Moloch

by Henry Miller

  “No, I’m serious,” Dave continued. “You see, I’d like to improve my education. I started to work when I was twelve.”

  Moloch glanced at him skeptically. “Hm!” he said. “I’ve got to ask you a question, Dave. . . . What would you do with an education, anyway?”

  “Aw, be serious, will yer?”

  “I am,” said Moloch. “Don’t you know that an education is unnecessary—if you want to get ahead in the world? That’s what you want it for, don’t you?”

  “Sure, what else could I do with it?”

  “Precisely. Now look at old man Houghton, and that jackass on the thirteenth floor. Did they have an education?”

  “They musta had somethin’ else,” Dave admitted reluctantly. He brightened up suddenly. “Anyways, D. M., I’ve come to the conclusion that if you wanta succeed in life either you must be educated or you must be a good crook. ...” He was going to continue but Moloch choked him off.

  “Now you’re talkin’ horse sense, Dave.” He slapped him heartily on the back. “Dave, I’m gonna tell you somethin’: we’re too god-damned honest for this world, do you know that? We’re never gonna be rich as long as we lead this Sunday-school life. Look at Morgan, Rockefeller, Astor, Vanderbilt, Gould. . . . How do you suppose they got rich? Savin’ it up?”

  Dave looked considerably cheered by this piece of information.

  “Gee, I’m glad to hear you talk like that,” he said. “I thought maybe you thought I wuz talkin’ through muh hat.”

  In a little while Dave opened up again. This time it was to explain to Moloch how tough it was to be born a Jew.

  “Forget it!” said Moloch. “You’re gettin’ along, aincher?”

  “Yeah, but . . .”

  “I don’t want to hear any buts. Think of something pleasant. . . . You never told me how you landed these tarts we’re gonna see. Where did you pick ‘em up?”

  “Didn’t I tell yuh? Gee, that’s funny.” He thought a minute. . . . “It wuz a cinch. You shoulda been with me. I hopped into Child’s one day last week fer a bite; I no sooner gets inside than I pikes a gal I knew onct . . . someone I met a long time ago at the Roseland. She wuz workin’ as a waitress. I goes right up to her. ‘Hello,’ I says, ‘how did you get here?’ ‘Well, well,’ she says, ‘where you been all this time?’ I told her I worked around here. It didn’t take me three minutes to date her up. And then I thought of you. ... I asts her: ‘C’n yer git a friend?’ ‘Why not?’ she says, and that’s all there was to it.”

  “That sounds great.”

  “Don’t it? There’s no trouble if you work it right.”

  “You said it.”

  The car was rumbling over the bridge at Wallabout Creek. The sullen stream was streaked with floating islands of grease, and a stench as of sixty-nine dead horses filled their nostrils. Dave held his nose with two fingers until they got out of the zone.

  “Reminds me of old times,” Moloch reflected aloud.

  Dave perked up and smiled.

  “I wuz born around here m’self,” he confessed.

  “What? Do you mean it?” Moloch grasped Dave’s hand and wrung it heartily. “Pull out that flask,” he commanded. “We’ve got to have a drink on that, Dave.”

  “What, here?”

  “Sure, you’re not gonna wait till we get to Greenpoint, are you?”

  “Yeah, but . . .”

  Moloch reached into Dave’s back pocket and extracted the flask. “Who’s gonna stop us, heh?” As he held the upturned flask to his lips a soft gurgling sound escaped. Dave watched him, fascinated.

  “Now tell us, where did you hail from—the North Side?”

  “No, the South Side—Lee Avenue.”

  “That so? I was raised on the North Side. . . . Do you remember Pat McCarren?”

  “Do I? Ask me another.”

  “Remember the battles we had when the two gangs fought it out in the lots?”

  Dave grinned all over. “Look at this.” He held his finger to a deep scar over his right eye. “Got that with a can one day.”

  “Great! Great!” roared Moloch. “So you’re from the old neighborhood, too. Well, well.”

  They put their arms about each other’s shoulders and sank lower into their seats. Neither said a word for some time. They just sat contentedly, gazing out on scenes of bygone days. The car took a sharp swing at Broadway Ferry.

