A burst of machine-guns knocked him nearly out of his seat. Jesus Christ what was going on—where the hell was he! He gripped the two arms of his chair and stared.
The screen was exploding in noise. Bells rang, sirens screamed to a pitch never heard before, the night was blasted with gun-fire. Dut-dut-dut-dut-dut-dut. Searchlights swept the dark yard back and forth, moved along the walls, finally found the two potato-peelers where they crouched against the gate like snarling animals, frozen in the glare.
Had he been asleep? How long? There was a large illuminated clock at the right of the screen advertising some neighborhood jeweler; it was two-fifteen. Lord this couldn’t last much longer, Garbo would be on any minute. But suddenly he couldn’t wait, either. Not even if this was the final sequence of the film. One of the men now lay face down in the dirt, the other clutched his side and writhed and grinned in pain. He grabbed up his hat and left.
He stopped in at the bar next door and bought a drink.
“Hi, Jack,” the bartender said.
Oh sure. This was the one he’d been in before. The guy must be feeling better, he actually spoke. To hell with him. He drank the drink and looked around.
The News was still on the counter. Somebody had been reading the Broadway column. He read it too. “Eileen Dorrit, who has a lake named after her in Argentina, is about to leave the Follies chorus at the behest of her mother.… What prominent Park Avenue matron is about to change her coutouriere because she doesn’t like her face—or because Mr. B. does?…” A hell of a way to earn a living and if the guy must use French why the hell doesn’t he learn how to spell it?
This was no place to hang around in. What did it offer? Sam’s was better. Sam was better too. He paid and left.
Sam was a philosopher but he didn’t feel like talking philosophy today. He wanted to see Gloria. “Where’s Gloria?”
“Ladies’ room.”
“God, I didn’t know this place had a ladies’ room.”
“Why not? What’ll it be? Rye?”
“And White Rock. Some ice.”
“My, that isn’t like you, Mr. Birnam. You always take it straight.”
“I feel like spreading it out a little today.”
Sam was a nice guy but he’d never forget how mad he got once. He had been desperate for a drink and hadn’t a nickel. He thought he’d try something new, something he’d never tried before. He came in here and ordered a drink, stood around as casually as he could, and drank it. Took his time so it would look all right. Then he ordered another. Sam served him, of course, and poured him still another, then several others, for more than an hour. They chatted pleasantly about one thing and another, Don all the time wondering how Sam was going to take it. He didn’t feel like making up some story like “Well, what do you know, look here, I haven’t got my wallet with me, I just changed my clothes an hour ago and must have forgotten it.” That was too damned mean, somehow; it left Sam obliged to believe him. Finally he said, right in the middle of one of Sam’s stories that he wasn’t paying any attention to, “Listen, Sam. I can’t pay you today.” Sam looked at him as if he didn’t quite hear right. “I haven’t any money on me. I’ll come in and pay you tomorrow. Or anyway as soon as I can.” Then Sam began. Gave him a long song-&-dance about Christ almighty didn’t you know that you can’t do that, the bar business was stricter than cash-&-carry, it had to be, now what in Christ’s name was he going to do, why the hell did you order drinks you didn’t have the money to pay for, a fine kind of trick to play on a guy, what was the boss going to say, sure you were sorry but did that make it right, did that replace the money he’d have to pay now out of his own pocket? … Don hadn’t gone back to Sam’s for a good while, after that; but when he did, and paid, everything was all right. Except from then on, Don always made a point of paying after the first drink, just to show Sam he had it. He bought another drink now and paid for it.
Gloria was being a hell of a time in the ladies’ room. Probably fixing her face and hair all over again. He was beginning to get impatient for her. He studied Sam across the bar. Funny how some people ran so true to type. If you cast Sam as a bartender in a play, the knowing critic would say, “Come now, that’s going too far, being too obvious, why don’t you use a little imagination?” Sam was so Irish-looking that he looked like a cartoon. Only thing wrong about him was his name. He ought to have been called Mike, or Paddy. Hey, who wasn’t using imagination now?
