Collected Fiction

by Irwin Shaw

  Pinky came right over. “Now, Elias,” he said, “there is the small matter of one beer. If I’d knew you had the money …”

  Elias impatiently brushed Pinky’s hand off the bar. “There is somebody callin’ for a beer down there, Pinky,” he said. “Attend yer business.”

  “I think,” Pinky grumbled, retreating, “that a man oughta pay his rightful debts.”

  “He thinks. Pinky thinks,” Elias announced. But his heart was not with Pinky. He turned his back to the bar and leaned on his frayed elbows and looked sadly up at the tin ceiling. “Three dollars and fifty cents,” he said softly. “An’ I can’t buy a beer.”

  “Whatsamatta?” Palangio asked. “Yuh got a lock on yuh pocket?”

  “Two dollars an’ seventy-fi’ cents to the Company,” Elias said. “An’ seventy-fi’ cents to my lousy wife so she don’t make me sleep in the park. The lousy Company. Every day for a year I give ’em two dollars an’ seventy-fi’ cents an’ then I own the hack. After a year yuh might as well sell that crate to Japan to put in bombs. Th’ only way yuh can get it to move is t’ drop it. I signed a contract. I need a nurse. Who wants t’ buy me a beer?”

  “I signed th’ same contract,” Palangio said. A look of pain came over his dark face. “It got seven months more to go. Nobody shoulda learned me how to write my name.”

  “If you slobs would only join th’ union,” said a little Irishman across from the beer spigots.

  “Geary,” Elias said. “The Irish hero. Tell us how you fought th’ English in th’ battle of Belfast.”

  “O.K., O.K.,” Geary said, pushing his cap back excitably from his red hair. “You guys wanna push a hack sixteen hours a day for beans, don’ let me stop yuh.”

  “Join a union, get yer hair parted down the middle by the cops,” Elias said. “That is my experience.”

  “O.K., boys.” Geary pushed his beer a little to make it foam. “Property-owners. Can’t pay for a glass a beer at five o’clock in th’ afternoon. What’s the use a’ talkin’ t’ yuh? Lemme have a beer, Pinky.”

  “Geary, you’re a red,” Elias said. “A red bastidd.”

  “A Communist,” Palangio said.

  “I want a beer,” Geary said loudly.

  “Times’re bad,” Elias said. “That’s what’s th’ trouble.”

  “Sure.” Geary drained half his new glass. “Sure.”

  “Back in 1928,” Elias said, “I averaged sixty bucks a week.”

  “On New Year’s Eve, 1927,” Palangio murmured, “I made thirty-six dollars and forty cents.”

  “Money was flowin’,” Elias remembered.

  Palangio sighed, rubbing his beard bristles with the back of his hand. “I wore silk shirts. With stripes. They cost five bucks a piece. I had four girls in 1928. My God!”

  “This ain’t 1928,” Geary said.

  “Th’ smart guy,” Elias said. “He’s tellin’ us somethin’. This ain’t 1928, he says. Join th’ union, we get 1928 back.”

  “Why the hell should I waste my time?” Geary asked himself in disgust. He drank in silence.

  “Pinky!” Palangio called. “Pinky! Two beers for me and my friend Elias.”

  Elias moved, with a wide smile, up the bar, next to Palangio. “We are brothers in misery, Angelo,” he said. “Me and th’ Wop. We both signed th’ contract.”

  They drank together and sighed together.

  “I had th’ biggest pigeon flight in Brownsville,” Elias said softly. “One hundred and twelve pairs of pedigreed pigeons. I’d send ’em up like fireworks, every afternoon. You oughta’ve seen ’em wheelin’ aroun’ an’ aroun’ over th’ roofs. I’m a pigeon fancier.” He finished his glass. “I got fifteen pigeons left. Every time I bring home less than seventy-five cents, my wife cooks one for supper. A pedigreed pigeon. My lousy wife.”

  “Two beers,” Palangio said. He and Elias drank with grave satisfaction.

  “Now,” Elias said, “if only I didn’t have to go home to my lousy wife. I married her in 1929. A lot of things’ve changed since 1929.” He sighed. “What’s a woman?” he asked. “A woman is a trap.”

