One On The House

by Mary Lasswell

  “Don’t lose it!” Mrs. Feeley laughed without much spirit.

  “Where do we go from here?” Mrs. Rasmussen asked.

  “We go downstairs an’ see if the walkin’ is all took up,” Mrs. Feeley said. The streets below were small and dingy. The four walked slowly for several blocks searching for a highway or main thoroughfare of some kind. All the streets seemed alike, full of factories and storage warehouses.

  “No stores,” Mrs. Rasmussen said. “Better get us a coupla loaves day-old bread.”

  “This is obviously some kind of manufacturing district…all these dark work-lofts and packing plants.” Miss Tinkham put the straps of her small bag over her wrist to leave both arms free to carry the lamp.

  “Where’s the houses? Don’t nobody live here at all?” Mrs. Feeley said.

  “They must be in a different section,” Miss Tinkham said and led the way down another mean street. At the end of it she sighted a neon sign.

  “Look!” she cried in the tone Noah must have used when he spotted the dove.

  Mrs. Feeley glanced at the bar on the corner, then at Mrs. Rasmussen. “Reckon we can afford it?”

  “I feel like sittin’ down…an’ we gotta go somewhere!”

  “We must marshal our forces,” Miss Tinkham said. “It will do as a point of departure.”

  “How much we got? Can’t be much.” Mrs. Feeley looked hopefully at Mrs. Rasmussen.

  “Two thirty-two for the tickets; five cents for the phone last night makes two thirty-seven…from three eighty-seven, leaves a buck an’ a half, even.”

  The red leather and chrome stools of the bar gleamed invitation.

  Mrs. Feeley emptied the pockets of her seersucker suit. “Nothin” but Kleenex! When I come out they’re gonna be full o’ pretzels or potato chips.”

  Miss Tinkham pushed open the door and the four entered. The bar was deserted save for a bartender in a flossy white coat and horn-rimmed glasses. Miss Tinkham stood Aphrodite in a corner and then joined her friends at the bar. The bartender stared at them:

  “What’s your pleasure?”

  “Four beers,” Mrs. Feeley said warily; the shiny surroundings would come high.

  “Bottles only.”

  She looked at Mrs. Rasmussen. It was too late to back out now and the cool bar-smell had already taken effect.

  “Four,” Mrs. Feeley said. She noticed that there was not a pretzel anywhere in sight. The bartender brought up the four bottles and poured deftly.

  “How much?” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

  “One dollar.”

  Mrs. Rasmussen almost fell off the stool. Mrs. Feeley nudged her gently. This was no time to quibble.

  Miss Tinkham raised her glass to her friends in a “We who are about to die” salute. Mrs. Rasmussen got out the dollar reluctantly. “If a truck was to hit us an’ we still had that dollar, we’d never forgive ourselfs!” Mrs. Feeley consoled her. “It’s stronger than draught beer anyhow. Ain’t you got no pretzels or potato chips or nothin ‘to put this stuff down with?” she asked the bartender, who was examining his nails intently.

  “This is not an old-fashioned beer saloon with free lunch, madam.” The pay phone in the booth rang and he went over to answer it. Mrs. Feeley picked up a salt cellar and dropped it into her pocket.

  “C’mon! Let’s drink up an’ get outa here! This guy’s so close he’d make us pearl-dive for a week just to put a little re-cap on our beer.”

  Miss Tinkham finished her beer hurriedly. The mention of washing dishes horrified her. Worse yet the heartless barman might garnishee her statue.

  “We are getting exactly nowhere,” she said. “It is time we were on our way.” Strengthened by the beer, they set out to look for a main highway. The streets twisted and turned for several blocks, all dull and businesslike. At the end of the block there was a used-car lot, with no one in sight.

  “Let’s sit down on the runnin’-board o’ one o’ them cars for a while; these bags is gettin’ heavier by the minute.” Mrs. Feeley ran her fingers through her springy white curls. “Head’s sweatin’,” she said.

  Old-Timer tried the doors on a fairly modern sedan hoping for a softer seat. The doors were locked.

  “Don’t look good,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

  “Least Katy an’ Danny don’t know nothin’ about it…they think we’re in Chicago by now,” Mrs. Feeley said.

  “They must never find out,” Miss Tinkham said. “Thermopylae had her messenger of defeat! The Alamo had none!”

