by Saul Bellow
More relatives came; the vast apartment filled. It was family custom on Friday night, and, moreover, the word was out that Charlotte was engaged. People wanted to see Simon. He already knew most of them, the giant uncles and heavy-pelted aunts in their Siberian furs who came up from their Cadillacs and Packards: Uncle Charlie Magnus who owned the coal yards; Uncle Artie who owned a big mattress factory; Uncle Robby who was a commission merchant in South Water Street, ponderous, white, and caracul-haired—like Stiva Lausch—and with a hearing-aid plugged in. There were sons in uniform, from military academy, and others with football letters, and daughters, and little children. Simon was ready for the uncles and aunts, very familiar and even already overbearing to some. He had a natural hang of their whole system of fellowship and contempt—how not to be caught under any circumstances in a position where to be looked down on was unavoidable, so that you could read in a back, bearishly turned, that you were a schmuck.
I have to say that Simon’s confidence was superb, and it was he who was getting them under, though he was deferential with a few of the women. Toward these, heartiness or brazening wasn’t indicated, but what was necessary was to prove that in addition to everything he was also a lover. I must say also that he had no embarrassment because of me; he assumed my complicity and was teaching and leading me. So I followed him around, because there was nobody else for me to stand close to comfortably. It lacked white stockings and fans to resemble the Directorate—I’m thinking of commoners suddenly in the palaces of power. But the Magnuses seemed less to know what to do. However, in all the world there was no one who had more than they of anything except money—a gap that could perhaps be closed.
Over this tumultuousness and family heat, melding yells at the pinochle table, the racing of the kids, pitchers of cocoa and tea and masses of coffee cake carried in, political booming and the sharper neighing of women and all this grand vital discord, there was the supervision of Uncle Charlie standing, or rather rearing, beside his wigged mother in her black dress. If it strikes me as advisable to add “rearing” it is because of the tightness of his belly and the great weight supported by his feet, and possibly also because the old woman wore a collar of things in gold shaped like grizzly-teeth, and that reminds me of creatures. He was white, thick, and peevish, and had the kind of insolence that sometimes affects the eyes like snowblindness, making you think there’s something arctic about having a million bucks. At least an immigrant who during the Depression was a millionaire had this dazzle. Not that Uncle Charlie was formidable in all respects; I’m taking him at a posed moment, during a family occasion, a niece to be married off and new kin to be added.
Through Simon I had got to be a candidate too. If he worked out well then I might also be considered as a husband, for there wasn’t any lack of daughters to marry, some of them pretty and all with money. So far Simon had had nothing but successes. For several weeks he had been working under Uncle Charlie’s eye, first as weighmaster and cashier and then learning to buy, meeting brokers and salesmen and learning about freight rates and the different coal fields. Uncle Charlie certified that he was fehig, or apt, a naturally good businesshead, and all were very pleased. Simon was already looking for a yard of his own, hoping to find one with an overhead track that would reduce unloading costs. In short, Uncle Charlie was extremely indulgent with him as an up-and-comer, and he received all the marks of the old boy’s favor, the simple cordial obscenities and hand on the shoulder; he wagged his head near Simon’s face and opened up all bounties. His humor made everybody laugh with pleasure. Nobody thought to remonstrate about children and young girls when Uncle Charlie said, “Sonofabitch, you’re fo-kay, my boy, fo-kay. You got the goods. I think you can put it down between the sheets too, eh?” because this was just his usual manner of speaking.
“What do you think?” said Simon. “Leave it to me.”
“Yes, I think. I leave it to you. You think I’m goin’ to take it myself? Wouldn’t be fun for Charlotte. Look how she’s built. Nothing was left out. She has to have a young husk.”
Here I came in for my share of the notice. Kelly Weintraub, one of the distant cousins by marriage and a trucker who worked for Uncle Robby, said, “Look at his brother. The girls are popping their eyes out at him. Your daughter Lucy the worst. You got no shame, kid? In this family the girls can’t hardly wait.”
There were shrieks about this. Through them Lucy Magnus continued to smile at me though her color deeply changed. She was slighter than most of her family; she wasn’t shy to make a declaration of honest sensuality under the scrutiny of the whole clan. None of the Magnuses took the trouble to conceal such things; it wasn’t necessary. The young ones could tell their parents exactly what they wanted, which I found admirable. I could look at Lucy with pleasure too. She was plain but had a healthy face, very clear skin, and pretty breasts that she swung where she pleased. Only her nose might have been finer; it was a little broad, as was her mouth, but her black eyes were strong and declarative, and her hair black and delicate. It made me think of her maiden hair and there were suggestions I didn’t try at all to evade. But these were lover’s not husbandly thoughts. I had no special mind to get married. I saw Simon’s difficulties too clearly for that.
“Come here,” said her father to me, and I had to stand close inspection. “What do you do?” he said, winking with the full snow-blindness.
