Читать книгу Awake and Rehearse - Louis Bromfield - Страница 11

Table of Contents

“HAVE another,” said Sadie. “This time it’s furniture polish.”

Mr. Wigglesworth hung his derby on the vase of imitation Sèvres that stood on the mantelpiece, lighted a cigar and held out his glass.

“You surtenly are a strong silent man,” said Sadie.

“You’re three ahead of me.”

Mr. Wigglesworth looked at her and then raised his glass and drank. “Here’s to Mr. Rosie and May. One more bastard less!”

Sadie began to weep. She drank and began to comb her hair. “It ain’t him I’m thinkin’ about. It’s her. Poor Rosie. Taking it hard when Gawd removes a thing like him from you. I suppose it was his droppin’ off sudden shocked her. He wasn’t no good, but I suppose a husband’s a husband. It’s a kind of a principle. You get used to havin’ a husband around, even a thing like Clarence.”

Mr. Wigglesworth looked at her wearily. “Well, he’s dead now!”

Sadie stopped combing her hair. “Yes, thank Gawd! She can save some money now.”

A long silence followed her remark. Mr. Wigglesworth regarded himself in the mirror. Presently he said, “I thought this was goin’ to be a party.”

“Well, you gotta show some respeck. You can’t jazz it up with his ashes right in the same house with yuh. You gotta pretend for Rosie’s sake. It ain’t decent not to. I was brought up right. You gotta show some respeck.”

Mr. Wigglesworth, who publicly was a salesman of spare parts for radios, walked over to the absent Rosie’s radio. He turned a dial. There was a guttural explosion, a splutter, and then Rosie Latouche’s hotel suite was filled with the blare and uproar of saxophones, trombones and kettledrums.

Sadie got up. “Shut off that Goddam thing! Ain’t you got any respeck!”

Mr. Wigglesworth turned to see Sadie taking another. With a fillip of the wrist he filled the room with new sounds that were deep, mellow and rumbling. The grand organ of the Palladium, the World’s Largest Motion Picture Palace, poured into Rosie’s flat.

“Ease it down,” said Sadie. “I ain’t deef.”

Mr. Wigglesworth eased it down.

“That’s the news reel,” said Sadie. “Rosie comes on right after that.” She applied thick, greasy rouge to her lips, creating a skilful and delicate Cupid’s bow which bore no relation to the over-ripe mouth given her by nature.

Mr. Wigglesworth turned a gloomy back upon her and stood staring down into Forty-ninth Street. It was a wet night. On the corner the colossal electric sign of the Palladium Motion Picture Palace mirrored its extravagant red, green, and yellow lights in the wet asphalt.

“This cremation business is good stuff,” said Sadie. “I’m all for sanitation, and it’s better havin’ his ashes round than his corpse. Why, there ain’t even room for a corpse in this flat. Where’d they put a corpse? I ask you?” She took another drink. “And it ain’t so depressin’. Yuh don’t feel the same way about ashes.”

Across the street in the doorway of the Hotel Barcelona, three men stood with their collars turned up and their hats pulled down watching the passersby. An old woman went by, drenched by the rain but holding her newspapers under her shawl to keep them dry. A taxicab skidded into the curb and bounced off again.

“It’s a funny thing—his wantin’ to be cremated.”

Mr. Wigglesworth had nothing to say to this.

“And wantin’ his ashes strewn on the bosom of the East River.”

Mr. Wigglesworth answered without turning. “Mebbe he hoped some of ’em would be washed up on the Island where he’d feel home-like.”

“Well, he’s dead now.”

Across the street a man and a woman came out of the door of Marco’s Independent Vaudeville. They turned and went into Tony’s speakeasy. Around his cigar, Mr. Wigglesworth remarked, “Margery’s act’s over. I just seen her and Herman goin’ into Tony’s place.”

“Mebbe we’d better ask ’em in. It’d cheer Rosie up mebbe to see some friends.”

“What about respeck?”

“She ain’t seen Margery since she made the movie houses and Margery got into the three a day. It’ll give both of ’em somethin’ to high hat each other about.”