  “What was that Danny an’ the fellers was always sayin’ in the war, when things was pretty black? Snafu? Well, that’s what we are: snafu,” Mrs. Feeley said.

  Miss Tinkham nodded.

  “Situation normal, all fouled up. Danny explained it to me…but I think our situation could be more accurately described as what Danny called the superlative of snafu: fumtu! Meaning fouled up more than usual!”

  “Yeah. But what we gonna do?” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

  There was a long heavy silence. At last Mrs. Feeley said:

  “We gotta find a bar or a store or somethin’ that’s open an’ ask ’em for some cleanin’ or sweepin’ to do for our beer an’ supper…maybe a place to sleep. Otherwise we’ll have to hoof it back to the station an’ find the Traveler’s Aid….They won’t give us no beer.” The running-board of the car was beginning to feel like home and Mrs. Feeley hated to leave it. She looked the place over carefully.

  “If we can promote some beer, this wouldn’t be the worst place in the world to sleep tonight. Don’t want to lose track of how to get here.” They walked across the street and turned the corner by a low brick building. As they did so they came face to face with the dingy cobwebby windows of a small, sickly looking saloon. The sign over the door said: INFANTRY BAR.

  “That’s a hell of a name for a saloon.” Mrs. Feeley peered at the sign. “Infantry Bar! They don’t even allow no infants in bars.”

  “Looks shabby,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

  “We’ll try here,” Mrs. Feeley said. “When you need help, you gotta go to the poor.”

  “Then we sure come to the right place,” Mrs. Rasmussen whispered. Strips of flypaper hung from the ceiling. Not a soul was in sight: not even a bartender. The place was so still that the ticking of the clock sounded like a trip hammer. Four small round tables occupied the center of the floor and six small booths provided the rest of the accommodations. Two booths were under the large dusty front window. The remaining booths were shoved into corners.

  “Not very impressive, is it?” Miss Tinkham whispered. There was a door to the right of the bar. “That, I take it, would be the lavabo,” she said.

  “Naw, I’m pretty sure it’s the John,” Mrs. Feeley said.

  “Wonder where everybody is?” Mrs. Rasmussen said. She rose cautiously in her seat and peered through the open door in back of the bar. “Gas-plate in there on top of a piece oilcloth on a box,” she said. “I can see a canvas cot an’ they’s a calendar hangin’ on the wall…sure ain’t no millionaire’s mansion.” She took off her hat and fanned herself with it. Miss Tinkham copied her.

  “They got a radio.” Mrs. Feeley pointed to the one on the counter back of the bar that held the scanty array of wine bottles. “An’ a phone!” She spotted the pay phone on the wall. “Wonder where that door goes?” She pointed to one at the left of the bar.

  “Who’s that feller?” Mrs. Rasmussen pointed to a large picture of a man in the field uniform of a General. Miss Tinkham studied the General through her lorgnette:

  “If I am not mistaken, that is General Patton. Blood and Guts I believe he was called admiringly.”

  “By God, that’s what we need around here!” Mrs. Feeley raised her voice: “Bartender! How about a little blood and guts for the customers? Or are you just fresh out?” She pushed her way out of the booth and began to roam around the saloon. “Maybe he’s corkin’-off on the cot in there!” She started around the open end of the bar into the room behind. She relea
sed a shriek that would have given a Comanche Indian an inferiority complex. “Jesus, Joseph, and Mary!” she yelled jumping high in the air. “I damn near stepped on the corp! Him a-lyin’ here all this time! Gawd, let’s get outa here fast! If the jen-darmes see us, we won’t never get home!” She rushed around the bar and grabbed her bag.

  “Let’s get goin’!”

  “Somebody’s bound to o’ seen us come in,” Mrs. Rasmussen said. “Be worse if we was to run.” She walked around the bar to have a look. “Sure young, ain’t he?”

  “Handsome in a lean, hungry sort of way,” Miss Tinkham looked too. “You’re quite right: we’d only be taken as accessories after the fact.” Old-Timer came around the bar and very gently nudged the body with his toe. The young man moved slightly and began to moan.

  “He’s alive!” Miss Tinkham said. “We must notify the police and get the ambulance at once!”

  Mrs. Feeley took another look herself. “He’s alive, but not for long! Sure sick! He’s pea-green. We can’t go off an’ leave the poor booger!”

  Miss Tinkham went over to the telephone.

  “Oh dear!” she said in exasperation, “I haven’t a nickel.”

