Stephen Crane - The Complete Works of Stephen Crane

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Kelcey sometimes wondered whether he liked beer. He had been obliged to cultivate a talent for imbibing it. He was born with an abhorrence which he had steadily battled until it had come to pass that he could drink from ten to twenty glasses of beer without the act of swallowing causing him to shiver. He understood that drink was an essential to joy, to the coveted position of a man of the world and of the streets. The saloons contained the mystery of a street for him. When he knew its saloons he comprehended the street.

Drink and its surroundings were the eyes of a superb green dragon to him. He followed a fascinating glitter, and the glitter required no explanation.

Directly after old Bleecker’s party he almost reformed. He was tired and worn from the tumult of it, and he saw it as one might see a skeleton emerged from a crimson cloak. He wished then to turn his face away.

Gradually, however, he recovered his mental balance. Then he admitted again by his point of view that the thing was not so terrible. His headache had caused him to exaggerate. A ‘drunk’ was not the blight which he had once remorsefully named it. On the contrary, it was a mere unpleasant incident. He resolved, however, to be more cautious.

When prayer-meeting night came again his mother approached him hopefully. She smiled like one whose request is already granted.

‘Well, will yeh go t’ prayer-meetin’ with me t’-night again?’

He turned toward her with eloquent suddenness, and then riveted his eyes upon a corner of the floor.

‘Well, I guess not,’ he said.

His mother tearfully tried to comprehend his state of mind.

‘What has come over yeh?’ she said tremblingly. ‘Yeh never used t’ be this way, George. Yeh never used t’ be so cross an’ mean t’ me—’

‘Oh, I ain’t cross an’ mean t’ yeh,’ he interpolated, exasperated and violent.

‘Yes, yeh are, too! I ain’t hardly had a decent word from yeh in ever so long. Yer as cross an’ as mean as yeh can be. I don’t know what t’ make of it. It can’t be’—there came a look in her eyes that told that she was going to shock and alarm him with her heaviest sentence—‘it can’t be that yeh’ve got t’ drinkin’.’

Kelcey grunted with disgust at the ridiculous thing. ‘Why, what an old goose yer gettin’ t’ be!’

She was compelled to laugh a little, as a child laughs between tears at a hurt. She had not been serious. She was only trying to display to him how she regarded his horrifying mental state. ‘Oh, of course I didn’t mean that, but I think yeh act jest as bad as if yeh did drink. I wish yeh would do better, George!’

She had grown so much less frigid and stern in her censure that Kelcey seized the opportunity to try to make a joke of it. He laughed at her, but she shook her head and continued: ‘I do wish yeh would do better. I don’t know what’s t’ become ‘a yeh, George. Yeh don’t mind what I say no more’n if I was th’ wind in th’ chimbly. Yeh don’t care about nothin’ ‘cept goin out nights. I can’t ever get yeh t’ prayermeetin’ ner church; yeh never go out with me anywheres unless yeh can’t get out of it; yeh swear an’ take on sometimes like everything; yeh never—’

He gestured wrathfully in interruption. ‘Say, lookahere, can’t yeh think ‘a something I do?’

She ended her oration then in the old way—‘An’ I don’t know what’s goin’ t’ become ‘a yeh.’

She put on her bonnet and shawl and then came and stood near him expectantly. She imparted to her attitude a subtle threat of unchangeableness. He pretended to be engrossed in his newspaper. The little swaggering clock on the mantel became suddenly evident, ticking with loud monotony. Presently she said firmly, ‘Well, are yeh comin’?’

He was reading.

‘Well, are yeh comin’?’

He threw his paper down angrily. ‘Oh, why don’t yeh go on an’ leave me alone?’ he demanded in supreme impatience. ‘What do yeh wanta pester me fer? Ye’d think there was robbers. Why can’t yeh go alone or else stay home? You wanta go, an’ I don’t wanta go, an’ yeh keep all time tryin’ t’ drag me. Yeh know I don’t wanta go.’ He concluded in a last defiant wounding of her. ‘What do I care ‘bout those of bags-‘a-wind, anyhow? They gimme a pain!’

His mother turned her face and went from him. He sat staring with a mechanical frown. Presently he went and picked up his newspaper.

Jones told him that night that everybody had had such a good time at old Bleecker’s party that they were going to form a club. They waited at the little smiling saloon, and then, amid much enthusiasm, all signed a membership-roll. Old Bleecker, late that night, was violently elected president. He made speeches of thanks and gratification during the remainder of the meeting. Kelcey went home rejoicing. He felt that at any rate he would have true friends. The dues were a dollar for each week.

He was deeply interested. For a number of evenings he fairly gobbled his supper in order that he might be off to the little smiling saloon to discuss the new organization. All the men were wildly enthusiastic. One night the saloon-keeper announced that he would donate half the rent of quite a large room over his saloon. It was an occasion for great cheering. Kelcey’s legs were like whalebone when he tried to go upstairs upon his return home, and the edge of each step was moved curiously forward.

His mother’s questions made him snarl. ‘Oh, nowheres!’ At other times he would tell her, ‘Oh, t’ see some friends ‘a mine! Where d’ yeh s’pose?’

Finally, some of the women of the tenement concluded that the little old mother had a wild son. They came to condole with her. They sat in the kitchen for hours. She told them of his wit, his cleverness, his kind heart.

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At a certain time Kelcey discovered that some young men who stood in the cinders between a brick wall and the pavement, and near the side-door of a corner saloon, knew more about life than other people. They used to lean there smoking and chewing, and comment upon events and persons. They knew the neighbourhood extremely well. They debated upon small typical things that transpired before them, until they had extracted all the information that existence contained. They sometimes inaugurated little fights with foreigners or well-dressed men. It was here that Sapristi Glielmi, the pedlar, stabbed Pete Brady to death, for which he got a life-sentence. Each patron of the saloon was closely scrutinized as he entered the place.

Sometimes they used to throng upon the heels of a man, and in at the bar assert that he had asked them in to drink. When he objected, they would claim with one voice that it was too deep an insult, and gather about to thrash him. When they had caught chance customers and absolute strangers, the barkeeper had remained in stolid neutrality, ready to serve one or seven, but two or three times they had encountered the wrong men. Finally, the proprietor had come out one morning and told them in the fearless way of his class that their pastime must cease.

‘It quits right here! See? Right here! Th’ nex’ time yeh try t’ work it, I come with th’ bung-starter, an’ th’ mugs I miss with it git pulled. See? It quits!’ Infrequently, however, men did ask them in to drink.

The policeman of that beat grew dignified and shrewd whenever he approached this corner. Sometimes he stood with his hands behind his back and cautiously conversed with them. It was understood on both sides that it was a good thing to be civil.

In winter this band, a trifle diminished in numbers, huddled in their old coats and stamped little flat places in the snow, their faces turned always toward the changing life in the streets. In the summer they became more lively. Sometimes, then, they walked out to the kerb to look up and down the street.