Title: The Iceman Cometh (1946)
Author: Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953)
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A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook
Title: The Iceman Cometh (1946)
Author: Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953)
CHARACTERS
HARRY HOPE, proprietor of a saloon and rooming house*
ED MOSHER, Hope's brother-in-law, one-time circus man*
PAT McGLOIN, one-time Police Lieutenant*
WILLIE OBAN, a Harvard Law School alumnus*
JOE MOTT, one-time proprietor of a Negro gambling house
PIET WETJOEN ("THE GENERAL"), one-time leader of a Boer commando*
CECIL LEWIS ("THE CAPTAIN"), one-time Captain of British infantry*
JAMES CAMERON ("JIMMY TOMORROW"), one-time Boer War correspondent*
HUGO KALMAR, one-time editor of Anarchist periodicals
LARRY SLADE, one-time Syndicalist-Anarchist*
ROCKY PIOGGI, night bartender*
DON PARRITT*
PEARL*
MARGIE*--street walkers
CORA
CHUCK MORELLO, day bartender*
THEODORE HICKMAN (HICKEY), a hardware salesman
MORAN
LIEB
*Roomers at Harry Hope's.
SCENES
ACT ONE
Scene--Back room and a section of the bar at Harry Hope's--early
morning in summer, 1912.
ACT TWO
Scene--Back room, around midnight of the same day.
ACT THREE
Scene--Bar and a section of the back room--morning of the following
day.
ACT FOUR
Scene--Same as Act One. Back room and a section of the bar--around
1:30 A.M. of the next day.
Harry Hope's is a Raines-Law hotel of the period, a cheap ginmill
of the five-cent whiskey, last-resort variety situated on the
downtown West Side of New York. The building, owned by Hope, is a
narrow five-story structure of the tenement type, the second floor
a flat occupied by the proprietor. The renting of rooms on the
upper floors, under the Raines-Law loopholes, makes the
establishment legally a hotel and gives it the privilege of serving
liquor in the back room of the bar after closing hours and on
Sundays, provided a meal is served with the booze, thus making a
back room legally a hotel restaurant. This food provision was
generally circumvented by putting a property sandwich in the middle
of each table, an old desiccated ruin of dust-laden bread and
mummified ham or cheese which only the drunkest yokel from the
sticks ever regarded as anything but a noisome table decoration.
But at Harry Hope's, Hope being a former minor Tammanyite and still
possessing friends, this food technicality is ignored as
irrelevant, except during the fleeting alarms of reform agitation.
Even Hope's back room is not a separate room, but simply the rear
of the barroom divided from the bar by drawing a dirty black
curtain across the room.
The Iceman Cometh
ACT ONE
SCENE--The back room and a section of the bar of Harry Hope's
saloon on an early morning in summer, 1912. The right wall of the
back room is a dirty black curtain which separates it from the bar.
At rear, this curtain is drawn back from the wall so the bartender
can get in and out. The back room is crammed with round tables and
chairs placed so close together that it is a difficult squeeze to
pass between them. In the middle of the rear wall is a door
opening on a hallway. In the left corner, built out into the room,
is the toilet with a sign "This is it" on the door. Against the
middle of the left wall is a nickel-in-the-slot phonograph. Two
windows, so glazed with grime one cannot see through them, are in
the left wall, looking out on a backyard. The walls and ceiling
once were white, but it was a long time ago, and they are now so
splotched, peeled, stained and dusty that their color can best be
described as dirty. The floor, with iron spittoons placed here and
there, is covered with sawdust. Lighting comes from single wall
brackets, two at left and two at rear.
There are three rows of tables, from front to back. Three are in
the front line. The one at left-front has four chairs; the one at
center-front, four; the one at right-front, five. At rear of, and
half between, front tables one and two is a table of the second row
with five chairs. A table, similarly placed at rear of front
tables two and three, also has five chairs. The third row of
tables, four chairs to one and six to the other, is against the
rear wall on either side of the door.
At right of this dividing curtain is a section of the barroom, with
the end of the bar seen at rear, a door to the hall at left of it.
At front is a table with four chairs. Light comes from the street
windows off right, the gray subdued light of early morning in a
narrow street. In the back room, Larry Slade and Hugo Kalmar are
at the table at left-front, Hugo in a chair facing right, Larry at
rear of table facing front, with an empty chair between them. A
fourth chair is at right of table, facing left. Hugo is a small
man in his late fifties. He has a head much too big for his body,
a high forehead, crinkly long black hair streaked with gray, a
square face with a pug nose, a walrus mustache, black eyes which
peer nearsightedly from behind thick-lensed spectacles, tiny hands
and feet. He is dressed in threadbare black clothes and his white
shirt is frayed at collar and cuffs, but everything about him is
fastidiously clean. Even his flowing Windsor tie is neatly tied.
There is a foreign atmosphere about him, the stamp of an alien
radical, a strong resemblance to the type Anarchist as portrayed,
bomb in hand, in newspaper cartoons. He is asleep now, bent
forward in his chair, his arms folded on the table, his head
resting sideways on his arms.
Larry Slade is sixty. He is tall, raw-boned, with coarse straight
white hair, worn long and raggedly cut. He has a gaunt Irish face
with a big nose, high cheekbones, a lantern jaw with a week's
stubble of beard, a mystic's meditative pale-blue eyes with a gleam
of sharp sardonic humor in them. As slovenly as Hugo is neat, his
clothes are dirty and much slept in. His gray flannel shirt, open
at the neck, has the appearance of having never been washed. From
the way he methodically scratches himself with his long-fingered,
hairy hands, he is lousy and reconciled to being so. He is the
only occupant of the room who is not asleep. He stares in front of
him, an expression of tired tolerance giving his face the quality
of a pitying but weary old priest's.
All four chairs at the middle table, front, are occupied. Joe Mott
sits at left front of the table, facing front. Behind him, facing
right-front, is Piet Wetjoen ("The General"). At center of the
table, rear, James Cameron ("Jimmy Tomorrow") sits facing front.
At right of table, opposite Joe, is Cecil Lewis ("The Captain").
Joe Mott is a Negro, about fifty years old, brown-skinned, stocky,
wearing a light suit that had once been flashily sporty but is now
about to fall apart. His pointed tan buttoned shoes, faded pink
shirt and bright tie belong to the same vintage. Still, he manages
to preserve an atmosphere of nattiness and there is nothing dirty
about his appearance. His face is only mildly negroid in type.
The nose is thin and his lips are not noticeably thick. His hair
is crinkly and he is beginning to get bald. A scar from a knife
slash runs from his left cheekbone to jaw. His face would be hard
and tough if it were not for its good nature and lazy humor. He is
asleep, his nodding head supported by his left hand.
Piet Wetjoen, the Boer, is in his fifties, a huge man with a bald
head and a long grizzled beard. He is slovenly dressed in a dirty
shapeless patched suit, spotted by food. A Dutch farmer type, his
once great muscular strength has been debauched into flaccid
tallow. But despite his blubbery mouth and sodden bloodshot blue
eyes, there is still a suggestion of old authority lurking in him
like a memory of the drowned. He is hunched forward, both elbows
on the table, his hands on each side of his head for support.
James Cameron ("Jimmy Tomorrow") is about the same size and age as
Hugo, a small man. Like Hugo, he wears threadbare black, and
everything about him is clean. But the resemblance ceases there.
Jimmy has a face like an old well-bred, gentle bloodhound's, with
folds of flesh hanging from each side of his mouth, and big brown
friendly guileless eyes, more bloodshot than any bloodhound's ever
were. He has mouse-colored thinning hair, a little bulbous nose,
buck teeth in a small rabbit mouth. But his forehead is fine, his
eyes are intelligent and there once was a competent ability in him.
His speech is educated, with the ghost of a Scotch rhythm in it.
His manners are those of a gentleman. There is a quality about him
of a prim, Victorian old maid, and at the same time of a likable,
affectionate boy who has never grown up. He sleeps, chin on chest,
hands folded in his lap.
Cecil Lewis ("The Captain") is as obviously English as Yorkshire
pudding and just as obviously the former army officer. He is going
on sixty. His hair and military mustache are white, his eyes
bright blue, his complexion that of a turkey. His lean figure is
still erect and square-shouldered. He is stripped to the waist,
his coat, shirt, undershirt, collar and tie crushed up into a
pillow on the table in front of him, his head sideways on this
pillow, facing front, his arms dangling toward the floor. On his
lower left shoulder is the big ragged scar of an old wound.
At the table at right, front, Harry Hope, the proprietor, sits in
the middle, facing front, with Pat McGloin on his right and Ed
Mosher on his left, the other two chairs being unoccupied.
Both McGloin and Mosher are big paunchy men. McGloin has his old
occupation of policeman stamped all over him. He is in his
fifties, sandy-haired, bullet-headed, jowly, with protruding ears
and little round eyes. His face must once have been brutal and
greedy, but time and whiskey have melted it down into a good-
humored, parasite's characterlessness. He wears old clothes and is
slovenly. He is slumped sideways on his chair, his head drooping
jerkily toward one shoulder.
Ed Mosher is going on sixty. He has a round kewpie's face--a
kewpie who is an unshaven habitual drunkard. He looks like an
enlarged, elderly, bald edition of the village fat boy--a sly fat
boy, congenitally indolent, a practical joker, a born grafter and
con merchant. But amusing and essentially harmless, even in his
most enterprising days, because always too lazy to carry
crookedness beyond petty swindling. The influence of his old
circus career is apparent in his get-up. His worn clothes are
flashy; he wears phony rings and a heavy brass watch-chain (not
connected to a watch). Like McGloin, he is slovenly. His head is
thrown back, his big mouth open.
Harry Hope is sixty, white-haired, so thin the description "bag of
bones" was made for him. He has the face of an old family horse,
prone to tantrums, with balkiness always smoldering in its wall
eyes, waiting for any excuse to shy and pretend to take the bit in
its teeth. Hope is one of those men whom everyone likes on sight,
a softhearted slob, without malice, feeling superior to no one, a
sinner among sinners, a born easy mark for every appeal. He
attempts to hide his defenselessness behind a testy truculent
manner, but this has never fooled anyone. He is a little deaf, but
not half as deaf as he sometimes pretends. His sight is failing
but is not as bad as he complains it is. He wears five-and-ten-
cent-store spectacles which are so out of alignment that one eye at
times peers half over one glass while the other eye looks half
under the other. He has badly fitting store teeth, which click
like castanets when he begins to fume. He is dressed in an old
coat from one suit and pants from another.
In a chair facing right at the table in the second line, between
the first two tables, front, sits Willie Oban, his head on his left
arm outstretched along the table edge. He is in his late thirties,
of average height, thin. His haggard, dissipated face has a small
nose, a pointed chin, blue eyes with colorless lashes and brows.
His blond hair, badly in need of a cut, clings in a limp part to
his skull. His eyelids flutter continually as if any light were
too strong for his eyes. The clothes he wears belong on a
scarecrow. They seem constructed of an inferior grade of dirty
blotting paper. His shoes are even more disreputable, wrecks of
imitation leather, one laced with twine, the other with a bit of
wire. He has no socks, and his bare feet show through holes in the
soles, with his big toes sticking out of the uppers. He keeps
muttering and twitching in his sleep.
As the curtain rises, Rocky, the night bartender, comes from the
bar through the curtain and stands looking over the back room. He
is a Neapolitan-American in his late twenties, squat and muscular,
with a flat, swarthy face and beady eyes. The sleeves of his
collarless shirt are rolled up on his thick, powerful arms and he
wears a soiled apron. A tough guy but sentimental, in his way, and
good-natured. He signals to Larry with a cautious "Sstt" and
motions him to see if Hope is asleep. Larry rises from his chair
to look at Hope and nods to Rocky. Rocky goes back in the bar but
immediately returns with a bottle of bar whiskey and a glass. He
squeezes between the tables to Larry.
ROCKY--(in a low voice out of the side of his mouth) Make it fast.
(Larry pours a drink and gulps it down. Rocky takes the bottle and
puts it on the table where Willie Oban is.) Don't want de Boss to
get wise when he's got one of his tightwad buns on. (He chuckles
with an amused glance at Hope.) Jees, ain't de old bastard a riot
when he starts dat bull about turnin' over a new leaf? "Not a
damned drink on de house," he tells me, "and all dese bums got to
pay up deir room rent. Beginnin' tomorrow," he says. Jees, yuh'd
tink he meant it! (He sits down in the chair at Larry's left.)
LARRY--(grinning) I'll be glad to pay up--tomorrow. And I know my
fellow inmates will promise the same. They've all a touching
credulity concerning tomorrows. (a half-drunken mockery in his
eyes) It'll be a great day for them, tomorrow--the Feast of All
Fools, with brass bands playing! Their ships will come in, loaded
to the gunwales with cancelled regrets and promises fulfilled and
clean slates and new leases!
ROCKY--(cynically) Yeah, and a ton of hop!
LARRY--(leans toward him, a comical intensity in his low voice)
Don't mock the faith! Have you no respect for religion, you
unregenerate Wop? What's it matter if the truth is that their
favoring breeze has the stink of nickel whiskey on its breath, and
their sea is a growler of lager and ale, and their ships are long
since looted and scuttled and sunk on the bottom? To hell with the
truth! As the history of the world proves, the truth has no
bearing on anything. It's irrelevant and immaterial, as the
lawyers say. The lie of a pipe dream is what gives life to the
whole misbegotten mad lot of us, drunk or sober. And that's enough
philosophic wisdom to give you for one drink of rot-gut.
ROCKY--(grins kiddingly) De old Foolosopher, like Hickey calls
yuh, ain't yuh? I s'pose you don't fall for no pipe dream?
LARRY--(a bit stiffly) I don't, no. Mine are all dead and buried
behind me. What's before me is the comforting fact that death is a
fine long sleep, and I'm damned tired, and it can't come too soon
for me.
ROCKY--Yeah, just hangin' around hopin' you'll croak, ain't yuh?
Well, I'm bettin' you'll have a good long wait. Jees, somebody'll
have to take an axe to croak you!
LARRY--(grins) Yes, it's my bad luck to be cursed with an iron
constitution that even Harry's booze can't corrode.
ROCKY--De old anarchist wise guy dat knows all de answers! Dat's
you, huh?
LARRY--(frowns) Forget the anarchist part of it. I'm through with
the Movement long since. I saw men didn't want to be saved from
themselves, for that would mean they'd have to give up greed, and
they'll never pay that price for liberty. So I said to the world,
God bless all here, and may the best man win and die of gluttony!
And I took a seat in the grandstand of philosophical detachment to
fall asleep observing the cannibals do their death dance. (He
chuckles at his own fancy--reaches over and shakes Hugo's
shoulder.) Ain't I telling him the truth, Comrade Hugo?
ROCKY--Aw, fer Chris' sake, don't get dat bughouse bum started!
