Nelson Algren - A Walk on the Wild Side

He was studying M and N one noon when a shadow fell across the page and Finnerty’s finger shut the book like shutting it forever.

‘What kind of con is this – Fairy Tales – you connin’ little kids or something now, country boy?’

Dove took his book and pocketed it. ‘Hello, Oliver,’ he said.

Finnerty shook his head incredulously. ‘To think I took you for the simplest fool in town. To think that I thought that W on your forehead stood for Watkins.’

‘I’m in the field for Watkins, Mister,’ Dove reminded the pander with understandable pride.

‘Man, you are great. Simply great. And the sample case tops it. Just tops it. Lugging that thing with your country look, who could ever have guessed what your real line of goods was?’

He pulled a chair beside Dove’s, and sat so near and talked so low, his mouth right at Dove’s ear and his little finger hooked to Dove’s, that Dove felt trapped between him and the wall.

‘Buddy, as your buddy,’ Oliver whispered wetly, ‘it’s now my duty to tell you that my new child got one terrible hard edge out for you. It’s all I can do to keep her from coming in on you. No, I don’t mean that real hard swindle where she took the rap and you went south with the bundle. I doubt Texas will extradite you for that. But how’s your conscience resting, buddy? Did you know the broad done a hundred days without commissary? You and I both know what it is to be busted without a pack, Jack. Of course if that’s how you expect your broads to do time that’s your business. But I wouldn’t treat a yellow dog like that.’

‘Mister,’ Dove tried to get his little finger unhooked, ‘Mister, that old gal quoted you a mistruth.’

‘I hope you aren’t thinking I’d take a hustler’s word against that of my own sample case buddy? The very buddy who broke in my top-earning broad for me?’ Oliver was hurt that Dove should even suspect him of forgetting a favor like that – ‘ Naturally she lied. Who ever heard of a hustling woman who wouldn’t rather lie than ride a passenger train? Buddy, what I’m telling you is I’m going to get you out of this. Man, I been to Hurtsville, I know what it is. They made me regret the day I was born there but they aint going to make my sample case buddy regret the day he was born. What if she does claim she was underage when you transported her across a state line in a moving vehicle? That don’t cut ice with Oliver Finnerty.’

‘Mister,’ Dove got in a word at last – ‘I never transported nobody . We just rode a old freight train a ways together, that was all. You’d scarcely call that “a moving vehicle” I don’t reckon.’

Finnerty unlocked his little finger as though that had been Dove’s idea – ‘What would you call it, Mr Bigass? A possum up a telegraph pole?’

‘Well, it weren’t no passinger train.’

‘Brother,’ Finnerty put a hand on Dove’s shoulder, ‘Brother, it don’t matter was that a box car or on roller skates, that broad can swear out a hold order for you in any district station in town—’

‘I pulled her out from under the wheels!’ Dove remembered in a shout – ‘I treated her good! ’

Finnerty shook his head solemnly. ‘You can always treat one too good,’ he reminded Dove, ‘but you can never treat one too bad.’

‘I saved her dirty fool life,’ Dove added, yet felt his courage sliding down all drains.

‘I’m sure you did,’ Finnerty agreed sympathetically, ‘but still it don’t cut ice.’

‘She were willin ’,’ Dove recalled desperately. ‘Fact is, she were more willin’ than me. She got more willin’ all the time. Fact is I took to sleepin’ on my stomach, she were that willin’.’

‘Willin’ don’t matter. Under-age is statutory rape though she put a gun at your head.’

‘She didn’t have no gun,’ Dove conceded, ‘but I sure didn’t sexutory-rape nobody, mister—’ yet strangely flushed with guilt.

‘We’ve all done crazy things from time to time,’ Oliver lowered his voice for he read that flush aright – ‘What I always say is if you’re not champeenship material, you might as well let the women get you now. Buddy, a broad is only a broad but a pal is a pal, so put your mind at rest. I’m not letting Texas get no holder on you because some broad wants to cry off. It’d be as good as her life and I’ve told her as much. “Baby,” I told her, “when you held out on me that was one thing, but crying off on my pal is another.” Now do you want me to see you through this sorry situation you got yourself into or don’t you?’

Dove was beginning to feel scared in a way he had never been scared before.

‘I’d be mighty grateful for your help, mister.’

‘One good turn deserves another. But I’ll expect your complete cooperation from here on out. I’m the general. You’re the private – when I give an order I expect to see it carried out. For I’m not without help,’ he added softly.

‘You’re my captain,’ Dove agreed, ‘I’m your hand. But there just one little favor I’d like to ask.’

‘What’s that, old buddy?’

‘Don’t call me Mr Bigass.’

‘Shake – Tex.’ Finnerty extended his hand.

Dove shook it with gratitude.

‘I’ve kept my part of the bargain, mister,’ Dove told Finnerty in Mama’s parlor half an hour after.

‘That you did, and I’m that proud of you I’ll brag you up all over town,’ he promised – ‘Come and get it.’

He held out a five dollar bill.

Dove turned it over as though the number on the other side might be different, then passed it to Frenchy.

‘Tell ’em where you got it and how easy it was,’ he told her, and walked indolently toward the door.

A huge disbelief dawned in Finnerty’s brain. He caught up with Dove at Dockery’s door. He was a little out of breath and waited till they were inside to offer Dove a drink.

‘Give this man what he wants to drink,’ he told Dockery breathlessly, ‘ any time he wants it .’

‘Any time this man wants a drink,’ Dove assured Dockery, ‘he’ll pay for it hisself,’ and laid a C note on the bar before the pander’s eyes.

Finnerty started to reach for it. Dove put his hand gently down.

‘I understand the price is ten bucks per peeper, Oliver,’ he told Finnerty. ‘You had a full house. I’ll take my thirty now.’

Finnerty went for his wallet. Slowly. Yet he went.

‘I’d never of believed it,’ he admitted, laying three tens on top of the C note, ‘I wouldn’t of give you the credit for the having the cold nerve.’

‘You provide the virgins, mister,’ Dove promised, ‘I’ll provide the nerve.’

‘I guess you know I had to give a poor broad a ninety dollar whupping account of you?’ Finnerty reproved Dove as he watched a hundred and thirty dollars disappear in Dove’s wallet.

‘It’s what I always say,’ Dove told him cheerfully, ‘you can always treat one too good. But you never can treat one too bad.’

Airless days when panties of purple and braes of black, silver G-strings and dappled halters hung on the clothes lines in a kind of joint-tog jungle still as all Brazil. A jungle whose foliage was such garments of bright shame as were washable, whose cries were those of the pepper pot man—

Odors, and cries, a chemise stained by mascara, the spill of water into a basin before the long day’s first-risen lover locked with the last girl left awake. They went at it like foes, navel to navel, till his two dollars of passion was spent. Then just as he stood with one sock drawn on and the other foot bare, he was touched by a perfumed disgust.