Place in the City Page 8

  “I—don’t know.”

  “Jack—take me. Take me now, right here. For the love of this man you call Christ, take me—”

  WHILE the night grew deeper and longer, Meyer and his wife sat alone. Snow was falling slowly now; soon it would stop entirely, and then the city would lie silent and peaceful under the white blanket. The windows were curtained, but even through the curtains white bits of snow gleamed in the dark. A great cold was drifting down from the northern cap of the planet, and it seemed that New York, as a being, was groaning and drawing itself together.

  Meyer shivered. “It’s getting cold,” he whispered. “It’s getting cold inside even.” Then he looked at his wife, who had sat opposite him for almost an hour without saying anything, without speaking a word.

  He looked like an old man, his wife considered, the way he sat there. He was an old man. Years creep by, but all of a sudden they show their print. Because the. money was gone, money that would buy anything in the world. His mouth had fallen; his cheeks were sunken in, and all over their drawn surface small red and blue lines showed; his hair was gray and very thin. Old—old man; poor Meyer.

  After all, life was what—? Faith and birth and death were said to be big, so big that when a person was a gentile, there was a wall between you and him. That was said. But the old roots had been drawn up, and only for money they had dragged themselves across the sea. Little by little, your soul was sold; when it was all gone, money alone could make anything of life. Then the money was gone. Without the salt, you can’t season; and Meyer was an old man. Maybe, if Meyer looked at her, he considered that she was an old woman. Both ways. She was afraid of the winter; the cold ate into her bones. Indeed, Meyer was right when he said that it was cold.

  Old people. No faint flush of youth left. (Meyer, Meyer, Meyer, what did we do with it? Was ours the marriage of a match-maker? Meyer, we loved each other, and because of that we broke away. So take an accounting, Meyer—)

  Dismally, she repeated that to herself, “Take an accounting, Meyer.”

  “No son,” he was thinking to himself, “no son. Even the name will go the way everything else went. And my daughters go to hell with goyim. The heathen has taken his toll. Listen how the wind howls.”

  “The money is gone, so what is the use of scolding?” she thought. “If I scream at him, what good will it do? I love him. I even bind myself to him now, when he’s nothing but a broken old man—so old. Meyer—maybe it’s habit. But what would we have without a habit. When our daughters go away—”

  “I thought I could make more money, you see,” he explained helplessly. “I thought I could make more money, that’s what I thought. Bessie—you know I wouldn’t take the money just like that and lose it? You know that, don’t you?”

  “I know—I know, Meyer.”

  “So it’s gone, all of it—eleven thousand dollars. Maybe if I only saved a thousand dollars, maybe only a few hundred, but it’s all gone—”

  “Yeah—”

  “I go to the stock market—like a little lamb I went. Shutzey goes to the races and comes back to show all the money he won. But like a little lamb I go to the stock market. Why, why?”

  “You’ll think about it until you go mad—so stop thinking about it, Meyer. It’s gone. So we still have our health at least, and our children.”

  “So where is Marion—where is our children? Why should it be that we have to sit alone on a night like this, when even a dog wouldn’t be outside?”

  “They’re all right.”

  But he was old and tired. His children with their ways and ideas were as far from him as Shutzey. They had left him alone. They were gone, just as his money was gone.

  “Meyer,” his wife said, “why don’t you go to sleep?”

  “How can I sleep?”

  “You should rest.”

  “I should rest. All my life I stand in the store. That’s rest enough.”

  “Come to sleep with me, Meyer.”

  But there was neither pleasure nor attraction in his wife’s body now. He was too old, too tightly squeezed.

  DANNY came late, but he knew that Timy would understand, when he learned that Danny wasn’t a single man any more. Now he was married, and riding the stars with Timy. Timy would be the godfather of the first kid. Timy would love the kids, spoil them too, not having any of his own. Not that Timy didn’t believe in marriage. Timy did; Timy thought marriage was a great thing to straighten a man out, to keep him down and toeing the mark. In fact, Timy had often asked Danny why he didn’t pick himself up a nice girl someplace, settle down, raise a family. Timy liked the idea.