  “We only got the half-dollar,” Mrs. Rasmussen said. “Don’t see no cash register to change it.”

  “Reckon he hocked that long ago,” Mrs. Feeley said.

  “Then we’ll have to get the police!” Miss Tinkham took charge.

  “How the hell will you?” Mrs. Feeley demanded. “Ain’t a livin’ soul in sight for miles…let alone a cop! They’re all down to the Fifth Ward Democratic Club playin’ snooker, I’ll be bound. You could raise a thousand dollars quicker’n you could raise a flatfoot when you need one.”

  “Observe, Mrs. Feeley! Observe!” Miss Tinkham led the way out the door to the corner. Over her shoulder she remarked: “As you have so often said, ‘There are more ways of killing a cat than kissing it to death!” She tripped gaily to the telephone pole at the corner, inspired and animated at the prospect of action. With considerable skill she smashed the glass door on the fire-alarm box.

  “Hurry back inside,” she cried. “I have an idea.” They were scarcely inside the door when the wail of a fire siren was heard. “Quick!” she cried, running behind the bar holding her lorgnette up in front of her. “We simply must not lose our heads…it is imperative that we know the young man’s name.” She peered at the dim liquor license fastened to the mirror back of the bar with Scotch tape. “Assuming this recumbent person to be the owner, his name is Timothy Rafferty!”

  “One thing sure,” Mrs. Feeley rushed to the door as the firemen piled off the truck, “He ain’t no Greek!”

  “Where’s the fire?” the firemen dashed through the door. Everyone’s tongue was paralyzed.

  “It is an emergency! Not a fire!” Miss Tinkham said at last.

  “Oh yeah? Who smashed the glass?”

  “This is no time for Gestapo methods!” Miss Tinkham said haughtily. “This young man is dying and we demand that he be taken to the hospital at once.” She led the way behind the bar where Timothy Rafferty lay in something less than fighting trim.

  “Jeez! He don’t look good!”

  “That, my good man, is a masterpiece of understatement. Put him in your fire-wagon or call the ambulance at once!”

  “Easy does it, sister!” The fireman grinned. “Whyn’t you call the police ambulance instead o’ gettin’ us out in the heat o’ the day?”

  “Because we had no small change…and this is a pay telephone. We are taxpayers and entitled to service.” Two firemen placed Timothy on a stretcher while the first one called the ambulance. Mrs. Feeley and Mrs. Rasmussen had not unglued their lips…they gazed in awe at Miss Tinkham, as regal and aloof as an elevator starter.

  “I’ll start takin’ down the vital statistics.” The fireman opened a little black book. Miss Tinkham began to squirm. Just then the interne from the ambulance came in, flicked a glance at Timothy, and said:

  “Busted appendix. Gangrene.” The stretcher bearers started out the door with their load.

  “One of you relatives will have to sign him in,” he said.

  Mrs. Feeley started to open her mouth, then thought better of it.

  Mrs. Rasmussen handed Miss Tinkham the fifty-cent piece.

  “Miss Tinkham better go…she’s the one with the college.”

  “Take a bearin’,” Mrs. Feeley whispered, “so’s you can find your way back!” Miss Tinkham nodded grimly and looked wildly around her as the interne hustled her towards the door.

  “You’ll be here when I come back?”

  “Where else?” Mrs. Feeley shrugged.

  Chapter 10

  “WHAT DON’T HAPPEN IN TEN YEARS CAN HAPPEN IN ten seconds.” Mrs. Rasmussen’s legs folded up under her and she sat down on the nearest chair.

  “Don’t know how long we can bluff this through,” Mrs. Feeley said, “but it’s a roof over our heads for tonight. I’ll think for today an’ God’ll think for tomorrow! But it was Tinkham done the thinkin’…she sure can use that noggin.”

  “Reckon she’ll find her way back?” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

  “With that tongue in her head? She’s likely to be squired home with a police escort, sireens screamin’ an’ all! Let’s case the joint.”

  Mrs. Feeley rose and began a methodical analysis of the situation. She walked behind the bar and pulled one of the beer taps, not without first placing a glass under it. To her delight a golden fluid flowed out, topped by creamy foam.

  “I knew I hadn’t forgot how! Bring your glasses. I reckon this one’s on the house!” Old-Timer and Mrs. Rasmussen held out their glasses, goggle-eyed at the sight of Manna in the desert.

