The Last Carousel

by Nelson Algren

  “Take off them shades,” Cop One told Big Bernard. Big Bernard took them off. “What’s your name?”

  “I wasn’t driving,” was Big Bernard’s defense; which didn’t come to much.

  “I didn’t ask you was you driving. I asked you who you was.”

  “Herbert Harris.”

  “Let’s see some identification, Herbert.”

  Big Bernard extracted his wallet carefully, carefully selected a card from among several and handed it to the officer. Cop One looked over the card, turned it over, then asked, “Who’s Philip Harris?”

  “A standup comedian,” I tried to help out; but nobody paid me any mind.

  “I’m Philip Harris,” Big Bernard testified.

  “Then why’d you say Herbert Harris?”

  “The full name is Philip Herbert Harris. I use the middle name because I don’t want to be confused with the comedian.” The officer handed back Mr. Harris’ card.

  “Now let me see the other names.”

  “It’s the only card I got.”

  The officer just stood with his gloved hand out until Big Bernard handed him another. The officer took it but kept his hand out until Big Bernard had handed him three more.

  “Which one of these is you?”

  “They’re all friends of mine,” Big Bernard explained.

  “We got a wrong passenger here,” Cop One filled in Cop Two. “Do you make his buddy?”

  “Not yet,” Cop Two answered, “but we’re getting around to it. Five ID cards so far.”

  Knowing they’d be getting around to me any minute, I offered my wallet to Cop One.

  “Who asked you for that?” he wanted to know. I put it back in my pocket. Some cop.

  He walked around to the car’s locked trunk.

  “Let’s take a look in here.”

  “I lost the key,” Max said quickly.

  “We’ll make a new one for you at the station,” Cop One offered. “Do you want to open it here or there?”

  “I just found the key,” Max discovered.

  The trunk was packed tight with record albums.

  “Let’s see a bill of sale.”

  Big Bernard looked over the trunk.

  “I won ’em in a crap game,” he confided to Cop Two, “I got lucky against a fellow he was in the record business. He didn’t have enough cash to pay off. I didn’t want to be hard on him; so I took records, poor fella.”

  “We better send for the detail,” Cop One suggested to Cop Two, and Two agreed.

  A small crowd gathered while we were waiting for the detail. Two moved them on. “Nothing happenin’ here, folks, just a traffic violation.” He took my arm like he’d never seen me before and told me to move on, but I held my ground. I wasn’t a folk: I was a suspect. I went over and stood beside Big Bernard. He looked more dangerous than Max.

  A squadrol pulled up. Two citizen-dress men got out.

  “Get in the car,” One told me. This was more like it. I’d give him my name, address and social-security number, nothing more. “I can’t crack this one,” he’d have to admit to the Chief of Detectives after the long grueling under the lights, “he don’t have a nerve in his body.”

  I handed him my wallet.

  “Did I ask you to show me that?”

  I put the wallet back. Some citizen-dress man.

  At the station Big Bernard and Max had to take off their jackets and stand with their hands above their heads while being frisked. I put my hands over my head, too.

  Cop One pulled Big Bernard’s suspenders back almost a yard—“Look! Booster suspenjers!” he chortled—and held them there long enough for everyone to see there was enough space down there to hold a record player and a couple transistors—then let them snap—thwang!—against Big Bernard’s big belly, and everybody laughed. Even Max.

  So Cop Two pulled Max’s suspenders back and, sure enough—they were booster suspenjers, too! He pretended to be looking for loot down there for a minute—then snapped them—thwang!—against Max’s belly.

  Everybody laughed again except Max.

  “Shall I take my jacket off, sir?” I asked. I could hardly wait to show them I was wearing a belt.

  “No. But you can take your hands down from over your head.”

  This time everybody laughed. Including me.

  “Where you from?”

  “Indiana.”

  “Ever been arrested in Indiana?”

  “They were all bum raps.”

  “Mug and print these boys,” the desk man decided.

  “All I’m wearing is a belt,” I clued him in. But it was too late. They didn’t care what I was wearing.

  That was how I got to get locked up with Big Bernard and Max, to wait for the paddy wagon to take us down for mugging. Big Bernard took one bench of the cell and Max took the other. I stood up. They were both pretty tired, I could see. Both were sleeping when the lockup fellow let us out to take the ride downtown.