  “You shoulda seen what I seen today,” Palangio said. “My third fare. On Eastern Parkway. I watched her walk all th’ way acrost Nostrand Avenue, while I was waitin’ on the light. A hundred-and-thirty-pound girl. Blonde. Swingin’ her hips like orchester music. With one of those little straw hats on top of her head, with the vegetables on it. You never saw nothin’ like it. I held onto the wheel like I was drownin’. Talkin’ about traps! She went to the St. George Hotel.”

  Elias shook his head. “The tragedy of my life,” he said, “is I was married young.”

  “Two beers,” Palangio said.

  “Angelo Palangio,” Elias said, “yer name reminds me of music.”

  “A guy met her in front of the St. George. A big fat guy. Smilin’ like he just seen Santa Claus. A big fat guy. Some guys …”

  “Some guys …” Elias mourned. “I gotta go home to Annie. She yells at me from six to twelve, regular. Who’s goin’ to pay the grocer? Who’s goin’ to pay the gas company?” He looked steadily at his beer for a moment and downed it. “I’m a man who married at the age a’ eighteen.”

  “We need somethin’ to drink,” Palangio said.

  “Buy us two whiskies,” Elias said. “What the hell good is beer?”

  “Two Calverts,” Palangio called. “The best for me and my friend Elias Pinsker.”

  “Two gentlemen,” Elias said, “who both signed th’ contract.”

  “Two dumb slobs,” said Geary.

  “Th’ union man,” Elias lifted his glass. “To th’ union!” He downed the whisky straight. “Th’ hero of th’ Irish Army.”

  “Pinky,” Palangio shouted. “Fill ’em up to the top.”

  “Angelo Palangio,” Elias murmured gratefully.

  Palangio soberly counted the money out for the drinks. “Now,” he said, “the Company can jump in Flushing Bay. I am down to two bucks even.”

  “Nice,” Geary said sarcastically. “Smart. You don’t pay ’em one day, they take yer cab. After payin’ them regular for five months. Buy another drink.”

  Palangio slowly picked up his glass and let the whisky slide down his throat in a smooth amber stream. “Don’t talk like that, Geary,” he said. “I don’t want to hear nothin’ about taxicabs. I am busy drinkin’ with friends.”

  “You dumb Wop,” Geary said.

  “That is no way to talk,” Elias said, going over to Geary purposefully. He cocked his right hand and squinted at Geary. Geary backed off, his hands up. “I don’t like to hear people call my friend a dumb Wop,” Elias said.

  “Get back,” Geary shouted, “before I brain yuh.”

  Pinky ran up excitably. “Lissen, boys,” he screamed, “do you want I should lose my license?”

  “We are all friends,” Palangio said. “Shake hands. Everybody shake hands. Everybody have a drink. I hereby treat everybody to a drink.”

  Elias lumbered back to Palangio’s side. “I am sorry if I made a commotion. Some people can’t talk like gentlemen.”

  “Everybody have a drink,” Palangio insisted.

  Elias took out three dollar bills and laid them deliberately on the bar. “Pass the bottle around. This is on Elias Pinsker.”

  “Put yer money away, Elias.” Geary pushed his cap around on his head with anger. “Who yuh think yuh are? Walter Chrysler?”

  “The entertainment this afternoon is on me,” Elias said inexorably. “There was a time I would stand drinks for twenty-five men. With a laugh, an’ pass cigars out after it. Pass the bottle around, Pinky!”

  The whisky flowed.

  “Elias and me,” Palangio said. “We are high class spenders.”

  “You guys oughta be fed by hand,” Geary said. “Wards of the guvment.”

  “A man is entitled to some relaxation,” Elias said. “Where’s that bottle?”

  “This is nice,” Palangio said. “This is very nice.
”

  “This is like the good old days,” Elias said.

  “I hate to go home.” Palangio sighed. “I ain’t even got a radio home.”

  “Pinky!” Elias called. “Turn on the radio for Angelo Palangio.”

  “One room,” Palangio said. “As big as a toilet. That is where I live.”

  The radio played. It was soft and sweet and a rich male voice sang “I Married an Angel.”

  “When I get home,” Elias remembered, “Annie will kill a pedigreed pigeon for supper. My lousy wife. An’ after supper I push the hack five more hours and I go home and Annie yells some more and I get up tomorrow and push the hack some more.” He poured himself another drink. “That is a life for a dog,” he said. “For a Airedale.”

  “In Italy,” Palangio said, “they got donkeys don’t work as hard as us.”

  “If the donkeys were as bad off as you,” Geary yelled, “they’d have sense enough to organize.”