  “Those were the happy days,” sighed Moloch. “That was when New York was a gay, spanking dog of a town, eh Dave?”

  Dave shook his head. “Do you remember the Haymarket?”

  “Which one—Brooklyn or New York? Aw, the hell with that. Do you remember the Girl in Blue?”

  “You mean Millie de Leon ... at the Bum? Say, I’d give ten bucks to see her again. Remember how the sailors used to run up the aisle to grab one of her garters ... do you remember that?”

  “Don’t make me laugh. And Pat McCarren parading up and down like an undertaker from Larry Carroll’s saloon to the Bum and back again, with a mug on him like a Jesuit. ... By the way, did you go to Houston Street last week?”

  Here the conversation became rather technical. The burlesque season had just opened and there was quite a long-drawn-out controversy between the two as to the merits of the stock company which flourished at the National Winter Garden.

  Finally Dave relapsed into a moody silence. Moloch puffed away contentedly on his cigar. When he looked at Dave again he thought the latter was becoming glum.

  Dave explained that he was “thinkin’.”

  “I can’t figure out, D. M., why a fella like you goes to a burlesque show anyhow.”

  Moloch received this in silence.

  “It ain’t that you look like a priest... it’s the books you read. The two don’t go together, do you understand me?”

  “I sure do. You mean my mind’s too good?”

  “Sumpin’ like that. ... I wuz lookin’ at that paper-covered book you had with you last week. I couldn’t read a page of it without a dictionary by my side, and then I don’t think I’d make it out. Geez, it wuz dry. I thought it wuz a book on science, or somethin’ like that.”

  “Oh, you mean Ulysses,” said Moloch.

  “That’s it. I couldn’t pronounce the name. What does a guy write a book like that for that nobody can understand—except a few educated people?”

  Moloch agreed that this was one of the mysteries of the universe. “But there was a lot of dirt in it, Dave. I think you missed something that time.”

  “Is zat so? Then why the hell does he put all those jawbreakers in it for?”

  “To keep it out of the hands of children, I guess. . . . Say, watch out, we must be near India Street now. This looks like Greenpoint.”

  Moloch started to say something about Boccaccio and Rabelais. Dave only had time to gather that they too contained a rich mixture of filth and obscenity when he saw a sign reading India Street. He tugged Moloch’s sleeve. They hopped off and looked about them. It looked like the fringe of the pale in a Polish city.

  “What’s that?” Dave exclaimed, pointing to a mast going by the end of the street.

  “Why, that’s the river, Dave. Great, eh?”

  “I’ll say so. All yer gotta do here is stick yer head outa the winder and yer c’n see tugboats goin’ by fer breakfast. Not such a terrible dump after all. Yer c’n get some fresh air, b’Jesus!”

  Dave got out his address book and began to check up on the house numbers. “We’re right,” he said, tugging Moloch along. “Don’t forgit, on our way home tell me about them books. I wanta read ‘em.”

  “Fine. Don’t forget to ask me.”

  There were more “don’t forgets.” Dave suddenly remembered that his name should be Brown for the occasion. “Don’t forget: Dave Brown.”

  “All right, Brown. Call me Morgan . . . Danny Morgan.”

  Dave commenced to cackle again.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Moloch. “Morgan’s a good Irish name, ain’t it?”


  “Yeah, but you ain’t Irish.”

  “The hell I ain’t. Who’s gonna prove it?”

  “All right, D. M., but not Danny Morgan. . . .”

  “Why not? What’s wrong with Danny?”

  “It don’t fit you. Wait a minute,” he begged, “or I’ll laugh muh guts out. Look here, D. M., we don’t wanta look phony.”

  “Geez, what a fusspot you can be over a name. What’s the difference what name I take? We’ll be drunk inside of fifteen minutes.”

  “That’s all well and good, but . . .”

  “But what? You and your buts again. . . .”

  Dave bent over and whispered: “We don’t wanta get arrested.”

  “Arrested?”

  “Sure. For givin’ false names.”

  “W-h-a-t? To a coupla Polacks? Go on. Chase yourself. You’re getting frightened.”

  “Wait a minute, D. M. Take it easy.” He lowered his voice. “You know where we are?” He blinked as he said this. “This is a tough neighborhood. . . .”