  A double line of prisoners was waiting to take the ride. A paddy-cop manacled each pair before they climbed into the paddy. Big Bernard and Max got manacled together because they were friends. I was the last one in line and held out my wrists; but I didn’t have a co-criminal to get manacled to. The paddy-cop just climbed into the wagon and waited for me to follow. When you work for the police department you shouldn’t take chances like that.

  The driver started wheeling, causing me to miss the first step up, then began circling the yard slowly, thinking he had a full load. The paddy-cop in the back held the door open for me. But I had to chase the wagon a whole lap around the yard. On the second lap I made the step. The paddy-cop was very nice. He held out his hand to help me in.

  “I see you made it,” he congratulated me and closed the door. I hoped the other fellows wouldn’t notice that I wasn’t wearing manacles.

  A Caddy has it all over a paddy for seeing L.A. Because windows don’t go opp-donn in a paddy. The reason is that a paddy don’t have windows. Which leads you to keep wondering how fast you’re going when you’re actually standing still; and why when you’re standing still it feels like you’re making time. But the ride was worth it to get printed and mugged.

  “I ain’t mad at you because the first time you give me your action you hit, Nels,” Max told me when he came out of the wagon. “I was pretty salty at you for a while but I ain’t salty no more. Take the key out of my jacket—the other side, that’s it. The address is 9901 Manola Way. Write it down so’s you don’t forget it. If we don’t see you for a few days tell the landlady we went out of town on business. Make yourself at home.”

  That was all he had time to tell me. I was happy that Max wasn’t mad at me any more. I was even happier to have the key to 9901 Manola Way.

  But I was disappointed in not getting printed and mugged. All they gave me was a lady cop who said, “Roll up your sleeve.”

  “What for?” I asked her. I wasn’t being defiant. Simply curious.

  “To look at your vaccination,” she explained.

  “It isn’t much to look at,” I admitted modestly.

  When I rolled up my sleeve I was puzzled to find there was no vaccination mark there at all.

  “This is a real puzzler,” I had to confess.

  “Try the other sleeve.”

  I be dawg. There it was!

  “What did they bring this one in for?” she asked as if nothing could have interested her less.

  “To get printed and mugged,” I told her hopefully.

  “Who’d you kill recently?” she asked, looking at the lockup fellow and smiling instead of studying me. Then she just walked away. Some lady-cop.

  The lockup fellow let me have a cell all to myself. I knew they’d put someone in there with me who’d start asking me questions like don’t I get a bang out of playing with matches or would I like to buy some hot diamonds. But I wouldn’t talk. He too would have to report back to the people who’d paid him, “That fellow don’t have a nerve in his body.”

&nbs
p; Nobody showed up and it got sort of lonesome by myself. So I hung my belt on the bars where the screw would see I could hang myself any time I wanted.

  He noticed it but all he said was, “Keep your pants on.”

  And he kept on walking.

  After a while he opened the cell and I saw we were going back to the station. Just when I’d begun to like it where I was.

  The paddy was waiting, and the prisoners were being manacled before they climbed in, just like before. I didn’t see either Big Bernard or Max, but I didn’t want to get left out again. So I pushed my way up the line a little and got manacled to a fellow who was dressed like he’d killed somebody very recently. By the time we got back to the station we’d become good friends.

  The same officer was at the desk. I was glad to see him because he’d trusted me not to make a break for freedom.

  “Why’d they bring you back here?” he asked me.

  “I’d rather have stayed with my friends,” I told him. “Can I wait for them here?”

  “It’s alright with me,” he told me, “they’ll be along in anywhere from four to six months.”

  The way Max was going about paying me off seemed a little odd to me.

  “Why don’t you just sign a twenty-five-dollar bond and go home?” the desk man asked me.

  “I don’t have twenty-five dollars.”

  “Then just sign the bond and send us your check.”

  Do you know that after I’d signed the bond, that fellow didn’t even look up? I just kept moving toward the door, one step at a time—I think that dumb cop almost wanted me to make the street!

  It had been a good day, all in all: Two winners, a ride in a paddy, and an apartment rent-free until the fifteenth of the month. I went back to the chateau, to get my clothes, in good spirits.

  I was all packed when I got a knock.

  There stood Otto accompanied by a small, frail, middle-aged fellow, wearing horn-rimmed glasses and holding his hat.