Simon answered for me, “He’s in the book business. Until he saves enough to go back to the university and finish his degree.”
“Shut up!” he said. “C—sucker! I asked him, not you, budinski! What do you do?”
I said, “I’m in the book business, as Simon told you.” I thought the old man must be able to pierce by strength of suspicion my crookery, all the oddity of Owens’ house and my friends there. What a book business could signify to him but starving Pentateuch peddlers with beards full of Polish lice and feet wrapped in sacking, I couldn’t fathom.
“Goddammit the schools. There’s schoolboys now until gray hair. So what are you studying for, a lawyer? Fo-kay! I guess we got to have them, the crooks. My sons don’t go to school. My daughters go, so long it keeps them out of trouble.”
“Augie was thinking of going to law school,” Simon said to Lucy’s mother.
“Yes, that’s right,” I too said.
“Fine, fine, fine, fine,” said Uncle Charlie, my hearing done and his face of thick white hide turned in dismissal from us all; he threatened with his intensest care his daughter Lucy, who answered him with one of her smiles. I saw that she promised him obedience and he promised back the satisfaction of all legitimate needs as long as she obeyed him.
There was another special glance on me, that of my sister-in-law Charlotte, with her investigative, warm, and to some extent despairing eyes. I don’t doubt that she already knew some displeasing things about Simon, and perhaps she was trying to see them in me also. I presume she was thinking what risks her cousin Lucy ran with me.
Meanwhile Kelly Weintraub was saying, “He has a pair of bedroom eyes, Augie.” But I was the only one of the principals to hear and I took a good look at him to see how much harm he really meant me and to what extent he was kidding, the handsome teameo, slick-haired, with certainly horny eyes of his own and a suggestive pad of a chin.
“I know you guys,” he said to me.
Then I recognized him, not greatly different, really, from what he had been in the schoolyard, in his sweaters.
“You had a little brother, George.”
“We still have him. He’s not little any more,” I said. “He’s big and he’s living downstate.”
“Where, in Manteno?”
“No, it’s in another town, a little place down near Pinckneyville. You know that part of the state?” I didn’t know it myself. Simon was the only one of us who had ever gone down there, the Renlings having been unable at that time to spare me.
“No, I don’t. But I remember George,” he said.
“I remember you too, s
kitching rides on the ice wagons.” I shrugged, smiling. It was foolish of him to be suggesting a menace. He thought he could put a stick in Simon’s spokes; Simon was way ahead of him.
“Of course Charlotte knows,” said Simon when I told him about Kelly Weintraub. “Why should we make a secret of it? She even wants to put George into a private institution. Don’t worry, nobody pays any attention to this guy. He doesn’t count around here. Anyhow, I recognized him first and got the jump on him. Leave it to me, I have them all eating out of my hand.” He added, “You’ll be doing the same if you’ll listen to me. You made a good first impression.”
I quickly learned what power he really had with them. For he had absolutely meant it when he said he had plans for me, and he came for me several times a week to take me on his rounds. We had lunch with uncles and cousins in the rich businessmen’s restaurants and clubs, fancy steakhouses. Simon was hard with them and didn’t yield ground whether it was a joke or an argument that came up, while in an undertone he gave me the lowdown on them, contemptuously. I saw him developing some terrible abilities in quarrelsomeness; he differed with all their opinions no matter on what subject. It might be about tailors, or entertainers, or heavyweight fighters, or politics—things on which he informed himself as he went along. He was impatient even in his jokes; he made waiters fear him, sending dishes back to the kitchen, but then he gave large tips also. He seemed to have no regard for money—he always carried a big bankroll now—but actually, by the way he handled wallet and the bills, he convinced me that he knew what he was doing.
He said to me, “With these people you’ve got to spend. If they see you cautious with a buck, you lose your standing with them. And I have to stand in good. They know everybody, and I’m going out for myself soon and I need them. Just these bull-session lunches and going to the Chez Paree and the Glass Derby, proving I can keep up their speed, you see, that’s the first thing. They’re not going to deal with anybody that’s not one of them. Now you understand why a slob like Kelly Weintraub doesn’t count. He can’t afford to eat lunch in joints like these, he can’t take a check at the Chez Paree without everybody being uncomfortable and reckoning he can’t afford it, because they know exactly what he’s pulling down a week. You see, he’s a negligible factor and nobody will listen to him. I’ll remember him though,” he said with dangerous promise. I knew he kept a file of accounts to settle. Did Cissy and Five Properties have a folder in it to themselves? I thought they must.
“Ah!” he said. “Come downtown with me. Let’s get our hair cut.”
We drove to the Palmer House and went below into the big radiance of the barbershop. Simon would have let his fine English coat fall to the ground if the Negro attendant hadn’t run in time to gather it in his arms. We sat before the huge mirrors in those episcopal machines, the big chairs, and were groomed and shampooed. Simon had himself steamed and singed, manicured, had everything lavished on himself, and not simply urged me but forced me to do as he did. He wanted to try all they knew how to do.
