by Frank Norris
Jonesee stood on the back platform and laboured to convince the conductor that Billy McGovern was a light heavyweight and not a heavy lightweight. The conductor was filling out his time forms for the trip, and his attention was so equally divided between elementary mathematics and Jonesee’s pugilism, that he very nearly overlooked two fares that signalled to him at the corner of Sansome Street. Jonesee called them to his notice in time, and when the car stopped a fellar and a girl came out of the surrounding gloom into the circle of light thrown by the car lamps, and got aboard. The fellar pushed the girl into the car ahead of him. As he followed, Jonesee saw him give the conductor two dollars and heard him say in a low voice,”You can keep the change.” Here was a mystery!
Jonesee affected not to hear, but began to pay close attention to what was going forward. Pretty soon the fellar leaned forward and called out to the conductor:
“Say, are we going to get that last boat?”
“No,” answered the conductor.
When the girl heard this she suddenly began to cry violently. Then Jonesee knew. The conductor had lied — that was certain. Jonesee was not so drunk but that he knew the car would connect with the last boat; that, in fact, it was run for that very purpose.
“It’s a job to do the girl dirt,” he reflected. Then he lit a cigarette.
“If you want to smoke, you’ll have to go forward,” observed the conductor.
As Jonesee went through the car, he took in the couple at a glance. The girl was not in the least pretty; her eyes were close together and her chin was large. Over her shoulder she wore a cape of flimsy red cloth with accordion plaits; her hands were bare, and her shoes were unkempt and showed blue at the toes and sides. Her crying did not become her; there were red spots over the bridge of her nose and about her eyelids, and her large chin quivered like a jelly. She was cheap and she was vulgar, but Jonesee told himself that she was no chippy.
The fellar Jonesee recognized in an instant, with a simultaneous qualm. His professional name was the Spider, and one of the proudest moments in Jonesee’s life had been when he had given a knee to the bantamweight champion of Contra Costa County in his eight-rounds-with-a-decision go with French Frank at West Berkeley, the March previous. Jonesee gloried in the acquaintance he had with the prize fighter, and often bullied his companions with the fact, lying about its different phases with brilliant audacity. The Spider did not recognize him now, or did not choose to, and Jonesee went out on to the front platform of the car and slid the door to behind him.
Seated on the dasher, he watched what was taking place inside of the car. The Spider was talking earnestly to the girl, who was still crying. Jonesee could guess that he was trying to persuade her to get off the car, it being useless to remain on it now until it reached the ferry. He was confirmed in this by seeing him signal to the conductor to stop at the next crossing. His companion seemed to have yielded. “‘What could the poor girl do?”’ quoted Jonesee to himself.
Between Montgomery Street and the ferry landings, Sacramento Street runs fairly level. This neighbourhood is taken up for the most part with wholesale houses, fruit packers, commission merchants, broom manufacturers. After dark it is a solitude.
As the car trundled its way on with a grinding of wheels and a strident whirring of jostled glass, Jonesee could see the four squares of light thrown from the car window running over the sombre fronts of the closed buildings. Their doors and windows were covered with green-painted iron shutters; empty crates and flat blue boxes for shipping butter were piled at intervals along the sidewalk. At the crossings vistas of sparsely lighted streets opened on either hand. No one was in sight, not a cat moved.
Jonesee was a coward. For all his posing and bullying when with his friends or when backed by the gang of his ward, he was horribly afraid of getting into a street fight unless it was a sure thing. But what would have induced him to cross the Spider, the man with the scientific left, the hardest man in Contra Costa County — the man who had put out French Frank in eighteen minutes, whose friendship raised Jonesee to a glorious and envious eminence throughout all Polk Street? Was it for him — Jonesee — to call the Spider to account in a lonely part of the town, at midnight, with never a policeman within shouting distance? No, he would not interfere.