HUGO--(raises his head and peers at Rocky blearily through his
thick spectacles--in a guttural declamatory tone) Capitalist
swine! Bourgeois stool pigeons! Have the slaves no right to sleep
even? (Then he grins at Rocky and his manner changes to a
giggling, wheedling playfulness, as though he were talking to a
child.) Hello, leedle Rocky! Leedle monkey-face! Vere is your
leedle slave girls? (with an abrupt change to a bullying tone)
Don't be a fool! Loan me a dollar! Damned bourgeois Wop! The
great Malatesta is my good friend! Buy me a trink! (He seems to
run down, and is overcome by drowsiness. His head sinks to the
table again and he is at once fast asleep.)
ROCKY--He's out again. (more exasperated than angry) He's lucky
no one don't take his cracks serious or he'd wake up every mornin'
in a hospital.
LARRY--(regarding Hugo with pity) No. No one takes him seriously.
That's his epitaph. Not even the comrades any more. If I've been
through with the Movement long since, it's been through with him,
and, thanks to whiskey, he's the only one doesn't know it.
ROCKY--I've let him get by wid too much. He's goin' to pull dat
slave-girl stuff on me once too often. (His manner changes to
defensive argument.) Hell, yuh'd tink I wuz a pimp or somethin'.
Everybody knows me knows I ain't. A pimp don't hold no job. I'm a
bartender. Dem tarts, Margie and Poil, dey're just a side line to
pick up some extra dough. Strictly business, like dey was fighters
and I was deir manager, see? I fix the cops for dem so's dey can
hustle widout gettin' pinched. Hell, dey'd be on de Island most of
de time if it wasn't fer me. And I don't beat dem up like a pimp
would. I treat dem fine. Dey like me. We're pals, see? What if
I do take deir dough? Dey'd on'y trow it away. Tarts can't hang
on to dough. But I'm a bartender and I work hard for my livin' in
dis dump. You know dat, Larry.
LARRY--(with inner sardonic amusement--flatteringly) A shrewd
business man, who doesn't miss any opportunity to get on in the
world. That's what I'd call you.
ROCKY--(pleased) Sure ting. Dat's me. Grab another ball, Larry.
(Larry pours a drink from the bottle on Willie's table and gulps it
down. Rocky glances around the room.) Yuh'd never tink all dese
bums had a good bed upstairs to go to. Scared if dey hit the hay
dey wouldn't be here when Hickey showed up, and dey'd miss a coupla
drinks. Dat's what kept you up too, ain't it?
LARRY--It is. But not so much the hope of booze, if you can
believe that. I've got the blues and Hickey's a great one to make
a joke of everything and cheer you up.
ROCKY--Yeah, some kidder! Remember how he woiks up dat gag about
his wife, when he's cockeyed, cryin' over her picture and den
springin' it on yuh all of a sudden dat he left her in de hay wid
de iceman? (He laughs.) I wonder what's happened to him. Yuh
could set your watch by his periodicals before dis. Always got
here a coupla days before Harry's birthday party, and now he's on'y
got till tonight to make it. I hope he shows soon. Dis dump is
like de morgue wid all dese bums passed out. (Willie Oban jerks
and twitches in his sleep and begins to mumble. They watch him.)
WILLIE--(blurts from his dream) It's a lie! (miserably) Papa!
Papa!
LARRY--Poor devil. (then angry with himself) But to hell with
pity! It does no good. I'm through with it!
ROCKY--Dreamin' about his old man. From what de old-timers say, de
old gent sure made a pile of dough in de bucket-shop game before de
cops got him. (He considers Willie frowningly.) Jees, I've seen
him bad before but never dis bad. Look at dat get-up. Been
playin' de old reliever game. Sold his suit and shoes at Solly's
two days ago. Solly give him two bucks and a bum outfit.
Yesterday he sells de bum one back to Solly for four bits and gets
dese rags to put on. Now he's through. Dat's Solly's final
edition he wouldn't take back for nuttin'. Willie sure is on de
bottom. I ain't never seen no one so bad, except Hickey on de end
of a coupla his bats.
LARRY--(sardonically) It's a great game, the pursuit of happiness.
ROCKY--Harry don't know what to do about him. He called up his old
lady's lawyer like he always does when Willie gets licked. Yuh
remember dey used to send down a private dick to give him the rush
to a cure, but de lawyer tells Harry nix, de old lady's off of
Willie for keeps dis time and he can go to hell.
LARRY--(watches Willie, who is shaking in his sleep like an old
dog) There's the consolation that he hasn't far to go! (As if
replying to this, Willie comes to a crisis of jerks and moans.
Larry adds in a comically intense, crazy whisper) Be God, he's
knocking on the door right now!
WILLIE--(suddenly yells in his nightmare) It's a Goddamned lie!
(He begins to sob.) Oh, Papa! Jesus! (All the occupants of the
room stir on their chairs but none of them wakes up except Hope.)
ROCKY--(grabs his shoulder and shakes him) Hey, you! Nix! Cut
out de noise! (Willie opens his eyes to stare around him with a
bewildered horror.)
HOPE--(opens one eye to peer over his spectacles--drowsily) Who's
that yelling?
ROCKY--Willie, Boss. De Brooklyn boys is after him.
HOPE--(querulously) Well, why don't you give the poor feller a
drink and keep him quiet? Bejees, can't I get a wink of sleep in
my own back room?
ROCKY--(indignantly to Larry) Listen to that blind-eyed, deef old
bastard, will yuh? He give me strict orders not to let Willie hang
up no more drinks, no matter--
HOPE--(mechanically puts a hand to his ear in the gesture of
deafness) What's that? I can't hear you. (then drowsily
irascible) You're a cockeyed liar. Never refused a drink to
anyone needed it bad in my life! Told you to use your judgment.
Ought to know better. You're too busy thinking up ways to cheat
me. Oh, I ain't as blind as you think. I can still see a cash
register, bejees!
ROCKY--(grins at him affectionately now--flatteringly) Sure, Boss.
Swell chance of foolin' you!
HOPE--I'm wise to you and your sidekick, Chuck. Bejees, you're
burglars, not barkeeps! Blind-eyed, deef old bastard, am I? Oh, I
heard you! Heard you often when you didn't think. You and Chuck
laughing behind my back, telling people you throw the money up in
the air and whatever sticks to the ceiling is my share! A fine
couple of crooks! You'd steal the pennies off your dead mother's
eyes!
ROCKY--(winks at Larry) Aw, Harry, me and Chuck was on'y kiddin'.
HOPE--(more drowsily) I'll fire both of you. Bejees, if you think
you can play me for an easy mark, you've come to the wrong house.
No one ever played Harry Hope for a sucker!
ROCKY--(to Larry) No one but everybody.
HOPE--(his eyes shut again--mutters) Least you could do--keep
things quiet--(He falls asleep.)
WILLIE--(pleadingly) Give me a drink, Rocky. Harry said it was
all right. God, I need a drink.
ROCKY--Den grab it. It's right under your nose.
WILLIE--(avidly) Thanks. (He takes the bottle with both twitching
hands and tilts it to his lips and gulps down the whiskey in big
swallows.)
ROCKY--(sharply) When! When! (He grabs the bottle.) I didn't
say, take a bath! (showing the bottle to Larry--indignantly)
Jees, look! He's killed a half pint or more! (He turns on Willie
angrily, but Willie has closed his eyes and is sitting quietly,
shuddering, waiting for the effect.)
LARRY--(with a pitying glance) Leave him be, the poor devil. A
half pint of that dynamite in one swig will fix him for a while--if
it doesn't kill him.
ROCKY--(shrugs his shoulders and sits down again) Aw right by me.
It ain't my booze. (Behind him, in the chair at left of the middle
table, Joe Mott, the Negro, has been waking up.)
JOE--(his eyes blinking sleepily) Whose booze? Gimme some. I
don't care whose. Where's Hickey? Ain't he come yet? What time's
it, Rocky?
ROCKY--Gettin' near time to open up. Time you begun to sweep up in
de bar.
JOE--(lazily) Never mind de time. If Hickey ain't come, it's time
Joe goes to sleep again. I was dreamin' Hickey come in de door,
crackin' one of dem drummer's jokes, wavin' a big bankroll and we
was all goin' be drunk for two weeks. Wake up and no luck.
(Suddenly his eyes open wide.) Wait a minute, dough. I got idea.
Say, Larry, how 'bout dat young guy, Parritt, came to look you up
last night and rented a room? Where's he at?
LARRY--Up in his room, asleep. No hope in him, anyway, Joe. He's
broke.
JOE--Dat what he told you? Me and Rocky knows different. Had a
roll when he paid you his room rent, didn't he, Rocky? I seen it.
ROCKY--Yeah. He flashed it like he forgot and den tried to hide it
quick.
LARRY--(surprised and resentful) He did, did he?
ROCKY--Yeah, I figgered he don't belong, but he said he was a
friend of yours.
LARRY--He's a liar. I wouldn't know him if he hadn't told me who
he was. His mother and I were friends years ago on the Coast. (He
hesitates--then lowering his voice) You've read in the papers
about that bombing on the Coast when several people got killed?
Well, the one woman they pinched, Rosa Parritt, is his mother.
They'll be coming up for trial soon, and there's no chance for
them. She'll get life, I think. I'm telling you this so you'll
know why if Don acts a bit queer, and not jump on him. He must be
hard hit. He's her only kid.
ROCKY--(nods--then thoughtfully) Why ain't he out dere stickin' by
her?
LARRY--(frowns) Don't ask questions. Maybe there's a good reason.
ROCKY--(stares at him--understandingly) Sure. I get it. (then
wonderingly) But den what kind of a sap is he to hang on to his
right name?
LARRY--(irritably) I'm telling you I don't know anything and I
don't want to know. To hell with the Movement and all connected
with it! I'm out of it, and everything else, and damned glad to
be.
ROCKY--(shrugs his shoulders--indifferently) Well, don't tink I'm
interested in dis Parritt guy. He's nuttin' to me.
JOE--Me neider. If dere's one ting more'n anudder I cares nuttin'
about, it's de sucker game you and Hugo call de Movement. (He
chuckles--reminiscently) Reminds me of damn fool argument me and
Mose Porter has de udder night. He's drunk and I'm drunker. He
says, "Socialist and Anarchist, we ought to shoot dem dead. Dey's
all no-good sons of bitches." I says, "Hold on, you talk 's if
Anarchists and Socialists was de same." "Dey is," he says. "Dey's
both no-good bastards." "No, dey ain't," I says. "I'll explain
the difference. De Anarchist he never works. He drinks but he
never buys, and if he do ever get a nickel, he blows it in on
bombs, and he wouldn't give you nothin'. So go ahead and shoot
him. But de Socialist, sometimes, he's got a job, and if he gets
ten bucks, he's bound by his religion to split fifty-fifty wid you.
You say--how about my cut, Comrade? And you gets de five. So you
don't shoot no Socialists while I'm around. Dat is, not if dey got
anything. Of course, if dey's broke, den dey's no-good bastards,
too." (He laughs, immensely tickled.)
LARRY--(grins with sardonic appreciation) Be God, Joe, you've got
all the beauty of human nature and the practical wisdom of the
world in that little parable.
ROCKY--(winks at Joe) Sure, Larry ain't de on'y wise guy in dis
dump, hey, Joe? (At a sound from the hall he turns as Don Parritt
appears in the doorway. Rocky speaks to Larry out of the side of
his mouth.) Here's your guy. (Parritt comes forward. He is
eighteen, tall and broad-shouldered but thin, gangling and awkward.
His face is good-looking, with blond curly hair and large regular
features, but his personality is unpleasant. There is a shifting
defiance and ingratiation in his light-blue eyes and an irritating
aggressiveness in his manner. His clothes and shoes are new,
comparatively expensive, sporty in style. He looks as though he
belonged in a pool room patronized by would-be sports. He glances
around defensively, sees Larry and comes forward.)
PARRITT--Hello, Larry. (He nods to Rocky and Joe.) Hello. (They
nod and size him up with expressionless eyes.)
LARRY--(without cordiality) What's up? I thought you'd be asleep.
PARRITT--Couldn't make it. I got sick of lying awake. Thought I
might as well see if you were around.
LARRY--(indicates the chair on the right of table) Sit down and
join the bums then. (Parritt sits down. Larry adds meaningfully)
The rules of the house are that drinks may be served at all hours.
PARRITT--(forcing a smile) I get you. But, hell, I'm just about
broke. (He catches Rocky's and Joe's contemptuous glances--
quickly) Oh, I know you guys saw--You think I've got a roll.
Well, you're all wrong. I'll show you. (He takes a small wad of
dollar bills from his pocket.) It's all ones. And I've got to
live on it till I get a job. (then with defensive truculence) You
think I fixed up a phony, don't you? Why the hell would I? Where
would I get a real roll? You don't get rich doing what I've been
doing. Ask Larry. You're lucky in the Movement if you have enough
to eat. (Larry regards him puzzledly.)
ROCKY--(coldly) What's de song and dance about? We ain't said
nuttin'.
PARRITT--(lamely--placating them now) Why, I was just putting you
right. But I don't want you to think I'm a tightwad. I'll buy a
drink if you want one.
JOE--(cheering up) If? Man, when I don't want a drink, you call
de morgue, tell dem come take Joe's body away, 'cause he's sure
enuf dead. Gimme de bottle quick, Rocky, before he changes his
mind! (Rocky passes him the bottle and glass. He pours a brimful
drink and tosses it down his throat, and hands the bottle and glass
to Larry.)
ROCKY--I'll take a cigar when I go in de bar. What're you havin'?
PARRITT--Nothing. I'm on the wagon. What's the damage? (He holds
out a dollar bill.)
ROCKY--Fifteen cents. (He makes change from his pocket.)
PARRITT--Must be some booze!
LARRY--It's cyanide cut with carbolic acid to give it a mellow
flavor. Here's luck! (He drinks.)
ROCKY--Guess I'll get back in de bar and catch a coupla winks
before opening-up time. (He squeezes through the tables and
disappears, right-rear, behind the curtain. In the section of bar
at right, he comes forward and sits at the table and slumps back,
closing his eyes and yawning.)
JOE--(stares calculatingly at Parritt and then looks away--aloud to
himself, philosophically) One-drink guy. Dat well done run dry.
No hope till Harry's birthday party. 'Less Hickey shows up. (He
turns to Larry.) If Hickey comes, Larry, you wake me up if you has
to bat me wid a chair. (He settles himself and immediately falls
asleep.)
PARRITT--Who's Hickey?
LARRY--A hardware drummer. An old friend of Harry Hope's and all
the gang. He's a grand guy. He comes here twice a year regularly
on a periodical drunk and blows in all his money.
PARRITT--(with a disparaging glance around) Must be hard up for a
place to hang out.
LARRY--It has its points for him. He never runs into anyone he
knows in his business here.
PARRITT--(lowering his voice) Yes, that's what I want, too. I've
got to stay under cover, Larry, like I told you last night.
LARRY--You did a lot of hinting. You didn't tell me anything.
