Nelson Algren - The Man with the Golden Arm

For one moment there was no sound in the room save that of the battered clock below the phosphorescent crucifix on the wall, its sturdy old pulse beating quietly, without a single flutter. He rapped out a long, sure, steady workmanlike beat.

Frankie liked the drums. That was in the wrist too. He beat through his own version of ‘Song of the Islands’ twice.

‘Cute,’ Sophie announced the moment he’d finished.

A single meaningless word like that: cute. But what and who and why everything had to be so damned cute there would be no telling.

‘I knew that Gertie Michalek, the one wit’ the birt’ mark like a p’tato on her wrist,’ Sophie went on, ‘when she got preg’ant she could always tell if it was going to be a girl ’cause she’d get that cravin’ for cold p’tatoes.’ N you know what, Frankie? To this day when Michalek’s little girl eats a p’tato, the p’tato eyes come out on Michalek’s birt’mark. What you think of that?’

No answer. He would be trying not to feel unnerved at her meaningless discontent. Around and around she would go now upon the breathless merry-go-round of her ceaseless mysteries; till his mind would be dulled by its whirling and he would try talking her back to reality.

‘I’m lookin’ for a job beatin’ the tubs, Zosh,’ he told her, leaning forward to begin again just as she signaled to him with the flashlight – dot-dot-dash-dot-dot-dot – in a code she had just invented. ‘What am I signalin’ now?’ she wanted to know. She’d had enough drumming for one night. If he wouldn’t wheel her he’d have to play games. He would have to guess something.

Brushing back his hair with his forearm, he felt the sticks growing cold between his fingers. ‘ My guess is your roof is leakin’,’ he ventured at last. Knowing that if he didn’t play the game she would rap-rap-rap with the metal against the wheelchair’s arm, translating the secret code into an even more secret Morse while a faint and knowing smile would stray across her lips.

A smile that veiled her knowledge of his latest trickery: from the first night he’d lugged it up the stairs she had been on to him. Just one more excuse to keep from wheeling her, that’s all the practice board was. All the talk about wanting to play in a real band, join the musicians’ union and be on the legit were just so many more corny tricks to get out of doing his proper duty toward her.

Well, she still had a proper trick or two of her own up her sleeve. She watched him as he tried not to pay attention to the flashlight, wondering just what moment she’d begin signaling again.

For one moment she held the flashlight poised like a vicious little club above the wheelchair’s arm while he held the sticks tensely above the board. Then shoved board and sticks back under the sink and lay his head on his arm across a soup plate. She put the flash down with a pervasive sense of triumph.

‘That’s right. Don’t bother puttin’ on no kettle fer dishes. Just lay wit’ your head on the sink, that’s the sure way to get ’em done.’

Frankie raised up, took a battered deck off the shelf, shoved the dirty plate to one side and riffled the deck through his fingers.

‘Sure. Just shove to one side fer the maid. Start dealin’ to yerself now like a goof goin’ soft in the head.’

‘There’s only fifty cards in your deck tonight, honey,’ Frankie reproached her gently. ‘I think you got a little repercussion again today.’

‘You mean a con cussion, dummy.’ For once she had him.

‘No, I mean a re percussion. Like you been bounced on your head twice .’

‘My head is airtight. It’s yours is leakin’ – bot’ ways. Your own stepmother said if you wasn’t married you’d be settin’ in the pen right now. Your own stepmother.’

‘She wasn’t no “stepmother,”’ Frankie contradicted her flatly with genuine resentment.

‘I s’ppose she was your real mother. Don’t you think I know about you?’

‘She wasn’t no “stepmother.” She was a foster mother ’n she done the best she could. She wasn’t no “stepmother,” the way you say it.’

‘She done so good you don’t even know if she’s dead ’r alive.’ Sophie knew when she had him in the vise and gave it the final turn. ‘She done so much she didn’t even come to the school when you ’n them other punks got caught in the boiler room with the dice. If she’d of come you could have finished like them others.’

‘It wasn’t she didn’t want to come, Zosh,’ Frankie insisted. ‘She was ashamed, she couldn’t talk good English, you know that. She done the best she could.’

Sophie returned to the frontal attack.

‘I got more brains in my butt than your whole scrumblebug fam’ly got in their heads – scrambled eggs is what your fam’ly got for brains. You gonna bring me a damned dawg ’r ain’t you gonna bring me no damned dawg? That’s what I want to know.’

A plaintive howling came circling up the stairwell. Sitting with his slim back toward her, the dealer asked wearily, ‘You really want a dog, Zosh?’

No answer. She was studying the short hairs on the back of his neck. And waited, in the most cunning silence of all, to see whether he would pick up her thought. If he did, then she would know it was true, what old Doc Dominowski had told her about thought transference, how every mind was really a sort of radio set capable of both broadcasting and receiving thought waves.

‘You couldn’t keep no dog in here anyhow,’ Frankie pointed out.

‘It don’t have to be no damned wolf from a zoo, goofy t’ing. It could just be a soft lit-tul puppy-pup. Sort of smoody-like ’n cute, what I could pet. You promised .’

‘He’d mess up the joint. What would you do when he had to go? Set him in the sink? So don’t talk no more. I got scrambled eggs for brains ’n yours is poached, they ain’t even settin’ on toast – When do we eat?’

‘As soon as you heave them greasy cards out the window ’n jump out after ’em,’ she informed him. ‘It’s oney two stories.’

‘I’m afraid of losin’ the joker that way,’ he told her with indifference, jamming a match, in lieu of a toothpick, between his teeth.

‘You’re the biggest joker around here.’ And studied him with a child’s huge scorn: ‘ Some toot’pick.’

‘Besides, the cards ain’t even greasy,’ he decided, ‘I put your Saturday Night in a Whorehouse powder on ’em to make ’em slip good.’ He shifted the match between his teeth. That had been a pretty good one all right. ‘You don’t let me practice on the tubs, I got to do somethin’ to kill the pass-time.’

‘Where’s my pass-time then? A dawg’d be my pass-time oney I don’t count. I count fer nuts. It’s just you ’n that secondhand drum box that counts.’ She wheeled up to him, her tone turning to a plea as she came: ‘’N it’d give you somethin’ to do too, honey. You could take him out for air ’n bring back some beer.’

She lay her fingers, so soft, so cold, upon his own hard hand.

‘Beer ain’t no good for you, Zosh,’ he reminded her, ‘the croaker said it wasn’t no good for you account you can’t exercise. It blows up your belly ’n the bubbles go to your head. Here’ – he proffered the deck – ‘pick a card.’

The fingers upon his own turned to bloodless claws – he drew his hand back fast. ‘ Ever ’thin’s no good fer me,’ she wailed and slapped the cards out of his hand. ‘Little puppies ’n even havin’ a little beer, to have somethin’ to do . I’ll be twenny-six years for Christmas ’n just look how I am – a old lady awready!’