Nelson Algren - The Man with the Golden Arm

‘Why, that’s the oney time to buy geran’ums – right before sunup. You see,’ he explained easily, ‘it’s a night-bloomin’ geran’um I got to have, it’s what Mother always liked best.’

That might have stopped them if it hadn’t been for the bathtub on his back. Sure enough, they noticed it. Chicago cops are pretty sharp about bathtubs being carried through alleys piggyback at 4 A.M. Though the punk himself didn’t see anything particularly out of the way. ‘A little clumsy for carryin’ geran’ums,’ he conceded to the aces, setting the tub down to light the butt of a dead cigar with a borrowed match, ‘but when I seen it layin’ there in the middle of the alley the first thing I tawt was somebody better get that tub out of the way before Szalapski the Milkman’s horse breaks a leg over it in the dark. That’s Szalapski from Nort’western Dairy – not that Szalapski I Fix Fenders – it ain’t that the horse don’t know the stops by hisself it’s just that he don’t see so good no more – not like that good old Rumdum the Pedigreed Square-snapper – that’s my blood-type Polish Airedale, he don’t get along so good wit’ Owner’s deafy-dumb cat – say, you fellows want to buy a dog?’

A few other items were missing from the plumber’s. In fact the faster he talked the more the squad found missing. What worried them most was the flashlight and crowbar, they seemed to think the punk had something to do with those too. But the plumber dropped charges when Violet took care of him and Stash did without Polish sausage at all for a while.

The court put it down as malicious mischief and Sparrow had gone away for thirty days.

The day the wagon took Sparrow out to Twenty-eighth and California Violet got roaring drunk in the Tug & Maul. And, as always when she had too much, upbraided all the males in sight just for being males. She wasn’t going to live with old Stash another day, she told the house. ‘Or any other of you godamned hairy-ass morphodyke booze bums who think a girl got to be grateful when her old man brings home bargains from Nostriewicz’s Hi-Klass Bakery – they ain’t even got good freshy stuff by Nostriewicz ’n here he comes bringin’ me the day-olds that’s a day old when they’re freshy even ’n tells me I should sew buttons on his pants ’n sell the zippers to Efjievicz the Tailor because all the young guys are bringin’ Efjievicz pants to take off the buttons ’n put on zippers ’n Efjievicz don’t have enough zippers ’n Stash is too old for a zipper anyhow, it’s just for young guys in a big hurry, he ain’t never in a hurry for nothin’ but bargains by Nostriewicz no more – he’s tellin’ me. ’

The barflies applauded timidly, they felt she deserved applause.

‘ He ’ s tellin’ me he’s not so young no more. Godamnit, am I married ’r ain’t I?’ she demanded to know, steadying herself against the bar.

‘Don’t sound like you are,’ Meter Reader, with the holes in his cap and whisky in his hand, felt obliged to reply.

‘That’s just your opinion,’ Violet almost blasted him off the stool. ‘Who ast your dirty opinion anyhow? Who you think you’re tellin’ what to do? Who you married to?’ She sized him up with growing contempt. ‘Hell, you’re in worse shape than my old man – you’re married to your dirty fist, that’s who you’re married to – where you get off anyhow tellin’ other people what to do ’n how to live? Ever try mindin’ your own business, you moldy-lookin’ sandlot spigotheaded bakebrain? I’ll use your dirty skull for a bar towel, you tellin’ me what to do ’n what not to do ’n all that kapustka -’ Violet wasn’t big, but she looked big enough to do it – at such moments the helmet of her hennaed hair and the wide-set gray eyes flared with a single flame. Meter Reader took up his glass quietly and retired to the rear of the bar. Meter Reader was saving himself for the exigencies of his coaching position with the Endless Belt & Leather Invincibles.

That thirty days had taught the punk a lesson. It had made him feel badly, costing Violet all that money. Every time she’d had enough saved to divorce Old Man she’d have to spend it putting in the fix for him. He’d brooded about it the whole thirty days, and made up his mind that the first thing he’d do when he got out would be to steal the divorce money for her.

He’d picked on Gold’s Department Store when a goodly crowd was there.

Sparrow had been stealing odds and ends off Gold’s counters since he was in short pants. He knew that the only gun in the store was an ancient cow pistol carried by the old man who runs the freight elevator. The elevator man is even older than old Gold; all he does is lean against the shaft, half asleep all day. It’s like a pension.

Sparrow had felt that if he could get the gun off the old man without getting himself shot straight through the head the rest should be fairly easy. He began drinking on the notion next door to Gold’s and, as the afternoon wore on, the more natural the notion had appeared. He wasn’t able to understand why he hadn’t thought of it long before.

But when he’d shuffled out of the bar and had seen how swiftly the long street was darkening, he’d gone cold sober with the recollection of his recent thirty-day stretch and had had to return, in a hurry, to the bar.

He’d gotten drunk all over again on Vi’s credit, which was good so long as Stash held down his icehouse job. But by nine o’clock the credit gave out and he’d been brooding on the idea so long he couldn’t back out. To falter would have been to reneg on Frankie as well as on Violet, he felt. Both had done so much for him – and what had he ever done for either? Nothing. Not a thing. He never did anything for his friends but use up their credit and get them in trouble. He’d do something big for them all. Right now.

So shuffled, cap yanked low, straight down the middle aisle – Ladies’ Hose and Fancy Footwear – to the freight elevator where the ancient house dick lounged in dreams of long-lost daily doubles. Sparrow shoved his combination flashlight pencil into the small of the old man’s back, grabbed the gun, shoved him into the lift and snarled just like Edward G. Robinson, ‘Into the basement wit’ the rest of the rats – copper. ’

His glasses had clouded up, but he heard the door of the lift crash shut and the cables whining downward and the dozen-odd customers began turning slowly toward him like people in a slow-motion movie. In that moment he saw himself through all their eyes: a cardboard cowboy in horn-rimmed spectacles waving an oversized cow gun. He heard his own shrill voice carried away down endless nylon aisles on the scudding of the overhead fans.

‘Face the waw-awls, every body!’

He saw them turning, by ones and twos, old Gold with a steel washboard under his arm and the cashier’s face white as a split apple against the parched black line of her brows just as she took a header and he hollered, ‘Leave her lay! She oney fainted!’

Leaning across the counter he banged the cash drawer open and saw bills stacked there just for Sparrow. Tens and twenties and singles and fives rubbing rawly against the icy sweat of his palm – and the shining dimes and quarters in the last drawer over! He reached so far he tottered, the liquor came up in his throat and his lips moved with whisky or greed; heard a quarter go tinkling along the floor toward Fancy Footwear and followed it anxiously, a dozen pairs of eyes following it with him, to a rack bearing spring topcoats. Pocketed the lucky quarter, pulled the flashiest coat of all off the rack and was struggling into it when old Gold’s nose appeared above the cosmetics counter between two jars of cold cream, the washboard glinted one moment as it trembled in his hand and the momentum of his swing carried him half across the counter, sent the cold cream jars and a stack of blue-boxed Kotex into the aisle as the board caught Sparrow spam behind the left ear.