“Margery’ll be tellin’ all about her new act.”

“It ain’t so hot. Variety said if she’d thought it up when she was thirty years younger it mighta gone big.”

Mr. Wigglesworth turned a little from his post at the window. Sadie was taking another. She seemed more cheerful. Beside him the radio suddenly became a voice, rich, barytone and elocutional. It was announcing a number entitled “My Hot Steppin’ Baby ain’t no slow steppin’ maybe! He’s always on the job.”

“That’s her number,” said Sadie. “Hers and May’s. She’s goin’ on now.”

Mr. Wigglesworth again remained silent and absorbed in the view of Forty-ninth Street.

“Poor kid,” said Sadie. “It’s kinda like dancin’ on her husband’s grave. Havin’ to go on with her husban’ barely in his coffin.”

“He ain’t in a coffin,” observed Mr. Wigglesworth.

“Well, in whatever you call it ... a container. That’s what art is. You don’t know, Eddie, what it is to be an artiste.”

Mr. Wigglesworth grunted. “I thought it was all settled that he was a bum.”

Sadie began to repeat herself. “Well, a husban’s a husban’. And a husban’s ashes are a husban’s ashes. You gotta show some respeck.”

“Yeh,” said Mr. Wigglesworth. He turned and took one look at Sadie and one at the bottle.

“What about another?” asked Sadie. “It’s a wet night.”

Mr. Wigglesworth did not deny this. He took another and returned to the window. On the radio the blare of the Grand Symphony Orchestra of the Palladium Theatre took the place of the grand Cathedral Organ. Against the sound ran the thread of Rosie’s high, shrill voice, singing, “My Red Hot Baby ain’t no small time maybe,” and the sound of the Latouche Sisters’ feet pattering against the rhythm.

“Dancin’ on her husban’s coffin,” repeated Sadie gloomily.

“She’s off the beat,” observed Mr. Wigglesworth.

“Whatta you know about beats?”

Without turning Mr. Wigglesworth said, “Are yuh lookin’ for a fight?”

“No.”

“If you wanna fight, I’ll stage a big one. I’m just feelin’ right.”

“What does a common bootlegger like you know about Rosie’s art?”

“I know when a common hoofer’s off the beat.”

“I suppose you wanna beat me up again.”

Mr. Wigglesworth did not answer. He was listening intently. So Sadie said once more and with a slightly greater challenge in her voice: “I suppose you wanna beat me up again.” Still Mr. Wigglesworth was silent.

“I wanna tell you, if you ever beat me up again I’ll haul you up for it.”

Mr. Wigglesworth was listening with an intense concentration.

“There’s sumpin’ the matter with Rosie,” he said. “She can’t keep on the key.”

“Poor kid!” said Sadie. “Dancin’ on her husban’s coffin!”

“It ain’t a coffin,” persisted Mr. Wigglesworth, and then after a moment’s careful listening, “She don’t sound so melancholy.”

Sadie ignored this. “My Red Hot Baby” came to an end. There was a pause and a thin scatter of applause.

“It’s a flop,” said Mr. Wigglesworth. “She’s queered it.”

From a series of wet crackles came the familiar elocutionary barytone. “You have just heard the Latouche Sisters, ‘Rosie and May,’ singing ‘My Red Hot Baby ain’t no small time maybe’ broadcasted by——”

“That guy sure has sex appeal in his voice,” observed Sadie.

“Yeah?” said Mr. Wigglesworth. “Well, it ain’t the voice that matters.”

The voice continued, “—by Station LMNO, Nussbaum’s Department Store, by special arrangement direct from the stage of the World’s Largest Motion Picture Palace, the Palladium Theatre, now showing ‘A Girl’s Man’ with Almerita Tancred and Alonzo Vaness. Please stand by.”

“Aw, shut up!” said Mr. Wigglesworth and throttled the beautiful voice with a deft turn of the wrist.

“I never thought you was jealous of a voice.”

Outside, the rain fell in ropes and spirals. Through it emerged from the door of Tony’s place two drenched and unsteady figures. Mr. Wigglesworth pushed open the window, took the cigar out of his mouth, and yelled, “Hey, Margy, come on up! We’re celebratin’!”

