“What’s in the bowls?”
“Soup.”
“Operating without a victualing license. Heavy fine for that. We can close the place on you.”
“An” what exac’ly in your jargon is a vitchelin’ license?” Mrs. Feeley leaned on the bar calmly as though she expected to devote all day to the discussion.
“A license to sell food in a public place. That’s first class. Second-class license for boarding-houses. Rafferty’s got nothing but a beer and wine permit. No dispensing of spirits, no food…and no entertainment!”
“Now wouldn’t that make one goddam fine tavern?” Mrs. Feeley glared at him. “Do you need a license to play the radio?”
The chubby man backed away on his splayed feet like a purposeful duck. When he reached a safe distance he said:
“The principal infringement is selling food without a license. I’ll have to turn you in,” his voice was full of relish.
“Sellin’ food?” Mrs. Feeley reached under the bar and brought out the bung starter, her habitual gavel, and banged stoutly with it.
“Whitey, come over here a minute!” Attracted by the tone of her voice, Mrs. Rasmussen and Miss Tinkham formed a flying-wedge in back of her ready for concerted action.
“Did you or anybody else ever buy so much as a nickel’s worth o’ food in this saloon?”
“You never sold any. Wouldn’t take one red cent for any of it.”
“Thanks. That oughta hold Big Dealer, here. He oughta be satisfied with your word.”
“Then you must have raised the price of beer,” the politician said.
“Same price.”
“It’s against the Union to lower the price. The sign in the window says beer is five cents.”
“That, Knucklehead, is a gag…what you had oughta have on the front o’ your face! ‘Tomorrow,’ the sign says, like the one you see over bars, ‘Tomorrow we give credit!’ If you’re through with your third degree, I’ll thank you to get the hell outa here before somebody steps on you an’ dirties the floor.”
“Now, lady…don’t get me wrong! No reason why you and me can’t be friends.” Mr. McGoon’s smile showed gleaming, gold-capped bicuspids. “I’m just protecting the voters. Just protecting the voters.”
“No reason at all! Only the same one that keeps me from bein’ friends with a pole-cat!” Mrs. Feeley motioned to the door. “Put a nickel in it…an’ get goin’!”
Mr. McGoon was washed out the door on a wave of laughter from the customers.
“This is the most business he’s ever seen in here,” Whitey said. “It sure burns him. He shakes down everybody in the district for at least a couple of bucks a week. They’re all scared of him.”
“I ain’t afraid o’ nothin’ but God!” Mrs. Feeley banged her fist on the bar. “The crust o’ that cheap tin-horn comin’ in here an’ threatenin’ us! He wants the place for hisself!”
“He’s got the patronage sewed up around here. You can’t get a traffic ticket fixed if he sees you in Timmy’s place. Been divertin’ the trade to them other joints to squeeze Timmy out.” Smiley spoke as though he had experienced Mr. McGoon’s methods.
“He can’t take away Timmy’s beer license, can he?” Mrs. Feeley said.
Whitey shook his head. “That’s up to the Liquor Commission. He can just be nasty an’ make things tough for Timmy.”
“He must want it pretty bad,” Mrs. Feeley said. “Musta killed him to see you fellers spendin’! Have some more soup!”
Chapter 15
AT EIGHT O’CLOCK SHARP MRS. FEELEY, DRESSED in her good black voile and white shoes, locked the door of the ex-Infantry Bar.
“Reckon this’ll be swell enough that I’d oughta wear my teeth? Mr. Feeley always wore his sock-garters for a special shin-dig.”
“Just a family affair,” Miss Tinkham said. She wore a pink lace dress with puff sleeves. On her head she wore a turban made of three sections of jersey; one orange, one green one brown. The sections were shirred and drawn up into a mass resembling a doughnut on the top of her head. Through the doughnut she had thrust four long brown plastic pins such as Japanese ladies wear in their hair. She also wore her lorgnette on the fancy chain. She had been too busy to wear it lately.
“Turbans pack so well…and give an exotic touch!”
“You look real pretty,” Mrs. Rasmussen said. Her own taste ran a little to the plain side. No one could have guessed that her blue jersey shirtmaker had been innocent of contact with a hot iron for nearly a week.
“Mr. Miller will be real proud of us,” Mrs. Feeley said. “Where’s Ol’-Timer? I thought he was waitin’ for us out front?”