PARRITT--You can guess, can't you? (He changes the subject
abruptly.) I've been in some dumps on the Coast, but this is the
limit. What kind of joint is it, anyway?
LARRY--(with a sardonic grin) What is it? It's the No Chance
Saloon. It's Bedrock Bar, The End of the Line Café, The Bottom of
the Sea Rathskeller! Don't you notice the beautiful calm in the
atmosphere? That's because it's the last harbor. No one here has
to worry about where they're going next, because there is no
farther they can go. It's a great comfort to them. Although even
here they keep up the appearances of life with a few harmless pipe
dreams about their yesterdays and tomorrows, as you'll see for
yourself if you're here long.
PARRITT--(stares at him curiously) What's your pipe dream, Larry?
LARRY--(hiding resentment) Oh, I'm the exception. I haven't any
left, thank God. (shortly) Don't complain about this place. You
couldn't find a better for lying low.
PARRITT--I'm glad of that, Larry. I don't feel any too damned
good. I was knocked off my base by that business on the Coast, and
since then it's been no fun dodging around the country, thinking
every guy you see might be a dick.
LARRY--(sympathetically now) No, it wouldn't be. But you're safe
here. The cops ignore this dump. They think it's as harmless as a
graveyard. (He grins sardonically.) And, be God, they're right.
PARRITT--It's been lonely as hell. (impulsively) Christ, Larry, I
was glad to find you. I kept saying to myself, "If I can only find
Larry. He's the one guy in the world who can understand--" (He
hesitates, staring at Larry with a strange appeal.)
LARRY--(watching him puzzledly) Understand what?
PARRITT--(hastily) Why, all I've been through. (looking away)
Oh, I know you're thinking, This guy has a hell of a nerve. I
haven't seen him since he was a kid. I'd forgotten he was alive.
But I've never forgotten you, Larry. You were the only friend of
Mother's who ever paid attention to me, or knew I was alive. All
the others were too busy with the Movement. Even Mother. And I
had no Old Man. You used to take me on your knee and tell me
stories and crack jokes and make me laugh. You'd ask me questions
and take what I said seriously. I guess I got to feel in the years
you lived with us that you'd taken the place of my Old Man.
(embarrassedly) But, hell, that sounds like a lot of mush. I
suppose you don't remember a damned thing about it.
LARRY--(moved in spite of himself) I remember well. You were a
serious lonely little shaver. (then resenting being moved, changes
the subject) How is it they didn't pick you up when they got your
mother and the rest?
PARRITT--(in a lowered voice but eagerly, as if he wanted this
chance to tell about it) I wasn't around, and as soon as I heard
the news I went under cover. You've noticed my glad rags. I was
staked to them--as a disguise, sort of. I hung around pool rooms
and gambling joints and hooker shops, where they'd never look for a
Wobblie, pretending I was a sport. Anyway, they'd grabbed everyone
important, so I suppose they didn't think of me until afterward.
LARRY--The papers say the cops got them all dead to rights, that
the Burns dicks knew every move before it was made, and someone
inside the Movement must have sold out and tipped them off.
PARRITT--(turns to look Larry in the eyes--slowly) Yes, I guess
that must be true, Larry. It hasn't come out who it was. It may
never come out. I suppose whoever it was made a bargain with the
Burns men to keep him out of it. They won't need his evidence.
LARRY--(tensely) By God, I hate to believe it of any of the crowd,
if I am through long since with any connection with them. I know
they're damned fools, most of them, as stupidly greedy for power as
the worst capitalist they attack, but I'd swear there couldn't be a
yellow stool pigeon among them.
PARRITT--Sure. I'd have sworn that, too, Larry.
LARRY--I hope his soul rots in hell, whoever it is!
PARRITT--Yes, so do I.
LARRY--(after a pause--shortly) How did you locate me? I hoped
I'd found a place of retirement here where no one in the Movement
would ever come to disturb my peace.
PARRITT--I found out through Mother.
LARRY--I asked her not to tell anyone.
PARRITT--She didn't tell me, but she'd kept all your letters and I
found where she'd hidden them in the flat. I sneaked up there one
night after she was arrested.
LARRY--I'd never have thought she was a woman who'd keep letters.
PARRITT--No, I wouldn't, either. There's nothing soft or
sentimental about Mother.
LARRY--I never answered her last letters. I haven't written her in
a couple of years--or anyone else. I've gotten beyond the desire
to communicate with the world--or, what's more to the point, let it
bother me any more with its greedy madness.
PARRITT--It's funny Mother kept in touch with you so long. When
she's finished with anyone, she's finished. She's always been
proud of that. And you know how she feels about the Movement.
Like a revivalist preacher about religion. Anyone who loses faith
in it is more than dead to her; he's a Judas who ought to be boiled
in oil. Yet she seemed to forgive you.
LARRY--(sardonically) She didn't, don't worry. She wrote to
denounce me and try to bring the sinner to repentance and a belief
in the One True Faith again.
PARRITT--What made you leave the Movement, Larry? Was it on
account of Mother?
LARRY--(starts) Don't be a damned fool! What the hell put that in
your head?
PARRITT--Why, nothing--except I remember what a fight you had with
her before you left.
LARRY--(resentfully) Well, if you do, I don't. That was eleven
years ago. You were only seven. If we did quarrel, it was because
I told her I'd become convinced the Movement was only a beautiful
pipe dream.
PARRITT--(with a strange smile) I don't remember it that way.
LARRY--Then you can blame your imagination--and forget it. (He
changes the subject abruptly.) You asked me why I quit the
Movement. I had a lot of good reasons. One was myself, and
another was my comrades, and the last was the breed of swine called
men in general. For myself, I was forced to admit, at the end of
thirty years' devotion to the Cause, that I was never made for it.
I was born condemned to be one of those who has to see all sides of
a question. When you're damned like that, the questions multiply
for you until in the end it's all question and no answer. As
history proves, to be a worldly success at anything, especially
revolution, you have to wear blinders like a horse and see only
straight in front of you. You have to see, too, that this is all
black, and that is all white. As for my comrades in the Great
Cause, I felt as Horace Walpole did about England, that he could
love it if it weren't for the people in it. The material the ideal
free society must be constructed from is men themselves and you
can't build a marble temple out of a mixture of mud and manure.
When man's soul isn't a sow's ear, it will be time enough to dream
of silk purses. (He chuckles sardonically--then irritably as if
suddenly provoked at himself for talking so much) Well, that's why
I quit the Movement, if it leaves you any wiser. At any rate, you
see it had nothing to do with your mother.
PARRITT--(smiles almost mockingly) Oh, sure, I see. But I'll bet
Mother has always thought it was on her account. You know her,
Larry. To hear her go on sometimes, you'd think she was the
Movement.
LARRY--(stares at him, puzzled and repelled--sharply) That's a
hell of a way for you to talk, after what happened to her!
PARRITT--(at once confused and guilty) Don't get me wrong. I
wasn't sneering, Larry. Only kidding. I've said the same thing to
her lots of times to kid her. But you're right. I know I
shouldn't now. I keep forgetting she's in jail. It doesn't seem
real. I can't believe it about her. She's always been so free.
I--But I don't want to think of it. (Larry is moved to a puzzled
pity in spite of himself. Parritt changes the subject.) What have
you been doing all the years since you left--the Coast, Larry?
LARRY--(sardonically) Nothing I could help doing. If I don't
believe in the Movement, I don't believe in anything else either,
especially not the State. I've refused to become a useful member
of its society. I've been a philosophical drunken bum, and proud
of it. (Abruptly his tone sharpens with resentful warning.)
Listen to me. I hope you've deduced that I've my own reason for
answering the impertinent questions of a stranger, for that's all
you are to me. I have a strong hunch you've come here expecting
something of me. I'm warning you, at the start, so there'll be no
misunderstanding, that I've nothing left to give, and I want to be
left alone, and I'll thank you to keep your life to yourself. I
feel you're looking for some answer to something. I have no answer
to give anyone, not even myself. Unless you can call what Heine
wrote in his poem to morphine an answer. (He quotes a translation
of the dosing couplet sardonically.)
"Lo, sleep is good; better is death; in sooth,
The best of all were never to be born."
PARRITT--(shrinks a bit frightenedly) That's the hell of an
answer. (then with a forced grin of bravado) Still, you never
know when it might come in handy. (He looks away. Larry stares at
him puzzledly, interested in spite of himself and at the same time
vaguely uneasy.)
LARRY--(forcing a casual tone) I don't suppose you've had much
chance to hear news of your mother since she's been in jail?
PARRITT--No. No chance. (He hesitates--then blurts out) Anyway,
I don't think she wants to hear from me. We had a fight just
before that business happened. She bawled me out because I was
going around with tarts. That got my goat, coming from her. I
told her, "You've always acted the free woman, you've never let
anything stop you from--" (He checks himself--goes on hurriedly)
That made her sore. She said she wouldn't give a damn what I did
except she'd begun to suspect I was too interested in outside
things and losing interest in the Movement.
LARRY--(stares at him) And were you?
PARRITT--(hesitates--then with intensity) Sure I was! I'm no
damned fool! I couldn't go on believing forever that gang was
going to change the world by shooting off their loud traps on
soapboxes and sneaking around blowing up a lousy building or a
bridge! I got wise it was all a crazy pipe dream! (appealingly)
The same as you did, Larry. That's why I came to you. I knew
you'd understand. What finished me was this last business of
someone selling out. How can you believe anything after a thing
like that happens? It knocks you cold! You don't know what the
hell is what! You're through! (appealingly) You know how I feel,
don't you, Larry? (Larry stares at him, moved by sympathy and pity
in spite of himself, disturbed, and resentful at being disturbed,
and puzzled by something he feels about Parritt that isn't right.
But before he can reply, Hugo suddenly raises his head from his
arms in a half-awake alcoholic daze and speaks.)
HUGO--(quotes aloud to himself in a guttural declamatory style)
"The days grow hot, O Babylon! 'Tis cool beneath thy villow
trees!" (Parritt turns startledly as Hugo peers muzzily without
recognition at him. Hugo exclaims automatically in his tone of
denunciation) Gottammed stool pigeon!
PARRITT--(shrinks away--stammers) What? Who do you mean? (then
furiously) You lousy bum, you can't call me that! (He draws back
his fist.)
HUGO--(ignores this--recognizing him now, bursts into his childish
teasing giggle) Hello, leedle Don! Leedle monkey-face. I did not
recognize you. You have grown big boy. How is your mother? Where
you come from? (He breaks into his wheedling, bullying tone.)
Don't be a fool! Loan me a dollar! Buy me a trink! (As if this
exhausted him, he abruptly forgets it and plumps his head down on
his arms again and is asleep.)
PARRITT--(with eager relief) Sure, I'll buy you a drink, Hugo.
I'm broke, but I can afford one for you. I'm sorry I got sore. I
ought to have remembered when you're soused you call everyone a
stool pigeon. But it's no damned joke right at this time. (He
turns to Larry, who is regarding him now fixedly with an uneasy
expression as if he suddenly were afraid of his own thoughts--
forcing a smile) Gee, he's passed out again. (He stiffens
defensively.) What are you giving me the hard look for? Oh, I
know. You thought I was going to hit him? What do you think I am?
I've always had a lot of respect for Hugo. I've always stood up
for him when people in the Movement panned him for an old drunken
has-been. He had the guts to serve ten years in the can in his own
country and get his eyes ruined in solitary. I'd like to see some
of them here stick that. Well, they'll get a chance now to show--
(hastily) I don't mean--But let's forget that. Tell me some more
about this dump. Who are all these tanks? Who's that guy trying
to catch pneumonia? (He indicates Lewis.)
LARRY--(stares at him almost frightenedly--then looks away and
grasps eagerly this chance to change the subject. He begins to
describe the sleepers with sardonic relish but at the same time
showing his affection for them.) That's Captain Lewis, a onetime
hero of the British Army. He strips to display that scar on his
back he got from a native spear whenever he's completely plastered.
The bewhiskered bloke opposite him is General Wetjoen, who led a
commando in the War. The two of them met when they came here to
work in the Boer War spectacle at the St. Louis Fair and they've
been bosom pals ever since. They dream the hours away in happy
dispute over the brave days in South Africa when they tried to
murder each other. The little guy between them was in it, too, as
correspondent for some English paper. His nickname here is Jimmy
Tomorrow. He's the leader of our Tomorrow Movement.
PARRITT--What do they do for a living?
LARRY--As little as possible. Once in a while one of them makes a
successful touch somewhere, and some of them get a few dollars a
month from connections at home who pay it on condition they never
come back. For the rest, they live on free lunch and their old
friend, Harry Hope, who doesn't give a damn what anyone does or
doesn't do, as long as he likes you.
PARRITT--It must be a tough life.
LARRY--It's not. Don't waste your pity. They wouldn't thank you
for it. They manage to get drunk, by hook or crook, and keep their
pipe dreams, and that's all they ask of life. I've never known
more contented men. It isn't often that men attain the true goal
of their heart's desire. The same applies to Harry himself and his
two cronies at the far table. He's so satisfied with life he's
never set foot out of this place since his wife died twenty years
ago. He has no need of the outside world at all. This place has a
fine trade from the Market people across the street and the
waterfront workers, so in spite of Harry's thirst and his generous
heart, he comes out even. He never worries in hard times because
there's always old friends from the days when he was a jitney
Tammany politician, and a friendly brewery to tide him over. Don't
ask me what his two pals work at because they don't. Except at
being his lifetime guests. The one facing this way is his brother-
in-law, Ed Mosher, who once worked for a circus in the ticket
wagon. Pat McGloin, the other one, was a police lieutenant back in
the flush times of graft when everything went. But he got too
greedy and when the usual reform investigation came he was caught
red-handed and thrown off the Force. (He nods at Joe.) Joe here
has a yesterday in the same flush period. He ran a colored
gambling house then and was a hell of a sport, so they say. Well,
that's our whole family circle of inmates, except the two barkeeps
and their girls, three ladies of the pavement that room on the
third floor.
PARRITT--(bitterly) To hell with them! I never want to see a
whore again! (As Larry flashes him a puzzled glance, he adds
confusedly) I mean, they always get you in dutch. (While he is
speaking Willie Oban has opened his eyes. He leans toward them,
drunk now from the effect of the huge drink he took, and speaks
with a mocking suavity.)
WILLIE--Why omit me from your Who's Who in Dypsomania, Larry? An
unpardonable slight, especially as I am the only inmate of royal
blood. (to Parritt--ramblingly) Educated at Harvard, too. You
must have noticed the atmosphere of culture here. My humble
contribution. Yes, Generous Stranger--I trust you're generous--I
was born in the purple, the son, but unfortunately not the heir, of
the late world-famous Bill Oban, King of the Bucket Shops. A
revolution deposed him, conducted by the District Attorney. He was
sent into exile. In fact, not to mince matters, they locked him in
the can and threw away the key. Alas, his was an adventurous
spirit that pined in confinement. And so he died. Forgive these
reminiscences. Undoubtedly all this is well known to you.
