Fowlers End

by Gerald Kersh

  “But there is hope, thank Gord! A couple poor boys made it incurable, miv mercury and arsenic. You seen mercury? Believe me, it’s fascinating, like germs—you can’t put your finger on it. It’s too fast. It’s faster than germs; it runs after them and crushes them. Arsenic is a deadly poison; it gives them such a deadly poisoning your worst enemies should have such a deadly poisoning. Only your teeth fall out. Believe me, teeth are a source of infection, ‘better out than in,’ as the duchess said when she blew off. Venereable disease was invented by a Yisher fellow called Ehrlich. That’s what they say. But the originator o’ pox was Wassermann—another one, miv an assistant, some Gveek called Reaction.... No, Lavendrock, the time comes when you don’t want to be commercial. You want to do good. I want to spread venereable disease over the country. And put a stop to any intercourse whatsoever. I booked Sinners Beware! for a whole week, miv an option. It should gross more than The Four Feathers. It shook me. Boil me a glass o’ water.”

  14

  THEN THIS pastiche of a man started to tell me about a man he met at the trade show:

  “When I came out from Sinners Beware!, Lowbridge, my eyes were dim miv tears. Thanks to Ehrlich, Reaction and Wassermann, the baby gets its face back. It shook me. So I go into the vestibule for a smoke. No jokes, my heart was actually beating. So I see another bloke wiping his eyes—a nice man, dvessed like a gentleman in an Amevican hat miv a brim. First look at a man’s hat, then look at his shoes; draw an average, and you can’t go wrong. So I go up to him and say, miv tears in my eyes, ‘A good show, no?’ He says, in a proper Amevican accent, ‘Yes, sir, it sure conveyed its message. It shows you, you can’t be too careful of restaurants.’I say, ‘That bit where the old woman went mad and set herself alight—’He says, ‘After her husband went to that restaurant. No, sir, there’s nothing like a home-cooked meal. Have a cigar.’And he gave me one; it comes all the way from Philadelphia. It was dehcious— everybody turned rahnd to look at me when I lit it, and a blonde miv a pair pumpkins on ‘er waved ‘er hand at me. So I ask him what ‘e is.... Who is he? Guess. No don’t try. Why don’t you ask me?”

  “Well, who was he?” I asked.

  “Don’t ask. But ‘e tells me: ‘I come from Los Angeles and my name is Lasky.’ So I nearly ‘ave a heart attack, but miv a mysterious smile I tell ‘im: ‘By a strange coincidence, Mr. Lasky, as it ‘appens, I’m in the show business too.’ Well, this Mr. Lasky gets me by the ‘and in a grip—Booligan should’ve ‘ad such a grip—and says, ‘Glad to meet you, proud to know you, Sam! I’m here in England to study lasts. I’d like to see your latest lines.’Well, Daniels, you know me; I wear my heart up my sleeve. A man like Lasky to bring to Fowlers End? It ain’t good stragedy. And a person like Lasky could be influential—more, he could be flu-ential.

  “So I stops at Freybourg and Treyer as we walk along and I buy two triple Corona-Coronas. I take him to Oddenino’s for a drink. I talk Yank: ‘How’s about a snort?’ I spit all the way. Lasky is Lasky, that you can’t deny. I buy chewing gum. I know ‘ow to behave myself, believe me. What will ‘e have? So he says, ‘A Manhattan.’ He was a proper Amevican all right. He cricketized the cigar because it came from Cuba, and some relative of ‘is got killed miv the Rough Riders fighting the wild Indians there. Then ‘e says, ‘I sure appreciate this, Mr. Yudenow, and if there’s any way I can help you in our mutual concern, you have only to call on Lasky. I’ve been looking over the works in Northampton.’ I tell ‘im I got a couple places in the Midlands, but money is tight. Meanwhile, whereas, miv a mysterious smile I send a waiter to the Plaza to buy two of the best tickets. So I say, ‘Come and ‘ave a look at my show,’and take ‘im across the road. He sits through twenty minutes of it—sound-on-disk, and they got one of ‘em out o’ place—and then says, ‘I really do appreciate this, Sam, but I have a conference.’I tell him, ‘Mr. Lasky, your will is law.’

