Nelson Algren - A Walk on the Wild Side

‘ Bum ,’ Schmidt told Dove directly, ‘you look like you’ve come into a roll. If you got gold on you, I’ll get my share.’

‘And if you got none,’ little grinner Finnerty promised Dove, ‘he’ll see you get some. We all got to live,’ he approved of both bullies at once, ‘Stoodint here was just asking was you actually on the road with the Strangler.’ And handed Schmidt his whiskey down.

‘Why, there was nothing to that,’ Schmidt found a minute after all. ‘The Strangler’d get his lock on me ’n I’d let him keep it till I’d scaled the house, for I was workin’ on percentage them days. Then I’d bust it and let him pin one shoulder and I’d flippety-flop for the yokels – they thought he surely had me. I’d let him try till I felt him tire. Then I’d get my scissors—’ he crossed two fingers to indicate two locking thighs – ‘I’d work him off me ’n clamp my lock on him—’ his crossed wrists trapped the Strangler’s head – ‘You understand if I’d turned the pressure on I’d of been out of work. But he never did bust mine.’ And handed up his empty glass. ‘No, he never did bust mine.’

‘Drink up,’ Finnerty ordered without a flicker of expression. ‘He never did bust his.’

‘I wrassled a Mexican kid once back home,’ Dove volunteered, ‘but he throwed me so durn hard I never did try that again.’

Suddenly the cripple denied Dove and everyone – ‘No! He never did bust mine!’ And brought both big fists down upon his stumps as if to deny himself as well – ‘Zybysko couldn’t bust mine! Zybysko never did bust mine!’

‘Easy now, Dad, easy,’ Finnerty calmed him to lead him on, ‘I venture the girlies put more than one head lock on you that you never even tried to bust – How about that , Big Dad? Referring,’ he added hurriedly, ‘to your screen career of course.’

‘Screen? Career?’ Schmidt leaped to the bait like a starving bass, ‘Why yes, I did have a small part with Beery, but I didn’t know I’d made mention of that.’

‘You’ve talked of little else the past twenty years,’ Finnerty thought, and added aloud, ‘It came to me through mutual friends of the silver screen. I understand it was a wrestling scene you done. May we hear more about it, first-hand as it were? Big Dad?’

‘All past and done,’ Schmidt told him, ‘I met a woman who also had a bit part in the picture. We got engaged just before I went on the coast-to-coast tour with the Strangler. But the show broke up in the East and my coach ticket run out in Needles. I was in just such a hurry to get back to that girl that I didn’t want to lose an hour. Instead of wiring her for money I spent my last buck on a bottle ’n climbed an empty instead. One minute of midnight, December thirty-first, nineteen hundred and thirteen.

‘Next time I seen her was after the operation. Nursed me back to life with her own two hands. Begged me to go through with the marriage just as if nothing had happened – that’s a woman for you. How was I to take advantage of unselfishness such as that? Her with her whole career before her? Ruin two careers because one had smashed on the rocks? I sent her away and been taking care of myself ever since, better than most with better luck than my own has been.’

‘But,’ Finnerty inquired coolly, ‘Didn’t it take some time to get used to being smaller than other people after you’d been the biggest thing in sight for so long?’

Was it the question or the pander’s tone? That Schmidt didn’t care for either was plain. ‘I don’t see nobody around here bigger than me,’ he looked right up at Finnerty as Dockery put three whiskies down and didn’t pick up his own. ‘If there’s anything you can do I can’t, now is your chance to tell me.’

‘Don’t be salty with me , Big Dad,’ Finnerty’s tone was serene. ‘I don’t pretend to compete with you. But St oo dint here now is something else – he’ll out-stud any man alive, Big Dad.’

Schmidt turned on Dove with a swerve of his wheels. ‘Can you do anything I can’t do better, bum?’

‘I can’t do lots of things even able-bodied men can do, mister,’ Dove hurried to say; and even to his own ears that didn’t sound quite right.

‘For example,’ Finnerty helped him, ‘he could never get work as THE LIVING HALF.’

So that was the bit. Out at last.

‘I wish you both joy of your trade,’ Schmidt told both, and wheeled off as noiselessly as he’d come.

Yet Finnerty called after, openly jeering, ‘If you aint champeenship material, might as well let the women get you now!’

Then pressing his finger hard into Dove’s chest – ‘You know who he meant by that “joy-of-your-trade” crack? You , that’s who. You don’t have to take it, Tex. I’m back of you.’

Dove emptied his own glass and Schmidt’s too.

‘I’m back of you, too, Oliver.’ And wished one of the glasses were full again.

‘And when I back a man I back him all the way. For as you know, Finnerty don’t fight. He just kills and drags out.’

Sometimes one of his glasses was full, sometimes both. In the bar mirror faces of people watched him too steadily. Along the bar faces of dolls watched the people. Faces of people and faces of dolls and his glass was full again. He had come to find somebody whose name was right on the tip of his tongue but just at that moment the juke began playing something about saints marching in. The people began marching behind the saints and the dolls behind the people as Dove began marching too. Where bells were ringing, trains kept switching, saints were marching, time was passing and his glass was full again.

Till a voice came down through the whiskey-mist saying no Linkhorn could read.

‘ Who can’t read?’ he heard somebody asking ready to fight, ‘who sayz I can’t?’

‘Nobody said you couldn’t, son. Now be quiet or get out.’

‘Don’t talk like that to me, Ol-i-ver,’ he warned Finnerty.

‘This isn’t Oliver.’

‘Who you?’

‘Dockery, that’s who.’

‘And this is Big Stingaree, that’s who – Who! ’

The floor tilted a little but he got hold of something and held, just held. Till the lights came up and there, with a small halo all around its edge, stood his own little whiskey glass filled again. For sheer love of whiskey, he began to cry. As dolls came marching, saints came marching, people were laughing. Through a Kewpie-doll jungle that had no end.

‘He’ll be alright, Doc,’ somebody who was the best friend anyone ever had told someone who wasn’t. He pulled at Finnerty’s sleeve to make him listen – ‘The people want me to make ’em laugh again, Ol-i-ver.’

‘Read ’em a kiddy-story out of your book.’

But the startled print leaped about like birds without brains, so whoever said no Linkhorn could read had been right after all, and everyone was so disappointed in him he began to cry for everyone, dolls or anyone, who had been disappointed in the end.

‘I’ll sing for the people! I’ll dance ’n sing!’ That was the solution, he realized, to everything. And supporting himself with one hand on the juke, he raised one big foot as if just to raise a foot like that in itself was a feat. And peered all around through the whiskey-mist to make sure the people were watching this. After all standing on one foot was something not everyone could do. He was the only one who knew exactly how it was done. They’d soon see that. Somebody applauded, now he had them. If he could just change to the other foot he’d bring down the house.

And slowly began to change feet.

He came out with his hands hanging loose and head swaying, bending forward so far he tottered a bit. Someone else clapped, then another and another. The dance went faster, foot to foot. Some saw love in it, some despair. Through a Kewpie-doll jungle the king of the elephants danced again.