“He didn’t change his clothes,” Mrs. Rasmussen said. “I guess he’s over in the lot tinkerin’ on some ol’ wreck.”
“Hold tight to that bag,” Mrs. Feeley said. “It’s got over seventy-two dollars in it.”
Sammele lived in an old-fashioned walk-up apartment house a ten-cent bus ride away from the saloon. Mrs. Rasmussen and Miss Tinkham looked in vain for the name Miller on the mailboxes in the vestibule. The front door was off the latch so they went in anyway. The noise and smells of food coming from the second-floor rear seemed to indicate revelry by night. Mrs. Rasmussen knocked on the door. Sammele opened the door himself. His face was barely visible behind a cigar like the leg of a chair.
“Mrs. Freelig! Mrs. Rasmussen…come in. Miss Tinkle! Come in! Sadie! The ladies is here!”
Sadie was short and fat. Her hair was a kinky pink and she wore extremely thick bifocals which caused her to peer up at people from under her bangs like a poodle begging for sugar.
“I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.” She stuck out a work-worn, gaudily manicured hand.
“Likewise,” Mrs. Rasmussen replied.
“This is a most hospitable gesture, Mrs. Miller!” Miss Tinkham held her hand high and well arched in the approved Newport dowager grip.
“Gutstein,” Sadie said.
“Where is my son, Mama? Where is my son?” Sammele shouted.
“Ain’t you got no education? You shouldn’t say ‘Where is my son?’ Papa,” Sadie reproved him. “You should say ‘Where is my son at?’”
Miss Tinkham was engrossed with Sadie’s sandals. They were of purple lizard and had platforms that made Carmen Miranda’s look like sneakers.
“This is my son, Stuart. Meet the ladies!”
Stuart was an eye-filling young man of about twenty-four.
“An intellectual version of Gary Grant,” Miss Tinkham beamed. “And you have a fine Scottish name.”
Stuart grinned. Miss Tinkham almost swooned at the pearliness of his teeth.
“It’s really Sam,” he said, “But it doesn’t matter so long as it begins with the same letter: I can still take my rightful seat in the Synagogue!”
“That is delightful,” Miss Tinkham patted his arm, “and so practical!”
“My wife is inside holding the baby. He seems nervous.” Stuart smiled nervously himself.
“Just imagine how Milton Berle must have felt on the eve of his plastic surgery!” Miss Tinkham said.
“Come on! Come on and sit down in the parlor,” Sadie urged. The room was crammed with overstuffed furniture. Every table-top, shelf, nook and cranny, was loaded with bric-a-brac. The draperies were of pale blue satin, so long that they spread out on the floor for several feet. A huge ceiling fixture dangled enormous prisms and bits of mirror. There were perhaps twenty lamps in the room, all the shades obscured by taffeta ruffles in shades of burgundy and shocking pink. On top of the upright piano were framed tinted miniatures of what Miss Tinkham thought must be the Lost Tribe.
“Pretty palatial place you got here, to corn a phrase!” Mrs. Feeley said, sinking up to her elbows in a down cushion.
“Such glamour! So much chi-chi! Quite Dorothy Draperish!” Miss Tinkham beamed approval.
“Such a education woman!” Sadie squeezed Miss Tinkham’s hand, “Gorgeous, ain’t it? Knick-knacks, knick-knacks! All d
ay I’m washing knick-knacks!”
“But it’s beautifully kept! So soignée…”
“Have a little schnapps! Come on!” Sadie urged Mrs. Rasmussen.
“That’s whiskey, ain’t it?”
“Never touch the filthy stuff!” Mrs. Feeley said.
“An’ you got a saloon?” Sadie was pop-eyed.
“Beer!” Mrs. Feeley winked. “That’s our tipple.”
“Beer we got plenty! Would you’ll have it now or later with the lunch?”
“Both!” Mrs. Feeley laughed.
“That’s what I like!” Sadie clapped her hands. “Enjoy! Enjoy! Make good luck for my grandson.”
Sadie went out for the beer and came back in a few moments herding in front of her a reluctant boy of twelve. The crowd in the kitchen must have been naturally excitable or they had been sampling the schnapps.
“Close the door, Seymour,” Sadie said as she poured the beer.
