He couldn’t see the pony, but he knew it was rubbing its nose in the redhead’s hand. The clowns finished cleaning their faces. One of them took a bottle out of a coat that was hanging on the wall and the redhead joined them and they all had a drink. Then the redhead began to talk. Tony couldn’t make out the words, but he heard the rich rumble of the voice and saw the wide and eloquent gestures. The clowns were listening intently and grinning. Day after day he must have talked to them like that and it must have been just as wonderful every time. The white pony’s tail kept swishing, and Tony could hear the pawing of the pony’s hoofs on the floor.
But it was getting dark and Tony had to get home. When he tried to move, he found his legs were asleep. Pins and needles seemed to shoot through his arms. Afraid of falling, he grabbed at the window ledge and his head bumped against the pane. Before he could dodge away, the red-headed giant came over and stared up at him. “Get down out of there!” he yelled. “Get down or I’ll cut your gizzard out!”
They were looking right at each other, and then Tony slid slowly off the roof. As he limped homeward, he felt an intimation of perfect happiness. He kept seeing the swishing white tail.
The next afternoon he went to the theater with two lumps of sugar in his pocket. At the end of the show, he pushed his way through the crowd of kids and got right up by the door. When the clowns came out, most of the kids started to yell and there was pushing and shoving, but Tony hung back, keeping well over to one side of the door, ready to thrust the sugar at the pony’s mouth before the redhead could stop him.
The big man appeared at the door, the pony clopping behind. In his hands the redhead was carrying two water pails, and the rein that held the pony was in his right hand also. This time, instead of going on down the alley and forcing a path through the kids, he stood still and looked around. Then he grinned at Tony. “Come here, kid,” he said.
“What is it, Mister?”
“What’s your name?”
“Tony Jarvis.”
Maybe the big man remembered seeing his face at the window, Tony thought. Anyway, the big man’s grin was wide and friendly. “How would you like to carry these pails for me?” he asked.
Tony grabbed the pails before any other kid could touch them. The big, freckled, crazy, blue-eyed face of the giant opened into a smile.
Tony walked down the alley, carrying the pails. The big redhead walked beside him, leading the pony and grinning in such a friendly fashion Tony felt sure he understood why the pony swung his head eagerly to the giant whenever he made the soft, clucking noise with his tongue. While Tony was going down the street, his mind was filled with how it would be in the garage, making friends with the pony. Even now he might have reached out and touched the pony if he hadn’t had a pail in each hand. The pails were heavy because they were filled with water-soaked sponges, but Tony kept up with the big man all right, and he held the pail handles tight.
“I guess the pony’s worth a lot of money,” he said timidly.
“Uh?”
“I guess a lot of people want to ride him.”
“Sure.”
“I guess a lot of kids have wanted a little ride on him, too.” Tony said. When the man nodded and looked straight ahead, Tony was so stirred up he dared not say anything more. It was understood between them now, he was sure. They would let him hang around the garage and maybe even have a ride on the pony.
When they got to the garage he waited while the redhead opened the door and gave the pony a gentle slap on the rump and sent it on ahead. Tony was so full of pride he thought he would choke as he started to follow the pony in.
“All right, son, I’ll take the pails,” the redhead said.
“It’s all right. I can carry them.”
“Give ’em to me.”
“Can’t I go in?” Tony asked, unbelieving.
“No kids in here,” the redhead said brusquely, taking the pails.
“Gee, Mister,” Tony cried. But the door had closed. Tony stood with his mouth open, sick at his stomach, still seeing the redhead’s warm, magnificent smile. He couldn’t understand. If the redhead was like that, why would the pony swing its head to him? Then he realized that that was the kind of thing men like him took for granted in the world he had wanted to grow into when he had glimpsed it from the garage window.
“You big red-headed bum!” he screamed at the closed door. “You dirty, double-crossing, red-headed cheat!”
1938
GETTING ON IN THE WORLD
That night in the tavern of the Clairmont Hotel, Henry Forbes was working away at his piano and there was the usual good crowd of brokers and politicians and sporting men sitting around drinking with their well-dressed women. A tall, good-natured boy in the bond business, and his girl, had just come up to the little green piano, and Henry had let them amuse themselves playing a few tunes, and then he had sat down himself again and had run his hand the length of the keyboard. When he looked up there was this girl leaning on the piano and beaming at him.
She was about eighteen and tall and wearing one of those sheer black dresses and a little black hat with a veil, and when she moved around to speak to him he saw that she had the swellest legs and an eager, straightforward manner.
“I’m Tommy Gorman’s sister,” she said.
“Why, say … you’re …”
“Sure. I’m Jean,” she said.
“Where did you come from?”
“Back home in Buffalo,” she said. “Tommy told me to be sure and look you up first thing.”
