Charlotte. [She’s up-stairs, remember.] Jerry, wind up the graphophone.
There’s no answer.
Jer-ry!
Still no answer.
Jerry, wind up the graphophone. It isn’t good for it.
Yet again no answer.
All right — [smugly] — if you want to ruin it, I don’t care.
The phonograph whines, groans, gags, and dies, and almost simultaneously with its last feeble gesture a man comes into the room, saying: “What?” He receives no answer. It is Jerry Frost, in whose home we are.
Jerry Frost is thirty-five. He is a clerk for the rail-road at $3,000 a year. He possesses no eyebrows, but nevertheless he constantly tries to knit them. His lips are faintly pursed at all times, as though about to emit an enormous opinion upon some matter of great importance.
On the wall there is a photograph of him at twenty-seven — just before he married. Those were the days of his high yellow pompadour. That is gone now, faded like the rest of him into a docile pattern without grace or humor.
After his mysterious and unanswered “What?” Jerry stares at the carpet, surely not in (Esthetic approval, and becomes engrossed in his lack of thoughts. Suddenly he gives a twitch and tries to reach with his hand some delicious sector of his back. He can almost reach it, but not quite — poor man! — so he goes to the mantelpiece and rubs his back gently, pleasingly, against it, meanwhile keeping his glance focussed darkly upon the carpet.
He is finished. He is at physical ease again. He leans over the table — did I say there was a table? — and turns the pages of a magazine, yawning meanwhile and tentatively beginning a slow clog step with his feet. Presently this distracts him from the magazine, and he looks apathetically at his feet. Then suddenly he sits in a chair and begins to sing, unmusically, and with faint interest, a piece which is possibly his own composition. The tune varies considerably, but the words have an indisputable consistency, as they are composed wholly of the phrase: “Everybody is there, everybody is there!”
He is a motion-picture of tremendous, unconscious boredom.
Suddenly he gives out a harsh, bark-like sound and raises his hand swiftly, as though he were addressing an audience. This fails to amuse him; the arm falters, strays lower — —
Jerry. Char-lit! Have you got the Saturday Evening Post?
There is no reply.
Char-lit!
Still no reply.
Char-lit!
Charlotte[with syrupy recrimination]. You didn’t bother to answer me, so I don’t think I should bother to answer you.
Jerry [indignant, incredulous]. Answer you what?
Charlotte. You know what I mean.
Jerry. I mos’ certainly do not.
Charlotte. I asked you to wind up the graphophone.
Jerry [glancing at it indignantly]. The phonograph?
Charlotte. Yes, the graphophone!
Jerry. It’s the first time I knew it. [He is utterly disgusted. He starts to speak several times, but each time he hesitates. Disgust settles upon his face, in a heavy pall. Then he remembers his original question.] Have you got the Saturday Evening Post?
Charlotte. Yes, I told you!
Jerry. You did not tell me!
Charlotte. I can’t help it if you’re deaf!
Jerry. Deaf? Who’s deaf? [After a pause.] No more deaf than you are. [After another pause.] Not half as much.
Charlotte. Don’t talk so loud — you’ll wake the people next door.
Jerry [incredulously]. The people next door!
Charlotte. You heard me!
Jerry is beaten, and taking it very badly. He is beginning to brood when the telephone rings. He answers it.
Jerry. Hello!… [With recognition and rising interest.] Oh, hello… . Did you get the stuff… Just one gallon is all I want… No, I can’t use more than one gallon… [He looks around thoughtfully.] Yes, I suppose so, but I’d rather have you mix it before you bring it… . Well, about nine o’clock, then. [He rings off, gleeful now, smiling. Then sudden worry, and the hairless eyebrows knit together. He takes a note-book out of his pocket, lays it open before him, and picks up the receiver.] Midway 9191… Yes… Hello, is this Mr. — Mr. S-n-o-o-k-s’s residence?… Hello, is this Mr. S-n-o-o-k-s’s residence?… [Very distinctly.] Mr. Snukes or Snooks… . Mr. S-n-, the boo — the fella that gets stuff, hooch… h-o-o-c-h… No, Snukes or Snooks is the man I want… Oh. Why, a fella down-town gave me your husband’s name and he called me up — at least, I called him up first, and then he called me up just now — see?… You see? Hello — is this — am I talking to the wife of the — of the — of the fella that gets stuff for you? The b-o-o-t-l-e-g-g-e-r? Oh, you know, the bootlegger. [He breathes hard after this word. Do you suppose Central will tell on him?]… Oh. Well, you see, I wanted to tell him when he comes to-night to come to the back door… No, Hooch is not my name. My name is Frost. 2127 Osceola Avenue… Oh, he’s left already? Oh, all right. Thanks… . Well, good-by… Well, good-by… good-by. [He rings off. Again his hairless brows are knit with worry.] Char-lit!
Charlotte[abstractedly]. Yes?