Everyone in the world knows.
PARRITT--(uncomfortably) Tough luck. No, I never heard of him.
WILLIE--(blinks at him incredulously) Never heard? I thought
everyone in the world--Why, even at Harvard I discovered my father
was well known by reputation, although that was some time before
the District Attorney gave him so much unwelcome publicity. Yes,
even as a freshman I was notorious. I was accepted socially with
all the warm cordiality that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow would have
shown a drunken Negress dancing the can can at high noon on Brattle
Street. Harvard was my father's idea. He was an ambitious man.
Dictatorial, too. Always knowing what was best for me. But I did
make myself a brilliant student. A dirty trick on my classmates,
inspired by revenge, I fear. (He quotes) "Dear college days, with
pleasure rife! The grandest gladdest days of life!" But, of
course, that is a Yale hymn, and they're given to rah-rah
exaggeration at New Haven. I was a brilliant student at Law
School, too. My father wanted a lawyer in the family. He was a
calculating man. A thorough knowledge of the law close at hand in
the house to help him find fresh ways to evade it. But I
discovered the loophole of whiskey and escaped his jurisdiction.
(abruptly to Parritt) Speaking of whiskey, sir, reminds me--and, I
hope, reminds you--that when meeting a Prince the customary
salutation is "What'll you have?"
PARRITT--(with defensive resentment) Nix! All you guys seem to
think I'm made of dough. Where would I get the coin to blow
everyone?
WILLIE--(sceptically) Broke? You haven't the thirsty look of the
impecunious. I'd judge you to be a plutocrat, your pockets stuffed
with ill-gotten gains. Two or three dollars, at least. And don't
think we will question how you got it. As Vespasian remarked, the
smell of all whiskey is sweet.
PARRITT--What do you mean, how I got it? (to Larry, forcing a
laugh) It's a laugh, calling me a plutocrat, isn't it, Larry, when
I've been in the Movement all my life. (Larry gives him an uneasy
suspicious glance, then looks away, as if avoiding something he
does not wish to see.)
WILLIE--(disgustedly) Ah, one of those, eh? I believe you now,
all right! Go away and blow yourself up, that's a good lad. Hugo
is the only licensed preacher of that gospel here. A dangerous
terrorist, Hugo! He would as soon blow the collar off a schooner
of beer as look at you! (to Larry) Let us ignore this useless
youth, Larry. Let us join in prayer that Hickey, the Great
Salesman, will soon arrive bringing the blessed bourgeois long
green! Would that Hickey or Death would come! Meanwhile, I will
sing a song. A beautiful old New England folk ballad which I
picked up at Harvard amid the debris of education. (He sings in a
boisterous baritone, rapping on the table with his knuckles at the
indicated spots in the song.)
"Jack, oh, Jack, was a sailor lad
And he came to a tavern for gin.
He rapped and he rapped with a (rap, rap, rap)
But never a soul seemed in."
(The drunks at the tables stir. Rocky gets up from his chair in
the bar and starts back for the entrance to the back room. Hope
cocks one irritable eye over his specs. Joe Mott opens both of his
and grins. Willie interposes some drunken whimsical exposition to
Larry.) The origin of this beautiful ditty is veiled in mystery,
Larry. There was a legend bruited about in Cambridge lavatories
that Waldo Emerson composed it during his uninformative period as a
minister, while he was trying to write a sermon. But my own
opinion is, it goes back much further, and Jonathan Edwards was the
author of both words and music. (He sings)
"He rapped and rapped, and tapped and tapped
Enough to wake the dead
Till he heard a damsel (rap, rap, rap)
On a window right over his head."
(The drunks are blinking their eyes now, grumbling and cursing.
Rocky appears from the bar at rear, right, yawning.)
HOPE--(with fuming irritation) Rocky! Bejees, can't you keep that
crazy bastard quiet? (Rocky starts for Willie.)
WILLIE--And now the influence of a good woman enters our mariner's
life. Well, perhaps "good" isn't the word. But very, very kind.
(He sings)
"Oh, come up," she cried, "my sailor lad,
And you and I'll agree,
And I'll show you the prettiest (rap, rap, rap)
That ever you did see."
(He speaks.) You see, Larry? The lewd Puritan touch, obviously,
and it grows more marked as we go on. (He sings)
"Oh, he put his arm around her waist,
He gazed in her bright blue eyes
And then he--"
(But here Rocky shakes him roughly by the shoulder.)
ROCKY--Piano! What d'yuh tink dis dump is, a dump?
HOPE--Give him the bum's rush upstairs! Lock him in his room!
ROCKY--(yanks Willie by the arm) Come on, Bum.
WILLIE--(dissolves into pitiable terror) No! Please, Rocky! I'll
go crazy up in that room alone! It's haunted! I--(He calls to
Hope) Please, Harry! Let me stay here! I'll be quiet!
HOPE--(immediately relents--indignantly) What the hell you doing
to him, Rocky? I didn't tell you to beat up the poor guy. Leave
him alone, long as he's quiet. (Rocky lets go of Willie
disgustedly and goes back to his chair in the bar.)
WILLIE--(huskily) Thanks, Harry. You're a good scout. (He closes
his eyes and sinks back in his chair exhaustedly, twitching and
quivering again.)
HOPE--(addressing McGloin and Mosher, who are sleepily awake--
accusingly) Always the way. Can't trust nobody. Leave it to that
Dago to keep order and it's like bedlam in a cathouse, singing and
everything. And you two big barflies are a hell of a help to me,
ain't you? Eat and sleep and get drunk! All you're good for,
bejees! Well, you can take that "I'll-have-the-same" look off your
maps! There ain't going to be no more drinks on the house till
hell freezes over! (Neither of the two is impressed either by his
insults or his threats. They grin hangover grins of tolerant
affection at him and wink at each other. Harry fumes) Yeah, grin!
Wink, bejees! Fine pair of sons of bitches to have glued on me for
life! (But he can't get a rise out of them and he subsides into a
fuming mumble. Meanwhile, at the middle table, Captain Lewis and
General Wetjoen are as wide awake as heavy hangovers permit. Jimmy
Tomorrow nods, his eyes blinking. Lewis is gazing across the table
at Joe Mott, who is still chuckling to himself over Willie's song.
The expression on Lewis's face is that of one who can't believe his
eyes.)
LEWIS--(aloud to himself with a muzzy wonder) Good God! Have I
been drinking at the same table with a bloody Kaffir?
JOE--(grinning) Hello, Captain. You comin' up for air? Kaffir?
Who's he?
WETJOEN--(blurrily) Kaffir, dot's a nigger, Joe. (Joe stiffens
and his eyes narrow. Wetjoen goes on with heavy jocosity.) Dot's
joke on him, Joe. He don't know you. He's still plind drunk, the
ploody Limey chentleman! A great mistake I missed him at the
pattle of Modder River. Vit mine rifle I shoot damn fool Limey
officers py the dozen, but him I miss. De pity of it! (He
chuckles and slaps Lewis on his bare shoulder.) Hey, wake up,
Cecil, you ploody fool! Don't you know your old friend, Joe? He's
no damned Kaffir! He's white, Joe is!
LEWIS--(light dawning--contritely) My profound apologies, Joseph,
old chum. Eyesight a trifle blurry, I'm afraid. Whitest colored
man I ever knew. Proud to call you my friend. No hard feelings,
what? (He holds out his hand.)
JOE--(at once grins good-naturedly and shakes his hand) No
Captain, I know it's mistake. Youse regular, if you is a Limey.
(then his face hardening) But I don't stand for "nigger" from
nobody. Never did. In de old days, people calls me "nigger" wakes
up in de hospital. I was de leader ob de Dirty Half-Dozen Gang.
All six of us colored boys, we was tough and I was de toughest.
WETJOEN--(inspired to boastful reminiscence) Me, in old days in
Transvaal, I vas so tough and strong I grab axle of ox wagon mit
full load and lift like feather.
LEWIS--(smiling amiably) As for you, my balmy Boer that walks like
a man, I say again it was a grave error in our foreign policy ever
to set you free, once we nabbed you and your commando with Cronje.
We should have taken you to the London zoo and incarcerated you in
the baboons' cage. With a sign: "Spectators may distinguish the
true baboon by his blue behind."
WETJOEN--(grins) Gott! To dink, ten better Limey officers, at
least, I shoot clean in the mittle of forehead at Spion Kopje, and
you I miss! I neffer forgive myself! (Jimmy Tomorrow blinks
benignantly from one to the other with a gentle drunken smile.)
JIMMY--(sentimentally) Now, come, Cecil, Piet! We must forget the
War. Boer and Briton, each fought fairly and played the game till
the better man won and then we shook hands. We are all brothers
within the Empire united beneath the flag on which the sun never
sets. (Tears come to his eyes. He quotes with great sentiment, if
with slight application) "Ship me somewhere east of Suez--"
LARRY--(breaks in sardonically) Be God, you're there already,
Jimmy. Worst is best here, and East is West, and tomorrow is
yesterday. What more do you want?
JIMMY--(with bleery benevolence, shaking his head in mild rebuke)
No, Larry, old friend, you can't deceive me. You pretend a bitter,
cynic philosophy, but in your heart you are the kindest man among
us.
LARRY--(disconcerted--irritably) The hell you say!
PARRITT--(leans toward him--confidentially) What a bunch of
cuckoos!
JIMMY--(as if reminded of something--with a pathetic attempt at a
brisk, no-more-nonsense air) Tomorrow, yes. It's high time I
straightened out and got down to business again. (He brushes his
sleeve fastidiously.) I must have this suit cleaned and pressed.
I can't look like a tramp when I--
JOE--(who has been brooding--interrupts) Yes, suh, white folks
always said I was white. In de days when I was flush, Joe Mott's
de only colored man dey allows in de white gamblin' houses.
"You're all right, Joe, you're white," dey says. (He chuckles.)
Wouldn't let me play craps, dough. Dey know I could make dem dice
behave. "Any odder game and any limit you like, Joe," dey says.
Man, de money I lost! (He chuckles--then with an underlying
defensiveness) Look at de Big Chief in dem days. He knew I was
white. I'd saved my dough so I could start my own gamblin' house.
Folks in de know tells me, see de man at de top, den you never has
trouble. You git Harry Hope give you a letter to de Chief. And
Harry does. Don't you, Harry?
HOPE--(preoccupied with his own thoughts) Eh? Sure. Big Bill was
a good friend of mine. I had plenty of friends high up in those
days. Still could have if I wanted to go out and see them. Sure,
I gave you a letter. I said you was white. What the hell of it?
JOE--(to Captain Lewis who has relapsed into a sleepy daze and is
listening to him with an absurd strained attention without
comprehending a word) Dere. You see, Captain. I went to see de
Chief, shakin' in my boots, and dere he is sittin' behind a big
desk, lookin' as big as a freight train. He don't look up. He
keeps me waitin' and waitin', and after 'bout an hour, seems like
to me, he says slow and quiet like dere wasn't no harm in him, "You
want to open a gamblin' joint, does you, Joe?" But he don't give
me no time to answer. He jumps up, lookin' as big as two freight
trains, and he pounds his fist like a ham on de desk, and he
shouts, "You black son of a bitch, Harry says you're white and you
better be white or dere's a little iron room up de river waitin'
for you!" Den he sits down and says quiet again, "All right. You
can open. Git de hell outa here!" So I opens, and he finds out
I'se white, sure 'nuff, 'cause I run wide open for years and pays
my sugar on de dot, and de cops and I is friends. (He chuckles
with pride.) Dem old days! Many's de night I come in here. Dis
was a first-class hangout for sports in dem days. Good whiskey,
fifteen cents, two for two bits. I t'rows down a fifty-dollar bill
like it was trash paper and says, "Drink it up, boys, I don't want
no change." Ain't dat right, Harry?
HOPE--(caustically) Yes, and bejees, if I ever seen you throw
fifty cents on the bar now, I'd know I had delirium tremens!
You've told that story ten million times and if I have to hear it
again, that'll give me D.T.s anyway!
JOE--(chuckling) Gittin' drunk every day for twenty years ain't
give you de Brooklyn boys. You needn't be scared of me!
LEWIS--(suddenly turns and beams on Hope) Thank you, Harry, old
chum. I will have a drink, now you mention it, seeing it's so near
your birthday. (The others laugh.)
HOPE--(puts his hand to his ear--angrily) What's that? I can't
hear you.
LEWIS--(sadly) No, I fancied you wouldn't.
HOPE--I don't have to hear, bejees! Booze is the only thing you
ever talk about!
LEWIS--(sadly) True. Yet there was a time when my conversation
was more comprehensive. But as I became burdened with years, it
seemed rather pointless to discuss my other subject.
HOPE--You can't joke with me! How much room rent do you owe me,
tell me that?
LEWIS--Sorry. Adding has always baffled me. Subtraction is my
forte.
HOPE--(snarling) Arrh! Think you're funny! Captain, bejees!
Showing off your wounds! Put on your clothes, for Christ's sake!
This ain't no Turkish bath! Lousy Limey army! Took 'em years to
lick a gang of Dutch hayseeds!
WETJOEN--Dot's right, Harry. Gif him hell!
HOPE--No lip out of you, neither, you Dutch spinach! General,
hell! Salvation Army, that's what you'd ought t'been General in!
Bragging what a shot you were, and, bejees, you missed him! And he
missed you, that's just as bad! And now the two of you bum on me!
(threateningly) But you've broke the camel's back this time,
bejees! You pay up tomorrow or out you go!
LEWIS--(earnestly) My dear fellow, I give you my word of honor as
an officer and a gentleman, you shall be paid tomorrow.
WETJOEN--Ve swear it, Harry! Tomorrow vidout fail!
McGLOIN--(a twinkle in his eye) There you are, Harry. Sure, what
could be fairer?
MOSHER--(with a wink at McGloin) Yes, you can't ask more than
that, Harry. A promise is a promise--as I've often discovered.
HOPE--(turns on them) I mean the both of you, too! An old
grafting flatfoot and a circus bunco steerer! Fine company for me,
bejees! Couple of con men living in my flat since Christ knows
when! Getting fat as hogs, too! And you ain't even got the
decency to get me upstairs where I got a good bed! Let me sleep on
a chair like a bum! Kept me down here waitin' for Hickey to show
up, hoping I'd blow you to more drinks!
McGLOIN--Ed and I did our damnedest to get you up, didn't we, Ed?
MOSHER--We did. But you said you couldn't bear the flat because it
was one of those nights when memory brought poor old Bessie back to
you.
HOPE--(his face instantly becoming long and sad and sentimental--
mournfully) Yes, that's right, boys. I remember now. I could
almost see her in every room just as she used to be--and it's
twenty years since she--(His throat and eyes fill up. A suitable
sentimental hush falls on the room.)
LARRY--(in a sardonic whisper to Parritt) Isn't a pipe dream of
yesterday a touching thing? By all accounts, Bessie nagged the
hell out of him.
