CHAPTER XII
My question was answered next evening by Beady Lamont.
Greatly to Lovey’s disgust, I made it a point to attend every Saturday meeting at the club.
“Them low fellas ain’t fit company for you, Slim,” he would protest. “What’s the use of cuttin’ out the booze and bein’ rich if you don’t ’old yer ’ead above the likes o’ that?”
“They’ve been awfully white with us, Lovey.”
“They wasn’t no whiter with us than they’d be with anybody else; and don’t three out o’ every five give ’em the blue Peter?”
But though we had this discussion once a week, he always accompanied me to Vandiver Street, showing his disapproval when he got there in sitting by himself and refusing to respond to advances.
I have to confess that I needed the fellowship of men who had been through the same mill as myself, in order to keep up the fight. Again let me repeat it, I am giving you but a faint idea of the struggle I had to make. No evil habit relinquishes its hold easily, and the one to which I had given myself over is perhaps the most tenacious of all. It would be wearisome if I were to keep telling you how near I came at times to courting the old disaster, and how close the shave by which I sheered away; but I never felt safer than a blind man walkingalong the edge of a cliff. More than once I tore the blue star from my buttonhole, though on each occasion I juggled myself into putting it back again. I juggled myself as I did on the morning when I gazed at the brown-green water flowing beneath Greeley’s Slip. I said that what I didn’t do to-day I would still be free to do to-morrow, thus tiding myself over the worst minutes, if only by a process of postponement.
But among my brothers at the club I heard so many tales of heroic resistance that I grew ashamed of my periods of weakness. What Pyn and Mouse and the Scotchman and the piano-mover and Beady Lamont could do, I told myself, I also could do. Moreover, new men came in, and more than one of the educated type turned to me for help. To a journalist named Edmonds, and to an actor named Prince, I stood as next friend, and only declined to officiate in the same capacity for Headlights, the big-eyed tailor, and the wee bye Daisy, when they returned, penitent, on the ground that I couldn’t watch over more than two men efficiently. With the actor I had no trouble, but twice I had to go down to Stinson’s and pull Edmonds out of a drunken spell. To keep him out was putting me on all my mettle; and in order to maintain my mettle I had to stay out myself. My courage was no whit nobler than that of the man who would turn tail in the battle if it weren’t for shame before his comrades; but there is something to be got out of even such valor as that.
And in the club I got it. Perhaps we were all putting up a bluff. Perhaps those whom I looked upon as heroes were inwardly no more glorious than I. But when the fellows whom I patted on the back patted me in their turn, I was obliged to live up to their commendation.There came, indeed, a time when I couldn’t help seeing that in the eyes of new-comers especially I was taken as a pillar of the club, and knew that I couldn’t fall without bringing down some of the living walls along with me. To be strong enough to hold up my portion of the weight became once more with me then a question ofnoblesse oblige.
The Saturday evening after my talk with Annette was a special one. After the actor, the journalist, Headlights, and Daisy had renewed their pledge for a week, Lovey and I stood up with the Scotchman, the piano-mover, and three or four others, and repeated ours for a month. It probably seems a simple thing to you; but for us who knew what had been our perils during the preceding month and the months preceding that, it was a solemn undertaking. The first vow of all had been relatively easy, since new resolutions have an attraction in themselves. The weekly vows that came afterward were not so fiercely hard, because they were but weekly. When it came to promising for a month—well, I can only say that to us a month had the length which it has to a child. It seemed to stretch on indefinitely ahead of one. The foe, retreating as we pressed forward, was always keeping up a rear-guard fight, and we never woke in the morning without being aware that we might strike an ambush before nightfall. We got so tired of the struggle that we often thought of the relief it would be to be captured; and many a time the resolution was made that when this month was up....
And just at these minutes the chaps who seemed stronger would close in about us, or those who seemed weaker would make some appeal, and when the critical Saturday evening came round we would walk up again,impelled by forces beyond our control, and repledge ourselves.
On such occasions there was always some word spoken to us by men who had fought longer than we had and seen the enemy routed more effectively. That night the speaker to the blue-star men was that club benefactor and favorite, Beady Lamont. He was a huge mass of muscle, turning the scale at three hundred and more. Strength was in every movement when he walked and every pose when he stood still. To my architect’s eye he planted his legs as though they were ancient Egyptian monoliths. Comparatively small round the abdomen, his chest was like a great drum. His arms—but why give a description? Hercules must have been like him, and Goliath of Gath, and Charlemagne, and the Giants that were in Those Days. They said that in drink he used to be terrible; but now his big, jolly face was all a quiver of good-will.
His voice was one of those husky chuckles of which the very gurgles make you laugh. To make you laugh was his principle function in the club. On this evening he began his talk with a string of those amusing, disconnected anecdotes which used to be a feature of after-dinner speeches, somewhat as a boy will splash about in the water before he begins to swim. But when he swam it was with vigor.