  “I want to be a executive at a desk.” Elias leaned both elbows on the bar and held his chin in his huge gnarled hands. “A long distance away from Brownsville. Wit’ two thousand pigeons. In California. An’ I should be a bachelor. Geary, can yuh organize that? Hey, Geary?”

  “You’re a workin’ man,” Geary said, “an’ you’re goin’ to be a workin’ man all yer life.”

  “Geary,” Elias said. “You red bastidd, Geary.”

  “All my life,” Palangio wept, “I am goin’ to push a hack up an’ down Brooklyn, fifteen, sixteen hours a day an’ pay th’ Company forever an’ go home and sleep in a room no bigger’n a toilet. Without a radio. Jesus!”

  “We are victims of circumstance,” Elias said.

  “All my life,” Palangio cried, “tied to that crate!”

  Elias pounded the bar once with his fist. “Th’ hell with it! Palangio!” he said. “Get into that goddamn wagon of yours.”

  “What do yuh want me to do?” Palangio asked in wonder.

  “We’ll fix ’em,” Elias shouted. “We’ll fix those hacks. We’ll fix that Company! Get into yer cab, Angelo. I’ll drive mine, we’ll have a chicken fight.”

  “You drunken slobs!” Geary yelled. “Yuh can’t do that!”

  “Yeah,” Palangio said eagerly, thinking it over. “Yeah. We’ll show ’em. Two dollars and seventy-fi’ cents a day for life. Yeah. We’ll fix ’em. Come on, Elias!”

  Elias and Palangio walked gravely out to their cars. Everybody else followed them.

  “Look what they’re doin’!” Geary screamed. “Not a brain between the both of them! What good’ll it do to ruin the cabs?”

  “Shut up,” Elias said, getting into his cab. “We oughta done this five months ago. Hey, Angelo,” he called, leaning out of his cab. “Are yuh ready? Hey, Il Doochay!”

  “Contact!” Angelo shouted, starting his motor. “Boom! Boom!”

  The two cars spurted at each other, in second, head-on. As they hit, glass broke and a fender flew off and the cars skidded wildly and the metal noise echoed and re-echoed like artillery fire off the buildings.

  Elias stuck his head out of his cab. “Are yuh hurt?” he called. “Hey, Il Doochay!”

  “Contact!” Palangio called from behind his broken windshield. “The Dawn Patrol!”

  “I can’t watch this,” Geary moaned. “Two workin’ men.” He went back into Lammanawitz’s Bar and Grill.

  The two cabs slammed together again and people came running from all directions.

  “How’re yuh?” Elias asked, wiping the blood off his face.

  “Onward!” Palangio stuck his hand out in salute. “Sons of Italy!”

  Again and again the cabs tore into each other.

  “Knights of the Round Table,” Palangio announced.

  “Knights of Lammanawitz’s Round Table,” Elias agreed, pulling at the choke to get the wheezing motor to turn over once more.

  For the last time they came together. Both cars flew off the ground at the impact and Elias’s toppled on its side and slid with a harsh grating noise to the curb. One of the front wheels from Palangio’s cab rolled calmly and decisively toward Pitkin Avenue. Elias crawled out of his cab before anyone could reach him. He stood up, swaying, covered with blood, pulling at loose ends of his torn sweater. He shook hands soberly with Palangio and looked around him with satisfaction at the torn fenders and broken glass and scattered headlights and twisted steel. “Th’ lousy Company,” he said. “That does it. I am now goin’ to inform ’em of th’ accident.”

  He and Palangio entered the Bar and Grill, followed by a hundred men, women, and children. Elias dialed the number deliberately.

  “Hullo,” he said, “hullo, Charlie? Lissen, Charlie, if yuh send a wreckin’ car down to Lammanawitz’s Bar and Grill, yuh will find two of yer automobiles. Yuh lousy Charlie.” He hung up carefully.

  “All right, Palangio,” he said.

  “Yuh bet,” Palangio answered.

  “Now we oughta go to the movies,” Elias said.

  “That’s right,” Palangio nodded seriously.

  “Yuh oughta be shot,” Geary shouted.

  “They’re playin’ Simone Simon,” Elias announced to the crowd. “Let’s go see Simone Simon.”

  Walking steadily, arm in arm, like two gentlemen, Elias and Angelo Palangio went down the street, through the lengthening shadows, toward Simone Simon.