Tommy Gorman had been his chum; he used to come into the tavern almost every night to see him before he got consumption and had to go home. So it did not seem so surprising to see his sister standing there instead. He got her a chair and let her sit beside him. And in no time he saw that Tommy must have made him out to be a pretty glamorous figure. She understood that he knew everybody in town, that big sporting men like Jake Solloway often gave him tips on the horses, and that a man like Eddie Convey, who just about ran the city hall and was one of the hotel owners, too, called him by his first name. In fact, Tommy had even told her that the job playing the piano wasn’t much, but that bumping into so many big people every night he was apt to make a connection at any time and get a political job, or something in a stockbroker’s office.
The funny part of it was she seemed to have joined herself to him at once; her eyes were glowing, and as he watched her swinging her head around looking at the important clients, he simply couldn’t bear to tell her that the management had decided that the piano wouldn’t be necessary any more and that he mightn’t be there more than two weeks.
So he sat there pointing out people she might have read about in the newspapers. It all came out glibly, as if each one of them was an old friend, yet he actually felt lonely each time he named somebody. “That’s Thompson over there with the horn-rimmed glasses. He’s the mayor’s secretary,” he said. “That’s Bill. Bill Henry over there. You know, the producer. Swell guy, Bill.” And then he rose up in his chair. “Say, look, there’s Eddie Convey,” he said. As he pointed he got excited, for the big, fresh-faced, hawk-nosed Irishman with the protruding blue eyes and the big belly had seen him pointing. He was grinning. And then he raised his right hand a little.
“Is he a friend of yours?” Jean asked.
“Sure he is. Didn’t you see for yourself?” he said. But his heart was leaping. It was the first time Eddie Convey had ever gone out of his way to notice him. Then the world his job might lead to seemed to open up and he started chattering breathlessly about Convey, thinking all the time, beneath his chatter, that if he could go to Convey and get one little word from him, and if something bigger couldn’t be found for him he at least could keep his job.
He became so voluble and excited that he didn’t notice how delighted she was with him till it was time to take her home. She was living uptown in a rooming-house where there were a lot of theatrical people. When they were sitting on the stone step a minute befo
re she went in she told him that she had enough money saved up to last her about a month. She wanted to get a job modelling in a department store. Then he put his arm around her and there was a soft glowing wonder in her face.
“It seems like I’ve known you for years,” she said.
“I guess that’s because we both know Tommy.”
“Oh, no,” she said. Then she let him kiss her hard. And as she ran into the house she called that she’d be around to the tavern again.
It was as if she had been dreaming about him without even having seen him. She had come running to him with her arms wide open. “I guess she’s about the softest touch that’s come my way,” he thought, going down the street. But it looked too easy. It didn’t require any ambition, and he was a little ashamed of the sudden, weakening tenderness he felt for her.
She kept coming around every night after that and sat there while he played the piano and sometimes sang a song. When he was through for the night, it didn’t matter to her whether they went any place in particular, so he would take her home. Then they got into the habit of going to his room for a while. As he watched her fussing around, straightening the room up or maybe making a cup of coffee, he often felt like asking her what made her think she could come bouncing into town and fit into his life. But when she was listening eagerly, and kept sucking in her lower lip and smiling slowly, he felt indulgent with her. He felt she wanted to hang around because she was impressed with him.
It was the same when she was sitting around with him in the tavern. She used to show such enthusiasm that it became embarrassing. You like a girl with you to look like some of the smart blondes who came into the place and have that lazy, half-mocking aloofness that you have to try desperately to break through. With Jean laughing and talking a lot and showing all her straightforward warm eagerness people used to turn and look at her as if they’d like to reach out their hands and touch her. It made Henry feel that the pair of them looked like a couple of kids on a merry-go-round. Anyway, all that excitement of hers seemed to be only something that went with the job, so in the last couple of nights, with the job fading, he hardly spoke to her and got a little savage pleasure out of seeing how disappointed she was.
She didn’t know what was bothering him till Thursday night. A crowd from the theater had come in, and Henry was feeling blue. Then he saw Eddie Convey and two middle-aged men who looked like brokers sitting at a table in the corner. When Convey seemed to smile at him, he thought bitterly that when he lost his job people like Convey wouldn’t even know him on the street. Convey was still smiling, and then he actually beckoned.
“Gees, is he calling me?” he whispered.
“Who?” Jean asked.
“The big guy, Convey,” he whispered. So he wouldn’t make a fool of himself he waited till Convey called a second time. Then he got up nervously and went over to him. “Yes, Mr. Convey,” he said.
“Sit down, son,” Convey said. His arrogant face was full of expansive indulgence as he looked at Henry and asked, “How are you doing around here?”
“Things don’t exactly look good,” he said. “Maybe I won’t be around here much longer.”
“Oh, stop worrying, son. Maybe we’ll be able to fix you up.”
“Gee, thanks, Mr. Convey.” It was all so sudden and exciting that Henry kept on bobbing his head, “Yes, Mr. Convey.”
“How about the kid over there,” Convey said, nodding toward Jean. “Isn’t it a little lonely for her sitting around?”
“Well, she seems to like it, Mr. Convey.”
“She’s a nice-looking kid. Sort of fresh and – well … uh, fresh, that’s it.” They both turned and looked over at Jean, who was watching them, her face excited and wondering.