  “So out we go. ‘The new trend, I observe, is pointed,’he says, ‘and at our last Rotarian, Sam, I made a crack. I said, “Let us get to the point, boys.” Still, Sam, don’t you find a tendency to the colorful?’I said, ‘Well, of course colorful! What then colorful, Mr. Lasky?’ He says, ‘It can’t last.’I tell ‘im, ‘Believe me, Mr. Lasky, too much labor cost is involved. All the bloody layabouts want, I mean the public, is a bit of comfort, Mr. Lasky.’ So he says, ‘The old-fashioned style, I say—cut ‘em blunt and square.’ ‘Quite right. Be blunt and treat ‘em square,’ I tell ‘im, ‘only stand for no bloody nonsense. It would be a good thing,’I say, ‘if you and me went into production. Oh, give me production, and we’ll show the yobbos! Out of ice-cream and monkey-nut concessions alone is an honest living.’

  “So then this fellow says, ‘Sam, I think we are talking at cross-purposes—’ what’s a cross-purpose?—’I’m here buying English leather and English lasts. I aim to make a high-grade English gentleman’s shoe at a popular price.’ Then it comes up in me like acid, and I lose, praps, my temper a bit. I tell ‘im, ‘What is all this about leather? Trickster, you said you were in show biz!’ So he says, ‘I’ll thank you to mind your language, mister. I never said I was in the show business or ever associated with it. My name is Charlie Lasky, and I am in the shoe business. It was nice to have known you....’ Can you imagine my feelings?”

  I could not help laughing. But Sam Yudenow wouldn’t say die. “Believe me,” he said, “that was the real McLasky smelling out boiling-hot prospects. It’s all right. I feel it in my heart.”

  Copper Baldwin said, “I dare say ‘e’s after that bit o’ property up the road.”

  “But the hu-bloody-miliation of it!” said Sam Yudenow. “What property up the road? What do you mean, property up the road?”

  Copper Baldwin said, yawning elaborately, “I thought you knew. A.A.A.A. is going to start a new factory at Ullage, the land being cheap. Running in a branch o’ the railway line, they tell me. Matter o’ ten thousand families. Didn’t you know? I thought you knew. Well, I never!”

  Sam Yudenow screamed like a horse in a fire, then calmed himself and said, with an attempt at dignity, “Everybody is fired—as from the week before last.... No, wait a minute, come back, deal miv poor old Sam Yudenow like a friend, and your wages will be raised as from my earliest convenience. Where did you pick up this crap?”

  I said, “It’s not crap. You see, I happen to have been at school with one of the leading surveyors, and I got it from him. There’s going to be a factory like Ford’s at Dagenham, and a great housing project, of course.”

  “All secret stuff,” said Copper Baldwin, “but I should worry—eh, Mr. Laverock? I got no money to buy up land. ‘Ave I, Mr. Laverock? Nor ‘ave you, or you wouldn’t be working for old Smallpox, would you?”

  I said nothing, but Sam Yudenow flew into a rage. “Let there be no more reference to pox in connection with me!” he shouted. “Pox, pox, pox, pox—all day long I had it drummed into my head! Laventory seats, teacups, belts, caps, pevambulators—wherever you turn is pox, pox, pox, pox, pox! Or clap, clap, clap, clap, clap! Soft chancre, hard chancre, leave me alone! I wear braces, don’t I? I eat at home, don’t I? Bring me a contortionist to get the taste o’ this out o’ my mind! ... Tell me more.”

  “You ‘ad it,” said Copper Baldwin. “I got nothing more to say.” He added cryptically, “Only I wish I ‘ad a few thousand pound, that’s all.”

  “What would you do, Copper? Copper, what would you do?”

  “Oh, nothing. Nothing at all. Buy a bit o’ frontage on the souf-east side, could be, and a few lots to the norf. I’m only pissballing, but I’d get meself a nice bit o’ land round Ullage, because I mean to say, after all, in the first place the A.A.A.A. would ‘ave to buy me out on the frontage; and in the second place where there’s ten thousand families there’s got to be entertainment. Fruit machines, amusement arcades, a palais de danse ... Skip it. Forget it. Only a daydream.”

  Sam Yudenow said, “A block o’ flats.”

  “Foundations wouldn’t take it,�
� said Copper Baldwin, shaking his head. “Whole thing would keel over in a month.”

  “What are insurance companies for?” asked Yudenow.

  “No, guv, I’d think on the long-range plan. Little ‘ouses—they’d stand up five years—down payment, and weekly by the book. Make an arrangement wiv a wholesale furniture company: twenty pounds’ worth on the Never-Never system for a hundred and twenty pounds, twenty-five pounds down. A.A.A.A. pay good, and you know what the working classes are. Also, a tallyman—I beg your pardon, I mean ladies’and gentlemen’s clothing on the easy-payment system. Jewelry too. Come to think of it, while I was about it, if I was a man in your position, I’d get a pawnbroker’s license, and make an arrangement with a good bookie to set up shop. Be a squire, that’s what I’d do, if I ‘ad a few thousand nicker. Wouldn’t you, Mr. Laverock?”

