A Walk On The Wild Side

by Nelson Algren

But the startled print leaped about like birds without brains, so whoever said no Linkhorn could read had been right after all, and everyone was so disappointed in him he began to cry for everyone, dolls or anyone, who had been disappointed in the end.

  ‘I’ll sing for the people! I’ll dance ’n sing!’ That was the solution, he realized, to everything. And supporting himself with one hand on the juke, he raised one big foot as if just to raise a foot like that in itself was a feat. And peered all around through the whiskey-mist to make sure the people were watching this. After all standing on one foot was something not everyone could do. He was the only one who knew exactly how it was done. They’d soon see that. Somebody applauded, now he had them. If he could just change to the other foot he’d bring down the house.

  And slowly began to change feet.

  He came out with his hands hanging loose and head swaying, bending forward so far he tottered a bit. Someone else clapped, then another and another. The dance went faster, foot to foot. Some saw love in it, some despair. Through a Kewpie-doll jungle the king of the elephants danced again.

  He put his hands on his haunches and began a slow, obscene grind. The music stopped but nobody applauded at all.

  ‘Can that!’ someone protested, ‘there’s women here!’

  ‘Let him show what he got!’ Someone else saw things differently.

  Then out of the whiskey-mist nearer and nearer Dockery’s eyes like those of a bee bent deep, too deep into his own.

  ‘Now you’re overdoing things, son. If you can’t behave, get out. I won’t tell you again.’

  ‘Who you?’

  ‘Dockery, that’s who.’ People began pushing this way then that, he had come to find someone but where was she at? Who? he kept asking, ‘Who-who-who?’ and pushed them all back – ‘Let me go. Who you?’ he asked them.

  ‘If we let you go you’ll fall on your head.’

  ‘Fall on my head – that’s what I want! I got a good header comin’ to me!’ And struggled madly to fall on his head.

  But they wouldn’t let him, he couldn’t beg or buy them just to let him fall on his head. Bells began listening to their own fool tunes, trains to run right toward one another. Women were waiting in doorways for him. His glass was full again.

  ‘If you aint champeenship mater’l,’ he announced, ‘might as well let the women get you now!’

  ‘He wants to let the women get him – let them get him then,’ all agreed.

  ‘Get him out of here,’ Dockery had had enough, and out the door in the middle of a mob of laughing panders, the feather of his hat bobbing higher than any, Dove stumbled still trying to get in his header. But every time was held up again.

  By the time they got him next door to Mama’s his new suit-jacket was gone forever, one trouser was ripped from belt to knee, the shirt pocket hung by a single thread. Yet somehow he’d kept his hat, though its feather was broken.

  ‘Here comes Big Stingaree, ready to ball!’ one pimp called.

  ‘Come to let the girls get him!’ another explained.

  ‘We don’t want him,’ the girls seemed sure.

  While in the doorway, faithful to himself, Oliver Finnerty stood and watched.

  And felt his old nausea slowly subside.

  When taxis wheel backward from the curbs and the darkness between the lights grows longer, when the whiskey in the glass before you is one whiskey you don’t want and the sky holds a sort of criminal glow full of longing and full of loss, then is that Come-here-and-tell-me-all-about-it, that Let-me-just-talk-to-you-mister-twenty-cents-will-see-me-through, that Hit-me-with-a-dime-and-I-sleep-under-blankets, that all-night pleaders’ hour. Then the pale lost ghosts of the girls in the night’s last doors – (how white their night-old hunger leaves them!) – see there’s no way left to keep the last of the lights from going out and even the pimps begin giving up.

  The legless man smoked the first bitter cigarette of the coming day and watched the last of the two-leggers hurrying, hurrying; hurrying home to love and to rest. And a pang like a pang of utter defeat, like a wind off the flat ice plains of death passed over his heart and shivered it like a leaf.

  So what if they had had a bit of a laugh on him? Worse things than that happened to people every day. A handicapped man had to learn to take the bitter with the sweet, it was part of the game and all of that. Everyone knew they were nothing but a pair of pimps of the cheaper sort while he himself had never yet taken a cent off a woman.

  But dropped his eyes in a brooding dream to where his great thighs once had been.

  And saw no way of getting his own life back, his own good life gone too far, too far.