JIMMY--(who has been dreaming, a look of prim resolution on his
face, speaks aloud to himself) No more of this sitting around and
loafing. Time I took hold of myself. I must have my shoes soled
and heeled and shined first thing tomorrow morning. A general
spruce-up. I want to have a well-groomed appearance when I--(His
voice fades out as he stares in front of him. No one pays any
attention to him except Larry and Parritt.)
LARRY--(as before, in a sardonic aside to Parritt) The tomorrow
movement is a sad and beautiful thing, too!
McGLOIN--(with a huge sentimental sigh--and a calculating look at
Hope) Poor old Bessie! You don't find her like in these days. A
sweeter woman never drew breath.
MOSHER--(in a similar calculating mood) Good old Bess. A man
couldn't want a better sister than she was to me.
HOPE--(mournfully) Twenty years, and I've never set foot out of
this house since the day I buried her. Didn't have the heart.
Once she'd gone, I didn't give a damn for anything. I lost all my
ambition. Without her, nothing seemed worth the trouble. You
remember, Ed, you, too, Mac--the boys was going to nominate me for
Alderman. It was all fixed. Bessie wanted it and she was so
proud. But when she was taken, I told them, "No, boys, I can't do
it. I simply haven't the heart. I'm through." I would have won
the election easy, too. (He says this a bit defiantly.) Oh, I
know there was jealous wise guys said the boys was giving me the
nomination because they knew they couldn't win that year in this
ward. But that's a damned lie! I knew every man, woman and child
in the ward, almost. Bessie made me make friends with everyone,
helped me remember all their names. I'd have been elected easy.
McGLOIN--You would, Harry. It was a sure thing.
MOSHER--A dead cinch, Harry. Everyone knows that.
HOPE--Sure they do. But after Bessie died, I didn't have the
heart. Still, I know while she'd appreciate my grief, she wouldn't
want it to keep me cooped up in here all my life. So I've made up
my mind I'll go out soon. Take a walk around the ward, see all the
friends I used to know, get together with the boys and maybe tell
'em I'll let 'em deal me a hand in their game again. Yes, bejees,
I'll do it. My birthday, tomorrow, that'd be the right time to
turn over a new leaf. Sixty. That ain't too old.
McGLOIN--(flatteringly) It's the prime of life, Harry.
MOSHER--Wonderful thing about you, Harry, you keep young as you
ever was.
JIMMY--(dreaming aloud again) Get my things from the laundry.
They must still have them. Clean collar and shirt. If I wash the
ones I've got on any more, they'll fall apart. Socks, too. I want
to make a good appearance. I met Dick Trumbull on the street a
year or two ago. He said, "Jimmy, the publicity department's never
been the same since you got--resigned. It's dead as hell." I
said, "I know. I've heard rumors the management were at their
wits' end and would be only too glad to have me run it for them
again. I think all I'd have to do would be go and see them and
they'd offer me the position. Don't you think so, Dick?" He said,
"Sure, they would, Jimmy. Only take my advice and wait a while
until business conditions are better. Then you can strike them for
a bigger salary than you got before, do you see?" I said, "Yes, I
do see, Dick, and many thanks for the tip." Well, conditions must
be better by this time. All I have to do is get fixed up with a
decent front tomorrow, and it's as good as done.
HOPE--(glances at Jimmy with a condescending affectionate pity--in
a hushed voice) Poor Jimmy's off on his pipe dream again. Bejees,
he takes the cake! (This is too much for Larry. He cannot
restrain a sardonic guffaw. But no one pays any attention to him.)
LEWIS--(opens his eyes, which are drowsing again--dreamily to
Wetjoen) I'm sorry we had to postpone our trip again this April,
Piet. I hoped the blasted old estate would be settled up by then.
The damned lawyers can't hold up the settlement much longer. We'll
make it next year, even if we have to work and earn our passage
money, eh? You'll stay with me at the old place as long as you
like, then you can take the Union Castle from Southampton to Cape
Town. (sentimentally, with real yearning) England in April. I
want you to see that, Piet. The old veldt has its points, I'll
admit, but it isn't home--especially home in April.
WETJOEN--(blinks drowsily at him--dreamily) Ja, Cecil, I know how
beautiful it must be, from all you tell me many times. I vill
enjoy it. But I shall enjoy more ven I am home, too. The veldt,
ja! You could put England on it, and it would look like a farmer's
small garden. Py Gott, there is space to be free, the air like
vine is, you don't need booze to be drunk! My relations vill so
surprised be. They vill not know me, it is so many years. Dey
vill be so glad I haf come home at last.
JOE--(dreamily) I'll make my stake and get my new gamblin' house
open before you boys leave. You got to come to de openin'. I'll
treat you white. If you're broke, I'll stake you to buck any game
you chooses. If you wins, dat's velvet for you. If you loses, it
don't count. Can't treat you no whiter dan dat, can I?
HOPE--(again with condescending pity) Bejees, Jimmy's started them
off smoking the same hop. (But the three are finished, their eyes
closed again in sleep or a drowse.)
LARRY--(aloud to himself--in his comically tense, crazy whisper)
Be God, this bughouse will drive me stark, raving loony yet!
HOPE--(turns on him with fuming suspicion) What? What d'you say?
LARRY--(placatingly) Nothing, Harry. I had a crazy thought in my
head.
HOPE--(irascibly) Crazy is right! Yah! The old wise guy! Wise,
hell! A damned old fool Anarchist I-Won't-Worker! I'm sick of you
and Hugo, too. Bejees, you'll pay up tomorrow, or I'll start a
Harry Hope Revolution! I'll tie a dispossess bomb to your tails
that'll blow you out in the street! Bejees, I'll make your
Movement move! (The witticism delights him and he bursts into a
shrill cackle. At once McGloin and Mosher guffaw enthusiastically.)
MOSHER--(flatteringly) Harry, you sure say the funniest things!
(He reaches on the table as if he expected a glass to be there--
then starts with well-acted surprise.) Hell, where's my drink?
That Rocky is too damned fast cleaning tables. Why, I'd only taken
one sip of it.
HOPE--(his smiling face congealing) No, you don't! (acidly) Any
time you only take one sip of a drink, you'll have lockjaw and
paralysis! Think you can kid me with those old circus con games?--
me, that's known you since you was knee-high, and, bejees, you was
a crook even then!
McGLOIN--(grinning) It's not like you to be so hardhearted, Harry.
Sure, it's hot, parching work laughing at your jokes so early in
the morning on an empty stomach!
HOPE--Yah! You, Mac! Another crook! Who asked you to laugh? We
was talking about poor old Bessie, and you and her no-good brother
start to laugh! A hell of a thing! Talking mush about her, too!
"Good old Bess." Bejees, she'd never forgive me if she knew I had
you two bums living in her flat, throwing ashes and cigar butts on
her carpet. You know her opinion of you, Mac. "That Pat McGloin
is the biggest drunken grafter that ever disgraced the police
force," she used to say to me. "I hope they send him to Sing Sing
for life."
McGLOIN--(unperturbed) She didn't mean it. She was angry at me
because you used to get me drunk. But Bess had a heart of gold
underneath her sharpness. She knew I was innocent of all the
charges.
WILLIE--(jumps to his feet drunkenly and points a finger at
McGloin--imitating the manner of a cross-examiner--coldly) One
moment, please. Lieutenant McGloin! Are you aware you are under
oath? Do you realize what the penalty for perjury is? (purringly)
Come now, Lieutenant, isn't it a fact that you're as guilty as
hell? No, don't say, "How about your old man?" I am asking the
questions. The fact that he was a crooked old bucket-shop bastard
has no bearing on your case. (with a change to maudlin joviality)
Gentlemen of the Jury, court will now recess while the D.A. sings
out a little ditty he learned at Harvard. It was composed in a
wanton moment by the Dean of the Divinity School on a moonlight
night in July, 1776, while sobering up in a Turkish bath. (He
sings)
"Oh, come up," she cried, "my sailor lad,
And you and I'll agree.
And I'll show you the prettiest (rap, rap, rap on table)
That ever you did see."
(Suddenly he catches Hope's eyes fixed on him condemningly, and
sees Rocky appearing from the bar. He collapses back on his chair,
pleading miserably) Please, Harry! I'll be quiet! Don't make
Rocky bounce me upstairs! I'll go crazy alone! (to McGloin) I
apologize, Mac. Don't get sore. I was only kidding you. (Rocky,
at a relenting glance from Hope, returns to the bar.)
McGLOIN--(good-naturedly) Sure, kid all you like, Willie. I'm
hardened to it. (He pauses--seriously) But I'm telling you some
day before long I'm going to make them reopen my case. Everyone
knows there was no real evidence against me, and I took the fall
for the ones higher up. I'll be found innocent this time and
reinstated. (wistfully) I'd like to have my old job on the Force
back. The boys tell me there's fine pickings these days, and I'm
not getting rich here, sitting with a parched throat waiting for
Harry Hope to buy a drink. (He glances reproachfully at Hope.)
WILLIE--Of course, you'll be reinstated, Mac. All you need is a
brilliant young attorney to handle your case. I'll be straightened
out and on the wagon in a day or two. I've never practiced but I
was one of the most brilliant students in Law School, and your case
is just the opportunity I need to start. (darkly) Don't worry
about my not forcing the D.A. to reopen your case. I went through
my father's papers before the cops destroyed them, and I remember a
lot of people, even if I can't prove--(coaxingly) You will let me
take your case, won't you, Mac?
McGLOIN--(soothingly) Sure I will and it'll make your reputation,
Willie. (Mosher winks at Hope, shaking his head, and Hope answers
with identical pantomime, as though to say, "Poor dopes, they're
off again!")
LARRY--(aloud to himself more than to Parritt--with irritable
wonder) Ah, be damned! Haven't I heard their visions a thousand
times? Why should they get under my skin now? I've got the blues,
I guess. I wish to hell Hickey'd turn up.
MOSHER--(calculatingly solicitous--whispering to Hope) Poor Willie
needs a drink bad, Harry--and I think if we all joined him it'd
make him feel he was among friends and cheer him up.
HOPE--More circus con tricks! (scathingly) You talking of your
dear sister! Bessie had you sized up. She used to tell me, "I
don't know what you can see in that worthless, drunken, petty-
larceny brother of mine. If I had my way," she'd say, "he'd get
booted out in the gutter on his fat behind." Sometimes she didn't
say behind, either.
MOSHER--(grins genially) Yes, dear old Bess had a quick temper,
but there was no real harm in her. (He chuckles reminiscently.)
Remember the time she sent me down to the bar to change a ten-
dollar bill for her?
HOPE--(has to grin himself) Bejees, do I! She coulda bit a piece
out of a stove lid, after she found it out. (He cackles
appreciatively.)
MOSHER--I was sure surprised when she gave me the ten spot. Bess
usually had better sense, but she was in a hurry to go to church.
I didn't really mean to do it, but you know how habit gets you.
Besides, I still worked then, and the circus season was going to
begin soon, and I needed a little practice to keep my hand in. Or,
you never can tell, the first rube that came to my wagon for a
ticket might have left with the right change and I'd be disgraced.
(He chuckles.) I said, "I'm sorry, Bess, but I had to take it all
in dimes. Here, hold out your hands and I'll count it out for you,
so you won't kick afterwards I short-changed you." (He begins a
count which grows more rapid as he goes on.) Ten, twenty, thirty,
forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety, a dollar. Ten,
twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty--You're counting with me, Bess,
aren't you?--eighty, ninety, two dollars. Ten, twenty--Those are
pretty shoes you got on, Bess--forty, fifty, seventy, eighty,
ninety, three dollars. Ten, twenty, thirty--What's on at the
church tonight, Bess?--fifty, sixty, seventy, ninety, four dollars.
Ten, twenty, thirty, fifty, seventy, eighty, ninety--That's a swell
new hat, Bess, looks very becoming--six dollars. (He chuckles.)
And so on. I'm bum at it now for lack of practice, but in those
days I could have short-changed the Keeper of the Mint.
HOPE--(grinning) Stung her for two dollars and a half, wasn't it,
Ed?
MOSHER--Yes. A fine percentage, if I do say so, when you're
dealing to someone who's sober and can count. I'm sorry to say she
discovered my mistakes in arithmetic just after I beat it around
the corner. She counted it over herself. Bess somehow never had
the confidence in me a sister should. (He sighs tenderly.) Dear
old Bess.
HOPE--(indignant now) You're a fine guy bragging how you short-
changed your own sister! Bejees, if there was a war and you was in
it, they'd have to padlock the pockets of the dead!
MOSHER--(a bit hurt at this) That's going pretty strong, Harry. I
always gave a sucker some chance. There wouldn't be no fun robbing
the dead. (He becomes reminiscently melancholy.) Gosh, thinking
of the old ticket wagon brings those days back. The greatest life
on earth with the greatest show on earth! The grandest crowd of
regular guys ever gathered under one tent! I'd sure like to shake
their hands again!
HOPE--(acidly) They'd have guns in theirs. They'd shoot you on
sight. You've touched every damned one of them. Bejees, you've
even borrowed fish from the trained seals and peanuts from every
elephant that remembered you! (This fancy tickles him and he gives
a cackling laugh.)
MOSHER--(overlooking this--dreamily) You know, Harry, I've made up
my mind I'll see the boss in a couple of days and ask for my old
job. I can get back my magic touch with change easy, and I can
throw him a line of bull that'll kid him I won't be so unreasonable
about sharing the profits next time. (with insinuating complaint)
There's no percentage in hanging around this dive, taking care of
you and shooing away your snakes, when I don't even get an eye-
opener for my trouble.
HOPE--(implacably) No! (Mosher sighs and gives up and closes his
eyes. The others, except Larry and Parritt, are all dozing again
now. Hope goes on grumbling.) Go to hell or the circus, for all I
care. Good riddance, bejees! I'm sick of you! (then worriedly)
Say, Ed, what the hell you think's happened to Hickey? I hope
he'll turn up. Always got a million funny stories. You and the
other bums have begun to give me the graveyard fantods. I'd like a
good laugh with old Hickey. (He chuckles at a memory.) Remember
that gag he always pulls about his wife and the iceman? He'd make
a cat laugh! (Rocky appears from the bar. He comes front, behind
Masher's chair, and begins pushing the black curtain along the rod
to the rear wall.)
ROCKY--Openin' time, Boss. (He presses a button at rear which
switches off the lights. The back room becomes drabber and dingier
than ever in the gray daylight that comes from the street windows,
off right, and what light can penetrate the grime of the two
backyard windows at left. Rocky turns back to Hope--grumpily) Why
don't you go up to bed, Boss? Hickey'd never turn up dis time of
de mornin'!
HOPE--(starts and listens) Someone's coming now.
ROCKY--(listens) Aw, dat's on'y my two pigs. It's about time dey
showed. (He goes back toward the door at left of the bar.)
