to me.

  It was me who made him state senator, then a congressman, and a governor. I tell him what to say to people to make them love him—for you’ve got to love people if you want them to love you back… you’ve got to be willing in your soul to share all you’ve got, if you steal it back the next minute. It’s give and take, around and around, like a drunken dollar whore on a merry-go-round—that’s what life is, and don’t never let them tell you any different

  “Harris said to me after I put him in as governor, ‘You Irish always have a salamander in your heart—’ and I asked him what the hell a salamander was and he said—’a lizard the fire can’t burn,’—and I said, ‘Jack—that’s because we’re smart—no matter how hot we seem there’s a cold place in our heads and hearts.’ “ The judge laughed aloud. “‘Damn you,’ Jack said, ‘you’ve always got an answer.’—’Sure, Jack—don’t you know it—my answer to politics is you—where do you think I came from, Jack—I’ve got a noodle too—just because I don’t think with dead men’s thoughts out of books is no reason I’m not smart—I’m barroom smart, Jack, and that’s the smartest kind—you can’t lift your left eyelid without me knowing what you’re thinking’

  “And by God, I’ve done good in this world—I’ve done favors for every bum I ever knew who was white, and a hell of a lot who weren’t—Mother Rosenbloom can tell you—and so can Everlan. I started from scratch, I did —nobody was too mean for me to know—and when Harris got to be a lawyer and went in a corporation office, and I’d begun to feel my way in politics in my ward, and knew that I had it sewed up tight as a poorhouse shroud, I said to Jack, ‘You and me are a great combination, a Mick and a Yid—but you’ve got to give some of your time to people—you’ve got to get up in court and defend bums and thieves and murderers—for you and me’s going places… I’ll make you the first Jew president— Now read your books at home and don’t mention them—when you see Biddy Flaherty, you must talk to her about her kid’s bellyache from eating the green apples—and things like that—and be kind to everybody you see, for they’ve all got tongues, and they can all be sharp no matter how dull their heads are.’ “

  “I think you’re grand,” Leora said with conviction.

  “None of that now—give me liquor.”

  She quickly poured him another glass.

  “I’m not so wonderful—but I never had any fear—the man without fear can step from cloud to cloud and play handball with the stars—that is—if he can reach them.”

  In wonder she asked, “Why are you here— You could get all the beautiful women in the world.”

  “That’s simple—these are my people—they’re all I’ve ever known. Mother’s got better judgment than the governor—and more brains—if she were a man she’d be President—”

  He smiled sardonically, “You’re too young to know that all life’s a whorehouse—the difference is only that it’s not as public as this.” He pointed toward the door.

  “There’s more blackmail out there and less charm. A girl in a house like this never double-crosses a man until she takes a notion to reform. Anything may be done to a fellow in a house, but that’s as far as it goes—besides, it’s all I know… all I’ve ever known—and the more I see of life, it’s all I ever want to know. I know what to expect when I stay where I belong, and the only thing that makes me proud is that the people who kicked me around when I was a kid now take orders from me. The whole business of living’s a long disease—and I’d like to know what the hell more any man can have than a girl like you in bed—and when we have our little hour all we do is make brats for future undertakers and tombstone makers…”

  He stopped talking, half rose, and looked in the direction of the liquor. Leora poured a drink for him. He drank it rapidly and sank again on the pillow. “I’ve never talked to anybody like this before,” he said. “That’s why I’m for you—damn a woman you can’t talk to.”

  The rain rattled heavily on the roof. The windows shook with the wind and were turned yellow by the lightning.

  Water splashed more heavily.

  The lightning came in long, jagged and vivid flashes.

  He became incoherent for a moment, and then said firmly, “I had a dream last night, Leora. I walked through a street the color of slate pencils, and the rain fell in silver drops as long as an old woman’s dream. I went up to the Masonic Temple Building and I said to myself, ‘I’m going to kill all the damned people inside.’ So I crushed it in my fingers and shook it like a cat would a mouse—it was awful, the twisted iron girders and the broken brick and mortar. I suddenly felt sorry and I stooped down to pick up all the hurt people who fell out of the building. They didn’t look like grown-ups any more, but just children—and suddenly I grew so tall I couldn’t stoop low enough to touch them . . . so I left them all lying in the street and went out to find a sack of star dust—then I was arrested for murder.

  “When I stood up to get my sentence, the judge looked at me with daggers in his eyes. ‘He had no mercy,’ ‘he said, ‘neither have I.’

