Francis Fitzgerald - Tales of the Jazz Age

Gordon found the conversation tiresome and interminable. They lunched together en masse , warmed with liquor as the afternoon began. They were all going to the Gamma Psi dance that night—it promised to be the best party since the war.

“Edith Bradin’s coming,” said some one to Gordon. “Didn’t she used to be an old flame of yours? Aren’t you both from Harrisburg?”

“Yes.” He tried to change the subject. “I see her brother occasionally. He’s sort of a socialistic nut. Runs a paper or something here in New York.”

“Not like his gay sister, eh?” continued his eager informant. “Well, she’s coming to-night—with a junior named Peter Himmel.”

Gordon was to meet Jewel Hudson at eight o’clock—he had promised to have some money for her. Several times he glanced nervously at his wrist watch. At four, to his relief, Dean rose and announced that he was going over to Rivers Brothers to buy some collars and ties. But as they left the Club another of the party joined them, to Gordon’s great dismay. Dean was in a jovial mood now, happy, expectant of the evening’s party, faintly hilarious. Over in Rivers’ he chose a dozen neckties, selecting each one after long consultations with the other man. Did he think narrow ties were coming back? And wasn’t it a shame that Rivers couldn’t get any more Welsh Margotson collars? There never was a collar like the “Covington.”

Gordon was in something of a panic. He wanted the money immediately. And he was now inspired also with a vague idea of attending the Gamma Psi dance. He wanted to see Edith—Edith whom he hadn’t met since one romantic night at the Harrisburg Country Club just before he went to France. The affair had died, drowned in the turmoil of the war and quite forgotten in the arabesque of these three months, but a picture of her, poignant, debonnaire, immersed in her own inconsequential chatter, recurred to him unexpectedly and brought a hundred memories with it. It was Edith’s face that he had cherished through college with a sort of detached yet affectionate admiration. He had loved to draw her—around his room had been a dozen sketches of her—playing golf, swimming—he could draw her pert, arresting profile with his eyes shut.

They left Rivers’ at five-thirty and parsed for a moment on the sidewalk.

“Well,” said Dean genially, “I’m all set now. Think I’ll go back to the hotel and get a shave, haircut, and massage.”

“Good enough,” said the other man, “I think I’ll join you.”

Gordon wondered if he was to be beaten after all. With difficulty he restrained himself from turning to the man and snarling out, “Go on away, damn you!” In despair he suspected that perhaps Dean had spoken to him, was keeping him along in order to avoid a dispute about the money.

They went into the Biltmore—a Biltmore alive with girls—mostly from the West and South, the stellar débutantes of many cities gathered for the dance of a famous fraternity of a famous university. But to Gordon they were faces in a dream. He gathered together his forces for a last appeal, was about to come out with he knew not what, when Dean suddenly excused himself to the other man and taking Gordon’s arm led him aside.

“Gordy,” he said quickly, “I’ve thought the whole thing over carefully and I’ve decided that I can’t lend you that money. I’d like to oblige you, but I don’t feel I ought to—it’d put a crimp in me for a month.”

Gordon, watching him dully, wondered why he had never before noticed how much those upper teeth projected.

“I’m—mighty sorry, Gordon,” continued Dean, “but that’s the way it is.”

He took out his wallet and deliberately counted out seventy-five dollars in bills.

“Here,” he said, holding them out, “here’s seventy-five; that makes eighty all together. That’s all the actual cash I have with me, besides what I’ll actually spend on the trip.”

Gordon raised his clenched hand automatically, opened it as though it were a tongs he was holding, and clenched it again on the money.

“I’ll see you at the dance,” continued Dean. “I’ve got to get along to the barber shop.”

“So-long,” said Gordon in a strained and husky voice.

“So-long.”

Dean, began to smile, but seemed to change his mind. He nodded briskly and disappeared.

But Gordon stood there, his handsome face awry with distress, the roll of bills clenched tightly in his hand. Then, blinded by sudden tears, he stumbled clumsily down the Biltmore steps.

III

About nine o’clock of the same night two human beings came out of a cheap restaurant in Sixth Avenue. They were ugly, ill-nourished, devoid of all except the very lowest form of intelligence, and without even that animal exuberance that in itself brings color into life; they were lately vermin-ridden, cold, and hungry in a dirty town of a strange land; they were poor, friendless; tossed as driftwood from their births, they would be tossed as driftwood to their deaths. They were dressed in the uniform of the United States Army, and on the shoulder of each was the insignia of a drafted division from New Jersey, landed three days before.

The taller of the two was named Carrol Key, a name hinting that in his veins, however thinly diluted by generations of degeneration, ran blood of some potentiality. But one could stare endlessly at the long, chinless face, the dull, watery eyes, and high cheek-bones, without finding suggestion of either ancestral worth or native resourcefulness.

His companion was swart and bandy-legged, with rat-eyes and a much-broken hooked nose. His defiant air was obviously a pretense, a weapon of protection borrowed from that world of snarl and snap, of physical bluff and physical menace, in which he had always lived. His name was Gus Rose.

Leaving the café they sauntered down Sixth Avenue, wielding toothpicks with great gusto and complete detachment.

“Where to?” asked Rose, in a tone which implied that he would not be surprised if Key suggested the South Sea Islands.

“What you say we see if we can getta holda some liquor?” Prohibition was not yet. The ginger in the suggestion was caused by the law forbidding the selling of liquor to soldiers.

Rose agreed enthusiastically.

“I got an idea,” continued Key, after a moment’s thought, “I got a brother somewhere.”

“In New York?”

“Yeah. He’s an old fella.” He meant that he was an elder brother. “He’s a waiter in a hash joint.”

“Maybe he can get us some.”

“I’ll say he can!”

“B’lieve me, I’m goin’ to get this darn uniform off me to-morra. Never get me in it again, neither. I’m goin’ to get me some regular clothes.”

“Say, maybe I’m not.”

As their combined finances were something less than five dollars, this intention can be taken largely as a pleasant game of words, harmless and consoling. It seemed to please both of them, however, for they reinforced it with chuckling and mention of personages high in biblical circles, adding such further emphasis as “Oh, boy!” “You know!” and “I’ll say so!” repeated many times over.

The entire mental pabulum of these two men consisted of an offended nasal comment extended through the years upon the institution—army, business, or poorhouse—which kept them alive, and toward their immediate superior in that institution. Until that very morning the institution had been the “government” and the immediate superior had been the “Cap’n”—from these two they had glided out and were now in the vaguely uncomfortable state before they should adopt their next bondage. They were uncertain, resentful, and somewhat ill at ease. This they hid by pretending an elaborate relief at being out of the army, and by assuring each other that military discipline should never again rule their stubborn, liberty-loving wills. Yet, as a matter of fact, they would have felt more at home in a prison than in this new-found and unquestionable freedom.