by H. T. Tsiang
III:
WITH A TEMPERAMENT OF THIS SORT
“A ten-cent check
I had my coffee an’
I have only a nickel
In my hand.”
The reason Nut was called Nut was very interesting.
* * *
—
Once Mr. Nut shaved all the hair off his head. Some say he did it for the sake of a sun-bath. Since other parts of the body needed a sun-bath there was no reason why this part of the body shouldn’t need one.
Some say Mr. Nut shaved all the hair off his head because he knew that he had no money now. But he did believe that some day he would have money like other bald-headed millionaires walking with pretty movie-stars along Park Avenue. But he would not have his head bald then. It would be too awkward. In order to avoid awkwardness in the future, he did the prevention-work early. The more you shaved your hair, the stronger it would become. It was the same with the hair as with the beard.
Some say he shaved all the hair off his head because his friend Mr. Wiseguy once cut off some while he was napping. He had all his hair shaved off as a form of protest—passive resistance.
Some say he shaved all the hair off his head because so many girls liked him. So many girls liked him so much, his hair was souvenired off.
No matter what the reason may have been, when his hair was shaved off and his head became nut-like, he won the title “Nut.”
* * *
—
Many millionaires are Nut-headed. Yet they are not Nut-named. As far as Mr. Nut was concerned, there were other stories involved.
* * *
—
Once he was standing at the corner of Fourteenth Street and Union Square. A bus was passing by. A girl in the rear seat waved her hand at him. She smiled too. When he began to wave his hand and smile, the bus began to move. He moved too. But the bus had four wheels. He had only two.
Every day after work, he came to the same spot, waiting. Yes, there were some girls in the bus. Yes, they were smiling. Yes, a few of them were waving their hands, too. But they had nothing to do with him. Yes, sometimes some of them were waving their hands and smiling at him too. But none of them was the girl he had seen. He wanted to ask the conductor, but he didn’t know how. At last he described the situation to the conductor. The conductor told him to go to the Nut House.
* * *
—
In the cafeteria, nobody stopped you from looking at the girls. Some fellows had the ability of moving only their eyeballs. They could see what they wanted to see without being noticed. But the muscles of Mr. Nut’s eyes were not well developed. He had to move his head. He had to move the trunk of his body. Others moved their heads and trunks too. But they had the ability to generalize. They had the whole picture in a glance and digested it later. So these fellows did not take much time. But Mr. Nut was too scientific. And after these scientific studies, or, you may say, these artistic appreciations, Mr. Nut had a critical opinion. And in addition to the critical opinion, he had his constructive suggestion. It is said that once he suggested to a young girl that the seams of her stockings were not properly placed along the back of her legs. The reward was: “Mind your own business, Nut!”
* * *
—
Once in a cafeteria, Mr. Wiseguy spoke about his Four F theory regarding the technique of handling a woman. Others, hearing his theory, laughed and laughed to show their approval and appreciation. But to Mr. Nut it was as hard as the theory of relativity.
He asked what the theory of the Four F’s was about.
Mr. Wiseguy told him that the first F was “To Find.”
Mr. Nut would have liked to know where; but Mr. Wiseguy proceeded with his second F: “To Fool.” Mr. Nut was surprised that one person had to fool the other. The others exclaimed unanimously, “That is the way it ought to be.”
Mr. Nut asked about the third F. Mr. Wiseguy turned his head around and suddenly stopped—because a few girls sat behind. Mr. Nut asked again. Mr. Wiseguy said the fourth F was “To Forget.”
Nut said: “How can I forget, when you haven’t told me the third F yet?” Mr. Wiseguy raised a fork and said in anger: “You understand? Nut!”
* * *
—
Once he moved from uptown along Forty-second Street to the downtown section. He didn’t take a taxi, for it would have cost him one dollar. He took the subway. Bundle after bundle—it took him about fifteen trips to get the work done. Five cents to go down and five cents to come up. So one round-trip cost him ten cents and fifteen trips cost him a dollar-fifty. Still he was pleased. His theory was that a taxi was for a rich man and the subway was for a poor man.
* * *
—
Next day his friend gave him a bed. He knew that this time he could not stick to his previous theory. He called a taxi from uptown Bronx to downtown. That cost him three dollars. And he saw a sign on the window of a neighborhood second-hand furniture store showing the price of the same bed was only one dollar and fifty cents.
The first few nights Mr. Nut was pleased, however, that he slept on a “something-for-nothing” bed. But gradually he became Nut-conscious. How could you say that a dollar and a half extra wasn’t Nut money? And no wonder others called him Nut. He would also call himself a Nut. The more he thought of it, the more Nut-conscious he became. The more Nut-conscious he became, the harder it was for him to sleep. He turned around, from one side to the other. He could not sleep.