Now he was feeling just swell. This was the way to be. Relaxed and calm and warm inside, warm toward all the world. Thoroughly at home and at ease in yourself. What a boon liquor could be when you used it right. He was being the very soul of propriety; temperate, controlled, very gentlemanlike in fact. The drinks were hardly affecting him at all. He could even speed things up a little. Might as well get some lift out of the afternoon, specially when you’d had such a slow start. He told Sam to pour him another.
Sam must have seen he was in money. He slid the bottle across the bar to let him help himself.
Gloria came out, her copper-satin dress shining in the dark back part of the room. She looked as pretty as a picture. Her orange-colored hair was as lively and vivid as her dress; she was color itself; yet with all that, there was something pathetic about her. Infinitely touching. Child of nature, so unnatural.… “Gloria! Good afternoon!”
She came up to the bar. “Oh. I’m okay today. Is that it?”
“What do you mean ‘today’? You’re one hundred per cent with me, you know that. Always were. Let me buy you a drink.”
“Maybe I need it.”
“Have it then.”
“Usual, Sam.”
Sam mixed whatever it was and immediately tried to show, by his preoccupation, that from now on he would be having no part of the conversation, he wouldn’t even hear a thing that was said.
“What’s the matter, Gloria? Blue funk? Brown study? Pink elephants?”
“Say, you know I don’t drink. Not like you I mean.”
“Why Gloria. You’re actually cross.”
“Don’t mind me. I just—” She picked up the drink Sam set before her, probably ginger ale, and slowly sipped. “I don’t know.”
“I know.”
“What?”
“Love.”
“Don’t give me that.”
“What’s he like, Gloria? Big and strong? Good-looking as all hell?”
“Oh stop. Please. I don’t feel like it today.”
Suddenly he was terribly sorry for her; and suddenly, too, he felt he was rather drunk. And he didn’t give a good God-damn, either. It was swell. His mind was beginning to pick up and he wasn’t bored not any way you look at it. It must have come on him all of a sudden but it was damned good. He liked it. He felt hellishly sorry for Gloria, poor kid.
“I don’t like you shutting me out in the cold like this.”
“I can’t explain it, Mr. Birnam, so what’s the use of talking about it. It don’t make sense when I do.”
“But I’m interested. Truly.”
She looked up at him for a full moment to see if he meant it. He raised his eyebrows questioningly and steadily returned her steady gaze.
She turned back to her drink. “It’s home. I’m thinking of leaving.”
“Why?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I guess I’m not very hospitable there. My father—”
Hell, this wasn’t very interesting. But he’d finish this drink and maybe have one more and then go back to the flat where he could really enjoy himself. Take in a few bottles and maybe just stay there the whole rest of the weekend. Meanwhile it wouldn’t hurt him to listen to Gloria for a few minutes. He’d asked for it.
“I certainly’d think twice, Gloria. Or even thrice. Home isn’t something you can find just any day of the week. They don’t grow on every bush. Jeeper’s, Sam, you’re certainly taking your time.”
Sam handed him the new drink without a word.
“I know,” Gloria said, “but if you don’t f
eel you belong any more?”
“I know what I’m talking about when I talk about homes.”
“Are you married?”
“What do you think?”
“Well,” she said, “I don’t know.”
He looked at her a moment before making up his mind. “I’m married, yes.” He picked up his drink and swished the ice slowly around in the glass. “I’m married all right, no fear,” he added with a sigh. He glanced up at the mirror over the bar and at once seemed to become lost in thought.
“What’s the matter,” Gloria said.
“Nothing.”
“Why are you looking like that?”
“You asked me if I was married, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I told you.” He downed the drink and pushed the empty glass across the bar toward Sam.
Gloria waited. When the new drink had been set before him, she said, “Tell me about it.”
He took a deep breath and expelled it with the words: “I’m married and I have two little boys. Anything else you want to know?”
