Джеймс Кейн - Root of His Evil [= Shameless]

“You know what’s the matter!”

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“And you know what you been doing!”

“I haven’t been doing anything.”

“Oh, yes, you have.” And she launched into the most terrible imaginary account of all that had taken place between me and Mr. Holden, and why I didn’t go to Lindy’s, and a great deal more that I prefer to forget. I thought it best to say that Mr. Holden had only wanted to take his calls, and talk a few plans with me while he was waiting, and that I had only stayed with him a little while anyway. “And, besides, I don’t see what you have to do with it. I don’t try to come between you and any of your friends, and certainly you have plenty of them.” Which was the truth because Lula was not at all particular where men were concerned, and certainly went out with them a lot.

But nothing I could say had any effect on her, and she kept it up and kept it up, and it was easy to see that she was afflicted by some kind of jealousy which I didn’t understand and still don’t quite understand. But I think she had some kind of motherly feeling about me because she was several years older than I was, and it upset her to think I had at last taken some step with a man, as she assumed I had. She kept raving until long after daylight, and we got a call from the desk that we would have to keep quiet as people were ringing to complain. I didn’t close my eyes until the sun was shining in the windows, and then when the nine-thirty call came I was almost dead from lack of sleep, but Lula wouldn’t get up at all. “But Lula, you’ve got to go to work. And it’ll look bad if somebody isn’t there, the very day after we formed the union.”

“To hell with the union.”

“But we’ve all got to do our part.”

“What I care about the union? Go on, let me sleep. Go on down and see your friend Holden. Stay out all night with him, stay out every night with him, do anything you please — but let me alone.”

I went to work, and Lula didn’t come, and I said she wasn’t feeling well, and when I got back that night the hotel said she had gone and hadn’t left any forwarding address. She didn’t show up for work again. I would like this episode kept in mind, for it was the thing that caused most of my trouble later on, and if it had not been for Lula perhaps none of the rest of it would have happened. Or perhaps it would, I don’t know. But Lula was certainly a large part of it.

Grant came for lunch that day, and the next, but was prevented from seeing me at night because of the tactics of Mr. Holden who didn’t exactly take charge of us, or quite get out but kept having meetings at his hotel suite. He insisted that I attend every night, and Clara Gruber, and the girls from all the restaurants in the chain so that, as he said, we could discuss the minimum basic agreement we were going to demand from the company. Some wanted one thing and some wanted another, for example, seventy-five cents an hour wages, with “Please Pay Waitress” instead of “Please Pay Cashier,” as it was felt the tips would be bigger if the waitresses presented the change, as they do in the hotels and higher class restaurants, and free uniforms. But I could see objections to all of these, from the management’s point of view, and I didn’t believe we could obtain them. What I wanted was the same hourly wages as we had, as what the restaurant paid us was only a small part of what we made anyhow, with a straight ten per cent charge for tips, as they have in a number of restaurants, with a minimum tip of twenty-five cents. Because in the first place it would be the customer who paid this, rather than the restaurant. And in the second place, it would come to more than the system we already had because what cut our tips down was the people who sat around for a long time occupying the chairs in our station during rush hour, and then leaving a dime tip. So I thought my plan would yield us quite a lot more, without costing the restaurant anything.

However, the others, and especially Clara Gruber, were all hot for making the management pay, and to my great surprise, Mr. Holden seemed willing to do whatever they wanted. This I could not understand until we were having some coffee in a restaurant one night, after the other girls had gone home. If he was going to see me alone, I had insisted that we go out. My running away that night, by the way, he had merely taken as a sort of joke and intimated that he would make progress with me yet. As to that, I had my own ideas, so I usually led the talk around to the union and our demands. His attitude he explained one night, first giving me a long wink. “Demands are poetry.”

“They’re what?”

“I’m surprised at the narrow limits of your soul. Let the girls demand. It expands their natures, makes them feel good, acts as a fine, stimulating tonic.”

“But they won’t get their demands.”

“Oh — now you’re speaking of settlement. That’s reality.”

“Isn’t it all reality?”

“Not at all. They demand the stuff that dreams are made upon. They settle for what they can get.”

“But that way we’re sure to have a strike.”

“No doubt we are.”

“But that’s terrible.”

“Think, my pretty friend — it’s August.”

“Well?”

“It’s hot. And a strike makes a holiday.”

“They give vacations.”

“Two weeks at Brighton, with mosquito bites. But a strike — there’s something real. They have speeches and parades and lofty thoughts, and patriotic music.”

“My but you sound cold-blooded.”

“The main thing to remember in all labor matters, the point they all forget about, is the state of the weather. Cold-blooded? It’s you that’s cold-blooded, thinking always of the money. I remember that workers are human.”

“They’ll lose their wages.”

“If they drew their wages, would they have their wages, will you tell me that? If they wind up broke in any case, why not have fun? Besides, it solidifies the union spirit.”

“It’s — wasteful.”

“Your pretty dress is wasteful, for the matter of that.”

“But it’s pretty.”

“So is a strike, in its way — a lot of girls, finding the courage to lift their heads at last. Perhaps they don’t get all they want, but they had the fun of a fight. There’s an element of beauty in it.”

“To me it’s just foolishness.”

“Are you never foolish, Carrie?”

“Not willingly.”

“A little folly would become you, I think.”

The Saturday following our first meeting Grant came in for lunch again, and sat there very moody and didn’t eat any of his Korn on the Karb, although the way he wanted it was rapidly becoming a restaurant joke. Then he wanted to see me that night, but I couldn’t, and then he proposed that we spend the next day, which was Sunday, on the Sound. He said he had the use of a shack near Port Washington and a boat, and we could have a good time. Well, I thought, why not? I was all alone in the hotel now, and besides it was very hot. “Very well — if we get back by night.”

“You have a date?”

“No, but there’s a big meeting.”

“Oh, the union.”

“I’m an officer, you know.”

“So you are. All right, I’ll have you back in time.”

So on my way up to the cocktail bar, I hurriedly bought a little sport dress and hat, a bathing suit, slippers and beach robe. Sure enough, next morning at nine o’clock the desk phoned that a Mr. Harris was in the lobby, and I went down wearing my sports outfit and carrying the beach things in a little bag that went with them. I supposed we were to take a train at Grand Central, but he had a car out there, a nice-looking green coupe. It was very pleasant riding along without any train to think about, even if the traffic was so heavy we could barely crawl. It was about eleven o’clock when we reached the shack, which was on a bluff above a little cove, with steps leading down. Well, he called it a shack, but I would have said estate, for it was a very fine place, with luxurious furniture on the veranda, and a big hall inside with a grand piano in it and soft chairs all around. I couldn’t help expressing surprise. “Did you say you just — borrowed this?”