HOPE--(sourly disappointed) You keep them dumb broads quiet. I
don't want to go to bed. I'm going to catch a couple more winks
here and I don't want no damn-fool laughing and screeching. (He
settles himself in his chair, grumbling) Never thought I'd see the
day when Harry Hope's would have tarts rooming in it. What'd
Bessie think? But I don't let 'em use my rooms for business. And
they're good kids. Good as anyone else. They got to make a
living. Pay their rent, too, which is more than I can say for--(He
cocks an eye over his specs at Mosher and grins with satisfaction.)
Bejees, Ed, I'll bet Bessie is doing somersaults in her grave! (He
chuckles. But Mosher's eyes are closed, his head nodding, and he
doesn't reply, so Hope closes his eyes. Rocky has opened the
barroom door at rear and is standing in the hall beyond it, facing
right. A girl's laugh is heard.)
ROCKY--(warningly) Nix! Piano! (He comes in, beckoning them to
follow. He goes behind the bar and gets a whiskey bottle and
glasses and chairs. Margie and Pearl follow him, casting a glance
around. Everyone except Larry and Parritt is asleep or dozing.
Even Parritt has his eyes closed. The two girls, neither much over
twenty, are typical dollar street walkers, dressed in the usual
tawdry get-up. Pearl is obviously Italian with black hair and
eyes. Margie has brown hair and hazel eyes, a slum New Yorker of
mixed blood. Both are plump and have a certain prettiness that
shows even through their blobby make-up. Each retains a vestige of
youthful freshness, although the game is beginning to get them and
give them hard, worn expressions. Both are sentimental, feather-
brained, giggly, lazy, good-natured and reasonably contented with
life. Their attitude toward Rocky is much that of two maternal,
affectionate sisters toward a bullying brother whom they like to
tease and spoil. His attitude toward them is that of the owner of
two performing pets he has trained to do a profitable act under his
management. He feels a proud proprietor's affection for them, and
is tolerantly lax in his discipline.)
MARGIE--(glancing around) Jees, Poil, it's de Morgue wid all de
stiffs on deck. (She catches Larry's eye and smiles affectionately.)
Hello, Old Wise Guy, ain't you died yet?
LARRY--(grinning) Not yet, Margie. But I'm waiting impatiently
for the end. (Parritt opens his eyes to look at the two girls, but
as soon as they glance at him he closes them again and turns his
head away.)
MARGIE--(as she and Pearl come to the table at right, front,
followed by Rocky) Who's de new guy? Friend of yours, Larry?
(Automatically she smiles seductively at Parritt and addresses him
in a professional chant.) Wanta have a good time, kid?
PEARL--Aw, he's passed out. Hell wid him!
HOPE--(cocks an eye over his specs at them--with drowsy irritation)
You dumb broads cut the loud talk. (He shuts his eye again.)
ROCKY--(admonishing them good-naturedly) Sit down before I knock
yuh down. (Margie and Pearl sit at left, and rear, of table, Rocky
at right of it. The girls pour drinks. Rocky begins in a brisk,
business-like manner but in a lowered voice with an eye on Hope.)
Well, how'd you tramps do?
MARGIE--Pretty good. Didn't we, Poil?
PEARL--Sure. We nailed a coupla all-night guys.
MARGIE--On Sixth Avenoo. Boobs from de sticks.
PEARL--Stinko, de bot' of 'em.
MARGIE--We thought we was in luck. We steered dem to a real hotel.
We figgered dey was too stinko to bother us much and we could cop a
good sleep in beds that ain't got cobble stones in de mattress like
de ones in dis dump.
PEARL--But we was outa luck. Dey didn't bother us much dat way,
but dey wouldn't go to sleep either, see? Jees, I never hoid such
gabby guys.
MARGIE--Dey got onta politics, drinkin' outa de bottle. Dey forgot
we was around. "De Bull Moosers is de on'y reg'lar guys," one guy
says. And de other guy says, "You're a God-damned liar! And I'm a
Republican!" Den dey'd laugh.
PEARL--Den dey'd get mad and make a bluff dey was goin' to scrap,
and den dey'd make up and cry and sing "School Days." Jees,
imagine tryin' to sleep wid dat on de phonograph!
MARGIE--Maybe you tink we wasn't glad when de house dick come up
and told us all to git dressed and take de air!
PEARL--We told de guys we'd wait for dem 'round de corner.
MARGIE--So here we are.
ROCKY--(sententiously) Yeah. I see you. But I don't see no dough
yet.
PEARL--(with a wink at Margie--teasingly) Right on de job, ain't
he, Margie?
MARGIE--Yeah, our little business man! Dat's him!
ROCKY--Come on! Dig! (They both pull up their skirts to get the
money from their stockings. Rocky watches this move carefully.)
PEARL--(amused) Pipe him keepin' cases, Margie.
MARGIE--(amused) Scared we're holdin' out on him.
PEARL--Way he grabs, yuh'd tink it was him done de woik. (She
holds out a little roll of bills to Rocky.) Here y'are, Grafter!
MARGIE--(holding hers out) We hope it chokes yuh. (Rocky counts
the money quickly and shoves it in his pocket.)
ROCKY--(genially) You dumb baby dolls gimme a pain. What would
you do wid money if I wasn't around? Give it all to some pimp.
PEARL--(teasingly) Jees, what's the difference--? (hastily) Aw,
I don't mean dat, Rocky.
ROCKY--(his eyes growing hard--slowly) A lotta difference, get me?
PEARL--Don't get sore. Jees, can't yuh take a little kiddin'?
MARGIE--Sure, Rocky, Poil was on'y kiddin'. (soothingly) We know
yuh got a reg'lar job. Dat's why we like yuh, see? Yuh don't live
offa us. Yuh're a bartender.
ROCKY--(genially again) Sure, I'm a bartender. Everyone knows me
knows dat. And I treat you goils right, don't I? Jees, I'm wise
yuh hold out on me, but I know it ain't much, so what the hell, I
let yuh get away wid it. I tink yuh're a coupla good kids. Yuh're
aces wid me, see?
PEARL--You're aces wid us, too. Ain't he, Margie?
MARGIE--Sure, he's aces. (Rocky beams complacently and takes the
glasses back to the bar. Margie whispers) Yuh sap, don't yuh know
enough not to kid him on dat? Serve yuh right if he beat yuh up!
PEARL--(admiringly) Jees, I'll bet he'd give yuh an awful beatin',
too, once he started. Ginnies got awful tempers.
MARGIE--Anyway, we wouldn't keep no pimp, like we was reg'lar old
whores. We ain't dat bad.
PEARL--No. We're tarts, but dat's all.
ROCKY--(rinsing glasses behind the bar) Cora got back around three
o'clock. She woke up Chuck and dragged him outa de hay to go to a
chop suey joint. (disgustedly) Imagine him standin' for dat
stuff!
MARGIE--(disgustedly) I'll bet dey been sittin' around kiddin'
demselves wid dat old pipe dream about gettin' married and settlin'
down on a farm. Jees, when Chuck's on de wagon, dey never lay off
dat dope! Dey give yuh an earful every time yuh talk to 'em!
PEARL--Yeah. Chuck wid a silly grin on his ugly map, de big boob,
and Cora gigglin' like she was in grammar school and some tough
guy'd just told her babies wasn't brung down de chimney by a boid!
MARGIE--And her on de turf long before me and you was! And bot' of
'em arguin' all de time, Cora sayin' she's scared to marry him
because he'll go on drunks again. Just as dough any drunk could
scare Cora!
PEARL--And him swearin', de big liar, he'll never go on no more
periodicals! An' den her pretendin'--But it gives me a pain to
talk about it. We ought to phone de booby hatch to send round de
wagon for 'em.
ROCKY--(comes back to the table--disgustedly) Yeah, of all de pipe
dreams in dis dump, dey got de nuttiest! And nuttin' stops dem.
Dey been dreamin' it for years, every time Chuck goes on de wagon.
I never could figger it. What would gettin' married get dem? But
de farm stuff is de sappiest part. When bot' of 'em was dragged up
in dis ward and ain't never been nearer a farm dan Coney Island!
Jees, dey'd think dey'd gone deef if dey didn't hear de El rattle!
Dey'd get D.T.s if dey ever hoid a cricket choip! I hoid crickets
once on my cousin's place in Joisey. I couldn't sleep a wink. Dey
give me de heebie-jeebies. (with deeper disgust) Jees, can yuh
picture a good bar-keep like Chuck diggin' spuds? And imagine a
whore hustlin' de cows home! For Christ sake! Ain't dat a sweet
picture!
MARGIE--(rebukingly) Yuh oughtn't to call Cora dat. Rocky. She's
a good kid. She may be a tart, but--
ROCKY--(considerately) Sure, dat's all I meant, a tart.
PEARL--(giggling) But he's right about de damned cows, Margie.
Jees, I bet Cora don't know which end of de cow has de horns! I'm
goin' to ask her. (There is the noise of a door opening in the
hall and the sound of a man's and woman's arguing voices.)
ROCKY--Here's your chance. Dat's dem two nuts now. (Cora and
Chuck look in from the hallway and then come in. Cora is a thin
peroxide blonde, a few years older than Pearl and Margie, dressed
in similar style, her round face showing more of the wear and tear
of her trade than theirs, but still with traces of a doll-like
prettiness. Chuck is a tough, thick-necked, barrel-chested
Italian-American, with a fat, amiable, swarthy face. He has on a
straw hat with a vivid band, a loud suit, tie and shirt, and yellow
shoes. His eyes are clear and he looks healthy and strong as an
ox.)
CORA--(gaily) Hello, bums. (She looks around.) Jees, de Morgue
on a rainy Sunday night! (She waves to Larry--affectionately)
Hello, Old Wise Guy! Ain't you croaked yet?
LARRY--(grins) Not yet, Cora. It's damned tiring, this waiting
for the end.
CORA--Aw, gwan, you'll never die! Yuh'll have to hire someone to
croak yuh wid an axe.
HOPE--(cocks one sleepy eye at her--irritably) You dumb hookers,
cut the loud noise! This ain't a cathouse!
CORA--(teasingly) My, Harry! Such language!
HOPE--(closes his eyes--to himself with a gratified chuckle)
Bejees, I'll bet Bessie's turning over in her grave! (Cora sits
down between Margie and Pearl. Chuck takes an empty chair from
Hope's table and puts it by hers and sits down. At Larry's table,
Parritt is glaring resentfully toward the girls.)
PARRITT--If I'd known this dump was a hooker hangout, I'd never
have come here.
LARRY--(watching him) You seem down on the ladies.
PARRITT--(vindictively) I hate every bitch that ever lived!
They're all alike! (catching himself guiltily) You can understand
how I feel, can't you, when it was getting mixed up with a tart
that made me have that fight with Mother? (then with a resentful
sneer) But what the hell does it matter to you? You're in the
grandstand. You're through with life.
LARRY--(sharply) I'm glad you remember it. I don't want to know a
damned thing about your business. (He closes his eyes and settles
on his chair as if preparing for sleep. Parritt starts at him
sneeringly. Then he looks away and his expression becomes furtive
and frightened.)
CORA--Who's de guy wid Larry?
ROCKY--A tightwad. To hell wid him.
PEARL--Say, Cora, wise me up. Which end of a cow is dehorns on?
CORA--(embarrassed) Aw, don't bring dat up. I'm sick of hearin'
about dat farm.
ROCKY--You got nuttin' on us!
CORA--(ignoring this) Me and dis overgrown tramp has been
scrappin' about it. He says Joisey's de best place, and I says
Long Island because we'll be near Coney. And I tells him, How do I
know yuh're off of periodicals for life? I don't give a damn how
drunk yuh get, the way we are, but I don't wanta be married to no
soak.
CHUCK--And I tells her I'm off de stuff for life. Den she beefs we
won't be married a month before I'll trow it in her face she was a
tart. "Jees, Baby," I tells her. "Why should I? What de hell yuh
tink I tink I'm marryin', a voigin? Why should I kick as long as
yuh lay off it and don't do no cheatin' wid de iceman or nobody?"
(He gives her a rough hug.) Dat's on de level, Baby. (He kisses
her.)
CORA--(kissing him) Aw, yuh big tramp!
ROCKY--(shakes his head with profound disgust) Can yuh tie it?
I'll buy a drink. I'll do anything. (He gets up.)
CORA--No, dis round's on me. I run into luck. Dat's why I dragged
Chuck outa bed to celebrate. It was a sailor. I rolled him. (She
giggles.) Listen, it was a scream. I've run into some nutty
souses, but dis guy was de nuttiest. De booze dey dish out around
de Brooklyn Navy Yard must be as turrible bug-juice as Harry's. My
dogs was givin' out when I seen dis guy holdin' up a lamppost, so I
hurried to get him before a cop did. I says, "Hello, Handsome,
wanta have a good time?" Jees, he was paralyzed! One of dem
polite jags. He tries to bow to me, imagine, and I had to prop him
up or he'd fell on his nose. And what d'yuh tink he said? "Lady,"
he says, "can yuh kindly tell me de nearest way to de Museum of
Natural History?" (They all laugh.) Can yuh imagine! At two A.M.
As if I'd know where de dump was anyway. But I says, "Sure ting,
Honey Boy, I'll be only too glad." So I steered him into a side
street where it was dark and propped him against a wall and give
him a frisk. (She giggles.) And what d'yuh tink he does? Jees, I
ain't lyin', he begins to laugh, de big sap! He says, "Quit
ticklin' me." While I was friskin' him for his roll! I near died!
Den I toined him 'round and give him a push to start him. "Just
keep goin'," I told him. "It's a big white building on your right.
You can't miss it." He must be swimmin' in de North River yet!
(They all laugh.)
CHUCK--Ain't Uncle Sam de sap to trust guys like dat wid dough!
CORA--(with a business-like air) I picked twelve bucks offa him.
Come on, Rocky. Set 'em up. (Rocky goes back to the bar. Cora
looks around the room.) Say, Chuck's kiddin' about de iceman a
minute ago reminds me. Where de hell's Hickey?
ROCKY--Dat's what we're all wonderin'.
CORA--He oughta be here. Me and Chuck seen him.
ROCKY--(excited, comes back from the bar, forgetting the drinks)
You seen Hickey? (He nudges Hope.) Hey, Boss, come to! Cora's
seen Hickey. (Hope is instantly wide awake and everyone in the
place, except Hugo and Parritt, begins to rouse up hopefully, as if
a mysterious wireless message had gone round.)
HOPE--Where'd you see him, Cora?
CORA--Right on de next corner. He was standin' dere. We said,
"Welcome to our city. De gang is expectin' yuh wid deir tongues
hangin' out a yard long." And I kidded him, "How's de iceman,
Hickey? How's he doin' at your house?" He laughs and says,
"Fine." And he says, "Tell de gang I'll be along in a minute. I'm
just finishin' figurin' out de best way to save dem and bring dem
peace."
HOPE--(chuckles) Bejees, he's thought up a new gag! It's a wonder
he didn't borry a Salvation Army uniform and show up in that! Go
out and get him, Rocky. Tell him we're waitin' to be saved!