  One at the hip and one at the knee.

  Why give them a chance?

  What chance had anyone given him?

  Whatever it was Floralee had done to make her think God could no longer bear her, it didn’t of necessity follow that He was the one who phoned for the Hurry-Up.

  One moment the juke was beginning Please Tell Me How Many Times, the next the parlor was full of the boys in blue and someone smashed the glass of the juke – Now what was the need of that? But the song came on louder for lack of glass – I’d feel bad if you’d kissed too many but I’d feel worse if you hadn’t kissed any.

  Where was Reba when the glass went out?

  Praising the Chinese no doubt.

  Where was Five when the box was smashed? Galloping from door to door in nothing more than her earrings and a bath-mat, hollering ‘Get them guys out!’ And rushing three tricks down the hall with their pants in their hands in as much of a hurry not to be witnesses as Five was anxious to prevent them. She shoved one out a window, another walked past a nabber with a bill in his hand, and the same nab said to another – ‘Uncle Charlie!’ And let him pass.

  Where was Mama when the juke glass went? Studying a twenty-two-hundred-dollar receipt for down payment on a house and lot, six kennels and a pair of Doberman pinschers; and having her first misgivings.

  Where was Finnerty when all this transpired? In a single-motor plane with two thousand two hundred in fives and tens, on his way to Miami to get his armpits tanned. And gnawing his nail with burning regret, asking over and over, ‘Oh, why didn’t I bury that crip?’

  Where was Floralee all the while? Humbling herself in the sight of the Lord by supporting the length of a roaring drunk while other roarers encouraged him.

  Where was Kitty Twist that lovable kid? Thinking of Finnerty and wishing she were dead. When she heard the crash she took a big swig of gin, tossed the bottle out the window and followed after it – right into the arms of two of them.

  ‘I just don’t have any luck, and that’s all there is to it,’ said tough Kitty Twist.

  ‘Your luck is as good as the next one’s I’d guess,’ the nab said, ‘Up you go, sis.’

  And sure enough, up into the Hurry-Up went Kitty Twist. ‘Who’s that?’ she asked the paddy wagon gloom, ‘Who’s else takin’ this ride?’

  ‘It aint Herbert Hoover,’ Frenchy’s voice said.

  ‘Officer,’ Kitty Twist told the nab guarding the door, ‘What are you waiting for? We’re ready to roll.’

  ‘There may be others along in time,’ the officer said.

  ‘You only got one wagon for the good sake of God?’ Kitty scolded him.

  ‘We’re trying to make it in one trip, sis,’ he apologized, and a roar like a battle shout rocked the stars just then. The girls poked their sad fancy faces out and heard an iron clamor ring.

  ‘Sure sounds like someone don’t want to come along,’ Frenchy guessed.

  Someone framed in a door-shaped light. Dove in an undershirt, nothing more, hollering ‘hands off me!’ Slamming right and left with the flat of a book, raging with whiskey and terrible fright. Kitty saw one nab catch it across the cheek – ‘Hands off I said!’ – another caught it smack in the eye. Then one of them clasped him by the nape of the neck, another caught his book hand. ‘Be a good boy like I was at your age,’ one said, and ano
ther yanked his legs right out from under. Then all three got a good firm hold – ‘One! Two! Three!—’ Kitty and Frenchy had just time to get out of the way as the bare-assed body came flying – Bawnk – and Watkins’ ex-representative lay on his stomach clutching an iron floor.

  ‘At least this time you came along,’ Kitty congratulated him. And gave him a tentative dig with her toe.

  The body never stirred.

  Kitty found then she didn’t care really whether he came along or not. She didn’t care for anything or anyone, least of all herself. Anything that happens has a right to happen, so what does it matter who it happens to? That was how Kitty felt.

  ‘I heard a sneeze in the closet,’ the nab informed the girls, ‘and when I open the door, there was this boy buck-naked but for hat and undershirt and a book under his arm.’

  ‘Just somebody who didn’t have time to pull his pants on,’ Frenchy sounded out the law on how much he really knew.

  ‘So long as he wasn’t no inmate he aint in serious trouble,’ the nabber felt. ‘He don’t look to me like no pimp.’

  ‘Myself, I never seen him before,’ and gave Kitty the nudge.