“Is she pretty?”
He struck a note of heavy irony. “Lovely. Lovely, Gloria. She’s so lovely she isn’t human.”
“What’s her name?”
“Theodora. But she’s called Teddy.”
“Teddy. That’s cute.”
“Yes, isn’t it. God.”
“I’d love to see her. I knew you’d have an awful pretty wife, Mr. Birnam.”
“I have. I have that.”
“Does she dress nice?”
“Very. It’s her chief interest in life.”
“More than you?”
“Are you kidding?”
Gloria slid a cigarette from his pack. “Where do you live?”
“We have a little house, just a two-by-four really, in Sutton Place. And then a place in Greenwich.”
“Greenwich Village?”
“God don’t talk to me about Greenwich Village. Stinking slum. Greenwich Connecticut.”
“I never was there.”
“God.”
“Why do you say God all the time?”
“Because that’s the way I feel.”
Gloria considered a moment. “A farm?”
He permitted himself a small rueful laugh. “A farm. Christ I wish it were. That would be something useful, at least.” He took a drink. “No, it’s no farm, dear. It’s just a great God-damned moratorium of a place—mausoleum of a place, fronting the Sound. Private beach, stables, gardens. Hell, what’s the use. Let’s change the subject for Christ’s sake.”
“Are you that rich?”
“My wife is.”
“Oh.”
“What do you mean, oh?”
“Is that the trouble? She has the money?”
“You’re just being romantic now, Gloria dear. Money doesn’t necessarily mean trouble. She’s always had it. I’ve always had it too, for that matter. And there are lots worse things in the world than money, Gloria. Lots. Frigidity, for example.”
“What’s that?”
“Leave it lay. Don’t get me started. Hey, what are we talking about this for, anyway? I thought we were going to have fun?”
“I’m interested, that’s all.”
“Well, I’m not.”
“Pardon me, Mr. Birnam. I didn’t mean to intrude.”
He downed his drink and then started to pay, as if he were about to leave. “Before you get married”—he waved a finger at her—“be mighty sure, Gloria, that your wife isn’t frigid.” He heard himself, and laughed. “Hell, I was forgetting. You’ll be marrying a man anyway—I hope. And they’re never frigid.”
“What’s that word mean?”
“I will a round unvarnisht tale deliver—”
“But what does it mean?”
“Frigid? It’s one of nature’s little tricks of revenge, dear. One of woman’s tricks. It’s all terribly terribly nice and proper, and keeps the lady a lady. Oh, always a lady. And makes a bloody monkey out of the poor sap who happened to marry her—because he loved her. If monkey was the worst of it, the story would merely be comic.” He sighed. “As it is, I could a tale unfold whose lightest word— Well, never mind.”
“It’s a rotten shame.”
“What is.”
“That you’re not happily married. Teddy—I mean, your wife—ought to be ashamed of herself. A nice man like you—”
“Oh-h-h no-o-o!” he said, his voice shuddering humorously. “I’m not nice, Gloria. Not a bit of it. I’m no better than I should be, like the cat in th’ adage. But I could have been a nice guy, if—given a chance. If given half a chance.…”
“By who? Your family?”
“By my wife. My dear beautiful lovely frigid wife. Now look. Are you going to drink with me, or are we going to waste the whole afternoon with wild and whirling words.”
“I never know when you’re kidding and when you’re not, Mr. Birnam.”
He smiled quizzically. “Neither do I, Gloria. Neither do I. Now what about it. Drink?”
“Sure, I’ll have another. The usual, Sam,” she said, and turned back to Don. “I bet you been taking me for a terrible ride, though.”
“Really? That’s not kind. What makes you think so?”
“The way you kid all the time.”
“And if I kid at any mortal thing, ’tis that I may not weep.”
“You see? You are now.”
“I promise not to crack another crack. No, not even a smile.”
Plainly, she was interested in him. “I like you to laugh, but I want,” she said, “I want to believe what you say.”