  Parking his car in front of the club, Danny looked at his watch. It was late, but the stag would go on well into the night. Anyway, by now almost everyone but Timy would be drunk. He could imagine how things would go if he came in and announced that he was married. They were all good fellows; they would fall on him, and insist that he got as drunk as they were. That would go on, all night, and in the morning, if he were sober enough, he might be able to break away.

  He blew his horn, and then he slowly went up the stairs. He could hear them shouting and laughing, and he could hear the band going full blast. Even in the hall, the smell of alcohol hung heavy. He waited for Timy, and in a moment or two, Timy came out, puffing on a cigar and grinning broadly at Danny.

  Timy didn’t drink. As long as Danny had known him, he had never taken a drink. “You don’t climb up on that stuff,” he often told Danny. “It’s too slippery.”

  He came out now with the cigar in his hand, a big grin all over his face. He liked Danny; Danny was a real kid, honest and clean. Timy knew that Danny would sell his soul for him.

  “Now ain’t it a fine time to get here,” Timy said, shaking his round pink head. “Now ain’t it a fine time for a friend of mine to get here. Maybe you had to go to a wedding, huh?”

  Without answering, Danny crawled out of his coat, shook the snow from it, and gave it to the check-man. He grinned back at Timy—and felt himself flushing. Well, anyway, say what you wanted to, they didn’t come any better than Timy. Timy was a swell guy, all around.

  “Maybe I did,” he nodded.

  Timy offered him a cigar. He took it, bit off the end, and lit up. He blew smoke at the ceiling, clenched the cigar between his teeth, put his hands in his pockets, and looked at Timy. “Congratulate me,” he said. “I got married tonight, Timy, so help me God. And what do you think I’m going to call the first kid? Timothy Dolan. How do you like that?—Timothy Dolan on a little nine-pound brat.”

  “Geesus Christ,” Timy said. “You ain’t kidding?”

  “So help me God!”

  “Who’s lucky—that little school teacher?”

  “Right. You work Meyer, Timy—so he don’t give her hell.”

  “You leave that to me, Danny. Maybe you ain’t got the Jewish and the Irish vote sewed up. That’ll make you mayor some day. I’ll be a sonovabitch. An’ it was only yesterday that you was delivering papers on Timy Dolan’s route. Now I’ll be a sonovabitch!”

  “You’re not sore, Timy?”

  “Hell, no—congratulations, kid. Listen, kid, ain’t it a cinch now. The boys are all inside. They’re in a helluva good way, and the night ain’t begun. We got seven kegs of beer, and enough whisky to float the navy. And the night ain’t even begun. C’mon, kid.”

  “Well—”

  “Hell, c’mon. You don’t get married none too often.”

  Alice was waiting; but this was only tonight, and there would be years after when they would be together. And a married man didn’t hit things on high. You were married, and then you settled down. Maybe you drifted away from the boys; that was only to be expected: but tonight the boys were still his friends. They had all come up together, right from the bottom with Timy. Now it wasn’t right to go away. He could stay for a little while, anyway.

  “All right.”

  “Listen, kid,” Timy told him. “You know how I feel about you. There ain’t a hel
l of a lot that I wouldn’t do for you. I think you’re straight in a tinhorn town, and there ain’t many. I don’t drink, but I’m going to get stinko tonight.”

  “Geesus, Timy—”

  “Awright.”

  As they came in, the music stopped. Timy stood in the middle of the hall waiting for silence. “Shut up, you drunken swine!” he yelled. Then to the band: “Play a wedding march! You heard me, didn’t you?” Then to Kraus: “G’wan down an’ break open some champagne, Dutch! Yeah, champagne. You heard me, didn’t you? We ain’t drinkin’ nothing but champagne tonight.”

  Danny forgot. The music went on. The boys drank and sang and gambled, and slapped him on the back. The boys all said that no girl in the world was good enough for him, and Danny thought so too. He drank until his belly was swollen up like a balloon, and then he went out into the hall and vomited for a good ten minutes. Coming back, he slipped. He crawled in and crawled over to Timy, who looked at him and shook his head.

  Timy grinned. “Yer drunk.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yer a good boy though.”

  “Yeah.”