“And now some of you blue-star guys is probably hittin’ a question that sooner or later knocks at the nuts of most of us chaps that’s trying to make good all over again. That’s families. Say, ain’t families the deuce? You may run like a hare, or climb like a squirrel, or light away like a skeeter—and your family’ll be at your heels. It’s somethin’ fierce. You can never get away fromthem; they’ll never let you get away from them. Because”—his voice fell to a tone of solemnity—“because no matter how fast you sprint, or how high you climb, or how graceful you can dodge—you carries your family with you. You can no more turn your back on it than you can on your own stummick. You may refuse to pervide for it, you may treat it cruel, you may leave it to look out for itself; but you can never git away from knowin’ in your heart that if you’re a bum husband or father or son you’re considerable more bum as a man. That’s why the family is after us. Can’t shake ’em off! Got ’em where they won’t be shook off. God A’mighty Hisself put ’em there, and, oh, boys, listen to me and I’ll tell you why.”
He made dabs at his wrists as though to turn up his sleeves, like a man warming to his work. Taking a step or two forward he braced his left hand on his barrel-shaped hip, while his gigantic forefinger was pointed dramatically toward his audience.
“Say, did any of you married guys ever wish to God you was single again? Sure you did! Was any of you chaps with two or three little kids to feed ever sorry for the day when he heard the first of his young ones cry? Surest thing you know! Did any of us with a father and a mother, with brothers and sisters, too, very likely, ever kick because we hadn’t been born an orphan and an only child? You bet your sweet life we did! The drinkin’ man don’t want no hangers-on. He wants to be free. Life ain’t worth a burnt match to him when he’s got other people to think of, and a home to keep up, and can’t spend every penny on hisself. Some of us here to-night has cursed our wives; some of us has beat our children; some of us has cut out father and mother as if they’dnever done nothin’ for us, and we could cast off from ’em with no more conscience than a tug’ll cast off from a liner.
“But, boys, when God A’mighty put us into this world He put us into a family first of all. He gives us kindness there, and care, and eddication, and the great big thing that fills the whole universe and that we ain’t got no other name for only love. As soon as we’d got pretty well grown He give us another feeling—one that druv us by and by to go and start a family for ourselves. Most of us went and started one, and them that haven’t done it yet’ll do it before the next few years is out. But, boys, what’s it all for? Everything’s got to be for somethin’ or else it’s just lumberin’ up the ground; and this here matter of families is either the worst or the best thing you’ll find anywhere on earth. If it’s not the best it’s the worst, and it has to be one or t’other.
“Now I stand before you as one who used to think it was the worst. I won’t say nothin’ of my father and mother. Them things is too sacred to be trotted out. But I’ll speak of my wife, because she’s that grateful for what’s been done for me—and everything done for me has been done twice as much, ten times as much, for her—that she’d like me to bring her into whatever I’ve got to say. I’ve known the time when I was as crazy to be quit of my family as a dog to be rid of the tin can tied to his tail. I had a wife, then, and three children; and, O my God! but I thought they was a drag! I couldn’t go nowhere without thinkin’ I ought to be with ’em, and I couldn’t take a drink without knowin’ I had to steal it from my little boy and my two little girls. They was the p’ison of my life. There was nights when I was reelin’ home and I used to hope that the house had been burntdown durin’ the day and they buried in the ashes. That’d leave me free again. Not to have no home—not to have to ante up for no one but myself—was the only thing I ever prayed for. And by gum, but my prayer was answered! One night I come home and found the house empty. My wife had decamped, and left a note that run somethin’ like this: ‘Dear Beady,’ says she, ‘I can’t stand this life no more,’ says she. ‘If it was only me I wouldn’t mind; but I can’t see my children kicked and beat and starved and hated, not by no one.’ And then she signed her name.
“Well, say, boys, most of you has heard what happened to me after that. I sure had one grand time while it lasted—and it lasted just about six months. I saw a man oncet—we was movin’ a party from Harlem to the Bronx—fall down a flight of stairs with a sofa on his back, and he sure did get some pace on. Well, my pace was just about as quick—and as dead easy as he struck the landin’ at the bottom I struck the gutter. Now you know the rest of my story, because some of you guys has had a hand in it.
“But what I want to tell you is this: That when I begun to come to again, as you might say, the first thing I wondered about was the wife and the kids. I couldn’t get ’em out of my mind, nohow. What did I ever have ’em for? I asked myself. Why in hell did I ever get married? Nobody never druv me into it. I did it of my own accord. I went hangin’ after the girl, who had a good place in the kitchen department of a big store, and I never let her have no peace till she said she’d marry me, and did it. Why had I been such a crazy fool? There was days and days, sittin’ right in there in that back room, when I asked myself that; and at last I gotthe answer. I’m goin’ to tell it to you now, because there’s a lot of you shysters that’s only been a few weeks in the club that’s askin’ yourselves that very same thing. You’ve got wives and kids, the Lord knows where—scattered to the four winds of heaven, for anything you know—and you wish you hadn’t. But, say, don’t you go on wishin’ no such thing; for I’m goin’ to tell you what God A’mighty said to me right there in that back settin’-room.”