(Rocky goes out, grinning.)
CORA--Yeah, Harry, he was only kiddin'. But he was funny, too,
somehow. He was different, or somethin'.
CHUCK--Sure, he was sober, Baby. Dat's what made him different.
We ain't never seen him when he wasn't on a drunk, or had de
willies gettin' over it.
CORA--Sure! Gee, ain't I dumb?
HOPE--(with conviction) The dumbest broad I ever seen! (then
puzzledly) Sober? That's funny. He's always lapped up a good
starter on his way here. Well, bejees, he won't be sober long!
He'll be good and ripe for my birthday party tonight at twelve.
(He chuckles with excited anticipation--addressing all of them)
Listen! He's fixed some new gag to pull on us. We'll pretend to
let him kid us, see? And we'll kid the pants off him. (They all
say laughingly, "Sure, Harry," "Righto," "That's the stuff," "We'll
fix him," etc., etc., their faces excited with the same eager
anticipation. Rocky appears in the doorway at the end of the bar
with Hickey, his arm around Hickey's shoulders.)
ROCKY--(with an affectionate grin) Here's the old son of a bitch!
(They all stand up and greet him with affectionate acclaim, "Hello,
Hickey!" etc. Even Hugo comes out of his coma to raise his head
and blink through his thick spectacles with a welcoming giggle.)
HICKEY--(jovially) Hello, Gang! (He stands a moment, beaming
around at all of them affectionately. He is about fifty, a little
under medium height, with a stout, roly-poly figure. His face is
round and smooth and big-boyish with bright blue eyes, a button
nose, a small, pursed mouth. His head is bald except for a fringe
of hair around his temples and the back of his head. His
expression is fixed in a salesman's winning smile of self-confident
affability and hearty good fellowship. His eyes have the twinkle
of a humor which delights in kidding others but can also enjoy
equally a joke on himself. He exudes a friendly, generous
personality that makes everyone like him on sight. You get the
impression, too, that he must have real ability in his line.
There is an efficient, businesslike approach in his manner, and
his eyes can take you in shrewdly at a glance. He has the
salesman's mannerisms of speech, an easy flow of glib, persuasive
convincingness. His clothes are those of a successful drummer
whose territory consists of minor cities and small towns--not
flashy but conspicuously spic and span. He immediately puts on an
entrance act, places a hand affectedly on his chest, throws back
his head, and sings in a falsetto tenor) "It's always fair
weather, when good fellows get together!" (changing to a comic
bass and another tune) "And another little drink won't do us any
harm!" (They all roar with laughter at this burlesque which his
personality makes really funny. He waves his hand in a lordly
manner to Rocky.) Do your duty, Brother Rocky. Bring on the rat
poison! (Rocky grins and goes behind the bar to get drinks amid an
approving cheer from the crowd. Hickey comes forward to shake
hands with Hope--with affectionate heartiness) How goes it,
Governor?
HOPE--(enthusiastically) Bejees, Hickey, you old bastard, it's
good to see you! (Hickey shakes hands with Mosher and McGloin;
leans right to shake hands with Margie and Pearl; moves to the
middle table to shake hands with Lewis, Joe Mott, Wetjoen and
Jimmy; waves to Willie, Larry and Hugo. He greets each by name
with the same affectionate heartiness and there is an interchange
of "How's the kid?" "How's the old scout?" "How's the boy?"
"How's everything?" etc., etc. Rocky begins setting out drinks,
whiskey glasses with chasers, and a bottle for each table, starting
with Larry's table. Hope says) Sit down, Hickey. Sit down.
(Hickey takes the chair, facing front, at the front of the table in
the second row which is half between Hope's table and the one where
Jimmy Tomorrow is. Hope goes on with excited pleasure.) Bejees,
Hickey, it seems natural to see your ugly, grinning map. (with a
scornful nod to Cora) This dumb broad was tryin' to tell us you'd
changed, but you ain't a damned bit. Tell us about yourself.
How've you been doin'? Bejees, you look like a million dollars.
ROCKY--(coming to Hickey's table, puts a bottle of whiskey, a glass
and a chaser on it--then hands Hickey a key) Here's your key,
Hickey. Same old room.
HICKEY--(shoves the key in his pocket) Thanks, Rocky. I'm going
up in a little while and grab a snooze. Haven't been able to sleep
lately and I'm tired as hell. A couple of hours good kip will fix
me.
HOPE--(as Rocky puts drinks on his table) First time I ever heard
you worry about sleep. Bejees, you never would go to bed. (He
raises his glass, and all the others except Parritt do likewise.)
Get a few slugs under your belt and you'll forget sleeping. Here's
mud in your eye, Hickey. (They all join in with the usual humorous
toasts.)
HICKEY--(heartily) Drink hearty, boys and girls! (They all drink,
but Hickey drinks only his chaser.)
HOPE--Bejees, is that a new stunt, drinking your chaser first?
HICKEY--No, I forgot to tell Rocky--You'll have to excuse me, boys
and girls, but I'm off the stuff. For keeps. (They stare at him
in amazed incredulity.)
HOPE--What the hell--(then with a wink at the others, kiddingly)
Sure! Joined the Salvation Army, ain't you? Been elected
President of the W.C.T.U.? Take that bottle away from him, Rocky.
We don't want to tempt him into sin. (He chuckles and the others
laugh.)
HICKEY--(earnestly) No, honest, Harry. I know it's hard to
believe but--(He pauses--then adds simply) Cora was right, Harry.
I have changed. I mean, about booze. I don't need it any more.
(They all stare, hoping it's a gag, but impressed and disappointed
and made vaguely uneasy by the change they now sense in him.)
HOPE--(his kidding a bit forced) Yeah, go ahead, kid the pants off
us! Bejees, Cora said you was coming to save us! Well, go on.
Get this joke off your chest! Start the service! Sing a God-
damned hymn if you like. We'll all join in the chorus. "No
drunkard can enter this beautiful home." That's a good one. (He
forces a cackle.)
HICKEY--(grinning) Oh, hell, Governor! You don't think I'd come
around here peddling some brand of temperance bunk, do you? You
know me better than that! Just because I'm through with the stuff
don't mean I'm going Prohibition. Hell, I'm not that ungrateful!
It's given me too many good times. I feel exactly the same as I
always did. If anyone wants to get drunk, if that's the only way
they can be happy, and feel at peace with themselves, why the hell
shouldn't they? They have my full and entire sympathy. I know all
about that game from soup to nuts. I'm the guy that wrote the
book. The only reason I've quit is--Well, I finally had the guts
to face myself and throw overboard the damned lying pipe dream
that'd been making me miserable, and do what I had to do for the
happiness of all concerned--and then all at once I found I was at
peace with myself and I didn't need booze any more. That's all
there was to it. (He pauses. They are staring at him, uneasy and
beginning to feel defensive. Hickey looks round and grins
affectionately--apologetically) But what the hell! Don't let me
be a wet blanket, making fool speeches about myself. Set 'em up
again, Rocky. Here. (He pulls a big roll from his pocket and
peels off a ten-dollar bill. The faces of all brighten.) Keep the
balls coming until this is killed. Then ask for more.
ROCKY--Jees, a roll dat'd choke a hippopotamus! Fill up, youse
guys. (They all pour out drinks.)
HOPE--That sounds more like you, Hickey. That water-wagon bull--
Cut out the act and have a drink, for Christ's sake.
HICKEY--It's no act, Governor. But don't get me wrong. That don't
mean I'm a teetotal grouch and can't be in the party. Hell, why
d'you suppose I'm here except to have a party, same as I've always
done, and help celebrate your birthday tonight? You've all been
good pals to me, the best friends I've ever had. I've been
thinking about you ever since I left the house--all the time I was
walking over here--
HOPE--Walking? Bejees, do you mean to say you walked?
HICKEY--I sure did. All the way from the wilds of darkest Astoria.
Didn't mind it a bit, either. I seemed to get here before I knew
it. I'm a bit tired and sleepy but otherwise I feel great.
(kiddingly) That ought to encourage you, Governor--show you a
little walk around the ward is nothing to be so scared about. (He
winks at the others. Hope stiffens resentfully for a second.
Hickey goes on.) I didn't make such bad time either for a fat guy,
considering it's a hell of a ways, and I sat in the park a while
thinking. It was going on twelve when I went in the bedroom to
tell Evelyn I was leaving. Six hours, say. No, less than that.
I'd been standing on the corner some time before Cora and Chuck
came along, thinking about all of you. Of course, I was only
kidding Cora with that stuff about saving you. (then seriously)
No, I wasn't either. But I didn't mean booze. I meant save you
from pipe dreams. I know now, from my experience, they're the
things that really poison and ruin a guy's life and keep him from
finding any peace. If you knew how free and contented I feel now.
I'm like a new man. And the cure for them is so damned simple,
once you have the nerve. Just the old dope of honesty is the best
policy--honesty with yourself, I mean. Just stop lying about
yourself and kidding yourself about tomorrows. (He is staring
ahead of him now as if he were talking aloud to himself as much as
to them. Their eyes are fixed on him with uneasy resentment. His
manner becomes apologetic again.) Hell, this begins to sound like
a damned sermon on the way to lead the good life. Forget that part
of it. It's in my blood, I guess. My old man used to whale
salvation into my heinie with a birch rod. He was a preacher in
the sticks of Indiana, like I've told you. I got my knack of sales
gab from him, too. He was the boy who could sell those Hoosier
hayseeds building lots along the Golden Street! (taking on a
salesman's persuasiveness) Now listen, boys and girls, don't look
at me as if I was trying to sell you a goldbrick. Nothing up my
sleeve, honest. Let's take an example. Any one of you. Take you,
Governor. That walk around the ward you never take--
HOPE--(defensively sharp) What about it?
HICKEY--(grinning affectionately) Why, you know as well as I do,
Harry. Everything about it.
HOPE--(defiantly) Bejees, I'm going to take it!
HICKEY--Sure, you're going to--this time. Because I'm going to
help you. I know it's the thing you've got to do before you'll
ever know what real peace means. (He looks at Jimmy Tomorrow)
Same thing with you, Jimmy. You've got to try and get your old job
back. And no tomorrow about it! (as Jimmy stiffens with a
pathetic attempt at dignity--placatingly) No, don't tell me,
Jimmy. I know all about tomorrow. I'm the guy that wrote the
book.
JIMMY--I don't understand you. I admit I've foolishly delayed, but
as it happens, I'd just made up my mind that as soon as I could get
straightened out--
HICKEY--Fine! That's the spirit! And I'm going to help you.
You've been damned kind to me, Jimmy, and I want to prove how
grateful I am. When it's all over and you don't have to nag at
yourself any more, you'll be grateful to me, too! (He looks around
at the others.) And all the rest of you, ladies included, are in
the same boat, one way or another.
LARRY--(who has been listening with sardonic appreciation--in his
comically intense, crazy whisper) Be God, you've hit the nail on
the head, Hickey! This dump is the Palace of Pipe Dreams!
HICKEY--(grins at him with affectionate kidding) Well, well! The
Old Grandstand Foolosopher speaks! You think you're the big
exception, eh? Life doesn't mean a damn to you any more, does it?
You're retired from the circus. You're just waiting impatiently
for the end--the good old Long Sleep! (He chuckles.) Well, I
think a lot of you, Larry, you old bastard. I'll try and make an
honest man of you, too!
LARRY--(stung) What the devil are you hinting at, anyway?
HICKEY--You don't have to ask me, do you, a wise old guy like you?
Just ask yourself. I'll bet you know.
PARRITT--(is watching Larry's face with a curious sneering
satisfaction) He's got your number all right, Larry! (He turns to
Hickey.) That's the stuff, Hickey. Show the old faker up! He's
got no right to sneak out of everything.
HICKEY--(regards him with surprise at first, then with a puzzled
interest) Hello. A stranger in our midst. I didn't notice you
before, Brother.
PARRITT--(embarrassed, his eyes shifting away) My name's Parritt.
I'm an old friend of Larry's. (His eyes come back to Hickey to
find him still sizing him up--defensively) Well? What are you
staring at?
HICKEY--(continuing to stare--puzzledly) No offense, Brother. I
was trying to figure--Haven't we met before some place?
PARRITT--(reassured) No. First time I've ever been East.
HICKEY--No, you're right. I know that's not it. In my game, to be
a shark at it, you teach yourself never to forget a name or a face.
But still I know damned well I recognized something about you.
We're members of the same lodge--in some way.
PARRITT--(uneasy again) What are you talking about? You're nuts.
HICKEY--(dryly) Don't try to kid me, Little Boy. I'm a good
salesman--so damned good the firm was glad to take me back after
every drunk--and what made me good was I could size up anyone.
(frowningly puzzled again) But I don't see--(suddenly breezily
good-natured) Never mind. I can tell you're having trouble with
yourself and I'll be glad to do anything I can to help a friend of
Larry's.
LARRY--Mind your own business, Hickey. He's nothing to you--or to
me, either. (Hickey gives him a keen inquisitive glance. Larry
looks away and goes on sarcastically.) You're keeping us all in
suspense. Tell us more about how you're going to save us.
HICKEY--(good-naturedly but seeming a little hurt) Hell, don't get
sore, Larry. Not at me. We've always been good pals, haven't we?
I know I've always liked you a lot.
LARRY--(a bit shamefaced) Well, so have I liked you. Forget it,
Hickey.
HICKEY--(beaming) Fine! That's the spirit! (looking around at
the others, who have forgotten their drinks) What's the matter,
everybody? What is this, a funeral? Come on and drink up! A
little action! (They all drink.) Have another. Hell, this is a
celebration! Forget it, if anything I've said sounds too serious.
I don't want to be a pain in the neck. Any time you think I'm
talking out of turn, just tell me to go chase myself! (He yawns
with growing drowsiness and his voice grows a bit muffled.) No,
boys and girls, I'm not trying to put anything over on you. It's
just that I know now from experience what a lying pipe dream can do
to you--and how damned relieved and contented with yourself you
feel when you're rid of it. (He yawns again.) God, I'm sleepy all
of a sudden. That long walk is beginning to get me. I better go
upstairs. Hell of a trick to go dead on you like this. (He starts
to get up but relaxes again. His eyes blink as he tries to keep
them open.) No, boys and girls, I've never known what real peace
was until now. It's a grand feeling, like when you're sick and
suffering like hell and the Doc gives you a shot in the arm, and
the pain goes, and you drift off. (His eyes close.) You can let
go of yourself at last. Let yourself sink down to the bottom of
the sea. Rest in peace. There's no farther you have to go. Not a
single damned hope or dream left to nag you. You'll all know what
I mean after you--(He pauses--mumbles) Excuse--all in--got to grab
forty winks--Drink up, everybody--on me--(The sleep of complete
exhaustion overpowers him. His chin sags to his chest. They stare
at him with puzzled uneasy fascination.)
