Nelson Algren - The Man with the Golden Arm

‘H oo sband went that way,’ Sparrow informed her, pointing helpfully toward the fire escape, ‘only he got no pants. Ain’t you gonna give yer old man his pants, honey?’

‘What for? He ain’t gonna have nothin’ left to put into ’em. I’m gonna shoot it off.’

‘Wait,’ Sparrow cautioned her. ‘Don’t plug him till I get the pants. I don’t like seein’ a man get shot wit’out pants on.’ His sausage string wandered up and down while he picked the pants off the bedpost, brushed them down with the butt of the sausage and wandered back down the passage, casually inspecting the names on the doors to see whether anyone he knew had moved into this particular goats’ nest.

Poked his nose onto the fire escape to see if anything worth watching awhile was going on out there: not much doing there either. Just the white bottom of an old man’s underwear shuddering wretchedly through the frost-covered crisscrossed ironwork in the winter dawn. Just an old man holding his head in his hands trying, somehow, sometime, to get to sleep for a little while.

It looked pretty cold to Sparrow, trying to sleep all scraunched up like that with Violet sneaking up underneath and the alley arc lamp’s light shimmering down the barrel of the.38.

‘I like to get up close to accidents,’ Sparrow recalled, switching the string in mild anticipation, and just as he switched it Violet pointed the barrel toward the arc lamp: in the shattering of the lamp the old man went forward with the blast as though catapulted by the Hindquarters of Destruction. To come up with his knees on the ironwork and his fingers clutching Violet’s fluttering gown. ‘Stash give double sawbuck,’ he begged off. He sounded ready to cry, he was that crushed by fear.

‘Then get your dirty wallet ’n start makin’ good,’ she gave him his terms. ‘’N while you’re gettin’ it put water on the stove for dishes. You’ll have just time to clean them up before you go by job. Jumped-up-Jesus-from-Joliet, Old Man, I got to get some sleep sometime tonight.’ She herded him down the hall before her. In the dimness Stash paused to plead over his shoulder, ‘You not shoot Old Man in ess, hoa-ney?’

‘I just ain’t made up my damned mind.’

Then saw someone else in the hall and made her damned mind up in a hurry. Sparrow was leaning confidently against the wall, advising a shadow wearing a badge, ‘Here’s your man, Sergeant, here’s your man.’ Stash felt the.38 returned gently to his hand and held it in dull surprise.

It was just like one of those nosy neighbors, Vi reflected, to be minding other people’s business when they ought to be in bed. Sparrow chewed on while the officer relieved Stash of the.38 and all three eyed Old Husband suspiciously while he struggled, first on one foot and then upon the other, into his greasy work pants. Nobody offered him an arm to lean upon, even when he went face forward and caught himself, by sheer luck, against the wall.

‘Looks like one of them Berkshire cases to me,’ the law surmised. ‘If I hadn’t happened along you’d be up on a murder rap – how many people you slaughtered with this thing lately, Old Man?’

‘He sure has been terrerizin’ us t’night,’ Sparrow put in. Stash gaped and looked to Violet for help. An odd place to look for it. ‘How about my ten bucks?’ was what Violet wanted to know.

Stash turned hopefully to Sparrow.

‘He buries his dead under his fingernails is what they tell me,’ Sparrow felt it his duty to inform the law. Stash shook his head in vague assent, sensing he had somebody on his side at last. ‘You good boy,’ he thanked Sparrow for everything. He could tell that Sparrow was going to make something nice happen for everybody now. So everyone could have secondhand twist bread and go back to bed.

‘Maybe he oney fired to scare her,’ Sparrow suggested, not wanting to take any chances on having to sleep with Old Man rather than Violet. Over the officer’s shoulder he saw Poor Peter’s face, as white and long as the face of an Aberdeen rabbit, come peering. Sparrow waved once and the docile, dolorous mug disappeared once again into the dimness. The Jailer wouldn’t be able to make much sense out of what Poor Peter would be trying to tell him, the things he had seen in the night, that was certain.

While all down the hall neighbors peeked out of darkened cracks just long enough to see what was going on without becoming involved. Every time the law eyed one of the slightly ajar doors it closed slowly and ever so softly; as though only the morning wind were shutting it.

‘You ever confined to an institution?’ the officer turned on Stash professionally.

‘He means where you work, Old Man,’ Violet translated loosely.

‘Sure, sure, worrrk ever’ day, sixteen-eighteen hour, I’m not gone by yoo-nyun.’ Stash put a timid hand on Vi’s broad shoulder. ‘My hoa-ney,’ he explained, feeling that the gesture would clear everything up. And shivered in the bitter tenement wind. ‘My hoa-ney, I’m still love her.’ Someone, he felt uneasily with that uneasy wind, was trying to take his hoa-ney away.

‘You got a damned funny way of showing affection,’ the ace observed, playing a flashlight onto one of the slightly ajar doors. ‘I’ll have to book this old sot for drunk ’n disorderly, creatin’ a nuisance of hisself, malicious mischief ’n attemp’ to do great bodily harm. Besides, who’s going to pay for that arc lamp, cowboy?’ He flashed the light briefly to surprise anyone reaching for a five-spot.

But caught no one reaching for a thing.

‘The courts are very severe on these cases of late,’ the ace went on regretfully, ‘it might be assault wit’ attemp’ to tap a gas main for immoral purposes for all I know. Seems to me you answer the description of Firebox Phil, the fiend who’s pullin’ boxes for the purpose of pickin’ the fire chief’s pocket when he hangs his coat on the hook-’n-ladder.’

The wind searched curiously all the way down to the end of the hall; yet no one reached for a fiver at all. It turned and jostled back between them, nudging each suggestively. Yet no one came up with a crying dime.

‘You better look out or he’ll try to buy you off,’ Sparrow warned the law.

‘Where you work? You look awful familiar to me,’ the ace turned irritably upon the punk. ‘Let’s see some eyedintification.’

Sparrow’s wallet was in apple-pie order. It wasn’t his, but it was all there: the photostated discharge stolen off a sleeping drunk on a Humboldt Park local and the Social Security card with the carelessly forged signature. He let the ace see there wasn’t so much as a single loose deuce in the package.

‘Now let’s see yours , Scarface,’ he turned back to Stash, sensing easier game. He didn’t want to fool with the one in glasses, he looked like some kind of crook.

‘Worrrk by izehowz,’ Stash insisted, feeling the net beginning to close.

‘He didn’t even register for the Spanish-Americun War, I bet,’ Violet scoffed, while Old Husband hauled out his icehouse badge and his Christmas bonus check.

‘’N you told me you were broke just last night!’ Violet whooped in indignation. ‘Gimme that! A fine pervider you turned out to be, holdin’ out on your own flesh ’n blood.

Bringin’ home stale pumpernickel with a uncashed check in your poke! I guess you figure you could take it with you ’r somethin’.’

‘If he can’t he won’t go,’ Sparrow put in, and apologized immediately. ‘I heard that on the radio.’

The ace craned his neck, inwardly cursing his slowness in failing to grab the check first – not a loose fin among the three of them. Maybe he ought to make them take off their shoes; if he could just think of one good reason for the pair still wearing them. Well, he could always get a fin for the gun from any Division Street hood.