The car was within twenty yards of the next street when the Spider got up and Jonesee saw the conductor reach for the bell rope. Then, all at once, without knowing why, Jonesee put up his hand into the bell above his head between the hammer and the curve of the metal. As the conductor pulled the rope the hammer struck against his fingers, and made no sound. The car kept on its way. Then Jonesee realized the enormity of what he had done. He knew that the Spider would jump him now, and he shook again at the thought. Not only this, but he had forever sacrificed the precious acquaintance with the Contra Costa champion; never more would he be able to nod to him at local bars or “sporting resorts” with his invariable, “Well, Spider, what’s the good word to-day?” — never more would he be able to lie about what happened between “me’n’ the Spider.” Yet the next thing he did was to cut off as much of the bell rope as he could, and with it to lash the handle of the car door to the iron rods which guarded the front windows. He thought if he could keep the car going he might succeed in what he had undertaken. As long as the gripman received no sign from the conductor he would keep on. They were within three blocks of the ferry now, and if things could remain as they were but five minutes more all would be well. So thought Jonesee; he was too drunk to understand how impractical was his idea.
The conductor pulled the bell rope again viciously, and Jonesee saw the severed end above his head disappear with a fillip through the hole and drop limply on the floor inside the car.
The conductor came forward through the car and looked out at Jonesee on the platform; he pulled and jerked at the door in vain, and then shouted at him to open it. He expressed an opinion as to the legitimacy of Jonesee’s immediate ancestors and preferred doubts as to his future salvation. Jonesee returned appropriate blasphemies and kept his eye on the Spider. All this time the car was lessening the distance that yet lay between them and the ferry; safety was but two blocks away. The conductor turned to the Spider.
“There’s a drunk out here has cut the bell rope and tied up the door; can’t stop the car unless the gripman hears the bell.”
“To hell with him,” cried the Spider, getting to his feet in a fury. “Smash the glass an’ I’ll get holt of him.”
“Yes,” returned the conductor, with irony, “and me be stuck for the glass, huh? I guess not.”
The Spider now approached and delivered himself of a long snarl of oaths and threats. Jonesee listened to the car wheels telling off the rails, and, in a tremulous voice, said to himself over and over again, “You’se think you’re hell, don’t you? You’se think you’re hell.” The next moment the crisis of the matter had arrived.
Jonesee thought that the Spider had given up the affair and had jumped off the car, leaving himself and the girl to their own devices. Suddenly he found himself face to face with him. The Spider had got off the car, but instead of leaving it had run forward, and now, with one hand on the rail of the front dasher, was preparing to jump on. From where he was he might easily have called to the gripman, but he was too excited, too angry, too bent upon having it out with Jonesee to think of this.
For an instant, as the Spider ran along parallel to the car, Jonesee saw his face a little lower than his own and saw it set with an expression of mean, vicious rage, bullying, aggressive; Jonesee remembered it had looked like this when the prize fighter came from his corner for the last round with French Frank.
During the instant that immediately succeeded the sight of the Spider’s face so close to his own, Jonesee observed several things. He saw that the Spider intended to jump him; but he saw, too, that he had not recognized him and was sizing him up, waiting for a chance. Jonesee saw that the instant he assumed the defensive that the Spider would swing hims
elf to the platform and run in upon him; that the moment he showed fear it would be all over for him. He saw, too, with startling vividness, that if he was to stand any chance of escaping a terrible fight, he must take advantage of this one instant of indecision. On such occasions as these a man can think pretty fast. Jonesee reflected rapidly upon the different ways of injuring the vicious, cruel face that now looked into his out of the darkness. He might with whitened knuckles strike it heavily upon its salient chin; or he might, with the switch iron hastily grabbed from the dasher, beat it in with two or three swift underhand strokes. It would be cut and slashed, too, to some advantage if he had time to get to his knife, or it would be shot into if one were handy with a revolver — and had one. All these things Jonesee realized could be done, but what he finally did do was none of them. What he finally did was to kick with the suddenness of a relaxed spring and with all the combined energy of hip and body. He felt his boot strike into the soft part of the throat; recovering himself as quickly as he could, he kicked again and again, felt his foot reach home; but the third time he only struck the empty air — the face was gone.