  My conscience compelled me to say, “No.”

  “That’s because you are young and inexperienced. Well, the population increases. You finance a few doctors on a percentage basis—the dance hall will take care o’ that—let alone this and that. A good watchmaker, a dentist, a barker, and a ladies’ coiffeuse you can’t go without. Similarly, an undertaker. An optician, too, because in those plants these clumsy bastards at the lathes are always getting bits o’ steel in their eyes. It’s a gold mine, cocko, if only I ‘ad a few thousand to lay out on a bit o’ land up Ullage way....

  “Then there’s pianos; as soon as the proletariat gets their ‘ands on a few quid, it’s pianos—pianos and motorbikes. Set up a piano teacher on a fifty-fifty basis. Naturally, there must be a bleeding lawyer. They’re laying about Soho two a penny. Buy one of ‘em a new suit—black jacket and striped trousers—make ‘im wash, and be ‘is sleeping partner. Yes, the way to take over a town is to put exactly what you want into it. Fish and chips—the working classes can’t exist without fish and chips—and a cook shop—” here he gave me a sidelong look out of his washed-out eyes—“as soon as your old man is earning a living wage, do you cook dinner? What’s the matter wiv boiled ham and pease pudding?

  “Or a lovely cut off the joint? Put a butcher in business, touching the matter of joints, because the Sunday dinner keeps the family together. The bitches will be too idle to cook it, so their delinquent progeny will take it to the baker’s shop to put in the oven. You finance, of course, a baker’s shop. Then—you know what thumb-fingered sods they are—they’re always breaking cups and saucers. A crockery shop wiv vases, genuine Ming for eighteenpence, and a two-hundred-piece tea set for next to nothing. Get me?”

  Sam Yudenow said, “An off-license? Beer, wines, and spirits to be consumed off the premises?”

  “Certainly. And sweets, tobacco, and newspapers. Comics, bags o’ comics. Stationery—I mean, rent books and smutty postcards. That sort o’ concern you can start on a fifty-pound note. And a snob—that’s a cobbler. I could lay my ‘ands on a dozen army snobs that’d give anything to get a last between their poor old knees. Army men, nothing fancy, but good enough for the bleeding proletraiat.... Well, pretty well owning the town, in two shakes I’d ‘ave a town hall, an urban district council; the councilors by the balls or otherwise according to sex; and me as mayor. In no time at all, it would be Sir Copper Baldwin—if only I ‘ad a few thousand pounds.”

  He paused for breath, tipping me a wink. I felt I had to say, “You are talking a lot of bloody rubbish.”

  Sam Yudenow said, “Illegitimate cricketism I will grant you, but don’t be constructive.... Say they make you a ‘Sir.’What’s your wife?”

  Copper said, “Oh, she’d be Lady Baldwin.... If only I ‘ad a few thousand pounds.”

  Sam Yudenow came out of a kind of daydream and snapped, “Get stuck into the job, loafers—I got to go to the West End.”

  I watched him through the glass as he got into his car. He was driven in the direction of Ullage.

  Now when Sam Yudenow got to Ullage, the first thing he saw was a wooden standard for a poster which was being put up in the mire by five sweating men superintended by a foreman in a red muffler and a bowler hat of antique pattern, who kept shouting, “Now then, now then! I got my eye on you! Forward now—a bit backward! Sideways, Gord ‘elp us, the other side! Steady, steady—plant it steady, you twots! Blind O’Reilly, you got the effing banner bollocksed! ‘Old it now, Stan—’old it there, Stewart—git ready wiv ‘at maul, Steptoe. Right? Drive! ... Hm, the bastard sunk up to the hilt, didn’t ‘e? Pretty bloody wizened, this ‘ere soil, if you want my opinion. ‘Emmingway, git some stones. Faulkner, pull the bitch out straight. ‘Old on, Dannay—lend ‘im a ‘and, what’s-yer-name. Yes, you I mean, Doyle ...”

  Sam Yudenow watched while a hoarding went up. It was something like a circus banner—canvas on a frame, flapping in the notorious Ullage breeze—so that Sam Yudenow could not read it. It was, considering all he had heard, a commercial striptease. So he waited while the foreman in the bowler hat shouted, “Anybody like the sack? Well then, watch them props, ‘old them stays! ... Ea-say, easy now; that’s about it! Make all solid and knock orf for a smoke.”