  “The tougher it is, the better I like it. . . . Watch me kiss the cross after the party’s on a while.”

  Dave clutched Moloch’s arm frantically.

  “For Christ’s sake, D. M., don’t do a thing like that. I gotta go home wid the same mug.”

  Moloch laughed. “I’m only kiddin’,” he said. “Don’t stand there like a pigeon.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “You had me worried. I never know when to take you serious or not.”

  They arrived in front of the house. Dave went first up the low stoop and struck a match in the vestibule to read the names.

  “I had you frightened, eh?” said Moloch, as Dave glanced from one name to another. Some bells had three and four names under them.

  “Before you push the button, Dave—I want to tell you something that happened to me around here about ten years ago. ... You don’t like to get in a jam, you say. Well, listen. One night I went to a dance somewhere in this neighborhood ... it all comes back to me now. I got a terrible jag on, and so I went outside to get the air. I see a big mick of a cop coming along, so I gets friendly with him. I don’t know what I said to him, but I guess he didn’t like the way I talked to him. Maybe I said something about religion. . . . Anyhow, the more I tried to excuse myself, the worse he got. I never saw such a dumb bastard! But that’s the way they are.... Anyway, the first thing you know, he grabs me by the collar and starts choking me. Then he hauls off with the other hand and clouts me right in the puss. Wow! I guess I saw daylight. . . . Now that’s what I call mean . . . tough. If we see any of those birds hanging around we clear out . . . right?“

  Dave pressed the button and remarked casually: “What pleasant subjects you bring up!”

  The latch clicked in a moment and they pressed their combined weight against the door. Dave whispered a final warning in Moloch’s ear: to avoid the subject of wives.

  “I promise,” said Moloch lightly. “By the way, how is she now?”

  Dave made an unnecessary clatter on the rough wooden stairs and answered:

  “My sister’s fine now ... just a touch of tonsilitis.... Are you following me, Morgan?”

  “Right behind you, Brown, old man,” and Moloch let out a big guffaw.

  Two malapert sluts, as Congreve would call them, leaned over the banisters and warbled a jocund greeting. The blonde one wasn’t so bad but the other one, the one in the black satin dress, she was terrible. Oddly enough, she was the one Dave had arranged the party with. Dave wanted to swap horses right then and there, but Moloch was too fast for him. He sized up the situation immediately, and before Dave had a chance to finagle, he threw his arms around the blonde as though he had known her all his life.

  “Wot a warm baby this bird is,” said the blonde, plastering a slobbery kiss on Moloch’s lips. She got a good whiff of the liquor. “Whew! Where did you get it?”

  He motioned to Dave. Dave was frankly disturbed. As they laid their coats on the bed—they were asked to make themselves comfortable right away—he conveyed in an undertone that there had been a mistake about the girls. “You picked the wrong one, D. M.”

  “Like hell I did. You mean you picked the lemon. Don’t try to crawl out of it.” Unconsciously he was raising his voice.

  “Not so loud,” cautioned Dave. “You work her for a while and afterwards we’ll switch.”

  “Not while I’m conscious, Dave.”

  The two clucks followed them into the bedroom.

  “Say, wot are you boys arguin’ about?”

  “He wanted me to be sure and take him home early,” Moloch confided.

  “Swell chance,” piped the runt in the black satin dress, giving Dave a big squeeze.

  “Wot’s the matter?” said the blonde, who had a little more acumen than the other. “Is his wife waitin’ up fer him?”

  Dave looked imploringly at his companion.

  “That guy?” said Moloch. “Why, he’s got a half-dozen wives waitin’ up fer him. He’s a regular sheik, ain’t that right, Brown?”

  Dave offered the blonde the flask. She threw back her head and took a good swig, then passed it over to her friend, who was already sitting like a bunch of bananas in Dave’s lap.

  “Am I heavy, kid?” she asked.

  Dave made a wry grimace behind her back. “Naw, you’re as light as a feather,” he replied.

  Someone suggested starting the victrola. Moloch assisted the blonde in cranking the machine. He leaned all over her and almost broke her back.

  “Hey, you!” she cried. “Shove off! Wot do you take me for, a horse?”

