Stanley Elkin - Criers & Kibitzers, Kibitzers & Criers

The girl stiffened and held him away from her, dancing self-consciously. Brooding, Ed Wolfe tried to concentrate on the lost rhythm. They danced in silence for a while.

“What do you do?” she asked him finally.

“I’m a salesman,” he told her gloomily.

“Door to door?”

“Floor to ceiling. Wall to wall.”

“Too much,” she said.

“I’m a pusher,” he said, suddenly angry. She looked frightened. “But I’m not hooked myself. It’s a weakness in my character. I can’t get hooked. Ach, what would you goyim know about it?”

“Take it easy,” she said. “What’s the matter with you? Do you want to sit down?”

“I can’t push sitting down,” he said.

“Hey,” she said, “don’t talk so loud.”

“Boy,” he said, “you black Protestants. What’s that song you people sing?”

“Come on,” she said.

“ Sometimes I feel like a motherless child ,” he sang roughly. The other dancers watched him nervously. “That’s our national anthem, man,” he said to a couple that had stopped dancing to look at him. “That’s our song, sweethearts,” he said, looking around him. “All right, mine then. I’m an orphan.”

“Oh, come on,” the girl said, exasperated, “an orphan. A grown man.”

He pulled away from her. The band stopped playing. “Hell,” he said loudly, “from the beginning. Orphan. Bachelor. Widower. Only child. All my names scorn me. I’m a survivor. I’m a goddamned survivor, that’s what.” The other couples crowded around him now. People got up from their tables. He could see them, on tiptoes, stretching their necks over the heads of the dancers. No, he thought. No, no. Detachment and caution. The La Meck Plan. They’ll kill you. They’ll kill you and kill you. He edged away from them, moving carefully backward against the bandstand. People pushed forward onto the dance floor to watch him. He could hear their questions, could see heads darting from behind backs and suddenly appearing over shoulders as they strained to get a look at him.

He grabbed Mary Roberta’s hand, pulling her to him fiercely. He pulled and pushed her up onto the bandstand and then climbed up beside her. The trumpet player, bewildered, made room for him. “Tell you what I’m going to do,” he shouted over their heads. “Tell you what I’m going to do.”

Everyone was listening to him now.

“Tell you what I’m going to do,” he began again.

Quietly they waited for him to go on.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” he shouted. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. Isn’t that a hell of a note?

“ Isn’t it?” he demanded.

“Brothers and sisters,” he shouted, “and as an only child bachelor orphan I use the term playfully, you understand. Brothers and sisters, I tell you what I’m not going to do. I’m no consumer. Nobody’s death can make me that. I won’t consume. I mean, it’s a question of identity, right? Closer, come up closer, buddies. You don’t want to miss any of this.”

“Oliver’s broker looks good up there. Mary Roberta looks good. She looks good,” Mopiani said below him.

“Right, Mopiani. She looks good, she looks good ,” Ed Wolfe called loudly. “So I tell you what I’m going to do. What am I bid? What am I bid for this fine strong wench? Daughter of a chief, masters. Dear dark daughter of a dead dinge chief. Look at those arms. Those arms, those arms. What am I bid?”

They looked at him, astonished.

“What am I bid?” he demanded. “Reluctant, masters? Reluctant masters, masters? Say, what’s the matter with you darkies? Come on, what am I bid?” He turned to the girl. “No one wants you, honey,” he said. “Folks, folks, I’d buy her myself, but I’ve already told you. I’m not a consumer. Please forgive me, miss.”

He heard them shifting uncomfortably.

“Look,” he said patiently, “the management has asked me to remind you that this is a living human being. This is the real thing, the genuine article, the goods. Oh, I told them I wasn’t the right man for this job. As an orphan I have no conviction about the product. Now, you should have seen me in my old job. I could be rough. Rough! I hurt people. Can you imagine? I actually caused them pain. I mean, what the hell, I was an orphan. I could hurt people. An orphan doesn’t have to bother with love. An orphan’s like a nigger in that respect. Emancipated. But you people are another problem entirely. That’s why I came here tonight. There are parents among you. I can feel it. There’s even a sense of parents behind those parents. My God, don’t any of you folks ever die? So what’s holding us up? We’re not making any money. Come on, what am I bid?”