For a moment two faces turned up, searching the windows of the Eldorado Hotel, and then the two forms crossed the street to the entrance just beneath the window which framed the lean, tubercular form of Mr. Wigglesworth. It took them some time to cross as they seemed unable to maintain a straight course.

“What d’you mean, celebratin’?” asked Sadie. “That ain’t the word to use at a time like this.”

“Well, if we ain’t celebratin’, what are we doin’?”

Sadie took up the bottle. “Have another. It’s a wet night.”

They each had another, Mr. Wigglesworth returned to the window and Sadie said, “Rosie ain’t even got a container yet.”

“What d’you mean—container?”

“A what you may call it? A urn—for his ashes. She ain’t had time, what with rehearsals and a new act goin’ on. They asted her to call at the Funeral Chapel and s’lect one, but she ain’t had time. She ain’t had time.”

“What’s the matter with the thing he’s already in—that thing on the mantel.” Mr. Wigglesworth went over to the yellow oak mantel and took up a circular metal box painted black. “If she’s gonna throw him in the East River what’s the use of havin’ a urn?” He peered at the metal box and shook it gently, listening with concentration. Then he looked at Sadie, “It certainly is convenient. He don’t take up much space now.”

“It’s gotta be impressive,” said Sadie. “She can’t pour the ashes outova common tin can like that. It’d look like she was emptyin’ her combin’ box in the East River, if there was such a thing as a combin’ box. A girl can’t do that. She’s gotta have a bronz urn so she can hold it in her hand when the press guy clicks his box. You know—‘Famous Dancer Scatters Ashes of Beloved Husban’ upon Bosom of East River.’ It’s gotta be impressive. It’s gotta be impressive. I keep tellin’ her, ‘Rosie, it’s gotta be impressive.’”

With an exaggerated care, Mr. Wigglesworth replaced the black tin box on the mantelpiece.

“Sure,” he said. “Rosie otta at least get some publicity outa that cokey.”

The door opened. It was Margery and her husband. Margery grasped the end of the upright piano for support (she was a large peroxide), and then cried out, “Well, for cryin’ out loud, if it ain’t Sadie Beimeister!”

“Guess again; it’s Amy McFeerson,” said Sadie.

“I ain’t seen you since we played Skowhegan Falls. What you been doin’ with yourself?”

She encircled Sadie in a pair of fat arms and gave her a large wet kiss.

“I’m at leisure,” said Sadie, giving a hard look toward Mr. Wigglesworth. “Anyway, that’s what they call it.”

Mr. Wigglesworth did not notice her.

Margery’s husband was introduced to Sadie. The wet night had depressed him. He hovered like a shadow behind Margery.

“Whatya celebratin’?” asked Margery.

“Ain’t you heard?” said Sadie.

“No.”

“Rosie Latouche’s husban’s dead.”

“No. When?”

“Day before yesterday.”

Tears came into Margery’s china-blue eyes. “No, you don’t mean it! Him? Mr. Rosie and May. She’ll miss him. I say she otta thank Gawd. If ever a husban’ was a drag on a woman’s career!”

Her head cleared a little and her thoughts became concrete. “Where is he? Laid out at Heely’s place?”

“Naw, he’s right here.”

Margery looked alarmed. “Where?”

Sadie pointed to the black box on the mantelpiece. “That’s him.”

“Creemayted?”

“Creemayted.”

Margery took up the tin box gently and shook it a little, listening sadly with her fuzzy blonde head on one side. Then in silence she put it down with great caution, but she placed it too near the edge of the mantel and it fell. She caught it skilfully and when she had regained her own balance put it down a second time with greater care and greater success. “So it’s a wake you’re havin’?”

“Yeah. A wake.”

“I ain’t never been to a wake with the remains in ashes.”

Mr. Wigglesworth was opening the window. “Come on up, Al, we’re celebratin’!” he called.

Sadie yelled at him. “Whatya doin’? Askin’ in every bum you see?”