  He offered a polite apology which seemed to baffle her.

  “Say, wot wuz dat last woid?”

  “Why, that was French for very chic.” He smiled affably at her.

  “You talk Polish, too?”

  “No, just French . . . and English, sometimes.”

  “Quit cher kiddin’.”

  He grabbed her roughly and commenced to dance. Dave sat by as though a tombstone had fallen on him and crushed him. He got a kick just watching Moloch wiggle the blonde around.

  “Wot’s the matter with yer friend?” asked the blonde.

  “He must be drunk already,” said Moloch.

  “I’ll shake him out of it,” she said, freeing herself from his embrace.

  The disk was grinding out “The St. Louis Blues.” In an instant the tall blonde baby was standing before Dave, hardly moving her feet but managing to make the rest of her body compensate. With eyes rolling heavenward, shoulders twitching, knees bending slightly forward, she unlimbered a drowsy, frankly crude muscle dance. Dave’s eyes opened like two saucers. She snapped her fingers under his nose, raised her skirt a little higher, and settled down to a slow, steady roll that caught Dave in the pit of the stomach.

  “Take her away,” he cried, putting his hand over his eyes and peeking through his fingers.

  “Where did she get that movement?” Moloch inquired, studying her as if she were a trick seal. Dave ventured to suggest that they introduce her to the manager of the National Winter Garden.

  “That dump?” she said scornfully.

  Then she stationed herself in front of Moloch, who had taken a cigar from his pocket with the intention of enjoying the performance in comfort.

  “Want to see some more?” she asked.

  “Sure,” he said, “but give us something rough this time,” and he looked over at Dave for approval.

  “Something like this?” She made a few Arabian passes with her navel.

  “Lady, don’t do that!” begged Dave. “Oh, lady!”

  Moloch calmly lit his cigar and proceeded to blow the smoke in her face as she writhed and twisted her loins.

  When she had finished he remarked: “Not bad, kid, not bad.”

  “How can he sit there like that?” said Dave. He pointed to his companion, who was puffing away on his cigar as though a prandial interregnum had been dec
lared at the six-day bike race.

  “For life’s pleasant retrospections nothing like a cigar,” Moloch reflected aloud, carelessly flicking the ashes on the carpet as he spoke.

  “Wot is he?” asked the blonde. “A reporter?”

  “No, he peddles dope,” said Dave.

  “GOOD NIGHT!” chorused the two females in unison.

  The party had the gamy flavor that was peculiar to the dying days of the Roman Empire. It was hard to believe that a couple of stupid Polacks could provide such merriment. When they weren’t dancing, or mushing it up in a corner, or leaning against the mantelpiece, they were telling dirty stories. Here Dave’s natural lubricity showed to mean advantage. Occasionally even the blonde one signaled thumbs down. No one blushed because there wasn’t any time for blushing. Things happened too fast. And when the flask gave out, as it did immediately, the two malapert sluts proved their sportsmanship by dragging a case of kümmel up from the cellar.

  Every once in a while Moloch would sing out: “Hey, Brown, hadn’t we better think about getting back to the car barns?”

  When the women got maudlinly stewed they began to tire of the smut and take a romantic turn. The blonde demanded a recitation . . . “somethin’ decent.”

  Moloch obliged by standing on his hands with his feet propped against the wall. In that ridiculous posture it suddenly occurred to him to intone the opening lines of Virgil’s Aeneid ... “Arma virumque cano,” etc., etc., for about ten lines. Here he lost the continuity, and with true poetic license, jumped to that magic line “Rari nantes in gurgite vasto.” Enchanted with this, he kept repeating the last two words—“gurgite vasto,” “gurgite vasto”—until the blonde yelled for him to come up for air.

  Dave was lolling on a settee, with his tongue hanging out like a St. Bernard’s, trying to imitate the sonorous roar of Virgil’s gurgite vasto, but never quite succeeding. The runt in the black satin dress put an end to his Latinizing by squirting seltzer water over him. Everyone laughed but Dave. He was thinking of what his wife would say when she saw his bedrabbled appearance.

  As no one could read his thoughts the conversation flowed along just as if there had been no seltzer water squirted over him.