The Spider must have cried out or shouted as he went over backward into the street. Jonesee himself did not remember of hearing any sound, but, indeed, all that happened in the next few minutes was ever afterward a matter of uncertainty to him; he could only suppose that the Spider had shouted, for the gripman, suddenly realizing what was doing behind him, let go the rope and stopped the car.
“Go on. Go on,” screamed Tug. “It ain’t anything. Just keep a-going.”
The gripman got off the dummy and hit him twice on the back of the head. Jonesee was accustomed to say afterward that the conductor attacked him, too, and cut his forehead with his bell punch. It is impossible to say whether he did or no, for Jonesee himself, after the grip-man had finished with him, was too dazed to have a clear and connected recollection of anything. He could recall the rest of the evening by fragments only.
Somehow he found himself with the girl, too frightened now to cry, in the midst of a crowd, and there she suddenly recognized a man whom she called Dick, crying out, “Oh, there’s Dick and Ma now.” It afterward turned out that she and the Spider were to have met this party on the last boat. Jonesee remembered that she told him this, but just where or when he could not say, the gripman having temporarily spoiled his process of reasoning.
After the girl had been taken off by her mother and her brother, Jonesee remembers of the crowd still remaining in a close circle about him, looking at him. He remembers, too, of the conductor holding him up by the arm, giving his number and that of the gripman to the policeman, who took them down in his notebook. Jonesee staggered when he tried to walk, and could not remember his name. Soon after he heard a sound which smote him with terror. It was the clanging bell of the approaching hurry-up wagon and the gallop of the horses over the cobbles.
When they tried to put him in the wagon, he pulled back stupidly with wide-opened eyes and seized hold of the brass railing of the wagon to brace himself against their efforts. He remembers how the policeman caught his thumbs and bent them back till they were nearly sprung from their sockets. He had to let go. Somebody put his hat on for him, tilted over one eye, and they took him to the station house. Once there he was entered on the books as drunk and disorderly.
But you must not think from this that Jonesee went unrewarded for his part in that night’s affair. The opinion of the world notwithstanding, virtue does sometimes get its requital as well in real life as it does between paper covers or behind the footlights. It is true that Jonesee lost the honour that accrued to him from his acquaintance with the Spider. But this was as nothing when compared to the glory which he acquired when it became known that he was the man who could claim the proud distinction of having kicked the Contra Costa bantam into insensibility. Jonesee is the cock of Polk Street now, and even beyond it is occasionally spoken of as being “hard.”
San Francisco Wave, May 16, 1896.
IN THE HEAT OF BATTLE
A DIALOGUE FROM THE WAVE OF DECEMBER 19, 1896.
CHARACTERS: Jerry Tremont, Yale’92. Tressie Tremont, his sister, a “‘Yale Girl.” Lord Orme, (oxon.), a young English nobleman. “Jack,” halfback on the Yale eleven, who does not appear but who is the most important of all.
SCENE: Office of Mr. Tremont, Sr., Newspaper Row, Boston, overlooking the street which is packed with an immense crowd. Directly opposite is the “Herald” building. Upon the front of the “Herald” building is affixed a huge bulletin board, on which appear half-minute bulletins of the Harvard-Yale football game, the second half of which is at that moment being played at Springfield, Mass. Lord Orme and Miss Tremont are sitting at the window to the right. Jerry is standing at the window to the left, which is open.
Jerry (drawing back from the window and facing into the room) — No scoring in the first half, and the ball in the center of the field at the call of time. That’s close work.
Miss Tremont (to Lord Orme after glancing down into the street) — Dear me, did one ever see such a crowd!
Lord Orme — It’s jolly like Trafalgar Square on Lord Mayor’s day.
Miss Tremont — I’m so sorry we couldn’t see the game this year, but I suppose watching the returns is the next best thing.
Lord Orme — It was — ah — your uncle s death that prevented?
