Nelson Algren - The Man with the Golden Arm

‘He’ll get tired of settin’ ’n settin’. He’ll go back to work just to have somethin’ to do,’ Sparrow hoped vaguely.

Old Man never wore pants or shoes or shirt about the house. When ready to eat he simply thrust knife and fork into the truss and sat wiggling his toes, in their heavy socks, till food was put before him. He broke in upon the conference, shuffled his upper plate into position and said, ‘Ready.’

‘Ready for what? ’ Violet wanted to know in alarm. She had set plates for only two. Stash reached over and placed Sparrow’s plate in front of himself.

‘This stuff ain’t for you, Old Man,’ Sparrow pointed out, ‘this is fresh stuff. You couldn’t digest it. It’ll be ripe for you tomorrow, there’ll be lots left over.’

‘I digest awright,’ Stash assured him. ‘ Now I’m eat. Ever’tin’ frash. Tomorrow you eat, little bits left all over.’

Sparrow and Violet watched the old man spreading creamery butter upon fresh rolls with something akin to horror. He helped himself to her dollar-twenty-a-pound ham.

‘Pick the strorberries,’ she commanded Sparrow, ‘I got to see how far this thing is going to go.’ But her voice faltered.

It went as far as the ‘strorberries.’ Stash poured half a pint of whipping cream over them and lit a tailor-made cigarette out of Sparrow’s pack, left lying carelessly beside the sugar bowl.

‘Why don’t you finish the cream, Old Man?’ Sparrow asked. ‘It might go sour.’

‘Is for coffee,’ Stash explained regally, shoving his cup toward the perking Silex. Violet filled it with a strange docility.

‘Now Stash gone by bed some more – ever ’tin’ be nice, quiet,’ he warned them both after the very last of the cream had gone into his coffee and the last of the coffee had gone down his throat.

The fact that the right-hand button of the underwear’s trap had now loosened didn’t in the least detract from the dignity of the old man’s exit. They heard the closing of the bedroom door, the sighing of the new mattress giving surcease to his brittle old bones and the first gentle snore before either dared to speak.

‘It looks like our move,’ Violet said dismally, after the dishes were washed and they had returned to the front-room couch; there was scarcely room for both of them to lie comfortably on its worn springs.

‘Don’t say “our,”’ Sparrow reminded her, ‘say “yours.” You married him.’

‘Yeh, but I wouldn’t have had to hang onto him this long if you went out ’n got a steady job,’ she pointed out. ‘You could make it on the legit if you really wanted.’

‘Sure. I could get a Number Two shovel ’n get on a blast-furnace shift in Indiana Harbor ’n come home nights in the same shape as Stash is now ’n be snorin’ here on the front-room couch while you’re-’ He stopped himself.

‘Go ahead – finish what you started to say.’ Her eyes had darkened dangerously. ‘I s’ppose I’m in heat every time I see a pair of pants hangin’ on the line? All I think about, I guess, is that velvet-lined meat grinder?’

‘That about sizes it up,’ Sparrow thought discreetly. But all he said aloud was, ‘All I meant was if I had a full-time job I couldn’t do my fam’ly duty so good.’

‘You’re not breakin’ no records as it is,’ she assured him, ‘’n anyhow I’m not tellin’ you to start swingin’ no shovel. You could be a Western Union messenger ’n drop in to see me between messages.’

‘I’d never get back to the office on time,’ he predicted, ‘I’d be fallin’ off the bike. Why don’t you go by Western Union yourself?’ And added silently, ‘Then I could rest up between messages.’

‘Fat chance I got of goin’ to work,’ Violet complained as might anyone unjustly deprived of the inalienable right to work for a living. ‘Who’d take care of Zosh ’n that oversize fart hound you palmed off on Frankie? If I didn’t get down there ’n sweep the floor the bottles’d be overflowin’, they’d be up to the sink.’

‘So long as they don’t go no higher,’ Sparrow philosophized, ‘if they did they’d get in the way of the dishes.’

‘Frankie’s got her so spoiled she won’t even put the dishes on the sink, she waits for me to pick them up now, just like she’s tryin’ to see how much I can take off her. I’m glad they only got one room ’cause she eats all over the place. I find dishes in the drawer, they must of been there since Frankie was in the army.’

‘It don’t look like you’ll have time to be cleanin’ up down there any more,’ Sparrow reminded her, ‘the way Old Man is actin’ you’ll have to start in up here first.’

‘He’ll come to his senses when I won’t let him tear the days off the calendar ’r read the temper’ture.’

‘How you gonna stop him?’

‘I’ll put the calendar up where he can’t reach it ’n lock the window so he can’t lean out. He can’t open it by hisself, the lock gets stuck. He has to holler for me to come unlock it.’

‘Don’t let him lean out too far.’

‘That’s what scares me, he leans out too damned far.’

‘Hold his legs.’

‘ That’s the part that scares me, it’s when I’m holdin’ his legs. What if I let go?’

‘You won’t let go.’

‘I know I won’t.’

‘But you might forget to lock the window – well, I’m glad tearin’ days off the calendar is all he wants to tear off.’ Sparrow spoke with an uneasy gratitude. He wasn’t as certain, as he once had been, that Violet was an unmixed blessing.

‘Hurry up, honey,’ she panted in his ear, ‘we got to get dressed pretty soon ’n get down to the hall. I got to get Old Man dressed ’n shaved ’n clean socks on him. After all, the New Year’s party is for him.’

‘ This one ain’t,’ Sparrow commanded her, ‘quit quackin’ ’n get to work.’

That was as far as Violet and the punk ever did get in resolving the problem of having a husband in the home. Had it not been for chance and an icy pane, old Stash might in time have driven them both to carrying messages for Western Union.

The first guest to arrive at the New Year’s Eve ball was Umbrella Man and as soon as he came in it was apparent that the occasion had been misunderstood. He carried a rebuilt umbrella ‘for bride-lady’ under his arm, his pants were pressed and no one could convince him that it was just a coming-out party for Old Husband because Old Husband had just come out.

Then Meter Reader the Baseball Coach came bringing a third baseman’s mitt with the signature of Stanley Hack autographed into the leather for Sparrow; and a book on how to throw your voice for Violet. He pretended never to have heard of anyone called Old Husband at all and had just dropped in to kiss the bride. So all he’d do when they tried to explain things to him was to say, ‘Don’t thank me , thank my boys.’

So they guessed somebody had been going around saying Violet had finally divorced Old Husband at last and was getting hitched to the punk. Which, with all the presents the rumor had brought in, didn’t do any particular harm. So everyone had a long pull of wiśniowa on it while Stash went about showing his clean socks to everyone and pointing with pride toward Violet, to show it was Mrs Him had given them to him.

Then Antek the Owner arrived with a bruised cheek. He’d been drinking his own whisky all day, till Mrs Owner had locked him out in order to have something left for Monday’s customers. Owner was on the verge of tears. ‘Married fourteen years ’n never a harsh word – now she bats me with the mattress board ’n locks me out of my own home. I got no home no more, fellas. I got nothin’, it’s all in her name. Owner’s out in the cold world all alone, can’t even get in to see his own little girl – isn’t that a shame , fellas?’