  Danny pulled himself up to the table, slumped into a chair, and stared at a Timy whose head was swollen to magnificent proportions, but the same Timy, with pink cheeks and smooth yellow hair, but big, big. He blinked his eyes.

  “You get laid,” Timy told him. “Then you’ll feel better. You see if you don’t feel better then.”

  Kraus brought another bottle of champagne and began to pour. In Danny’s eyes, Kraus was a nightmare. He was grinning, but apparently he had no eyes. Just grinning folds of flesh.

  Moocher Mike, who ran the lottery game, was sitting next to Timy. As Timy spoke, he put his head down on the table and began to laugh. As he laughed, he licked the table with his tongue. Timy hit him in the head, behind the ear, and he fell off his chair, rolled under the table and lay there.

  “G’wan in the card-room, kid,” Timy said.

  Stumbling to his feet, Danny reeled over to the cardroom. He knew that he was very drunk, more drunk than he had ever been before. What was in the card-room, he didn’t know. All he knew was that he was very, very drunk.

  Hands helped him across. Once, he stopped, remembering that he had had to go somewhere. Where, he couldn’t for the life of him remember. He could recall that he was married; but whom was he married to? Tears came into his eyes at the thought. He was married, but he didn’t know his wife.

  In the room, one small light was burning. There was a bed next to the roulette, on the bed a shapeless white figure. Next to the bed, a man was pulling on his coat.

  Before he could comprehend it, Danny stared at the scene for almost a minute. Then, crying bitterly, he said to the man:

  “Get out of here and get away from my wife. I ought to kill you.”

  “Sure, Danny.”

  “Get out!”

  Danny sat down on the bed, put his face in his hands, and wept silently. The figure on the bed lay with its face buried in the pillow; but Danny knew that it was his wife. Otherwise, why would they have sent him in here? Then, very slowly, he recalled the stream of men that had gone in and out of the card-room all evening. And it was his wife. That’s what Timy had done to him; that’s what Timy’s friendship meant.

  “Hey—hey!” He tapped her on her shoulder. He wanted to call her by name, but he couldn’t for the life of him recall her name. It was on the tip of his tongue, but still it eluded him. “Turn over,” he said.

  She moved convulsively, whimpered.

  “You crying too?” Danny whispered.

  “Leave me alone.”

  “Aw, honey, now what are you afraid of? I won’t hurt you. You know that.”

  “Get away.”

  “You’re sore because I’m drunk,” Danny pleaded. “It’s not my fault. Timy says the smartest lawyer in town got a right to get drunk. Geesus, Timy’s drunk himself.”

  She whimpered again, moved an arm feebly. Tenderly, Danny drew part of a sheet over her, to cover her nakedness. He didn’t think it right that his wife should lie in bed naked, with men walking in and out of the room.

  “Turn over, baby,” he whispered. “I’m your husband.”

  “No—”

  “Turn over,” he said sternly. “I’m your husband, and what I say goes. Once and for all, what I say goes. See, I’m not drunk. Just listen to the way I talk. Listen to my ss. Ssssss—Baby, turn over.”

  “What—what?”

  “I’m your husband. You heard me.”

  “He’s dead—dead.”

  “I’m dead? Just look at me.”

  She turned over then, slowly, groaning, and looked at him. Then she screamed, and he remembered that his wife’s name was Alice, that this wasn’t Alice. The woman continued to scream.

  “Get away!” she cried.

  Throwing open the door, he ran across the hall toward Timy. Once he fell, but he was up again in an instant.

  “You bastard,” he yelled, “where’s my wife?”

  Timy looked at him and grinned. “Easy, Danny,” he said.

  “Your wife ain’t here. What’d she be doin’ here?”

  “Where’s my wife?”

  They came from all over the hall.

  “Take it easy, Danny.”

  “Whadda yu want yu wife tonight fur?”

  “Take a drink, Danny.”

  “Sure.”

  “Better take him home, Timy.”

  “Sure—sure—sure—”

  “You don’ wanna cry, Danny. What th’ hell yu cryin’ about?”