Margery’s husband was drawn to the radio as a piece of iron to a magnet. He lacked Mr. Wigglesworth’s skill of manipulation, and it began to shriek and groan and crackle.

Sadie held up the bottle. “How about a freshener? It’s a wet night.” She addressed the room in a voice which steadily grew louder. Margery came over to the table and Margery’s husband got a toothbrush mug out of the bathroom. Sadie filled the two receptacles. Mr. Wigglesworth, with a few nonchalant spins of several dials, filled the room with the sound of the Babylon Hotel Roof jazz band playing “What’s my Baby waitin’ for tonight?” Margery threw her hat on the floor and ran her fat, beringed fingers through her peroxide curls.

“It’s awful how these tight hats make you sweat!”

The door opened and Al oozed in, dripping rain across the carpet. He hung his wet Fedora on top of Mr. Wigglesworth’s damp derby, and Margery shouted, “Well, for cryin’ out loud, if it ain’t Al!” She gave him a large wet kiss, and addressed the room, “Al and me ain’t seen each other since he closed his trained seal act in Troy. It’s a regler reunion, this is.”

Margery’s husband was turning dials on the radio and producing grumbles, roars, and shrieks. “Lots of static tonight,” said Margery amiably.

“Have a drink, Al,” said Sadie. “It’s a wet night.”

He had a drink and Margery said, “It’s a wake, Al ... a real old-fashioned wake. It’s Rosie’s husband. That’s him, over there on the mantel.”

Al looked uneasy and took a large drink. Mr. Wigglesworth was opening the window again. “Hey, Gertie! Come on up and bring yer boy friend! We’re holdin’ a celebration!” He closed the window again.

“Yer radio seems to need oilin’,” observed Al.

Mr. Wigglesworth quietly throttled it once more. Sadie said, “Say, Margery, how’s the new act?”

Mr. Wigglesworth turned and looked at her, hard.

“Ain’t you seen it yet?” asked Margery. “Oh, you seen it, Al. When?”

“Tonight.”

“Tonight! It wasn’t so good tonight. You otta seen it Tuesday.” She started pulling her dress down over her fat shoulders, “Yuh see, it’s like this. I come on all dressed in a creation covered with sequins. Shows off the figure fine. I gottan old-fashioned figure and I’m proud of it. See? I’m proud of it. Get that?”

“Yeah,” said Al. “You gottan old-fashioned figure and you’re proud of it.”

“And it goes big with the hicks. Well, it’s like this. I come on all in sequins and with a big pink hat and carryin’ a handorgan and attached to the handorgan by a string is Herman over there, all dressed up like a monkey. And he walks along the orchestra pit and climbs into the boxes pretending to collect nickels.”

“I’ll bet he gets ’em sometimes too,” said Al.

Margery ignored him. “And then he runs up to the piana and sits at it and pretends he’s a real monkey and can’t play a note and makes discords. That part goes big. An’ then I give him a banana and he begins and I sing. Yeh heard my new song?”

“Sure,” said Al. “I just got through hearin’ it, didn’t I?”

“Herman wrote it. It’s called ‘Roses are now but a memory.’ It’s a waltz song. Yeh. Waltzes are comin’ in again. Lookit ‘Ramona.’ This jazz stuff can’t last. Herman! Herman! Let that radio alone and come an’ play my accomp’niment. Herman is just nuts on radios.”

Herman came over and after striking a few false notes found himself and began to play. Margery laid her bosom on the top of the piano and sang in a loud soprano voice.

“Have another,” said Sadie to Al. “You’ll need it after this.”

The door opened and Gertie and her boy friend came in. Sadie poured the drinks and they all sat on the stuffed sofa. While Margery sang, Sadie explained about Rosie’s husband and all.

“Ro-osesz are naow but a memaree!” sang Margery. “Ro-o-osesz that meyun but good-byee!” Nobody paid any attention to her.

Mr. Wigglesworth still looked out of the grimy window. Across the street against the lighted doorway of the Hotel Barcelona moved the figure of a woman who seemed not quite sure of her destination. She wore a long black veil and was without an umbrella. The veil hung in a wet rope down her thin back. She leaned against the rail of Tony’s place and looked about her. Mr. Wigglesworth opened the window and shouted, “Hey, Rosie! This is where yeh live!” He closed the window again.

