David Goodis - The Moon in the Gutter

He heard the calm voice of Loretta Channing, the voice of a stranger asking for directions. He scarcely heard his own reply. As he told her to make a turn on Vernon, a chorus of Vernon voices came to him with the sullen query, what’s she doing down here if she don’t know her way around.

On Vernon Street the car was moving very slowly. A stumbling drunk lurched into the path of the car, was missed by inches, and shouted some dirty words to the driver. The words were very dirty and she winced. Kerrigan looked back and recognized the man. It was his next-door neighbor.

She put more pressure on the gas pedal. The MG leaped away from the flood of obscenity.

She said, “I’m glad we got away from that.”

He told himself to keep his mouth shut.

At Third and Vernon he told her to make a right turn and they went down Third going past the street lamps, and toward the middle of the block he told her to stop the car. She looked at him questioningly. He pointed to a two-storied wooden dwelling that had a cardboard placard in its front window. The glow from the nearest street lamp showed two words scrawled in crayon on the placard. One word was in Greek letters. Under it was the same word in English — “Marriages.”

He motioned her out of the car. Then together they stood at the front door and he rapped his knuckles on the wood. There were no lights in the house and he had to rap for several minutes before the door opened. The old Greek stood there, wearing a tattered bathrobe, needing a shave, his eyes clouded with interrupted slumber.

“You got a license handy?” Kerrigan asked.

The Greek blinked once. Then he was fully awake. “Plenty of licenses,” he said. “I always have licenses.”

He was a small man in his middle seventies. His head was bald except for three little bushes of white hair, one above each ear and one in the center. He smiled and showed a toothless mouth. He said, “The ring. You have the ring?”

Kerrigan shook his head. He looked at Loretta. Her face was calm and she was gazing past the old Greek and breathing quietly and not saying anything.

The Greek said, “I’ll find a ring somewhere.”

He beckoned them into the house. In the small and shabby parlor he switched on a lamp, then went into another room. Loretta sat down on a flimsy chair. Kerrigan stood in the middle of the floor, not looking at her. His legs felt heavy, as though weighted with lead.

A few minutes passed, and then the Greek came into the parlor carrying a bottle of ink and a pen and a large sheet of white paper rolled up, fastened with a rubber band. He took off the rubber band and put the paper in Kerrigan’s hand. Kerrigan stared at the scrolled border and the printed words that told him he was looking at a marriage license. He swallowed very hard, and then he walked to the chair in which Loretta was seated and he said, “You sign it first.”

Loretta looked at the Greek. “Is this paper a legitimate document?”

The old man nodded emphatically. “It comes from City Hall. My son works in the Marriage Bureau. Tomorrow he takes it back and puts it in the file.”

She said quietly, “I want to be sure this is legal.”

Kerrigan frowned. “Sure it’s legal,” he said. “Look at the printing on it.”

The Greek said, “Nothing to worry about. I make real marriages. For many years I do this work. Never any trouble.”

“If it isn’t legal,” Loretta murmured, “it’s worthless, it doesn’t mean anything.”

The Greek twitched his lips and looked up at the ceiling. Then he glared at Loretta and said loudly, “This is genuine marriage license. I tell you it goes into the files.”

Loretta got up from the chair and walked to the small table where the Greek had placed the pen and the ink. She picked up the pen, dipped it in the ink bottle, and then for a long moment she stared at Kerrigan. His head was lowered and he was gazing at the carpet. Loretta took a deep breath and signed her name to the license and then she handed the pen to Kerrigan.

He moved slowly toward the table. The pen vibrated in his trembling hand. He knew she was watching him and he tried to keep his hand from trembling. The trembling became worse and he couldn’t move the pen toward the paper.

He heard her saying, “What are you waiting for?”

There was no way to answer that.

“Just sign your name,” she said. “That’s all you have to do. Put your name on the dotted line.”

He stood there gaping at the paper that had her name written on it, with the dotted line waiting for his name.

Then he heard the Greek saying, “Maybe this man cannot write. Many men they come here and they cannot write their name.”

“I can write,” Kerrigan mumbled. As he spoke, he could feel the perspiration dripping from his forehead.

“What is happening?” the Greek asked quietly and seriously. “Why you not sign the paper?”

“Don’t hurry him,” Loretta said. “Let him pull himself together.”

“He looks nervous,” the Greek said. “I think he is very nervous.”

“Really?” Her tone was musing. “I’d say that’s rather strange. After all, this was his idea.”

“Maybe he changes his mind.” The old man spoke solemnly. “After all, marriage is no joke. It is a big step. Many men, they get scared.”

“Well,” she said, “if he wants to back out, this is the time to do it.”

Kerrigan turned slowly and looked at her. She was smiling at him. He pivoted hard, bent over the table, and signed his name to the marriage license.

Then he picked up the license, shoved it at the old man, and said, “All right, let’s get this over with. Where’s the ring?”

The Greek put his hand in a pocket of the bathrobe, groped in there for a moment, and then took out a nickel-plated ring. It was thick and had a hinge that allowed it to open and close. Kerrigan took a closer look and saw it was a ring from a loose-leaf notebook.

“For God’s sake,” he said. “This ain’t no wedding ring.”

The old man shrugged. “It was all I could find.” He looked at Loretta and said, “Later he gets you a better ring. This one here is only for the ceremony.”

He handed the ring to Kerrigan. Then he opened a drawer of the table and took out a Bible. As he leafed through the pages, he said, “The price for the ceremony is two dollars and fifty-two cents. That is total price. Two dollars for performing marriage. Fifty cents for license. You will please pay in advance.”

Kerrigan frowned. “What’s the two cents for?”

“I charge two cents for ring,” the old man said. He kept his eyes on the printed text while extending his palm for the money. Then the money was in his hand and he averted his eyes from the Bible just long enough to count the cash. He put the bills and silver in the pocket of his bathrobe, took a firmer grip on the Bible, and said, “Now the bride will stand next to the groom.”

It was three hours later and Kerrigan had his head buried in a pillow. His eyes were shut tightly but he wasn’t asleep. He was trying to grope his way through the fog of an alcoholic stupor. It was apparent to him that he’d consumed an excessive amount of whisky, and now his brain was crammed with a lot of little discs that wouldn’t stop spinning. His skull felt as though it were swollen to many times its normal size. He told himself he was really in sad shape, and wondered how in hell he’d fallen into this condition.

He begged his mind to start working, to give him some information concerning tonight’s events, but his thoughts stumbled along a tricky path leading nowhere.

Then gradually the fog cleared just a little, the discs slowed down, and he realized he was coming out of it. As his brain went into gear, he kept his eyes shut, telling himself not to think about now, not even to take a look and see where he was. What he had to do was straighten the track and follow it very slowly and carefully and bring it up to now.