Next day he got up early. He looked at the bed. It was the same bed that he could get for a dollar and fifty cents at his neighborhood store. The more he looked at the bed the madder he became. And then, the question was not a matter of a dollar and fifty cents. It was, again, a question of principle. The question of his reputation. The bed wasn’t a bed anymore. It was a symbol.
It was symbolizing not one thing only. It was symbolizing many things. It was symbolizing all the humiliation given to him and wrong done to him by others, in his whole life.
Finally he stamped on the bed with his feet. He stamped and stamped till it was out of shape. Then he tied it together and hoisted it to his shoulder. He opened his door, marched toward the East River and dumped it into the water.
Then he felt relieved. For he thought now all his Nutness was gone together with that bed. He was a new man.
* * *
—
With a temperament of this sort, it can be imagined how restless Mr. Nut was now.
IV:
“NO RUSSIAN! NO JEW!”
“A ten-cent check,
I had my coffee an’
I have only a nickel
In my hand.”
Mr. Nut was now remembering how that uniformed girl, Stubborn, had become a communist.
* * *
—
Stubborn had the best record in a class of eighty. After her graduation from high-school, she wanted to go to college, so she would be able to prepare herself as a school teacher. That would be a steady job with comparatively good pay, and one could have more chance to play with little children, since she had no brother or sister of her own. But how could she get the money to pay for the expenses of four years even at one of the free city colleges?
Stubborn could not go to college.
* * *
—
She wanted to go to a business school for only one year, in order to get work in an office.
But one year was one year. And because of the depression her father had his pay cut. From fourteen dollars to twelve—and he had to support a family of three!
So Stubborn had to go to work. And right away!
With no special preparation at all, what kind of work could she get?
She got a job in the ticket office of a movie-house, on Fourteenth Street.
For the employment agent thought
that for that kind of job one didn’t need any brains or education. Just a good face to be looked at. That was enough!
She made ten dollars a week. She was happy. For she was getting almost as much as her father.
* * *
—
When Stubborn first walked to the office the day-shift girl, Miss Digger, looked at her carefully.
Stubborn had an amiable face. Shy eyes. Innocent smile. The dimples in her cheeks appeared and disappeared together with the appearance and disappearance of her smiles.
Her white, small and even teeth were regularly placed between unlipsticked red lips.
With her head a little bent forward, Stubborn gave the appearance of a well-read girl who had an indication of deep thinking. And when her chest stretched and her head went up, again she gave Miss Digger an idea that Stubborn was conscious of her customary unhealthful posture and was doing her correction-work.
Miss Digger looked at Stubborn downwardly. She saw what a nice pair of legs ran down gradually from the edge of a wind-ruffled skirt—narrowly, narrowly and more narrowly and then delicately and solidly linked with a pair of well-proportioned feet, which were comfortably housed in a pair of comfortable walking shoes.
The hair of Stubborn was brunette and was artistically harmonious with a white skin that thinly veiled the rosy color shining underneath.
* * *
—
Miss Digger looked at Stubborn again and again.
Her medium size made Stubborn look even more feminine.
Miss Digger had towards her a certain kind of feeling that she didn’t usually have towards her own sex. Respect. Admiration. Pity. Sympathy.
Had not the boss, Mr. System, been standing near, Miss Digger, in addition to giving Stubborn a warm and hearty handshaking, would have embraced and kissed her.
* * *
—
Stubborn worked for a few days. Everything was nice. Except that her boss, Mr. System, told her that she should use lipstick to make her lips redder and use powder to make her face whiter. And that her eyebrows should be painted and should be standing up. And that they should either be widened with an eyebrow pencil or be sliced off and made thin as a line.
In a movie-house the good looks of the cashier are important. And to be so decorated as to catch the attention of the passersby and make them stop and buy tickets, is still more important. The duty of a girl in a movie ticket-box is to be a cashier, model and barker combined.
These things should have been told her by the employment agent or by Miss Digger; but the employment agent thought that she was old enough to know about it herself; and Miss Digger was not generous enough to tell her secrets.
So her boss, Mr. System, told her.
Stubborn did not want to do what he told her. But when she thought of ten dollars a week and how much her family needed it, she did it. But whenever she got out of that box she would wash all her decoration off and then go home.
* * *
—
A few days later, her boss, Mr. System, asked her whether she had a boy friend. And at another time, her boss, Mr. System, asked her how she liked his new car. And at still another time, the boss, Mr. System, asked her how she would like to go out with him and have a nice time. And Mr. System accompanied all these words with a little touch here and there. He even tried to kiss her.
For Heaven’s sake! Mr. System, the boss, was old enough to be her father or even her grandfather. His mouth smelt like an ashtray. He had eyes that gleamed and shifted like those of a fox, and irregular teeth as black and dirty as the scraps in a garbage can. After two weeks’ patience and suffering, Stubborn exploded suddenly with her soft and determined hand.