“Ro-o-osesz are naow but a memaree!” sang Margery. She was sweating hard. The song came to an end in a little flock of trills executed with great concentration by Herman.

“Have another,” said Sadie. “This time it’s varnish!”

Gertie’s boy friend snored and Al pushed himself in between him and Gertie.

Margery was talking again. “And then Herman, see, climbs on top of the piana and—this part goes big. He pretends he’s hunting for a flea. He climbs on toppa the piana.... Climb on toppa the piana, Herman.”

Herman was back at the radio again. It began to squawk.

“It’s a rotten act,” said Sadie confidentially to Al. “Before I quit the two a day ...”

“Yeah, I know,” said Al. “It ain’t what it used to be.”

And then the door opened and the widow staggered in. She clung for a moment to the doorknob and wrung the water out of the end of her crape veil.

Sadie noticed her first. “Hello, Rosie. Where’s May?”

“I ain’t seen her since the show.”

“Whatsa matter?” asked Al. “I wanna see her.”

Margery put her arms about Rosie and gave her a wet kiss. “Rosie, dearie, I just heard and thought I’d drop in.”

Rosie looked at her. “Heard what?”

“About him,” said Margery. “About poor Clarence.”

“Oh, him,” said Rosie, and threw her hat on the floor.

Mr. Wigglesworth turned from his post at the window. “You’d better shut the door, Rosie, if you don’t wanna get thrown outa the Eldorado.”

Rosie slammed the door. “May, the slut, said I was tight tonight; she said I queered the act.”

“It’s a lie,” said Sadie. “She’s a dirty liar.”

“I never seen a soberer woman,” said Al.

“I gotta right to get drunk if I wanna. Ain’t I?”

“Sure you have, dearie,” said Margery.

“I gotta right to celebrate.”

“With her husban’ dead at home. It’s like dancin’ on his coffin,” said Sadie.

“It ain’t a coffin,” said Mr. Wigglesworth.

Herman guided the radio into the Middelbottom Chain Grocery Stores Stringed Quartet in an hour of Classical Music. Again Mr. Wigglesworth said, “Aw, shut up!” and throttled the thing. Margery’s husband gave him a hurt but cunning look.

“Have a drink, dearie,” said Sadie to Rosie. “That’s what yuh need on a night like this. Just one drink’ll do a lot for yuh.”

Margery was saying, “And then Herman gets up on the piana. Remember, he’s dressed like a monkey all the time and I’m in sequins with a big pink hat. Well, Herman gets up on the piana—and this part goes big. Herman, get up on the piana like you do in the act.”

Herman got up on the piano, knocking down a photograph of the late Mr. Rosie and May. It lay forgotten on the floor.

“They’ve delivered him,” whispered Sadie to Rosie.

“Who?”

“Him. That’s him on the mantel.”

Rosie took a deep drink and a long look at the box on the mantel. She said nothing.

“I think we otta put him in the bathroom,” said Sadie. “It ain’t decent, havin’ him in here.”

Rosie grew reminiscent. “He was a great one for parties. The more whoopee, the better. Let him rest there till I finish my drink. He ain’t sufferin’ the way I am.”

“They ast if you was comin’ tomorra to choose a container.”

“What say?” asked Gertie, waking suddenly.

“A container ... a urn, I mean. I say Rosie otta get a container, I mean a urn. You gotta have a urn, Rosie, for the ceremony. It’s gotta be impressive. You know, headlines and pictures in the Graphic, ‘Well-known Actress Scatters Ashes of Dead Husband on Bosom of East River.’”

“Bosoms,” said Al, “is outa fashion except with Margery.”

“You gotta do it right, Rosie, photographs and a lotta publicity an’ everything. It’s gotta be impressive.”

“A urn,” repeated Rosie dimly. “A urn.”

“It’s gotta be impressive.”

Margery’s husband had got back again to the radio and the Middelbottom Chain Grocery’s Stringed Quartet poured a Liebestraum unheeded into Rosie’s flat.