  ‘I never did neither,’ Kitty Twist said.

  Dove came to in a dungeon heat with something across his face.

  Hello, pants.

  He felt his head swell and subside, then try to swell again. By not so much as batting an eye it hurt a little less. When someone lifted the pants off his face he stared straight up. ‘I think the sonofabitch is dead,’ he heard an indifferent voice report and caught a whiff of cigar smoke.

  ‘I don’t see no blood, Harry.’

  ‘They bleed inside.’

  ‘Then we’re both in this together.’

  ‘Both? Since when did Smitty get out of it?’ The pants dropped back.

  ‘Why, that’s right. Oh, that Smitty, suppose to be watchin’ the whore in the Hurry-Up, instead he’s showin’ off he’s a tackle now for L.S.U.’

  ‘Remember the time he finished off the nigger with his open palm? That shows you what jiu-jitsu can do.’

  ‘No, but I was with him the time he lost his temper on the Spanish lad for pretendin’ he can’t talk good English. That’s what pretendin’ can do.’

  ‘Officer,’ some phony down the tier piped, ‘I can pay for aspering if it aint asking too much.’

  ‘It’s asking too much. You’ll get aspering at your destination,’ Harry promised the piper and belted Dove a crunchy kick in the side just for a crunchy little surprise.

  ‘I been kicked lots harder than that,’ Dove reflected and wished they’d stop smoking. It didn’t seem respectful at a time like this.

  ‘You know what, Jeff?’ Harry asked softly.

  ‘What?’ Jeff was anxious to know.

  ‘I think the sonofabitch really is dead.’

  Deep in Dove’s throat a great tear trembled, making a bubble that tickled his neck. There wasn’t a breath of air in the cell and if they didn’t quit smoking he’d have to cough and come alive once more. He’d rather be dead, Dove thought, than that.

  ‘Poor rummy. Between whiskey and women, his heart give out.’

  ‘Was that his heart clanged like a damned bell when he landed on iron? If you can’t make sense don’t say nothin’.’

  ‘Captain’ll be on our side,’ Jeff kept trying, sense or no.

  ‘That cracker? Are you sure you’re feeling well? I’m sure he’d purely hate to see that cracker puss on the front page of the Picayune for cleaning roughnecks out of the department. Sure he would.’

  Then a silence bespoke an understanding reached. Dove felt one take his arms and the other his feet.

  ‘People treat you better when you’re dead,’ Dove realized as they bore him gently. ‘Now this is really something like it.’

  ‘Where we takin’ him, Harry?’

  ‘Where you think? Loew’s State?’

  A river-boat moaned like a weary cow abandoning hope between darkness and tide.

  Dove felt the air clear suddenly and knew they were in the open night. Somewhere above him a window slammed.

  ‘What are you silly bastards up to now?’ Dove heard a new voice, more commanding than Harry’s.

  ‘Another one kicked off on us, Captain.’

  ‘How many times do I have to tell you that a man can die in jail just the same as in a hospital? Get him over to Charity and get a receipt. I’m getting sick of having to tell you every time.’ The window slammed. Dove hoped that they wouldn’t drop him; he had a feeling he was hanging above concrete.

  ‘What he mean, Harry, “get a receipt”?’

  ‘He means register the stiff with the hospital.’

  ‘Couldn’t we just leave him on the steps and trust to the kindness of nurses?’

  ‘I’d as soon be took inside if you don’t mind,’ Dove requested politely.

  Like statues of astonishment both nabs froze. In that second Dove realized that had been his own voice and leaping free, was off and running straight into a red brick wall.

  Harry caught him on the rebound and led him by the hand back to Jeff.

  ‘I knew he was faking all the while,’ Harry decided, ‘I was only waiting for him to make one false move. See, I made him give hisself away.’

  Dove folded his pants carefully into a pillow and tucking it neatly under his head, stretched out contentedly, waiting to be lifted again.

  ‘You see,’ he excused himself to the Southern stars above the nabber’s heads, ‘I really wouldn’t want to leave this old world, for it’s the only one I know anything about.’

  Jeff looked at Harry. Harry looked at Jeff.

