The Hanging on Union Square

by H. T. Tsiang

  * * *

  —

  He took out a pencil. He wrote on a piece of paper and willed that seventeen dollars of the twenty-five be given to his landlady as payment for the back rent of the furnished room he had had. And eight dollars he left as a contribution to the Communist paper to be used for revenging his death.

  * * *

  —

  Nut put the rope around his neck and kicked away the stones from under his feet.

  He was worriless—free from care; and rested.

  It was twelve o’clock, Monday night.

  * * *

  —

  Mr. Nut ended the story literarily, non-propagandizingly and publishably.

  XXXVI:

  “WHAT AN INSPIRATION!”

  “There is heat in the sun.

  Vertically, at any time,

  Horizontally, in any space,

  Things must be done.”

  “I’ve got a plan! I’ve got a plan! I have accomplished my thesis! What an inspiration!–Oh, what an inspiration!”

  Wiseguy threw his hat to the sky and beat at the table with his stick. He jumped and he shouted.

  * * *

  —

  “It is thirty-five minutes past twelve, young man,” remarked Mr. System, “so take it easy. What did you drink?”

  Just then a waiter came in.

  “The taxi-driver outside, Mr. Wiseguy,” observed the waiter, “says there is something wrong with the dollar bill you gave him.”

  “You see,” said Mr. System, “Mr. Wiseguy’s dollar bill was a New Deal, and yet Wiseguy yells, ‘I have the solution!’’’ Mr. System handed a dollar bill to the waiter.

  The waiter left.

  The waiter had received one or two bad bills before, himself, but because they had been given as tips he hadn’t asked for others in their place.

  The waiter came in again.

  “Bring me black coffee! Black! Black! Very black!” shouted Mr. Wiseguy. While Mr. Wiseguy gave his order, he laughed heartily.

  “The fellow you just brought by taxi from Union Square,” the waiter remarked, “is smashing everything in the place and shouting ‘Revolution!’”

  Wiseguy took two sheets of paper and typed so fast you’d think he was in a typewriting contest. Wiseguy finished typing his two sheets of paper.

  Then Mr. Wiseguy went out of the big room. In about ten minutes he was back. He announced that the sheets had been signed and that every necessary procedure had been gone through.

  “The sheets were signed by whom?” asked Mr. Ratsky.

  “Tell you later!” answered Wiseguy, mysteriously.

  “Lock the door! Let us have the conference,” Mr. System ordered.

  “To hell with the conference,” said Mr. Ratsky grouchily, “if you want some fellows to use fists or pistols or machine guns, I’m ready for you—always. As for me, Ratsky isn’t fooling around. No monkey-business for him. I’m telling you, I’m sick of these conferences. They’re no damn good.”

  * * *

  —

  Mr. Wiseguy disregarded Mr. Ratsky. He asked:

  “Do you know how many people committed suicide these last two years, Mr. System?”

  “I read in a tabloid,” broke in Mr. Ratsky, “it was 20,088 in 1931 and 23,000 in 1932.”

  “Do you know,” proceeded Mr. Wiseguy, “what I heard this afternoon at the Communist demonstration before the City Hall? Some rich Wall Street chaps told me they were disappointed that there were no fresh killings. Two dead bodies, they said, were not exciting enough.”

  “I know all about that,” said Mr. Ratsky.

  “I could tell you what those Wall Street chaps might say without going to City Hall,” remarked Mr. System.

  “Do you know,” Mr. Wiseguy went on, “how many persons are willing to pay big money to go to Sing Sing Prison5 and see an execution?”

  “I am one of those persons,” said Mr. System.

  “And do you know that now football games and prizefights are losing their appeal?” queried Mr. Wiseguy.

  “I’m tired of football and prizefights myself,” observed Mr. System. “They’re the old stuff again and again. Who wants to see them any more?”

  “It’s just because they’re fed up on things like football that fellows like to read gangster and murder stories,” said Mr. Ratsky.

  “Well, do you know that unemployment is the worst problem in America and that it can never be solved?” Mr. Wiseguy asked.

  “If you ask whether unemployment can be solved, you are a damn fool,” asserted Mr. System. “We have to make a noise on the radio and in the newspapers, but we know very well we can’t do anything about it.”

  “Now—you know what I’m driving at, don’t you?” announced Mr. Wiseguy.

  And Wiseguy took out a cigarette and smoked it with the air of a Messiah.

  Mr. System and Mr. Ratsky were wondering what strange ideas were in Wiseguy’s mind.

  Then the radio was heard:

  “A New Deal. Prosperity is coming back right away,” the radio was broadcasting.

  “This is a funny world,” remarked Mr. System. “Nowadays a poet writes as if he were doing bookkeeping. He writes like a business man. And a practical business man talks so naively, you’d think he was reciting lyric poetry he had written himself.”

  * * *

  —

  “Well, let’s get to my plan,” said Wiseguy.

  “What is your plan?” Mr. System and Mr. Ratsky asked impatiently.