Seymour had a shock of frizzy red hair like his mother’s. “These is Papa’s lady-friends. I want you should play nice, now!” Seymour sulkily got his violin from its case under the sofa.
“All day I’m scolding,” Sadie wailed. “Practice, practice, practice! All day he’s practicing, but how? On top the music book he’s got Roy Rogers, he should live so long! My son will end up playing in the Paramount Theater with a racing-sheet in front of him!”
Seymour went over to the piano and gave himself an A.
“Say!” Mrs. Feeley said. “Why don’t Miss Tinkham ‘company him on the pie-anna? She can play anythin’!”
Seymour looked at Miss Tinkham with rapidly growing distrust and dislike.
“Delighted!” Miss Tinkham cried. “What is the selection?”
Seymour silently shoved the music in front of her.
“Ah yes! The good old piéce de resistance: Meditation from Thais!” Miss Tinkham arched her wrists and flexed her fingers. “Don’t be nervous, dear,” she said. “I’ll follow you no matter what you do!”
Seymour’s face said that if the promise could be relied upon, he would jump in the nearest lake. He tucked the fiddle under his chin with the air of one who has abandoned all hope.
“Wait a minute!” Sadie shouted. “The pedals! Some schnook didn’t put back in place the pedals from the pianola!” She glared at her son. “How she can play without the loud and soft?”
“Never mind, dear Mrs. Miller,” Miss Tinkham cried. “The accompaniment in this case must be very short and fluffly…violinists insist upon it! They want nothing to obscure their legato!” Sadie sat down, wordless under such superior knowledge.
Miss Tinkham peered at the music and fumbled out a prelude. Seymour closed his eyes and got off to a rasping start. The lamps were so heavily shaded that Miss Tinkham needed her lorgnette. With one hand she faked an accompaniment. With the other, she fished around in her bosom for the glasses. On the way, her right hand struck a small lever on the keyboard. She dropped the lorgnette and hurriedly banged down both hands on the keys in a double effort to make some chords that would blur the agonized sounds Seymour was producing with his bow and at the same time smother the loud whirring noise that was coming from the instrument in front of her, which suddenly seemed possessed of Devils.
In her panic, she put both feet on the pedals and pumped violently. Like a bomb bursting in their midst, the piano broke convulsively into “You Gotta See Mama Every Night.”
Seymour, pleased at the unhoped-for reprieve, stopped playing, and watched Miss Tinkham with an unspeakably diabolical grin.
“Stop it, someone!” Miss Tinkham shrilled. “Help! This is ghastly!”
“Take your feet off them pedals!” Mrs. Feeley shouted. Like someone trying to drive a Model-T Ford in a sand-bed for the first time, Miss Tinkham’s reflexes refused to respond. It was all very well for the bystanders to shout about the pedals, but the infernal machine was out of hand, getting louder by the second.
“Push the lever,” Mrs. Rasmussen yelled.
“Close the button!” Sadie ran over and closed it herself.
“Beer!” Miss Tinkham implored, and crept back to her chair. “I have ruined dear Seymour’s concert!”
“So what?” Sadie said. “That pianola shouldn’t happen to a dog! Tomorrow I’m calling the Salvation Army to take it away…make room for a television. Don’t feel bad!”
“You on the level?” Mrs. Feeley asked.
“Why not? Such a piece junk!”
“We was lookin’ for one for the saloon…” Mrs. Feeley said.
“Use it in the best of health!” Sadie said sincerely. “When you can take it away?”
“Tomorrow.”
Somewhat restored by the beer, Miss Tinkham said: “Your son is a finished musician, Mrs. Miller.”
“Yeh.” Sadie nodded, “I’m afraid he’s through for good!”
A loud, sharp cry rose from the kitchen.
“What was that?” Mrs. Feeley said.
“My grandson!” Sadie broke into voluble Hebrew expressions which her guests were unable to follow. Judging by the tears of happiness on her face, the words must have been psalms of rejoicing and thanksgiving. In a few moments there was a popping noise…paper bags being blown up and broken.
“Sounds like fun!” Mrs. Feeley said. “Can we go in?”
“Come on!” Sadie led the way to the kitchen. Stuart was holding his screaming son, looking at his gentle brown-eyed wife with adoration. Mrs. Feeley took her cue from the other guests who were congratulating the parents and grandparents.