  Sam Yudenow saw, “as if it was miv my own eyes,” as he put it, the erection of a hoarding such as he had never seen before. It was about sixty feet long and thirty feet high, and upon it were painted in huge red letters the cryptic words:

  A.A.A.A. SITE—DANIELS COPPER LTD.

  Chicken Lane, Threadneedle St.

  Clutching at his heart, Sam Yudenow went to the Ullage Hippodrome, where the proprietor, who had his worries, received him without enthusiasm, saying, “What the bloody hell do you bloody well want? Do me a favor—say it in a pig’s whisper and bugger off. Do you mind? Failing which, I’ll kick your arse off the premises, and chance it. Now then.”

  Sam Yudenow became charming. “This,” he said, “I am afraid I do not understand, old boy. So what’s the matter? Things ain’t going so good? There’s show biz for you. Miv me, believe me, also things is up the spout. Now in a case like this, what do you do? In America they got two alternatives—staticians worked ‘em out—expand or contract! Me, I got nothing to expand. My balls got chewed off. So let’s contract. Let’s make a contract. What’ll you take for the hall?”

  “I ain’t selling.”

  “What does ‘e mean, ‘e ain’t selling?” cried Sam Yudenow to the murky sky. “Listen, darling, everybody’s selling. Is Lasky nobody? Lasky’s selling. Sell; then buy; make mortgages; put it in your wife’s name—”

  “I haven’t got a wife.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll get you one.... And after all, what is there in Ullage? Yobbos, swamps.... Expand or contract! You make a contract, I expand—it’s a rule of nature. Later on, miv economics you expand, and I contract. Give a little, take a little.”

  “Look, you, I’m not in a good mood today, and I give you fair Warning: do you see this fist?”

  “And very nice too. I wouldn’t like a punch in the nose miv a fist like that. For goodness’ sake put it in your pocket, because it frightens the life out o’ me. Whereas the business of this show. Later show me your fist, I’d like a photograph of it. What would you call a price for such a show?”

  The proprietor of the Hippodrome, which had always been a losing proposition, who would have been glad to get out with a clear thousand pounds, said, “I’d start considering at eight thousand.”

  Sam Yudenow pulled out a handkerchief, clapped it over his mouth, and cried out in pain. “Uxcuse me,” he said humbly, “it’s my lip. You mustn’t make me laugh, I forgot to tell you. I got chapped lips. It can also crack the corners of the mouth. What d’you mean, eight hundred pounds? What is it, a Covered Wagon? A gusher? A gold mine? Don’t be silly, eight hundred pounds!”

  “I said eight thousand.”

  “Oh,” said Sam Yudenow, slapping him on the shoulder and laughing heartily, “you want to be facetious? Okay, old Sam can take a joke.... Eight thousand what? To be frank miv you, it would cost me more than that to wire your charming hall for sound. No, I’d strip it to
the bone. Out miv the seats. A new floor would cost me a pretty penny. I want to turn it into a skating rink. I’ll tell you what—we’re all in show biz together—I’ll make it eight hundred and fifty pounds, spot cash. Take it or leave it.”

  “I leave it.”

  Now, presumably, the bargainers came to grips. Sam Yudenow said, “Good-by. It’s nice knowing you,” and put back in his pocket a checkbook he had been waving.

  The other man said, “Wait a minute. We’ll settle for twenty-five hundred, and I’ll take my lucky.”

  “Two hundred and fifty ain’t enough,” said Sam Yudenow firmly. “I won’t let you do it. You’d be robbing yourself. You made a slip o’ the tongue—you meant eight hundred and fifty.”

  “I said twenty-five hundred.”

  “You been miv any dirty women lately?”

  “Any of your business?”

  “No, but it’s unsymptomatic—people sell St. Paul’s Cathedval, they start ‘otels, distilleries, goodness knows what, all for twenty-five pounds. Play the man, for Christ’s sake, play the man! What’ll you do miv twenty-five pounds? Look, I want to be a good neighbor. Eight hundred and fifty, take it or leave it, and I’m not asking your gross. A hundred and fifty pounds o’ this I want you should spend on a sea voyage.”

  “Don’t talk wet!”

  “I’m like that. I want you should take eight hundred and fifty pounds. Quit show biz, start a nice little restaurant—I know a man who can supply you especially miv Greenburgers, the latest thing.”

  Before they parted, the proprietor of the Hippodrome had a check for eight hundred and fifty pounds, and Sam Yudenow had in his pocket a holograph deed, fully witnessed, which made him proprietor of the Ullage Hippodrome, which, twenty-four hours earlier, he would not have taken as a gift.