  “Well, here it is,” affirmed Wiseguy. “We’re going to have some poor fellow hang on Union Square and get Society to come to see him. That is a game. The rich man will get some pleasure and the poor man will get a few cents. The general situation will be bettered accordingly.

  “You see,” proceeded Mr. Wiseguy, “according to the law of supply and demand, the more unemployed workers there are, the more persons will voluntarily hang themselves. And the more people that hang themselves, the fewer unemployed there will be. As there come to be fewer and fewer persons willing to hang themselves (because of the decrease in the number of the unemployed) the higher the price of a ticket to see a hanging will become.

  “It all comes to this: we shall make money,” Wiseguy concluded, “and the country will regain prosperity.”

  * * *

  —

  “A grand idea! A great thesis! An Epic plan!” exclaimed Mr. System with great enthusiasm. “You are the Brain Trust6 of all the Brain Trusts! Get started with your plan right away, young man—before the Park Avenue crowd and the rest of Society go to Florida and Europe.”

  “A good idea! You ought to work it out right away!” Mr. Ratsky agreed.

  “What an inspiration!”

  Oh!

  XXXVII:

  SIZE AND DIRECTION

  “There is heat in the sun.

  Vertically, at any time,

  Horizontally, in any space.

  Things must be done.”

  Fake bills hadn’t hurt the taxi-driver who had taken Wiseguy and the fellow with him from Union Square. But they had hurt Miss Digger, had hurt Miss Digger gravely.

  Among the two hundred and fifty dollars, twelve and one-half cents, only thirty-eight dollars and twelve and one-half cents were good, sound money.

  In addition to these fake bills, Mr. Wiseguy had left with her a special souvenir.

  For, on Tuesday morning following, Miss Digger discovered that something was wrong with that very property by which she had made her living during the last two years.

  Because of the counterfeit bills and the accident, Miss Digger had to save some money for the coming two weeks. And as she did not have enough money to see a private doctor, she went to a City hospital.

  Because of the story about Stu
bborn in the newspapers, Miss Digger knew that she was in this hospital and she felt that she should pay her a visit despite the fact that Stubborn was a Communist.

  As soon as Miss Digger saw Stubborn in the ward of the hospital, she said heartily:

  “The things that have happened to you are tragic and I am sorry for you. The character you showed in the fight at the Fourteenth Street cafeteria, and during the eviction in front of your home, is just like that of a heroine in some Greek tragedy. You were heroic and I respect you for it.”

  “I’m glad you are with us, very glad,” said Stubborn eagerly. “But the fate of my family is just one instance of what happens to a million families. I am just a worker, I am just an ordinary girl and just one of the rank and file of our Party. I am no heroine. No one’s a hero, I think. We’re just workers!”

  * * *

  —

  “Because of your modesty, Stubborn, I like you much better,” said Miss Digger earnestly.

  “Today and here, as workers, we are so low, how can we ‘modest’ ourselves? Tomorrow, as workers, we shall be so high, to what shall we be able to elevate ourselves?”

  * * *

  —

  “I must make clear,” observed Miss Digger, “that my private life has nothing to do with those who may hold the same political opinion as I do. I don’t want you to look down upon my fellow Liberals just because of me; and I don’t want my example to bring disgrace on Liberals in general.”

  “I know nothing of your private life,” answered Stubborn. “I don’t believe in what is called disgrace and what isn’t called disgrace. Politically we should form a United Front, for the benefit of both our classes!”

  * * *

  —

  Miss Digger looked at Stubborn in a manner that was extraordinarily intimate. Then Miss Digger ran her fingers through Miss Stubborn’s hair and then she soothed her face, and then the head of Miss Digger drew nearer and nearer to the head of Stubborn and she kissed her cheek and then her lips.

  Miss Stubborn didn’t like all this.

  “That wasn’t so good. I didn’t like it,” explained Stubborn. “But my dislike is just a matter of personal taste. It has nothing to do with our political opinions. We should form a United Front always!”

  * * *

  —

  “The only ambition I have now,” remarked Miss Digger, “is to go to the Orient and do some research work there. The field there for this sort of work hasn’t been touched yet.”

  “What kind of research work?” inquired Stubborn.

  “I want to do some research work as a famous Missionary and woman-author7 did. In her book, many of her descriptions and some of her occasional remarks about what she has already described were of the same stuff as the pleasure I have given to my customers for the last two years. However, I visited a doctor every two weeks and never peddled disease. But that woman! That woman!” sighed Miss Digger, puritanically.

  “Who is that woman?” inquired Stubborn.

  “You know—the woman who made money from her Oriental novels! Here is another one of her hypocrisies: She talks about ‘Earth’ and ‘Soil’ a lot, but I think what her publishers gave her as royalties was the same thing that I have received from my customers—dollars.”

  “I told you, Miss Digger, I know nothing about what you’ve done in the past, but I’d like to know what kind of disease that woman spread?” said Stubborn.