“Say mazel tav!” Sammele coached her.
“Muscle tough! Can I blow up a paper bag, too?”
Sadie was busy laying out plates of food on what had such a short time ago been the operating table. Mrs. Rasmussen looked at the food with an expert eye. Much of it was new to her. Sadie certainly did things in style. The rolled beef covered with coarsely ground black pepper smelled heavenly. Sadie brought out a huge bowl of potato salad, and a plastic container full of washed lettuce.
“Here!” Mrs. Rasmussen said, “Let me dish that up for you.” She noticed the thick sprinkling of celery seed and made a note to try it at home.
“Can I slice the bread for you?”
“You’re a real pal! For you, I’ll make blintzes, with a little caviare and sour cream. Ain’t practical for a big crowd.”
Sammele was a perfect host, never too busy to see that the strangers within his gates were supplied with food…and drink.
“Who’s that feller with the fire-hazard?” Mrs. Feeley pointed out a man with a thick black beard.
“That’s the mohel,” Sammele said. “He does the job.”
Mrs. Feeley walked over to the mohel with the idea of improving her mind on some of the more esoteric aspects of a religion that was not her own.
Sadie and Mrs. Rasmussen passed out loaded plates to the guests. Mrs. Feeley and her friends, chaperoned by the mohel, sat in state around a folding card-table.
In front of them were plates of golden chicken soup with big hunks of white meat floating in it.
“Best chicken soup I ever put in my mouth,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.
“A cup o’ that would do Timmy more good than all the vitamin shots they can buy. No gentile ever makes soup like that…they always get it wrong, somehow.”
“It’s what you don’t put in that makes it good,” Sadie said.
“I’ll have some more o’ that filthy-fish,” Mrs. Feeley had just finished her third helping of gefillte fish. “It’s elegant.”
“Some work went into that!” Mrs. Rasmussen said.
“And the pastrami!” Miss Tinkham sighed, “What a wonderful Karma this animal must have had to end up in a state like this! It might be Montezuma himself!” She folded her fifth slice of spiced beef on top of a piece of rye bread.
“Ain’t no butter for the bread,” Mrs. Feeley said, “She musta forgot it.”
“Butter,” Miss Tinkham said, “would make the meat ritually impure. ‘Thou s
halt not seethe the kid in its mother’s milk.’”
“Say,” Mrs. Feeley looked at Miss Tinkham sideways. “I thought you was a Swedenborgia!”
“I have embraced, temporarily that is, many religions in the search for a true expression of my own faith. From each I have learned something. From all I have learned that we should know something about our neighbors’ religion, if only for cultural reasons. Get their point of view…”
“Eat a piece strudel,” Sadie urged.
“We’re not much on sweets,” Mrs. Rasmussen said, “but even if we was, I doubt if we could swaller another bite. You sit down. I’m gonna give you a hand clearin’ off.”
She got up in spite of Sadie’s shrieks of outraged hospitality and pushed her down into the empty chair. Miss Tinkham helped Mrs. Rasmussen with the dishes. Stuart and his wife pulled up chairs.
“We finally got him quieted down,” he said.
“What do you do for a livin’? You in with your dad?” Mrs. Feeley asked with her customary circumlocution.
“I’m going to college on my GI Bill of Rights. I’ll get my law degree next June.”
“An’ you married an’ all! Ain’t that fine?”
“I was almost through when I went to the Army.”
“You live home?”
“We have a small place of our own.”
“Will they let anybody, soldier or sailor, go that wants?”
“Any of the Armed Forces.”
Mrs. Feeley banged on the table.
“By God, that makes some sense for once! Give ’em enough education an’ maybe they’ll stop their damn, stupid wars.”
“Or invent better atom bombs!” Stuart said.
“Yeup.” Mrs. Feeley poured out the rest of her beer.
“Man’s bent on destroyin’ himself! Soodle-sidle tendencies, Miss Tinkham calls ’em.”
Miss Tinkham sat down to finish her beer.
“We all have a guilt-complex left over from the theory of original sin,” she explained.
“Our philosophy prof bogged down in an explanation of that the other day,” Stuart said.
“Original sin?” Mrs. Feeley said. “Hell, that’s easy. It means we was all born bastards, an’ are gettin’ meaner by the minute!”
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