“Shut up, mister.” The voice was raised hollowly some place in the back of the crowd.

Ed Wolfe could not see the owner of the voice.

“He’s not in,” Ed Wolfe said.

“Shut up. What right you got to come down here and speak to us like that?”

“He’s not in, I tell you. I’m his brother.”

“You’re a guest. A guest got no call to talk like that.”

“He’s out. I’m his father. He didn’t tell me and I don’t know when he’ll be back.”

“You can’t make fun of us,” the voice said.

“He isn’t here. I’m his son.”

“Bring that girl down off that stage!”

“Speaking,” Ed Wolfe said brightly.

“Let go of that girl!” someone called angrily.

The girl moved closer to him.

“She’s mine,” Ed Wolfe said. “I danced with her.”

“Get her down from there!”

“Okay,” he said giddily. “Okay. All right.” He let go of the girl’s hand and pulled out his wallet. The girl did not move. He took out the bills and dropped the wallet to the floor.

“Damned drunk!” someone shouted.

“That whitey’s crazy,” someone else said.

“Here,” Ed Wolfe said. “There’s over sixteen hundred dollars here,” he yelled, waving the money. It was, for him, like holding so much paper. “I’ll start the bidding. I hear over sixteen hundred dollars once. I hear over sixteen hundred dollars twice. I hear it three times. Sold! A deal’s a deal,” he cried, flinging the money high over their heads. He saw them reach helplessly, noiselessly toward the bills, heard distinctly the sound of paper tearing.

He faced the girl. “Good-by,” he said.

She reached forward, taking his hand.

“Good-by,” he said again, “I’m leaving.”

She held his hand, squeezing it. He looked down at the luxuriant brown hand, seeing beneath it the fine articulation of bones, the rich sudden rush of muscle. Inside her own he saw, indifferently, his own pale hand, lifeless and serene, still and infinitely free.

The hotel breakfast bell had not awakened him. The hotel social director had. The man had a gift. Wherever he went buzzers buzzed, bells rang, whistles blew. He’s a fire drill, Preminger thought.

Preminger focused his eyes on the silver whistle dangling from the neck of the man leaning over him, a gleaming, tooting symbol of authority, suspended from a well-made, did-it-himself, plastic lanyard. “Camp Cuyhoga?” he asked.

“What’s that?” the man said.

“Did you go to Camp Cuyhoga? Your lanyard looks like Cuyhoga ’41. Purple and green against a field of white plastic.”

“Come on, boy, wake up a minute,” the man said.

“I’m awake.”

“Well,” he began, “you probably think it’s funny, the social director coming into the room of a guest like this.”

“We’re all Americans,” Preminger muttered.

“But the fact is,” he went on, “I wanted to talk to you about something. Now first of all I want you to understand that Bieberman doesn’t know I’m here. He didn’t put me up to it. As a matter of fact he’d probably fire me if he knew what I was going to say, but, well, Jesus, Richard, this is a family hotel, if you know what I mean.” Preminger heard him say “well, Jesus, Richard,” like a T-shirted YMCA professional conscious and sparing of his oaths. “That thing yesterday, to be frank, a thing like that could murder a small hotel like this. In a big place, some place like Grossinger’s, it wouldn’t mean a thing. It would be swallowed up in a minute, am I right? Now you might say this is none of my business, but Bieberman has been good to me and I don’t want to see him get hurt. He took me off club dates in Jersey to bring me up here. I mean, I ain’t knocking my trade but let’s face it, a guy could get old and never get no higher in the show business than the Hudson Theater. He caught me once and liked my material, said if I came up with him maybe I could work up some of the better stuff into a musical, like. He’s been true to his word. Free rein. Carte blanche. Absolutely blanche, Richard. Well, you know yourself, you’ve heard some of the patter songs. It’s good stuff, am I telling a lie? You don’t expect to hear that kind of stuff in the mountains. Sure, it’s dirty, but it’s clever, am I right? That crazy Estelle can’t sing, she’s got no class, we both know that, but the material’s there, right? It’s there.”