“How’d I sound on the radio?” asked Rosie.

Mr. Wigglesworth answered her without turning from the window. “Rotten! May was right.”

Rosie looked at Sadie. “What’s he mean?”

“Never mind, dearie. Don’t mind him. Nothin’ suits him tonight. You was wonderful.”

Margery was saying, “An’ then Herman gets inside the piana. Of course, Herman can’t show you. He can’t get inside an upright piana ...”

Suddenly Gertie addressed Rosie. “I gottan idea. I gottan idea.”

“No,” said Mr. Wigglesworth.

“What about?” asked Sadie.

“For a container ... a urn, I mean. What about one of them vases for a urn?” She indicated the imitation Sèvres vase adorned by the damp hats of Al and Mr. Wigglesworth. Rosie regarded it.

“It’s artistic,” said Sadie. “In a pitcher, it’d look just like a urn.”

Rosie’s pink-nailed fingers began a slow, groping movement in her short, mahogany hair.

Gertie asked, “Where’s the other one, Rosie? There used to be a pair of ’em.”

Rosie didn’t answer her. She appeared lost in thought. The fingers came to rest on a spot on the top of her head. Behind Rosie’s back, Sadie began making signs to silence Gertie on the subject of the missing vase. Then Rosie finished her drink, got up and went over to the mantel, where she carefully took down the black lacquered box and, holding it against her ear, shook it gently.

“Where yuh goin’?” asked Sadie.

“I’m gonna put him in the bathroom where it’s quiet.”

“Nobody’s got any respeck,” said Sadie. “Nobody’s got any respeck. Have another, Gertie. It’s a wet night.”

Rosie disappeared into the bathroom and Gertie turned to Sadie. “What’ve I done? What you makin’ shush signs to me for? I ain’t said anything.”

“You oughtn’t to have spoke of them vases. It reminds her of poor Clarence. He broke the other one throwin’ it at her. She’s gotta scar that long on the top of her scalp.”

Rosie didn’t close the door of the bathroom and a moment later there was a sound of rushing water. Then, unsteadily but with an air of dignity, Rosie reappeared in the doorway. She was bearing the black lacquered box. The lid was off and it had a fearful air of being empty.

“Whatya been doin’, dearie?” asked Sadie.

“I’ve been layin’ Clarence to rest.” She put the canister down on top of the piano. Its awful emptiness reverberated as it struck the teakwood. “I put him to rest, all right, an’ he got his last wish. In a minute or two he’ll be on the bosom of the East River, all right.”

Mr. Wigglesworth turned from the window. “No, he won’t.”

Sadie glared at him. “Why not?”

“Because I used to have a job in the sewage department.”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“Well, the sewage from this part of town goes into the North River.” He turned again to regard life in wet Forty-ninth Street.

Rosie began to cry. “And now he ain’t got his last wish! An’ it was the last thing he ast!”

Sadie drew her down to the sofa and began to pat her arm. “Never you mind, dearie. It ain’t true. Don’t you believe a word he says. What’s he know about where sewage goes, a common bootlegger like him? Never mind the old killjoy, Rosie, he’s been tryin’ to queer the party all evenin’. Have another drink, dearie. That’s what yuh need on a wet night like this. There now! Don’t you mind a killjoy like Eddie.”

Margery was saying, “And then for a encore, I sing ‘Roses are now but a memory’ and we do a quick finish. Oh, no. I forgot. A little earlier in the act Herman jumps from the piana to the chandelier. You can do that here, Herman. That’s easy. Show ’em how you jump from the piana to the chandelier.”

On the radio the beautiful elocutionary voice was saying, “You have just listened to an hour of classical music by the String Quartet of the Middelbottom Chain Grocery Stores. The Quartet gives an hour of music every evening at—”

There was a sudden crash, a sputter of light and sparks and the sound of breaking glass. Herman had just jumped from the piano to the chandelier.

“Please stand by,” said a beautiful barytone voice.

Mr. Wigglesworth shifted a dial. “Aw, shut up!”