  WHEN Alice came home, her mother and father were waiting. As she entered the room, Meyer looked at her: first, she thought that he looked at her, and then she saw that he was looking through her, and then she wondered whether he saw her at all. Something had happened. She was deliriously happy, but she could not help noticing that Meyer was old. All in one evening, her father had become an old man, her mother too. Maybe they knew. Just for an instant it occurred to her that they knew, and then she realized how impossible it was, how quickly the entire thing had happened. They couldn’t know.

  “Where were you?” he mother asked her. Meyer saw nothing, but Bessie saw. Bessie saw that her cheeks were flushed, her eyes shining. The cold might flush her cheeks, but it would not make her eyes shine. Her little girl was happy; that, she knew. Happy. “Where were you, darling?” she repeated.

  Then she noticed the band of gold. As Alice pulled off her gloves, unthinkingly, her eyes fell on it. Both looked at it, and then both looked at Meyer, who saw nothing.

  Bessie felt a cold, dull pain bite into her heart. Instinctively, she knew everything. Now, everything seemed to her to be a thread, cut off in the middle. Her daughters were gone. True, Alice was one, but in the same way, the others would go. Thus, Apple Place claimed everything. It was over.

  Ever so slightly, she shrugged her shoulders. You felt so much that after a while you felt nothing at all—nothing. It went, and then all that remained was a dull gnawing deep in your heart.

  “You were with Danny,” Bessie said, stating a fact.

  “Yes—I was with Danny.”

  Meyer slowly woke to life. Here was something concrete; here was something he could lay his finger upon; here was something he could make into an issue.

  “Alice!”

  She dropped into a chair, shrugged her shoulders, and looked from one to the other. Now it would begin, but after all, what difference did it make? She was no longer theirs; she was Danny’s. They wouldn’t understand, ever. So she simply sat there, looking from one face to another, from her father’s, drawn, contorting with rage, to her mother’s dulled, knowing, understanding without understanding. Then she wanted to say:

  “Mother—give me what you couldn’t have.”

  In that way, her mother understood without understanding. Only deep in her heart, Bessie felt the pain, knowing that things had come to an end.

  “Alice!” Meyer roared again, pointing a trembl
ing finger at her.

  “Yes—?”

  “Alice, where were you?”

  “I was with Danny,” she said wearily. “I told you before that I was with Danny. What do you want me to say?”

  “Have I ever told you not to go with that rotten goy? Are you my daughter, or are you a stranger? Do you listen to me—or is my voice something to laugh at?”

  “I think I’m old enough—”

  “Answer me one thing! Are you my daughter?”

  “Meyer,” Bessie said.

  “Don’t give me Meyer now! All my life, I hear Meyer! Am I a slave? Answer me that! Am I a slave even in my own house? Good! Good! Then the whole world spits on me! My daughter spits on me! My wife spits on me! I’m not even as big as a cockroach!”

  “Meyer, don’t shout,” Bessie pleaded.

  “No, no—maybe someone will hear me! Me, I’m not decent enough to be heard, even in my own house. But my daughter runs around with goyim.”

  “Let her explain—let her explain,” his wife begged. “Should you yell at her like that, like she’s a baby? Let her explain, Meyer.”

  “Sure, sure, let her explain! Me—I shouldn’t say a word, but let her explain. This Danny is like a glove for Timy’s hand. I don’t know? Maybe I don’t know? Maybe I stand in the store and listen all day for nothing? Maybe when the pimps and the gamblers and the whores and the gangsters come in, I don’t hear what they say? Maybe I am deaf and dumb and too stupid to know anything at all!”

  “Meyer—nobody said you were stupid.”

  “Then I should thank you, huh? Because you didn’t say I was stupid. But about this Danny I shouldn’t speak, when he’s no better than a pimp!”

  “That’s not so,” Alice said quietly.

  “No? No? I tell you one thing—that I would see a daughter of mine married to Shutzey before I would see her married to that Danny. At least Shutzey is a bummer out and out, but that Danny is slimy like a snake!”

  “No! How can you say that?”

  Bessie cried: “Meyer—!”

  Now his face was glowing, red as a beet, and his breath came in long hard gasps. The blood-vessels, standing out from his neck and temples, throbbed like mad. Leaning forward in his chair, he clenched his hands on his knees.