HOPE--(forcing a tone of irritation) Bejees, that's a fine stunt,
to go to sleep on us! (then fumingly to the crowd) Well, what the
hell's the matter with you bums? Why don't you drink up? You're
always crying for booze, and now you've got it under your nose, you
sit like dummies! (They start and gulp down their whiskies and
pour another. Hope stares at Hickey.) Bejees, I can't figure
Hickey. I still say he's kidding us. Kid his own grandmother,
Hickey would. What d'you think, Jimmy?
JIMMY--(unconvincingly) It must be another of his jokes, Harry,
although--Well, he does appear changed. But he'll probably be his
natural self again tomorrow--(hastily) I mean, when he wakes up.
LARRY--(staring at Hickey frowningly--more aloud to himself than to
them) You'll make a mistake if you think he's only kidding.
PARRITT--(in a low confidential voice) I don't like that guy,
Larry. He's too damned nosy. I'm going to steer clear of him.
(Larry gives him a suspicious glance, then looks hastily away.)
JIMMY--(with an attempt at open-minded reasonableness) Still,
Harry, I have to admit there was some sense in his nonsense. It is
time I got my job back--although I hardly need him to remind me.
HOPE--(with an air of frankness) Yes, and I ought to take a walk
around the ward. But I don't need no Hickey to tell me, seeing I
got it all set for my birthday tomorrow.
LARRY--(sardonically) Ha! (then in his comically intense, crazy
whisper) Be God, it looks like he's going to make two sales of his
peace at least! But you'd better make sure first it's the real
McCoy and not poison.
HOPE--(disturbed--angrily) You bughouse I-Won't-Work harp, who
asked you to shove in an oar? What the hell d'you mean, poison?
Just because he has your number--(He immediately feels ashamed of
this taunt and adds apologetically) Bejees, Larry, you're always
croaking about something to do with death. It gets my nanny. Come
on, fellers, let's drink up. (They drink. Hope's eyes are fixed
on Hickey again.) Stone cold sober and dead to the world!
Spilling that business about pipe dreams! Bejees, I don't get it.
(He bursts out again in angry complaint) He ain't like the old
Hickey! He'll be a fine wet blanket to have around at my birthday
party! I wish to hell he'd never turned up!
MOSHER--(who has been the least impressed by Hickey's talk and is
the first to recover and feel the effect of the drinks on top of
his hangover--genially) Give him time, Harry, and he'll come out
of it. I've watched many cases of almost fatal teetotalism, but
they all came out of it completely cured and as drunk as ever. My
opinion is the poor sap is temporarily bughouse from overwork.
(musingly) You can't be too careful about work. It's the
deadliest habit known to science, a great physician once told me.
He practiced on street corners under a torchlight. He was
positively the only doctor in the world who claimed that
rattlesnake oil, rubbed on the prat, would cure heart failure in
three days. I remember well his saying to me, "You are naturally
delicate, Ed, but if you drink a pint of bad whiskey before
breakfast every evening, and never work if you can help it, you may
live to a ripe old age. It's staying sober and working that cuts
men off in their prime." (While he is talking, they turn to him
with eager grins. They are longing to laugh, and as he finishes
they roar. Even Parritt laughs. Hickey sleeps on like a dead man,
but Hugo, who had passed into his customary coma again, head on
table, looks up through his thick spectacles and giggles
foolishly.)
HUGO--(blinking around at them. As the laughter dies he speaks in
his giggling, wheedling manner, as if he were playfully teasing
children.) Laugh, leedle bourgeois monkey-faces! Laugh like
fools, leedle stupid peoples! (His tone suddenly changes to one of
guttural soapbox denunciation and he pounds on the table with a
small fist.) I vill laugh, too! But I vill laugh last! I vill
laugh at you! (He declaims his favorite quotation.) "The days
grow hot, O Babylon! 'Tis cool beneath thy villow trees!" (They
all hoot him down in a chorus of amused jeering. Hugo is not
offended. This is evidently their customary reaction. He giggles
good-naturedly. Hickey sleeps on. They have all forgotten their
uneasiness about him now and ignore him.)
LEWIS--(tipsily) Well, now that our little Robespierre has got the
daily bit of guillotining off his chest, tell me more about your
doctor friend, Ed. He strikes me as the only bloody sensible
medico I ever heard of. I think we should appoint him house
physician here without a moment's delay. (They all laughingly
assent.)
MOSHER--(warming to his subject, shakes his head sadly) Too late!
The old Doc has passed on to his Maker. A victim of overwork, too.
He didn't follow his own advice. Kept his nose to the grindstone
and sold one bottle of snake oil too many. Only eighty years old
when he was taken. The saddest part was that he knew he was
doomed. The last time we got paralyzed together he told me: "This
game will get me yet, Ed. You see before you a broken man, a
martyr to medical science. If I had any nerves I'd have a nervous
breakdown. You won't believe me, but this last year there was
actually one night I had so many patients, I didn't even have time
to get drunk. The shock to my system brought on a stroke which, as
a doctor, I recognized was the beginning of the end." Poor old
Doc! When he said this he started crying. "I hate to go before my
task is completed, Ed," he sobbed. "I'd hoped I'd live to see the
day when, thanks to my miraculous cure, there wouldn't be a single
vacant cemetery lot left in this glorious country." (There is a
roar of laughter. He waits for it to die and then goes on sadly.)
I miss Doc. He was a gentleman of the old school. I'll bet he's
standing on a street corner in hell right now, making suckers of
the damned, telling them there's nothing like snake oil for a bad
burn. (There is another roar of laughter. This time it penetrates
Hickey's exhausted slumber. He stirs on his chair, trying to wake
up, managing to raise his head a little and force his eyes half
open. He speaks with a drowsy, affectionately encouraging smile.
At once the laughter stops abruptly and they turn to him
startledly.)
HICKEY--That's the spirit--don't let me be a wet blanket--all I
want is to see you happy--(He slips back into heavy sleep again.
They all stare at him, their faces again puzzled, resentful and
uneasy.)
(Curtain)
ACT TWO
SCENE--The back room only. The black curtain dividing it from the
bar is the right wall of the scene. It is getting on toward
midnight of the same day.
The back room has been prepared for a festivity. At center, front,
four of the circular tables are pushed together to form one long
table with an uneven line of chairs behind it, and chairs at each
end. This improvised banquet table is covered with old table
cloths, borrowed from a neighboring beanery, and is laid with
glasses, plates and cutlery before each of the seventeen chairs.
Bottles of bar whiskey are placed at intervals within reach of any
sitter. An old upright piano and stool have been moved in and
stand against the wall at left, front. At right, front, is a table
without chairs. The other tables and chairs that had been in the
room have been moved out, leaving a clear floor space at rear for
dancing. The floor has been swept clean of sawdust and scrubbed.
Even the walls show evidence of having been washed, although the
result is only to heighten their splotchy leprous look. The
electric light brackets are adorned with festoons of red ribbon.
In the middle of the separate table at right, front, is a birthday
cake with six candles. Several packages, tied with ribbon, are
also on the table. There are two necktie boxes, two cigar boxes, a
fifth containing a half dozen handkerchiefs, the sixth is a square
jeweler's watch box.
As the curtain rises, Cora, Chuck, Hugo, Larry, Margie, Pearl and
Rocky are discovered. Chuck, Rocky and the three girls have
dressed up for the occasion. Cora is arranging a bouquet of
flowers in a vase, the vase being a big schooner glass from the
bar, on top of the piano. Chuck sits in a chair at the foot (left)
of the banquet table. He has turned it so he can watch her. Near
the middle of the row of chairs behind the table, Larry sits,
facing front, a drink of whiskey before him. He is staring before
him in frowning, disturbed meditation. Next to him, on his left,
Hugo is in his habitual position, passed out, arms on table, head
on arms, a full whiskey glass by his head. By the separate table
at right, front, Margie and Pearl are arranging the cake and
presents, and Rocky stands by them. All of them, with the
exception of Chuck and Rocky, have had plenty to drink and show it,
but no one, except Hugo, seems to be drunk. They are trying to act
up in the spirit of the occasion but there is something forced
about their manner, an undercurrent of nervous irritation and
preoccupation.
CORA--(standing back from the piano to regard the flower effect)
How's dat, Kid?
CHUCK--(grumpily) What de hell do I know about flowers?
CORA--Yuh can see dey're pretty, can't yuh, yuh big dummy?
CHUCK--(mollifyingly) Yeah, Baby, sure. If yuh like 'em, dey're
aw right wid me. (Cora goes back to give the schooner of flowers a
few more touches.)
MARGIE--(admiring the cake) Some cake, huh, Poil? Lookit! Six
candles. Each for ten years.
PEARL--When do we light de candles, Rocky?
ROCKY--(grumpily) Ask dat bughouse Hickey. He's elected himself
boss of dis boithday racket. Just before Harry comes down, he
says. Den Harry blows dem out wid one breath, for luck. Hickey
was goin' to have sixty candles, but I says, Jees, if de old guy
took dat big a breath, he'd croak himself.
MARGIE--(challengingly) Well, anyways, it's some cake, ain't it?
ROCKY--(without enthusiasm) Sure, it's aw right by me. But what
de hell is Harry goin' to do wid a cake? If he ever et a hunk,
it'd croak him.
PEARL--Jees, yuh're a dope! Ain't he, Margie?
MARGIE--A dope is right!
ROCKY--(stung) You broads better watch your step or--
PEARL--(defiantly) Or what?
MARGIE--Yeah! Or what? (They glare at him truculently.)
ROCKY--Say, what de hell's got into youse? It'll be twelve o'clock
and Harry's boithday before long. I ain't lookin' for no trouble.
PEARL--(ashamed) Aw, we ain't neider, Rocky. (For the moment this
argument subsides.)
CORA--(over her shoulder to Chuck--acidly) A guy what can't see
flowers is pretty must be some dumbbell.
CHUCK--Yeah? Well, if I was as dumb as you--(then mollifyingly)
Jees, yuh got your scrappin' pants on, ain't yuh? (grins good-
naturedly) Hell, Baby, what's eatin' yuh? All I'm tinkin' is,
flowers is dat louse Hickey's stunt. We never had no flowers for
Harry's boithday before. What de hell can Harry do wid flowers?
He don't know a cauliflower from a geranium.
ROCKY--Yeah, Chuck, it's like I'm tellin' dese broads about de
cake. Dat's Hickey's wrinkle, too. (bitterly) Jees, ever since
he woke up, yuh can't hold him. He's taken on de party like it was
his boithday.
MARGIE--Well, he's payin' for everything, ain't he?
ROCKY--Aw, I don't mind de boithday stuff so much. What gets my
goat is de way he's tryin' to run de whole dump and everyone in it.
He's buttin' in all over de place, tellin' everybody where dey get
off. On'y he don't really tell yuh. He just keeps hintin' around.
PEARL--Yeah. He was hintin' to me and Margie.
MARGIE--Yeah, de lousy drummer.
ROCKY--He just gives yuh an earful of dat line of bull about yuh
got to be honest wid yourself and not kid yourself, and have de
guts to be what yuh are. I got sore. I told him dat's aw right
for de bums in his dump. I hope he makes dem wake up. I'm sick of
listenin' to dem hop demselves up. But it don't go wid me, see? I
don't kid myself wid no pipe dream. (Pearl and Margie exchange a
derisive look. He catches it and his eyes narrow.) What are yuh
grinnin' at?
PEARL--(her face hard--scornfully) Nuttin'.
MARGIE--Nuttin'.
ROCKY--It better be nuttin'! Don't let Hickey put no ideas in your
nuts if you wanta stay healthy! (then angrily) I wish de louse
never showed up! I hope he don't come back from de delicatessen.
He's gettin' everyone nuts. He's ridin' someone every minute.
He's got Harry and Jimmy Tomorrow run ragged, and de rest is hidin'
in deir rooms so dey won't have to listen to him. Dey're all
actin' cagey wid de booze, too, like dey was scared if dey get too
drunk, dey might spill deir guts, or somethin'. And everybody's
gettin' a prize grouch on.
CORA--Yeah, he's been hintin' round to me and Chuck, too. Yuh'd
tink he suspected me and Chuck hadn't no real intention of gettin'
married. Yuh'd tink he suspected Chuck wasn't goin' to lay off
periodicals--or maybe even didn't want to.
CHUCK--He didn't say it right out or I'da socked him one. I told
him, "I'm on de wagon for keeps and Cora knows it."
CORA--I told him, "Sure, I know it. And Chuck ain't never goin' to
trow it in my face dat I was a tart, neider. And if yuh tink we're
just kiddin' ourselves, we'll show yuh!"
CHUCK--We're goin' to show him!
CORA--We got it all fixed. We've decided Joisey is where we want
de farm, and we'll get married dere, too, because yuh don't need no
license. We're goin' to get married tomorrow. Ain't we, Honey?
CHUCK--You bet, Baby.
ROCKY--(disgusted) Christ, Chuck, are yuh lettin' dat bughouse
louse Hickey kid yuh into--
CORA--(turns on him angrily) Nobody's kiddin' him into it, nor me
neider! And Hickey's right. If dis big tramp's goin' to marry me,
he ought to do it, and not just shoot off his old bazoo about it.
ROCKY--(ignoring her) Yuh can't be dat dumb, Chuck.
CORA--You keep outa dis! And don't start beefin' about crickets on
de farm drivin' us nuts. You and your crickets! Yuh'd tink dey
was elephants!
MARGIE--(coming to Rocky's defense--sneeringly) Don't notice dat
broad, Rocky. Yuh heard her say "tomorrow," didn't yuh? It's de
same old crap.
CORA--(glares at her) Is dat so?
PEARL--(lines up with Margie--sneeringly) Imagine Cora a bride!
Dat's a hot one! Jees, Cora, if all de guys you've stayed wid was
side by side, yuh could walk on 'em from here to Texas!
CORA--(starts moving toward her threateningly) Yuh can't talk like
dat to me, yuh fat Dago hooker! I may be a tart, but I ain't a
cheap old whore like you!
PEARL--(furiously) I'll show yuh who's a whore! (They start to
fly at each other, but Chuck and Rocky grab them from behind.)
CHUCK--(forcing Cora onto a chair) Sit down and cool off, Baby.
ROCKY--(doing the same to Pearl) Nix on de rough stuff, Poil.
MARGIE--(glaring at Cora) Why don't you leave Poil alone, Rocky?
She'll fix dat blonde's clock! Or if she don't, I will!
ROCKY--Shut up, you! (disgustedly) Jees, what dames! D'yuh wanta
gum Harry's party?
PEARL--(a bit shamefaced--sulkily) Who wants to? But nobody can't
call me a ----.
ROCKY--(exasperatedly) Aw, bury it! What are you, a voigin?
(Pearl stares at him, her face growing hard and bitter. So does
Margie.)
PEARL--Yuh mean you tink I'm a whore, too, huh?
MARGIE--Yeah, and me?
ROCKY--Now don't start nuttin'!
PEARL--I suppose it'd tickle you if me and Margie did what dat
louse, Hickey, was hintin' and co