It was getting so that I had to undergo an examination of almost brass-hat severity when I appeared before him. My heels must not be turned over by so much as an eighth of an inch, my cuffs had to strike my shoes right, he supplied me with ties, taking mine away and leaving a dozen of his own choice on the rack. He yelled and bullied if he thought I didn’t wear my clothes exactly as he thought I should. And these were things I had lost interest in since Evanston. I had to expect ridicule from Mimi for having polished nails. I let it be done. I didn’t consider my fingers much. It was probably an asset to me as a book thief. Looking at my hands and at my ties, who would suspect me? For I hadn’t, of course, stopped stealing. I didn’t any longer have to support Mama; Simon took care of that. But while he paid for me wherever we went, it was still expensive to go with him. Occasionally there were tips or drinks or cigars or corsages for Charlotte that slipped his mind, and I had larger cleaning and laundry bills than ever before. Once in a while I went, moreover, with Padilla for a Saturday night with our friends on Lake Park Avenue. And besides, I was trying to get together the university entrance fee. Shrewdly, Simon gave me little money; mostly he gave me things. He wanted me to learn to have expensive needs, and the desire for dough would come of itself. Then if I were to begin to ask him for more, he could hook me.
From the barbershop we’d go to Field’s to buy him a dozen or so shirts, imported Italian underclothes or slacks or shoes, all things of which he already had a surplus; he showed me drawers, closets, shelves full, and still kept buying. Some part of this was due to his having been on the wrong side of the counter, or the servile back on the shoe-fitting stool, and in part this was his way of tempting me. But also I knew that in the barbershop and on the shopping trips he was aiming to refresh himself; he slept badly and was looking flabby and ill, and one morning when he came to fetch me he locked himself in the toilet and cried. After that day he wouldn’t come upstairs; he honked his horn for me in the street. He said, “I can’t stand the joint you live in; they don’t keep it clean. Are you sure they don’t have bed animals? And the can is filthy. I don’t see how you can go into it.” Soon he took to saying this with the same inspection glare he had for my appearance. “When are you going to move out of this rat nest! Jesus, it’s the sort of place plagues and epidemics start in!” Eventually he stopped calling for me. He’d phone when he wanted me; sometimes he’d send wires. At first, however, he wanted me with him constantly. So, then, we were in the gleaming lanes and warm indoor puffing of the department store, but after when he started back to the West Side, wearing one of his new ties and temporarily in a better state, suddenly he would lose it all, it seemed, and, pressing on the gas pedal, he must have seen himself speeding across the last boundary of his strength. But just as the car, squealing around corners, righted itself, he too kept balance. However, it was evident that his feelings were suicidal from the way he drove and the way he leaped forward in arguments, hit him who would; he kept a tire tool under the driver’s seat for his weapon in traffic arguments, and he cursed everybody in the street, running through lights and scattering pedestrians. The truth back of all this was that he had his pockets full of money as an advance on his promised ability to make a rich man of himself and now had to deliver.
In spring he leased a yard, at the end of the coal season. It had no overhead track, only a long spur of siding, and the first rains made a marsh of the whole place. It had to be drained. The first coal was unloaded in the wet. The office itself was a shack; the scale needed expensive repairs. His first few thousand dollars ran out and he had to ask for more; he had a credit to establish with the brokers, and it was important that he meet his bills on time. Uncle Charlie made that easier. Nevertheless, there was Uncle Charlie himself to satisfy.
There was, besides, a substantial wage to pay his yard manager and weighmaster, Happy Kellerman, whom he had lured away from a large old West Side company. He’d have hired me instead (at perhaps a little less) if I’d been able to handle the job, and he insisted on my coming to learn the ropes from Happy, so that presently I was spending a good amount of time at the office; for when he grabbed my wrist and told me, almost drunkenly, with the grime and chapping of the mouth that comes of long nervous talking, saying low, huskily, viciously, “There’s got to be somebody here I can trust. Got to be!” I couldn’t refuse. However, there was not much that Happy could be dishonest about. He was a beer saufer; droopy, small, a humorist, wry, drawn, weak, his tone nosy and quinchy, his pants in creases under his paunch; his nose curved up and presented offended and timorous nostrils, and he had round, disingenuous eyes in which he showed he was strongly defended. He was a tío listo, a carnival type, a whorehouse visitor. His style was that of a hoofer in the lowest circuit, doing a little cane-swinging and heel-and-toe routine, singing, “I went to school with Maggie Murphy,” and telling smokehouse stories while the goofy audience waited for the naked star to come out and begin the grinds. He had a repertory of harmless
little jokes, dog yipes, mock farts; his best prank was to come up behind and seize you by the leg with a Pekinese snarl. By Simon’s wish I had to spend afternoons with him studying the business. Especially since I had heard him weeping in the can Simon wasn’t easy for me to turn down.