He squared himself now, planting his Egyptian monoliths with a force which in itself was a kind of eloquence. His hands were thrust deep into his trousers pockets and his big chest expanded.
“‘Beady,’ God A’mighty says to me, and it was just as if I’d heard His voice, ‘if a man don’t have no one to think about but hisself he becomes the selfishest of all things under the sun. I’m God,’ says He, ‘with nothin’ to do but enj’y myself; and yet if I didn’t have you and the other things I make to care for and think about I wouldn’t have nothin’. I’ve just got to have ’em, for if I didn’t I’d go crazy. So I make beautiful worlds, and grand men, and noble women, and pretty kids, and strong animals, and sweet birds to sing, and nice flowers to bloom, and everything like that. I don’t make nothin’ ugly nor nothin’ bad, nor no sickness nor sufferin’ nor poverty. You guys does all that for yourselves, and I don’t take no rest day nor night tryin’ to show you how not to. Listen to me, Beady,’ says He. ‘Stop thinkin’ about yourself and that awful hulk of a body, and what it wants to eat and especially to drink. Don’t pay no more attention to it than you can help. Say, you’re my son, and you’re just like me. What you want is not the booze; it’s somethin’ outside yourself to think about. I’ve givenyou a wife and three fine youngsters. Now get out and get after them. Cut out livin’ for yourself and live for them. You must lose your life to find it; and the quickest way to lose your life is not to think about your beastly cravings at all.’
“Well, by gum! boys, if I didn’t take God A’mighty at His word. I says to myself, I’ll prove this thing or bust—and if I was to bust there’d be some explosion. When you fellows had kept me here long enough to let me be pretty nigh sure of myself I went and looked up the wife, and—well, there! I needn’t say no more. Some of you dubs has been up to my little place and you know that Whatever spoke to me that day in that back room is in my little tenement in the Bronx if He ever was anywhere—and that brings me at last to my p’int.
“I’m speakin’ to you blue-star men because you’ve showed pretty well by this time the stuff you’re made of. As long as you was in danger of slippin’ back I wouldn’t say this to you at all. But, say, you’ve weathered the worst of it, so it’s time for me to speak.
“Has any of you a wife? Then go back to her. Have you kids? Then go back to ’em. Have you a father or a mother? Then for God’s sake let them know that you’re doin’ well. Go to ’em—write to ’em—call ’em up on the ’phone—send ’em a telegraph—but don’t let ’em be without the peace o’ mind that’ll come from knowin’ that you’re on your two feet. One of the most mysterious things in this awful mysterious life is the way somebody is always lovin’ somebody. Here in these two rooms is a hundred and sixty-three by actual count of the seediest and most gol-darned boobs that the country can turn out. As we look at each other we can’t help askin’ if any one in their tarnation senses could care for thelikes of us. And yet for every bloomin’ one of us you can foot up to eight or ten that’ll have us in their hearts as if we was gold-headed cherubs.
“Say, boys, I’ll tell you somethin’ confidential like, and don’t think I’m braggin’. The furniture-movin’ business is the grandest one there is. For a man that’s mastered it there don’t seem anything in the world left for him to learn. He’s ready to command a army or to run a ocean liner. But there’s one thing I’ll be hanged if even a furniture-mover knows anything about—and that’s love. I’ve thought about it and thought about it—and it gets me every time. I don’t know what it is, or where it comes from, or how they brew the durned thing in hearts like yours and mine. All I know is that it’s there—and that this old world goes round in it. I’m buttin’ into it all the time, and it kind o’ turns me shy like. My own little home is so full of it that sometimes it makes me choke. If I try to get away from it and come down here—well, I’m blest if some bloke don’t begin ladlin’ it out to me when he don’t hardly know what he’s doin’. The furniture-movin’ business is that shiny with it when you know how to see it— But I’ll not say no more. You’d laff. You’re laffin’ at me now, and I don’t blame you. All I’ve wanted to do is to put some of you boys wise. If there’s a blue-star man who knows any one in the world that’s fond of him—then for Christ’s sake get after ’em! And do it not later than to-night.”
And so I did it. Before going to bed I wrote a long letter to my father, giving him such details of my history during the past three years as I thought he would like to know. I hinted that if he or my mother would care for a visit from me I could go home for a few days.
Then I waited.
In a week I got my reply. It read:
My dear Frank,—I am glad to receive your letter, but sorry that it should ever have been necessary for you to write it. That you should be doing well no one could be more thankful for than I. I have given your messages to your mother, and she wishes me to send you her love. I consider it my duty to add, however, that no messages can withdraw the sword you have thrust into her heart—and mine.Your affectionate father,Edward Melbury.
My dear Frank,—I am glad to receive your letter, but sorry that it should ever have been necessary for you to write it. That you should be doing well no one could be more thankful for than I. I have given your messages to your mother, and she wishes me to send you her love. I consider it my duty to add, however, that no messages can withdraw the sword you have thrust into her heart—and mine.
Your affectionate father,
Edward Melbury.