“You don’t mind if I keep on drinking, do you?”
“You said you had two little boys.”
“My jewels.”
“Tell me about them.”
“Well, I have two little boys. They’re wild as Indians and smart as whips.”
“Funny, a minute ago you were all in the dumps.”
“I’m resilient, Gloria. Mercurial. Volatile.”
“What are their names?”
“Who.”
“Your little boys.”
“Oh. Malcolm and Donaldbain.”
“Funny name.”
“Donald?”
“Oh.”
“Bright as buttons.”
“How old are they?”
“Four and six. Just like that. That’s planning, dear, in spite of the frigidity. That’s one time I got my oar in. Or two times.”
“Are they dark like you?”
“Blond, both of them. Just like their blonde lovely frigid mother. A pity, isn’t it? Christ what I am standing here with an empty glass for? Sam what the hell are you doing? Here!”
“I wish you wouldn’t talk like that.”
“I want a drink!”
“Why is it a pity? Don’t you like them to look like their mother?”
“God I don’t care. I’m only too thankful they aren’t girls. Because if they were, and if I thought they were going to grow up and put some poor devil through hell, the way—” He broke off, unable to go on, and picked up the glass.
“Are you crazy about them?”
“Gloria, I love those two boys this side idolatry. Now if you don’t mind, I’d rather not talk any more about it.”
“I know. Okay.”
He stared at his face in the glass. “Gloria,” he said, without turning toward her, “I’ll tell you something.” He lowered his voice. “And this is something I’ve never confided to a living soul till now, Gloria.”
“Don’t say something you’ll be sorry for, Mr. Birnam. It don’t make any difference.”
“God, I won’t. Maybe I’m even glad to find release, get it off my chest. Gloria look. My wife is a lovely woman, and she’s a good woman, understand? A good woman. Do you know what that means? Do you know what a good woman is? They’re hell on wheels. They’re simply not for men. Not for a man like me they aren’t.”
“What’s there
about that? I mean, I don’t get it.”
“Wait a minute, let me finish. My wife, she’d— Yes, honestly. She’d rather have me be unfaithful to her, habitually—rather I’d sleep with one of the chambermaids even—than go to bed with her.” Gloria had colored, but he pretended not to notice. “She tries every trick known to woman to keep me out of her bed. Feigns headaches, reads, falls asleep the minute she hits the hay, has the curse practically every day in the month—” He stopped, aware that Gloria had turned from him and was staring down at her glass.
“You ought not to talk like that, Mr. Birnam,” she said, almost sadly. “It isn’t nice.”
“My dear girl.” He put his hand tenderly on her arm. “I’m sorry. Forgive me. Did I offend?” Suddenly he felt all affectionate and warm toward Gloria. “Look Gloria. Have a drink with me now to show that you forgive me.”
“There’s nothing to forgive,” she said quietly, “it’s all right.”
“Have a drink anyway. Sam!” He turned to her. “I forgot myself. I was forgetting you were only a child—that you didn’t understand the talk of a man.”
Amazing then, touching too, the way Gloria responded, the way she seemed to open up to him, under the warmth of his words. “You’re a terribly nice person, Mr. Birnam,” she said very soberly. “I want you to be nice.”
He could have wept, of course. It was one hell of a long while since anybody’d said anything remotely like that—to him. Gloria plainly meant it. The words were so simple there couldn’t be any thought of trying to fool him. He told her he was touched and grateful. Perhaps he could be a nice person, for Gloria. He had an inspiration and suddenly became very happy.
“Gloria listen. What time are you off tonight?”
“Why?”
“I was wondering if you’d do me a great favor and go out with me. Please say you will.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere.” He wouldn’t make the mistake of suggesting some place like the Coq Rouge or LaRue’s where Gloria would only be miserable. He’d let her pick the place and then play up to her idea of the evening. “You say where. Wherever you’d like to go.”
The Lost Weekend Page 9