Miss Tremont — Um-hum; papa thought we hadn’t better go. It was all we could do to get him to give us his office for to-day.
Jerry (calling from the other window) — Here’s another bulletin.
Miss Tremont — Oh, read it for me, Jerry, will you? I can’t (putting up her lorgnette) see even across the street. Isn’t it a pity to have such eyes as mine, Lord Orme?
Lord Orme — I don’t know about that, Miss Tressie. They’ve had a jolly queer effect on me — I — ah —
Jerry (reading the bulletin)— “Springfield, 3:28 P.M. Time called for second half. Harvard has the ball. Jack Harper will still play left half for Yale in spite—”
Miss Tremont (with sudden interest) — What’s that about Jack?
Jerry — Jack’s going to go on with the game just the same in spite of his shoulder.
Miss Tremont — Hurrah for Jack! (She catches Lord Orme’s enquiring glance.) Jack — Mr. Harper — Well, Jack’s a man I know. He plays for Yale.
Lord Orme (noting her confusion) — Is he “the other man,” Miss Tressie?
Miss Tremont— “The other man?”
Lord Orme — There always is “the other man,” you know, Miss Tressie, in affairs — in — ah — affairs such as — such as ours. I mean, such as this.
Miss Tremont — Oh, why should you assume that he is “the other man,” maybe —
Lord Orme — There must be “another man” somewhere. If it’s not this famous Jack it must be —
Miss Tremont (daringly) — It might be Lord Orme.
Lord Orme (in delighted embarrassment) — Oh, I say, now, Miss Tressie.
Miss Fremont (quickly) — And then again it might not. So there you are, you see.
Lord Orme (after a pause, suddenly perplexed) — Are you — ah — making game of me, Miss Tressie? It’s a bit rough, you know, because I care so very much —
Jerry (reading from the bulletins)— “Harvard punts for forty yards — Yale’s ball on her thirty-five yard line — Jack Harper of Yale makes five yards around Harvard’s end.”
Miss Fremont — Bravo, Jack! (Apologetically to Lord Orme), Mr. Harper would have been so disappointed if he had not been able to play. He’s a senior. This is his last chance.
Lord Orme — It’s my last chance, Miss Tressie. If I sail on Monday I won’t see you again before I go. I — ah — couldn’t have chosen a worse time to say — to say things, than now, I suppose, but last night, with so many people around you, I couldn’t get a chance, you know.
(They talk in low tones, and cannot be overheard, except in fragments, by the absorbed Jerry. At first Miss Tr
emont’s attention is equally divided between Lord Orme’s speeches and the Springfield bulletins as read by Jerry; but little by little her interest wavers. Sometimes inclining toward the game as Yale is winning, sometimes toward Lord Orme as Yale seems to be giving ground.)
Jerry (reading)— “Brunt of Harvard makes three yards through Yale’s center.”
Miss Tremont (commenting) — Jack said Yale was weak in the center this year. (After a pause), I wish I knew just how to answer you, Lord Orme.
Jerry (reading)— “Jack Harper misses a clean tackle and allows Harvard to advance the ball seven yards.”
Miss Tremont — I confess I like you immensely, Lord Orme. I don’t see why I cannot tell you that frankly.
Jerry (reading)— “Yale recovers the ball and makes ten yards around Harvard’s right end.”
Miss Tremont — But I don’t think I care enough for you to marry you.
Jerry (reading) — Yale makes three more yards through Harvard’s tackle.”
Miss Tremont — I’m sure I don’t.
Jerry (reading)— “Yale gains another five yards.”
Miss Tremont — Oh, quite sure. jerry (reading) — Harvard gets ball on fumble and makes a long gain through Yale’s center.”
Miss Tremont — On the other hand, something might happen to make me change my mind. I — I — don’t know just what to tell you.
Lord Orme — Devotion such as mine should go for something, Miss Tressie. I know it’s an old argument, but I am sure you would care more for me in time.
Jerry (reading)— “Yale loses five yards for off-side play. Harvard still gaining through center.”