  Main Currents of

  American Thought

  Flacker: all right now, Kid, now you’d better talk,” Andrew dictated. “Business: Sound of the door closing, the slow turning of the key in the lock. Buddy: You’re never going to get me to talk, Flacker. Business: Sound of a slap. Flacker: Maybe that’ll make you think different, Kid. Where is Jerry Carmichael? Buddy: (Laughing) Wouldn’t you like to know, Flacker? Flacker: Yeah. (Slowly, with great threat in his voice) And I’m going to find out. One way or another. See? Business: Siren fades in, louder, fades out. Announcer: Will Buddy talk? Will Flacker force him to disclose the whereabouts of the rescued son of the railroad king? Will Dusty Blades reach him in time? Tune in Monday at the same time, etcetera, etcetera …”

  Andrew dropped onto the couch and put his feet up. He stretched and sighed as he watched Lenore finish scratching his dictation down in the shorthand notebook. “Thirty bucks,” he said. “There’s another thirty bucks. Is it the right length?”

  “Uhuh,” Lenore said. “Eleven and a half pages. This is a very good one, Andy.”

  “Yeah,” Andrew said, closing his eyes. “Put it next to Moby Dick on your library shelf.”

  “It’s very exciting,” Lenore said, standing up. “I don’t know what they’re complaining about.”

  “You’re a lovely girl.” Andrew put his hands over his eyes and rubbed around and around. “I have wooden hinges on my eyelids. Do you sleep at night?”

  “Don’t do that to your eyes.” Lenore started to put on her coat. “You only aggravate them.”

  “You’re right.” Andrew dug his fists into his eyes and rotated them slowly. “You don’t know how right you are.”

  “Tomorrow. At ten o’clock?” Lenore asked.

  “At ten o’clock. Dig me out of the arms of sleep. We shall leave Dusty Blades to his fate for this week and go on with the further adventures of Ronnie Cook and His Friends, forty dollars a script. I always enjoy writing Ronnie Cook much better than Dusty Blades. See what ten dollars does to a man.” He opened his eyes and watched Lenore putting her hat on in front of the mirror. When he squinted, she was not so plain-looking. He felt very sorry for Lenore, plain as sand, with her flat-colored face and her hair pulled down like rope, and never a man to her name. She was putting on a red hat with a kind of ladder arrangement going up one side. It looked very funny and sad on her. Andrew realized that it was a new hat. “That’s a mighty fine hat,” he said.

  “I thought a long time before I bought this hat,” Lenore said, flushing because he’d noticed it.

  “Har-riet!” The governess next door screamed in the alley to th
e next-door neighbor’s little girl. “Harriet, get away from there this minute!”

  Andrew turned over on his stomach on the couch and put a pillow over his head. “Have you got any ideas for Ronnie Cook and His Friends for tomorrow?” he asked Lenore.

  “No. Have you?”

  “No.” He pulled the pillow tight around his head.

  “You’ll get them by tomorrow,” Lenore said. “You always do.”

  “Yeah,” said Andrew.

  “You need a vacation,” Lenore said.

  “Get out of here.”

  “Good-bye,” Lenore started out. “Get a good night’s sleep.”

  “Anything you say.”

  Andrew watched her with one eye as she went off the porch on which he worked and through the living room and dining room, toward the stairs. She had nice legs. You were always surprised when a girl with a face like that had nice legs. But she had hair on her legs. She was not a lucky girl. “Oh, no,” Andrew said as the door closed behind her, “you are not a lucky girl.”

  He closed his eyes and tried to sleep. The sun came in through the open windows and the curtains blew softly over his head and the sun was warm and comforting on his closed eyes. Across the street, on the public athletic field, four boys were shagging flies. There would be the neat pleasant crack of the bat and a long time later the smack of the ball in the fielder’s glove. The tall trees outside, as old as Brooklyn, rustled a little from time to time as little spurts of wind swept across the baseball field.

  “Harriet!” the governess called. “Stop that or I will make you stand by yourself in the corner all afternoon! Harriet! I demand you to stop it!” The governess was French. She had the only unpleasant French accent Andrew had ever heard.

  The little girl started to cry, “Mamma! Mamma! Mamma, she’s going to hit me!” The little girl hated the governess and the governess hated the little girl, and they continually reported each other to the little girl’s mother. “Mamma!”

  “You are a little liar,” the governess screamed. “You will grow up, and you will be a liar all your life. There will be no hope for you.”

  “Mamma!” wailed the little girl.