David Goodis - The Blonde on the Street Corner

“No — we’ll just — take a walk. I’ll be too tired to go any place. I’ll be walking around town all day.”

“Then won’t you be too tired to take a walk?”

“Well, I mean—”

“I know what you mean,” he said, looking at the white step against the black pavement.

For a while they were quiet. Then she said, “Remember, Ralph, we said we weren’t going to talk about trouble?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll come to see me tomorrow night, about nine, and we’ll just take a walk?”

“All right.”

“I guess I’ll go in now. I guess you’re tired.”

“I’m not tired. Are you?”

“No,” she said.

“But you gotta get up early tomorrow”

“Well, yes.”

“It must be very late,” he said.

“It doesn’t seem like it.”

“No.”

“I’m not at all tired. I feel so good.”

“So do I.”

“Ralph, what are you going to do tomorrow?”

“See you.”

“I mean in the day.”

“Work on a song. Try to get an idea for words.”

“Who writes the music?”

“Ken — you remember, the tall guy from last Saturday?”

“Oh, yes. You work together.”

“Yeah.”

“You work hard, I guess.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know.”

“But, Ralph—”

He looked at her and turned his eyes away and looked at her and turned his eyes away and looked at her again and said, “I don’t work hard because — well, I just don’t like to work hard. I’m a bum.”

“Oh, don’t say that.”

“Well, I will say it. I’m a bum.”

“No you’re not.”

“I don’t like to work. I’m a bum. I’m a no-good bum. I shouldn’t have come here tonight. And I’m not coming tomorrow night. I’m not coming at all. What do I want to see you for? I won’t be seeing you any more. Not at all.” Something bobbled in his throat and choked him. He turned fast and hurried away from the house. Several yards away he turned, and he saw her standing there in the doorway, looking at him. He started to walk back to her, and then he slowly turned again and walked away. He heard a door close. Once more he turned back, and walked to the house. The door was closed. All the lights were out.

He stood there, looking at the closed door, the blackness beyond the window.

Slowly, he walked up the street.

At the piano Ken was playing his song. The door opened and Ralph walked in.

“I got the words finished.”

“Let me see them,” Ken said.

Ralph gave him the paper. He read it slowly. He put it on the piano, on the music-stand, played the song and sang the lyrics in a low, cracked voice.

“Well?” Ralph said.

Ken nodded. “They fit. They fit like a kid glove.”

“Now what?”

“We get to work on another song.”

“What are we gonna do with this one?”

“What can we do with it?” Ken said.

“Send it to a music company.”

Ken said, “Don’t make me laugh.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Please — don’t make me laugh. We got a gorgeous ballad here, but a lot of good it’s gonna do us to send it to those phonies in New York.”

“What can we do with it?”

Ken said, “When I go down to Florida, I’ll take it with me.”

“When will that be?”

“Soon. Any day now.”

“You’ve been going to Florida for a long time.”

“Any day now.”

Dippy and George walked in.

“God bless you, merry gentlemen,” Dippy piped.

“Go to hell,” Ken said.

George sat down and said, “Well, I’m out.”

“What do you mean?” Ralph said.

“I’m out, that’s all,” George said. “I had a fight with the old man this morning and we started calling one another names and finally he told me I could get out. Before I knew what I was doing I went up and packed my things and now I’m over Dippy’s.”

“So tonight you’ll go back home,” Ken said.

“Yeah? You don’t know my old man.”

“You can come over our house,” Ralph said.

“Nix,” George said.

“I told him he can stay at my place,” Dippy said.

“Yeah,” Ken said. “That would make a big hit with your brother and your sister-in-law.”

“Maybe I’ll hit the road,” George said.

Ken snapped his fingers and said, “It’s a natural.”

“What’s a natural?” George said.

“My parents are going to Vineland to spend a few days with my sister and her husband. They have a farm there. A few days means a few weeks. Every time my old man gets on a farm he sleeps twenty-four hours a day. When he was a kid he worked on a farm and he had to get up at four in the morning and work until eight at night. So now he’s getting even. He goes down to that farm in Vineland and he sleeps twenty-four hours a day.”

“What’s this got to do with me?” George said.

“You were born without brains,” Ken said. “Don’t you see? I’ll be here by myself. So you’ll move in. We’ll have the house to ourselves.”

“That sounds all right,” George said.

“I think they’re going tomorrow. Or they might leave this afternoon. I don’t know. But anyway, we’ll have this joint to ourselves. We’ll throw a party every night.”

“An excellent idea,” Dippy said.

Ken said, “I don’t know how we’re gonna eat. My old man won’t leave me a dime. But we’ll manage some way. And as long as they don’t cut off the electricity, and leave a little coal in the cellar, we’ll do all right.”

“Do you think your parents will leave tonight?” George said.

“Maybe.”

Dippy said, “We’ll have a party every night, with pretty girls.”

George and Ken laughed.

Ken said, “You know, with an empty house like this, we can work a few angles.”

“Whaddya mean?” George said.

“Well, we can have some of the boys in here for crap games, and we can cut the games. We can make about ten bucks a night that way. Or then we could have them playing blackjack or poker in the other room, and we could cut on that. Say, you know what we could do? We could have a game in every room in the house. Figure it out. If we cut on every game we could clean up. For Christ’s sake, figure how many rooms there are in this house. Three downstairs, three upstairs, including the bathroom. That’s six rooms. A game in every room, and we’ll cut about ten bucks a game. That’s sixty bucks a night. Seven nights a week makes four hundred and twenty clams. Do you get that? Four hundred and twenty pieces of clam. And that’s figuring conservative.”

“You think it can be worked?” George said.

“Do I think it can be worked? Don’t be a fool. This is the real velvet. All we do is spread the word around, at the poolroom, on the corner, up at the diner and the cigar store on Broad Street and we’ll have them flocking here like sparrows. Ten bucks a room, six rooms—”

“And what about the cellar?” George said.

“The cellar — the cellar—” Ken muttered. “Sure, the cellar.” He snapped his fingers. “Here’s what we do. We throw three games into the cellar. That gives us three bedrooms empty. But they won’t be empty for long.”

“What’s the pitch?” George said.

“Use your head,” Ken said, snapping his fingers again. “This whole thing is a natural. We’ll go downtown and pick up three hookers and bring them up here and put them in the bedrooms. And we’ll split the take.”

“What are you gonna do?” George shouted, getting excited. “Are you gonna make a joint out of this place?”

“Listen to this guy,” Ken yelled. “He’s got a chance to make a snappy two hundred clams—”