  “The first thing I knew a fellow about thirty, with a long cloak and a Van Dyke beard and sad eyes and curly red hair, stood by me...and he said to the judge, with a voice like music,

  I told him I was weak as a rained-on bee—

  I told him I was lost—He said, ‘Lean on me.’

  “‘And who are you?’ asked the judge.

  “‘My name is Christ—I came a long distance. I live in the mountains behind the moon. I beseech you not to hang this man—he already has imagination, and that is punishment enough.’

  “Another man pointed to the red-headed man and said, ‘This is the justest man that ever the sun shone on.’

  “And the judge said, ‘Get the hell out of here, all of you—this is a court of law. Take your justice to the mountains behind the moon.’

  “As we left the courtroom, I could hear them pounding the nails in the gallows, and one guard yelled out, ‘Make that rope bigger and stronger, you can’t break this fellow’s neck with an inch rope—he’s a politician.’

  “‘We don’t give a damn what he is, we’ll pop his neck like a bottle of champagne,’ another guard yelled. ‘He’s not satisfied to bump one man. He took a building full of people anxious to earn an honest living, and he sprawled them out on the street like a lot of dead butterflies. . .

  “All the way to the gallows the people hissed at me—they were the same people I couldn’t pick up because I’d grown so tall—I stumbled as I looked up and saw the rope—and then I woke up”

  Footsteps were heard.

  “It’s Mother, seeing that everything is all right,” said Leora.

  “What a woman,” the judge said. “Her brain’s as big as her body. Whenever I’m stuck about what to do in the Capitol, I go to her. She’s the way people should be in this world—hard as a rock and soft as a baby—you should have seen her twenty years ago—just as smart as now—born smart. She just knew and never had to learn.”

  “Where did Mother come from?” Leora asked with assumed innocence.

  The judge’s hand moved up and down her body before he answered softly, “That’s not for little girls to know. Mother’s always been here, protecting us poor men from the rain and the cold. I think she came from a cloud hundreds of years ago. She was the greatest friend I had when everything was dark as the back of a Nigger’s ear—I was a young fellow then, and just as sure as God put worms in big apples I’d be the President of the United States by now if it hadn’t happened—they got the goods on me, and I had to step behind the curtains—to play back of the scenes—

  “Mother was big time even then—when I had to right-about-face and shift my whole career, she said to me, —’You’re the biggest man in the state—pull the strings, you’ll get more fun out of it’

  “But anyhow—they were voting on liquor as they always are in this God-damned country, but this time the legislature had the vote. I packed it with men to make it even any
how. I thought I had the brewers and the distillers eating out of my hand, and two hundred thousand on the side—we’d polled the whole business, when one of the members died down state, and I had to hurry there and get another one in we could control, and by God he balked, and I began to work on him in the Vaner Hotel—he was a hick who wouldn’t stay put—so he tipped the other side off and they dictaphoned the room. It was a new thing then; we hushed it all up by letting them win—but I was never allowed to come out in the open again. So I picked on Harris—and now I sit back and watch him get the glory, when I could have held high office and do all that I’m doing anyhow.”

  Leora move uneasily. She had never felt the same before.

  The politician’s white silk shirt was open at the throat. His expensive scarf was loose. He looked upward with half-closed eyes. His mouth was closed tight. A dent was on each side of his jaw. His face might have been chiseled out of marble.

  Leora leaned over, her breasts pressed firmly against him. She who was without his terrifying strength wanted to protect him, to hold him in her arms forever.

  She could hear his heart beat as she snuggled closely to him. Then suddenly she kissed him passionately again and again.

  She then removed her clothes and lay quiet, expectant, beside him.

  His touch burned her body.

  She half swooned under his embrace.

  Moments of wild delirium followed. Every particle of her body responded in ecstatic rhythm.

  When all was over, she held him close for a long time, forgetful of everything. Not a word was spoken. Soon she heard his regular deep breathing.

  Resting on her elbow, she gazed at him, then snapped the small light by the bed, and laid contentedly beside him.

  Chapter 30

  Her mind and heart in turmoil, she remained long without moving. The awakening had been so tremendous, she was still bewildered. She had never dreamed that such a thing were possible, and here she lay, her body still on fire, and ready to cross the world for one man.

  The thought came that she might be with child. She hoped it were correct—she would have it no matter what happened. To have a child by him—at last she realized how her mother felt about children. Surely her mother had never been so deeply stirred.