“Maybe she’d like to go to a party at my place,” Convey said.
“I’ll ask her, Mr. Convey.”
“Why don’t you tell her to come along, see. You know, the Plaza, in about an hour. I’ll be looking for her.”
“Sure, Mr. Convey,” he said. He was astonished that Convey wanted him to do something for him. “It’s a pleasure,” he wanted to say. But for some reason it didn’t come out.
“Okay,” Convey said, and turned away, and Henry went back to his chair at the piano.
“What are you so excited about?” Jean asked him.
His eyes were shining as he looked at her little black hat and the way she held her head to one side as if she had just heard something exhilarating. He was trying to see what it was in her that had suddenly joined him to Convey. “Can you beat it!” he blurted out. “He wants you to go up to a party at his place.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, you.”
“What about you?”
“He knows I’ve got to stick around here, and, besides, there may be a lot of important people around there, and there’s always room at Convey’s parties for a couple of more girls.”
“I’d rather stay here with you,” she said.
Then they stopped whispering because Convey was going out, the light catching his bald spot.
“You got to do things like that,” Henry coaxed her. “Why, there isn’t a girl around here who wouldn’t give her front teeth to be asked up to his place.”
She let him go on telling her how important Convey was and when he had finished, she asked, “Why do I have to? Why can’t we just go over to your place?”
“I didn’t tell you. I didn’t want you to know, but it looks like I’m through around here. Unless Convey or somebody like that steps in I’m washed up,” he said. He took another ten minutes telling her all the things Convey could do for people.
“All right,” she said. “If you think we have to.” But she seemed to be deeply troubled. She waited while he went over to the head waiter and told him he’d be gone for an hour, and then they went out and got a cab. On the way up to Convey’s place she kept quiet, with the same troubled look on her face. When they got to the apartment house, and they were standing on the pavement, she turned to him. “Oh, Henry, I don’t want to go up there.”
“It’s just a little thing. It’s just a party,” he said.
“All right. If you say so, okay,” she said. Then she suddenly threw her arms around him. It was a little crazy because he found himself hugging her tight too. “I love you,” she said. “I knew I was going to love you when I came.” Her cheek, brushing against his, felt wet. Then she broke away.
As he watched her running in past the doorman that embarrassing tenderness he had felt on other nights touched him again, only it didn’t flow softly by him this time. It came like a swift stab.
In the tavern he sat looking at the piano, and his heart began to ache, and he turned around and looked at all the well-fed men and their women and he heard their deep-toned voices and their lazy laughter and he suddenly felt corrupt. Never in his life had he had such a feeling. He kept listening and looking into these familiar faces and he began to hate them as if they were to blame for blinding him to what was so beautiful and willing in Jean. He couldn’t sit there. He got his hat and went out and started to walk up to Convey’s.
Over and over he told himself he would go right up to Convey’s door and ask for her. But when he got to the apartment house and was looking up at the patches of light, he felt timid. It made it worse that he didn’t even know which window, which room was Convey’s. She seemed lost to him. So he walked up and down past the doorman, telling himself she would soon come running out and throw her arms around him when she found him waiting.
It got very late. Hardly anyone came from the entrance. The doorman quit for the night. Henry ran out of cigarettes, but he was scared to leave the entrance. Then the two broker friends of Convey’s came out, with two loud-talking girls, and they called a cab and all got in and went away. “She’s staying. She’s letting him keep her up there. I’d like to beat her. What does she think she is?” he thought. He was so sore at her that he exhausted himself, and then felt weak and wanted to sit down.
When he saw her coming out, it was nearly four o’clock in the morning. He had walked about ten paces away, and turned, and there she was on the pavement, looking back at the building.
“Jean,” he called, and he rushed at her. When she turned, and he saw that she didn’t look a bit worried, but blooming, lazy, and proud, he wanted to grab her and shake her.
“I’ve been here for hours,” he said. “What were you doing up there? Everybody else has gone home.”
“Have they?” she said.
“So you stayed up there with him!” he shouted. “Just like a tramp.”
She swung her hand and smacked him on the face. Then she took a step back, appraising him contemptuously. She suddenly laughed. “On your way. Get back to your piano,” she said.
“All right, all right, you wait, I’ll show you,” he muttered. “I’ll show everybody.” He stood watching her go down the street with a slow, self-satisfied sway of her body.
1939
VERY SPECIAL SHOES
All winter eleven-year-old Mary Johnson had been dreaming of a pair of red leather shoes she had seen in a shoe-store window on the avenue one afternoon when she was out with her mother doing the shopping. Every Saturday she had been given twenty-five cents for doing the housework all by herself and the day had come at last when it added up to six dollars, the price of the shoes. Moving around the house very quietly so she would not wake her mother who seemed to need a lot of sleep these days, Mary finished up the last of the dusting and hurried to the window and looked out: on such a day she had been afraid it might rain but the street was bright in the afternoon sunlight. Then she went quickly into the bedroom where her mother slept, with one light cover thrown half over her. “Mother, wake up,” she whispered excitedly.
Ancient Lineage and Other Stories Page 20