Jerry. Charlit, if you want to read a good story, read the one about the fella who gets shipwrecked on the BuzzardIslands and meets the Chinese girl, only she isn’t a Chinese girl at all.
Charlotte[she’s still upstairs, remember]. What?
Jerry. There’s one story in there — are you reading the Saturday Evening Post?
Charlotte. I would be if you didn’t interrupt me every minute.
Jerry. I’m not. I just wanted to tell you there’s one story in there about a Chinese girl who gets wrecked on the Buzzard Islands that isn’t a Chinese — —
Charlotte. Oh, let up, for heaven’s sakes! Don’t nag me.
Clin-n-ng! That’s the door-bell.
There’s the door-bell.
Jerry [with fine sarcasm]. Oh, really? Why, I thought it was a cow-bell.
Charlotte[witheringly]. Ha-ha!
Well, he’s gone to the door. He opens it, mumbles something, closes it. Now he’s back.
Jerry. It wasn’t anybody.
Charlotte. It must have been.
Jerry. What?
Charlotte. It couldn’t have rung itself.
Jerry [in disgust]. Oh, gosh, you think that’s funny. [After a pause.] It was a man who wanted 2145. I told him this was 2127, so he went away.
Charlotte is now audibly descending a crickety flight of stairs, and here she is! She’s thirty, and old for her age, just like I told you, shapeless, slack-cheeked, but still defiant. She would fiercely resent the statement that her attractions have declined ninety per cent since her marriage, and in the same breath she would assume that there was a responsibility and shoulder it on her husband. She talks in a pessimistic whine and, with a sort of dowdy egotism, considers herself generally in the right. Frankly, I don’t like her, though she can’t help being what she is.
Charlotte. I thought you were going to the Republican Convention down at the Auditorium.
Jerry. Well, I am. [But he remembers the b-o-o — .] No, I can’t.
Charlotte. Well, then, for heaven’s sakes don’t spend the evening sitting here and nagging me. I’m nervous enough as it is.
They both sit. She produces a basket of sewing, selects a man’s nightshirt and begins, apparently, to rip it to pieces. Meanwhile Jerry, who has picked up a magazine, regards her out of the corner of his eye. During the first rip he starts to speak, and again during the second rip, but each time he restrains himself with a perceptible effort.
Jerry. What are you tearing that up for?
Charlotte[sarcastically]. Just for fun.
Jerry. Why don’t you tear up one of your own?
Charlotte[exasperated]. Oh, I know what I’m do-ing. For heaven’s sakes, don’t n-a-a-ag me!
Jerry [feebly]. Well, I just asked you. [A long pause.] Well, I got analyzed to-day.
Charlotte. What?
Jerry. I got analyzed.
&nb
sp; Charlotte. What’s that?
Jerry. I got analyzed by an expert analyzer. Everybody down at the Railroad Company got analyzed. [Rather importantly.] They got a chart about me that long. [He expresses two feet with his hands.] Say — [He rises suddenly and goes up close to her.] What color my eyes?
Charlotte. Don’t ask me. Sort of brown, I guess.
Jerry. Brown? That’s what I told ‘em. But they got me down for blue.
Charlotte. What was it all about? Did they pay you anything for it?
Jerry. Pay me anything? Of course not. It was for my benefit. It’ll do me a lot of good. I was analyzed, can’t you understand? They found out a lot of stuff about me.
Charlotte[dropping her work in horror]. Do you think you’ll lose your job?
Jerry [in disgust]. A lot you know about business methods. Don’t you ever read “Efficiency” or the “Systematic Weekly”? It’s a sort of examination.
Charlotte. Oh, I know. When they feel all the bumps on your head.
Jerry. No, not like that at all. They ask you questions, see? Charlotte. Well, you needn’t be so cross about it
He hasn’t been cross.
I hope you had the spunk to tell them you thought you deserved a better position than you’ve got.
Jerry. They didn’t ask me things like that. It was up-stairs in one of the private offices. First the character analyzer looked at me sort of hard and said “Sit down!”
Charlotte. Did you sit down?
Jerry. Sure; the thing is to do what they tell you. Well, then the character analyzer asked me my name and whether I was married.
Charlotte[suspiciously]. What did you tell her?
Jerry. Oh, it was a man. I told him yes, of course. What do you think I am?
Charlotte. Well, did he ask you anything else about me?
Jerry. No. He asked me what it was my ambition to be, and I said I didn’t have any ambition left, and then I said, “Do you mean when I was a kid?” And he said, “All right, what did you want to do then?” And I said “Postman,” and he said, “What sort of a job would you like to get now?” and I said, “Well, what have you got to offer?”
Charlotte. Did he offer you a job?
Jerry. No, he was just kidding, I guess. Well, then, he asked me if I’d ever done any studying at home to fit me for a higher position, and I said, “Sure,” and he said, “What?” and I couldn’t think of anything off-hand, so I told him I took music lessons. He said no, he meant about railroads, and I said they worked me so hard that when I got home at night I never want to hear about railroads again.