She struck his face.
Mr. System could not believe that a shy, quiet, amiable, naive and rather small-sized girl could suddenly be changed into a creature with standing hair, eyes electrified, and so stubborn! And that so delicate and so soft a hand could make his fat, rubber-skinned face feel so hot with pain.
Yet he was capitalistic enough to be patient and without anger. He said to her: “Say, Miss! I was just kidding you. Don’t be so stubborn! Why! But your slaps are nevertheless deliciously appreciated!”
Stubborn lost her job.
Because of her appearance, Stubborn got a job in a movie-house easily. Because of her stubbornness (or revolutionary temperament) she could not keep her job.
* * *
—
Stubborn decided to change her line and become a dressmaker.
She became a Communist when there was a strike in the dressmaking trade. The strike was won and she made fifteen cents more on a dress than before. One dollar more a day and six dollars more a week. That six dollars! Thank God! It was lots of money! She could spend those dollars in a hundred ways. So she belonged to the trade-union.3 Because she was young she also belonged to the Young Communist League.
* * *
—
“I, Nut, become a radical?” Nut said to himself. “Become a Red? No. No, Siree! I am no Russian! I am no Jew!”
V:
THINKING OF MR. WISEGUY
“A ten-cent check,
I had my coffee an’
I have only a nickel
In my hand.”
How could Mr. Nut get out of this cafeteria? He was thinking of his friend, Mr. Wiseguy.
* * *
—
Mr. Wiseguy was of Anglo-Saxon or Teutonic origin.
But something had gone wrong and his nose was a little bit non-Anglo-Saxon. Or you may say a bit Christ-like. As a result of twenty years’ care, finally the lower part of the nose pointed upward instead of downward.
He had trouble with his eyes, too. They were rather small and some people suspected him of being partly Chinese. Every day he had his eye exercise and because of his hard work, the eyeballs, though not deeply-located, were as large as those of the average Anglo-Saxon. Their color was as blue as the water in the sea. Because, whenever he had his face washed, he had his eyes washed at the same time.
He was five feet seven. For the average Anglo-Saxon he was one inch short. This defect had been overcome by shoe-fixing. Additional rubber heels were attached both inside and outside. That made him one inch taller.
His hair was artificially bleached. That made him neither Spanish- nor Italian-looking.
He had a weak chin. So he grew a beard; on the one hand to hide his weakness, and on the other hand to increase his dignity. His mustache had an indefinable style. Sometimes it was Hitler-like. Sometimes it was upturned in the manner of a French count.
The using of his eye-glasses was scientifically studied. Sometimes he had his glasses placed low at the bridge of this nose. When his eyes were lifted up above the glasses, he had the air of a learned professor. Sometimes he put on a monocle over a not deep-set eye and with his body leaning back and head stretched to one side, he gave you a grand impersonation of ex-Police Commissioner Grover Whalen.4
* * *
—
His accent was superb. It was a slow, bass, guttural of the Oxford or Harvard style that left the lips unused.
He could speak to all kind of languages. But not so much. Just everyday, necessary phrases equivalent to the English: “How are you?,” “Thank you!,” “You are the most generous gentleman that I have ever met!,” “You are the most beautiful girl that I have ever seen!,” “May I have your telephone number and call you when your husband is not in?” and “May I have some small change to have my mustache waxed?”
All his past glories and present prosperity and future hope were keynoted by his way of taking various kinds of cigarettes out of various cigarette cases. Turkish! Spanish! German! Russian! And so on and so forth. When one was not too stupid, one would naturally be tempted to believe that these cigarettes and cigarette-cases were telling you that their present ow
ner had traveled extensively, although they may have come from some five-and-ten-cent store or from the open market at the end of the Williamsburg Bridge.
* * *
—
One also noticed his expensive leather billfold. To pay the amount needed for a newspaper—only two or five cents—he would show his billfold. There were two exceptional occasions when Mr. Wiseguy’s billfold got a vacation. One was when no girl friend was in his company. The other was when his creditors approached.
* * *
—
He was a financier of a superior type. He borrowed money from one person and then he borrowed more from another person. Part of the money was used for his daily expenses and the remaining part to pay debts in order to make his credit good. By repeating this procedure Mr. Wiseguy made his living. And at the same time made his credit even better than that of the houses down in Wall Street.
* * *
—
He had lots of newspaper clippings. These clippings were clipped by a most famous institution called The Bureau of Exploitation, which, in commercial language, is the same as Publicity Agent. Because the latter name had been so vulgarized, it had lost its artistic or cultural sense. This organization—The Bureau of Exploitation—made you famous, and successful and got you somewhere.