  “Nothin’ ever tasted better in my whole life,” Mrs. Feeley said. “Let’s get to work.” She walked into the back room and glanced at the tumbled canvas cot. An army uniform with multi-colored shoulder patches hung on a hook behind the door alongside of a cheap pair of gabardine pants and an inexpensive tweed jacket. “Poor booger’s Sunday best,” she sighed. “Ain’t nobody touchin’ the lad’s cot.” She folded up the blankets and then the cot. Mrs. Rasmussen went over and lit the gas-ring.

  “Good it ain’t shut off,” she said. She took a corn broom from behind the door and began to sweep the room.

  “S’pose he has relatives, or help comin’ in later on? What do we do then?”

  “Start worryin’ about that when the time comes,” Mrs. Feeley said. “Whatever happens, we gotta keep our mouths shut an’ let the other fellers do all the talkin’. We gotta hold the fort till Miss Tinkham gets back anyway.” She went back to the bar and began examining the taps.

  “This door must go to the basement…I’m goin’ down an’ look!” In a few moments she came back upstairs. “You know what? They ain’t hardly no beer left!”

  Mrs. Rasmussen took her broom and began on the barroom. “This kid is sure on short rations! There’s a reek o’ poverty around here you could cut with a knife. A kinda despairin’ smell…”

  “It’s cause he’s all by himself…betcha! Here!” Mrs. Feeley shoved a mop-stick at Old-Timer. “Get up on the tables an’ sweep down that goddam Irish crape! Pull down them flypapers while you’re at it!” Old-Timer spread a pink newspaper on the table and attacked the cobwebs. Mrs. Feeley continued her inspection.

  “Just beer an’ wine…not much of either! Guess he musta started up when he come back from the war. Wonder where he keeps the money? Don’t want none of it to be missin’ when he gets back…might think we took it.” On a shelf under the bar she found a cigar-box.

  “Here it is!” She looked inside and found two greasy one-dollar bills, three quarters, four dimes, six nickels, and two pennies. “Got a pencil?” she asked Mrs. Rasmussen.

  “Write this down: on hand, belongin’ to Timothy: three dollars an’ forty-seven cents. If we have a beer, we gotta charge it off against ourselfs. We’ll pay him back somehow. Gawd! I wish Miss Tinkham would come back.” She
looked at the clock. “Ain’t but four twenty. Seems like she’s been gone a year.” She went into the back room and came out with a cleaning cloth and a cake of yellow soap:

  “Won’t help none to have a sticky bar an’ tables. It’s the least we can do for him. Here!” She handed Old-Timer a bucket. “Fill this an’ heat it on the stove. These glasses ain’t nothin’ but clap-traps! Boil ’em!”

  Mrs. Rasmussen had finished the floor and began arranging the tables and chairs neatly and squarely.

  “Don’t just straight lines make a difference?” she said. The place did look different. Mrs. Feeley straightened up the meager row of bottles in front of the mirror. She pushed a box of toothpicks and a box of book matches out of sight. Mrs. Rasmussen opened the door of the toilet gingerly.

  “No more corps!” she grinned. “Look!” She pointed to two large brass cuspidors.

  “The gobboons!” Mrs. Feeley said. She grabbed them and set them in front of the bar. “Now the place begins to look kosher!”

  Mrs. Rasmussen attacked the lavatory with a brush she found standing in a tin of creosote.

  “Might’s well, long as we’ll be usin’ it ourselfs.”

  “Don’t know why we’re workin’ so hard,” Mrs. Feeley said. “It’s clear he ain’t had a customer since Custer’s last stand.”

  The words were scarcely uttered when the door banged open and two men in overalls and caps came in.

  “Something new has been added to,” one of the men said. “Don’t Timmy know they don’t allow no barmaids in Jersey? Not even lookers like you, Grandma!”

  Mrs. Feeley folded her arms and stared at the men.

  They may be right, she thought, but if I don’t take no pay for drawin’ the beer, ’twon’t hurt till we get the lay of the land.

  She continued to stare without moving.

  “Beer, Grandma, beer!” the man said.

  “That kinda simple-izes matters, don’t it?” she snapped. “’Specially since I ain’t unpacked my crystal ball yet.”

  “Wha, wha, wha! Say! You’re all right!”

  “Abuse won’t get you nothin’…pay for the beer.” The man grinned and paid down a quarter.