Charlotte. Was that all?
Jerry. Oh, there were some more questions. He asked me if I’d ever been in jail.
Charlotte. What did you tell him?
Jerry. I told him “no,” of course.
Charlotte. He probably didn’t believe you.
Jerry. Well, he asked me a few more things, and then he let me go. I think I got away with it all right. At least he didn’t give me any black marks on my chart — just a lot of little circles.
Charlotte. Oh, you got away with it “all right.” That’s all you care. You got away with it. Satisfied with nothing. Why didn’t you talk right up to him: “See here, I don’t see why I shouldn’t get more money.” That’s what you’d have ought to said. He’d of respected you more in the end.
Jerry [gloomily]. I did have ambitions once.
Charlotte. Ambition to do what? To be a postman. That was a fine ambition for a fella twenty-two years old. And you’d have been one if I’d let you. The only other ambition you ever had was to marry me. And that didn’t last long.
Jerry. I know it didn’t. It lasted one month too long, though.
A mutual glare here — let’s not look.
And I’ve had other ambitions since then — don’t you worry.
Charlotte[scornfully]. What?
Jerry. Oh, that’s all right.
Charlotte. What, though? I’d like to know what. To win five dollars playing dice in a cigar store?
Jerry. Never you mind. Don’t you worry. Don’t you fret. It’s all right, see?
Charlotte. You’re afraid to tell me.
Jerry. No, I’m not. Don’t you worry.
Charlotte. Yes, you are.
Jerry. All right then. If you want to know, I had an ambition to be President of the United States.
Charlotte[laughing]. Ho — ho — ho — ho!
Jerry is pretending to be interested only in sucking Ms teeth — but you can see that he is both sorry he made his admission and increasingly aware that his wife is being unpleasant.
Charlotte. But you decided to give that up, eh?
Jerry. Sure. I gave up everything when I got married.
Charlotte. Even gave up being a postman, eh? That’s right. Blame it all on me! Why, if it hadn’t been for me you wouldn’t even be what you are — a fifty-dollar-a-week clerk.
Jerry. That’s right. I’m only a fifty-dollar-a-week clerk. But you’re only a thirty-dollar-a-week wife.
Charlotte. Oh, I am, am I?
Jerry. I made a big mistake when I married you.
Charlotte. Stop talking like that! I wish you were dead-dead and buried — cremated! Then I could have some fun.
Jerry. Where — in the poorhouse?
Charlotte. That’s where I’d be, I know.
Charlotte is not really very angry. She is merely smug and self-satisfied, you see, and is only mildly annoyed at this unexpected resistance to her browbeating. She knows that Jerry will always stay and slave for her. She has begun this row as a sort of vaudeville to assuage her nightly boredom.
Charlotte. Why didn’t you think of these things before we got married?
Jerry. I did, a couple of times, but you had me all signed up then.
The sound of uncertain steps creaking down the second floor. Into the room at a wavering gait comes Jerry’s father, Horatio — “Dada.”
Dada was born in 1834, and will never see eighty-eight again — in fact, his gathering blindness prevented him from seeing it very clearly in the first place. Originally he was probably Jerry’s superior in initiative, but he did not prosper, and during the past twenty years his mind has been steadily failing. A Civil War pension has kept him quasi-independent, and he looks down as from a great dim height upon Jerry (whom he thinks of as an adolescent) and Charlotte (whom he rather dislikes). Never given to reading in his youth, he has lately become absorbed in the Old Testament and in all Old Testament literature, over which he burrows every day in the Public Library.
In person he is a small, shrivelled man with a great amount of hair on his face, which gives him an unmistakable resemblance to a French poodle. The fact that he is almost blind and even more nearly deaf contributes to his aloof, judicial pose, and to the prevailing impression that something grave and thoughtful and important is going on back of those faded, vacant eyes. This conception is entirely erroneous. Half the time his mind is a vacuum, in which confused clots of information and misinformation drift and stir — the rest of the time he broods upon the minute details of his daily existence. He is too old, even, for the petty spites which represent to the aged the single gesture of vitality they can make against the ever-increasing pressure of life and youth.
When he enters the room he looks neither to left nor right, but with his head shaking faintly and his mouth moving in a shorter vibration, makes directly for the bookcase.
Jerry. Hello, Dada.
Dada does not hear.
Jerry [louder]. Looking for the Bible, Dada?
Dada. [He has reached the bookcase, and he turns around stiffly.] I’m not deaf, sir.
Jerry. [Let’s draw the old man out.] Who do you think will be nominated for President, Dada?
Dada [trying to pretend he has just missed one word]. The — —
jerry [louder]. Who do you think’ll be nominated for President, to-night?
Dada. I should say that Lincoln was our greatest President. [He turns back to the b
ookcase with an air of having settled a trivial question for all time.]
Jerry. I mean to-night. They’re getting a new one. Don’t you read the papers?
Dada [who has heard only a faint murmur]. Hm.
Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald UK (Illustrated) Page 378