  “Outside of what I gave to my customers, that woman gave her readers the stuff that fooled them into thinking that one should become a slave or a concubine. For instance, she would advise a girl like you to be the faithful slave of that bastard, Mr. System. And not only a slave to him when he was alive, but even after his death. Just imagine. The worst part is, that this woman gave advice like this, in the name of Missionary work.”

  “I, as a Communist, agree with all what you have said except the latter part of your statement. That is what Missionary work, here and abroad, actually stands for! You are still too naive!” said Stubborn.

  “And she has been praised by the critics,” continued Miss Digger, “as a literary genius. She made every character talk as the writer, an American woman Missionary, was accustomed to talk.”

  “Congratulations! You have become a literary critic, and you are a sound one! To me how this woman wrote is a small matter!” remarked Stubborn.

  “What irritated me most was her repetition and repetition. It made me sick,” Miss Digger asserted.

  “I guess she had to write more pages. More pages—more money,” said Stubborn.

  “I must save some money,” resumed Miss Digger, “and find something new to do. Look! Whether that very thing of the women there, is formed in the same direction as that of the women here; and whether the shape and size of that very thing of the men there, is the same as that of the men here—this great matter is the only curious subject which our lady-author hasn’t as yet touched. She may not know the situation as to the women there, but she must have been very familiar with the situation as to the men there—since she was so sympathetic towards that general, Mr. Tiger.8 If I can discover the true state of this matter, I would create a sensation and the discovery would be a money-making proposition; to me, of course.”

  * * *

  —

  Just at this moment a nurse passed by. This nurse had worked in the International Department of this hospital. Hearing Digger’s remarks, she burst into laughter. The nature of this laughter to Miss Digger, meant the solving of a puzzle and the nature of this laughter, at the same time, meant that Miss Digger lost her money-making opportunity.

  * * *

  —

  However, this is a realistic world. Besides her fountain pen and typewriter, Miss Digger had her camera ready.

  XXXVIII:

  “STRIKE ME PINK!”

  “There is heat in the sun.

  Vertically, at any time,

  Horizontally, in any space,

  Things must be done!”

  Nut had hanged himself on Union Square.

  But he didn’t succeed in killing himself.

  A few minutes after Nut had hanged himself, Mr. Wiseguy came to the scene, seeking inspiration for his great thesis on “How to Save Capitalism.” And he took Nut down from the rope and called a taxi to bring him to the Rich Men’s Club in order to hang him profitably at a later time.

  * * *

  —

  Now, Mr. Nut awoke from unconsciousness. But he could not understand how he came to be here in the Rich Men’s Club.

  Was he in heaven?

  And how did it happen that Mr. Wiseguy was with him?

  Were all the angels in Heaven—Wiseguys?

  * * *

  —

  Mr. Nut was no longer classic, or particular—a person who stuck to his principles—at any cost.

  He would take whatever he could get. He would promise the people here whatever was asked of him and then he would double-cross them.

  He had learned at least that much from his life in the previous world.

  He was not only thinking of doing some double-crossing.

  He would actually double cross, if he got the chance.

  At this moment, Mr. Wiseguy, with two sheets of paper in his hand, approached Mr. Nut.

  “Sign these two typewritten sheets,” Mr. Wiseguy said. “I saved your life on Union Square when you hanged yourself there and brought you here. Therefore your life belongs to me. You keep one of these sheets and I’ll keep one. We are going on a fifty-fifty basis. You’ll make money and I’ll make money. When you hang yourself, you will leave fifty percent to me. After all, you see, I’m your manager.”

  Now, Mr. Nut realized just what had happened to him.

  Nut signed the sheets—without even looking at them. “To hell with the capitalistic contract,” he thought.


  “You’re a real friend of mine,” said Wiseguy, and he put away his sheet in his billfold.

  ‘‘I’m hungry. Give me food! I’m sleepy, go away and let me sleep!” Nut slapped the face of Mr. Wiseguy.

  “The slapping shows his artistic temperament,” Wiseguy thought, when he was slapped. “I, as a manager, have to take it! These slaps mean money. Strike me pink!”

  * * *

  —

  Nut was acting nuttily. His eyes, however, were expressing deep thoughtfulness. He was acting nuttily as a soldier off for war. But he was thoughtful as a soldier when he turns his gun.

  * * *

  —

  After eating, Nut went to sleep.

  It was two o’clock Tuesday morning.

  Wiseguy had to sleep too.

  Mr. Ratsky and Mr. System slept also.

  While they were sleeping, the four of them were breathing to the same rhythm of “Money—Money—Money”—negatively or affirmatively.

  * * *

  —

  At one o’clock Tuesday afternoon—at the same time that Miss Digger was visiting Miss Stubborn—Mr. System, Mr. Wiseguy and Mr. Ratsky again had a conference.

  * * *

  —

  “It is rather inhuman, isn’t it, to hang a fellow just to make money?” said Mr. System, reconsidering.

  “You are a capitalist,” replied Mr. Wiseguy, “so why should you talk about the word ‘human’? Hasn’t that word been dropped from your vocabulary a long, long time ago?” While he spoke, Wiseguy held the typewritten contract in his hand.

  * * *