Nelson Algren - The Man with the Golden Arm

He thrust one hand before him, knowing it would not be shaken. That was like him: to seek some humiliation that flicked the long-dying membrane of his eyes and so pleased the twisted spirit. To feel that inner vindication, as of insult upon injury. Sparrow tapped Frankie’s shoulder and nodded toward the door. ‘We can’t set here all day wit’out buyin’ the bummy a drink, Frankie.’

Pig heard them leaving and called out eagerly, knowing his voice would be ignored as surely as his hand, ‘You guys! Buy a drink! I’m waitin’ for that live one!’

At the door Frankie blinked out into the winter sunlight. Slanting toward them across the street a well-dressed matron minced through the sunlit traffic’s wintry bustle. ‘I’d like to be a tradewind ’n blow down there .’ Sparrow watched her with his lewd little eyes while a lewd wind whipped her skirt. ‘You see her give me the eye? I bet if a guy had a Lincoln Park yacht ’n a captain’s outfit he’d get all he wanted.’

Frankie spun him about with both hands. ‘If I was sure it wasn’t Pig that rolled Louie you’d get all you wanted awright. If it wasn’t him it was you ’n that’s a lead-pipe cinch.’ He shoved Sparrow away from him. ‘God help you, punk, if it was.’

‘I’d be the richest guy in the cemetery then for sure, eh, Frankie?’

Sparrow goggled up at Frankie dizzily.

That was the last sad afternoon that the dealer and the steerer sat together to pretend things were as they once had been between them. While the troubled light first wavered, then slanted and darkened across the floor and right outside the ice creaked once, for the puddles were freezing over in alley and street again and Frankie himself felt half frozen. He always felt half frozen of late.

Sparrow leaned across the same table at which they’d begun the afternoon, trying to beguile Frankie away from his concern for a dead man’s bankroll.

‘Wolfin’ is just like dog stealin’, Frankie,’ he confided earnestly the minute they had returned to the Tug & Maul. ‘You find out where they live ’n wait till they’re on the loose in the back yard.’

‘I like a dame with them glasses with the string on,’ Frankie conceded reluctantly, ‘it’s dainty-like.’

‘You know the kind I like, Frankie? The Bette Davis kind – you know, with them real poppy eyes.’

‘What’s so hot about poppy eyes?’ Frankie felt irritable. ‘I know one with poppy eyes ’n a goiter too – you want a introduction to one with a goiter the size of this bottle?’

‘I don’t mind poppy-eye goiters, Frankie.’ Sparrow’s enthusiasm picked up a phony momentum. ‘I’d like a poppy-eye on that Lincoln Park yacht – it don’t even have to have no engine, just have it settin’ there to point out to the chicks we’re walkin’ through the park, accidental-like – ‘Oh, there’s our yacht, the crew must of brought her in from Belmont Harbor’ -’ n when they don’t believe it we walk ’em right on board.’

‘You take the one with the goiter,’ Frankie decided firmly, going up the gangplank without looking back.

‘Once they’re on board they got to stay all night,’ Sparrow revealed. So Frankie drifted with him, borne by Old Forester, out of the Lincoln Park lagoon onto shoreless waters while Sparrow gestured unobtrusively for two more beers. ‘We’ll drift right out into the lake,’ the punk murmured dreamily, his eyes half curtained by the small waves’ dreaming motion; for one moment, behind that curtain, his eyes surveyed Frankie with the hard cold gleam of understanding. Only to soften as the glasses were refilled. ‘Maybe we better stay in the lagoon,’ Frankie cautioned himself in a faraway voice, ‘account of havin’ no motor we might not get back to shore in time.’

‘In time for what, Frankie?’

‘In time for everythin’ – I don’t know – somethin’ might be goin’ on on land, events might be happenin’ ’n we’d be elsewhere.’

‘We could tell the chicks we’re offshore anyhow, Frankie.’

‘That’s right.’ Cause it’s dark ’n they got to take our word. I point to the lights along the drive ’n tell ’em: “Now we’re passin’ Michigan City.”’N when we pull past the pier I say, “Look, you – Duloot! ” ’N all the while we’re driftin’ we’re savin’ oil ’cause it’s just the little waves lappin’, we’re only two blocks away from the zoo so’s we can always get back in time.’

‘In time for what, Frankie?’

‘I don’t know. In time to see ’em feed the lions, I guess.’ He had drifted so far out Sparrow saw it was time to tow him in.

‘What if they hear them lions roarin’ for their breakfast?’ he asked. ‘Don’t they know it ain’t Duloot we’re passin’ then?’

‘Tell ’em they’re sea lions. It’s time for breakfast anyhow, so we got to get rid of ’em. We say we’re back in port ’n got to turn the boat over to the crew to get it remodeled right away, the engine’s missin’. We duck the chicks through the underpass.’

‘How many chicks, Frankie?’ The punk felt reluctant to duck so fast.

‘Just two is enough. Rye-awlto chorus girls you – one a blondie ’n one kind of redheaded.’

‘Who’s the blondie for, Frankie?’

‘For you. One more redhead’d kill you.’ R maybe she’s dark, one of them with one of them real nice protudering Hottentot behinds.’

‘Not all them dark ones got protudering behinds,’ Sparrow put in cunningly, ‘look at that little Molly-O, she’s trim as a policeman’s whistle.’

Frankie pushed his glass away for reply. He wanted that same Molly so badly his throat felt parched. But if the punk thought he was getting anybody’s goat he’d find Frankie didn’t bite that easy. ‘I’m through lushin’ for today,’ he announced.

‘You want to go by Thompson’s ’n get two meals on one ticket, Frankie?’

‘I ain’t hungry.’

‘How about a show then? We got to do somethin’ if we ain’t gonna set here ’n just get tanked. You want to go by the Pilsudski?’

‘The Pilsudski smells of sheenies ’n the Pulaski smells of Polaks,’ Frankie complained, trying not to see the terrible emptiness of the glass in front of him. ‘Excuse me,’ Frankie begged the punk’s pardon, ‘I didn’t know there was a sheenie in the house.’

‘Excuse me ,’ Sparrow begged politely in turn, ‘I didn’t know there was a Polak. You want to go dog-stealin’, Frankie?’

‘You that broke?’

‘Just to do somethin’, Frankie. Just to pacify the time. If we don’t we’ll get stiff, it wouldn’t be no good if Kvork had to pick us up when we were stiff. By the time we got sober we’d be puttin’ the finger on ourselves.’

‘That’s all blowed over,’ Frankie decided. ‘The cops pick up stiffs like Louie every day. Their tickers go bad is what happens. A guy like Louie, he didn’t have a relative in the world. He just clunked out. It’s all in the day’s work for Record Head.’

‘He didn’t have a relative to claim him is right, Frankie,’ Sparrow counseled Frankie, ‘but he owed more guys money than there are bottles on that bar.’ N every one of ’em plays ball with the super.’ Sparrow looked disconsolately into his glass and whimpered, ‘I wisht you hadn’t slugged nobody, Frankie.’

‘’N I wish you’d of had the brains to grab the roll when I did ’stead of leavin’ it to Pig to tap out.’ Keeping his eyes on the punk.

The punk’s eyes never wavered. ‘If I had we’d both be wearin’ new suits now, Frankie.’ He wasn’t being caught off base that easily.

The punk was getting too smart these days, that was all there was to it. Another week and he’d be as smart as Frankie Machine. ‘Let’s go dog-stealin’, Frankie,’ he begged. ‘Just for the old fun.’