  ‘Son,’ Jeff broke the news at last, ‘we both been on duty this whole hard hot day, and it’s been just one darned thing after another. Would you mind walking back to your cell?’

  ‘Why,’ Dove leaped to his feet and began pulling on his pants, all eagerness, as though invited to a chicken dinner. ‘Why, I’d admire to do just that. A little walk in the night air would clear my head.’ Then looked slyly from one to the other. There was something in the air.

  ‘You fellows mad at me about something?’

  ‘Of course, not, son,’ Harry reassured him with good-natured gruffness. ‘You’re a character. That’s your turn and we enjoy it. We want everyone in on the joke,’ and slammed Dove so hard on the side of the head with his open palm that he spun him almost clean about. Dove stood shaking his head to let the night air make it even clearer. The nights were certainly getting cooler.

  ‘Promise us you’ll tell the court everything that happened,’ Harry threatened him with his big hand raised, ‘Promise.’

  Dove stood rubbing the back of his head: a huge thought was struggling to live in it.

  ‘I tell you,’ he decided slowly, ‘I don’t think I’d care to bring up a thing like this in court at all. It might make me appear a bit of a fool.’

  ‘I told you this was a boy of good breeding,’ Jeff came to his aid.

  Harry studied him steadily, hand still high. ‘I’ve took an awful lot off you, son,’ he announced, ‘I’m just not going to take any more.’

  ‘Oh, put down your hand, Harry, the boy’s had enough,’ Jeff decided. ‘He’s a real smart lad and means just what he says.’

  Harry let the hand fall. ‘God help him if he don’t,’ he said.

  A minute later the big door closed behind Dove.

  ‘I think I’ll get a little rest,’ he decided, and groped in the dark till he found a bench.

  Each morning the tenants of Tank Ten took turns at the tank’s single window. It opened upon the courtyard of the Animal Kingdom’s Protectors, whose men in heavy gloves busied themselves protecting the kingdom’s little charges from early morning till late at night.

  BE KIND BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE was the kingdom’s motto, painted in hospital white. Sometimes a kindly looking woman in a nurse’s uniform came outside to help the work of kindness on. This was done by shooting each hound squarely between the e
yes and shoveling the carcass into a cart. Cats were less trouble, Dove saw right off, for they had only to be swung by their tails and get their little skulls cracked against an iron post. And didn’t have to be shoveled at all. Straight into the cart they went – plop! plop! plop!

  For some reason the prisoners felt it had devolved upon themselves to keep track of the number of dogs done in as opposed to the number of cats. A C.C.C. deserter called Make-Believe Murphy began making book, taking bets in Bull Durham on the day’s totals. A non-betting man, neither pro-dog nor pro-cat was required to keep a reliable count. Dove volunteered, and never left his post without reporting to his relief the exact numbers of each done in during his watch.

  And sometimes wondered, that if the men and boys to whom Tank Ten was home were outlaws, where the true criminals were being kept.

  ‘The best days of my life, my happiest time,’ a human dishrag called Pinky would recall, ‘was doing close-order drill in the evening with the national guard.’

  Pinky had stolen fifty feet of garden hose in lieu of back wages. That the back wages were largely imaginary didn’t make the hose less real, and Pinky still had five months to go.

  His cell mate was a beetling, black-browed timberwolf right out of the timber with a blood-red gash for a lolling tongue and hands like claws to rend. A real baby-eater with a spine-chilling record: he had lowered himself through a greenhouse roof and come within inches of escaping with two flower pots of African violets. Unluckily he had gone through a pane and been trapped in a chrysanthemum-colored crash, face-down in freshly planted ivy but still clutching his precious violets. The fall, apparently, had subdued the wilder side of his nature, because now he seemed happy enough just being permitted to wash and dry Pinky’s spoon twice a day.

  Another was an old sad lonesome lecher with a face that had never been up from the cellar, who had nobody’s sympathy at all; not even his own. The turnkey had nicknamed him ‘Raincoat’ – which was kinder than what the prisoners had named him.

  This ancient simple satyr’s offense had been nothing more dreadful than the devising of a time-and-money-saving operation. Raincoat had discovered how to save time and money in making love, and at the same time to protect the lover against emotional entanglement. A pair of rubber bands and a raincoat with one loose button was all the self-sufficing lover required.