  “This man is an old fan of yours,” Otto explained.

  “Are you Nelson Algren?” the hat-in-hand fellow asked as though hardly able to believe his good luck.

  I acknowledged that I was. Why be coy?

  “Would you read this for me?” he asked, handing me a rolled script.

  “I’d be happy to,” I assured him. I know how shy unpublished writers can be.

  His manuscript had already been published after a fashion. It was a subpoena charging me with breach of contract. The Old Fan hurried away. Some fan.

  As I hadn’t signed any contract to breach, I wondered how much Otto had paid him to have the phoney drawn up and served. I’d known he had me figured for a mark; but now he was really going too far. Then, to top everything, he handed me a bottle of scotch.

  It wasn’t the first time that another man had threatened me. It wasn’t the first time one had given me a bottle of whiskey. I’d also seen a man pleading on all fours. This was the first time I’d had one hand me a bottle of whiskey, go down on all fours—then shake his fist at me from a kneeling position.

  I could recall being booted out of a joint by a foot that had spun me through an open doorway. Yet I hadn’t been told that I was being kicked because I wasn’t returning the kicker’s love. It was my first time for that, too. Finding one of my hands unoccupied with any other task at the moment, I used it to take the profferred whiskey.

  It was nicely gift-wrapped. I unwrapped it fast before he had a chance to take it back.

  Otto began a lurching shuffle around the living room. All I could do, subpoena in one hand and bottle in the other, was to follow him with the same shuffle. We went two laps in this curious clockwise procession—until he pulled up and swung about so suddenly that, thinking he was going to snatch back his bottle, I turned and began lurching counter-clockwise. Otto began following. When I finally pulled up he’d sunk into a chair on the other side of the room; looking more than ever in need of a makeup man. So I collapsed in another chair.

  “I am nice man!” he announced abruptly. ‘‘Why you make me act like ass?”

  The least I could do, to make it all up to him, was to open our bottle. Or read our subpoena.

  “I am success-oriented,” he began that weary tune once more—“But you—you are a free spirit! You have compassion! You are sensitive. You are kind man. You are for underdog. You are creative.”

  I sensed the danger.

  “I fight it,” I interrupted him, trying to get my defenses up in time—“I never let compassion interfere where I see a chance to make a fast buck. I figure I’d better wait to start doing something for my fellow-man until I’m richer than he is. Meanwhile he’ll have to get along without my help.”

  “No! No! No!” Otto protested—“What am I? Nothing! What can I do? Nothing! Not without creative man like you!” He was crowding me.

  “A producer can be a highly creative man,” I insisted while trying to think of one.

  “No, no —a producer is a businessman, nothing more.”

  “What good would an artist’s work be without a creative businessman to bring it to the world on film?” I asked hopefully.

  ‘ 'Good! So now you can write screen treatment for me about suffering of drug addicts—but not too much suffering. Because how can a movie be creative if only a few people say it’s any good? What we want is something creative that everybody wants to see!”

  How I’d gotten so far from home I couldn’t clearly recall. All I remember was that I’d decided to jump ship and pan for gold. And here I was in a push-button fantasy listening to its proprietor. I noticed that the glass in my hand was empty; but I didn’t remember drinking it.

  So was Otto’s. I refilled his and refilled my own.

  When Otto took his leave he was wearing an expression too benign. I attributed this more to the whiskey than to anything I’d said. He was assuming, apparently, that the combination of the gift bottle, restoration of the floor-model TV and a rent-free apartment, plus the threat of a phoney subpoena, would suffice to keep me on his payroll.

  Because, when he took his leave, still beaming, he offered me his hand.

  That was the moment when I had the fleeting hallucination that Otto was wearing booster suspenders. And I knew that, if I extended my hand, I’d try to snap them—thwang! But I couldn’t snap them because I was holding the subpoena. Any more than I could shake his hand. All I could do was to put the subpoena in it.

  Big Bernard’s and Max’s quarters on Manola Way were comfortable. I lived in them until the rent was due.

  But I didn’t want to leave L.A. without saying goodbye to Otto. I knew it was no use trying to walk in on him to say so-long. Otto didn’t operate informally. I’d leave a message with his secretary. If he didn’t call back—as I was certain he would not—I would at least have made the civilized gesture.

  When Otto answered the phone himself I was surprised.

  “I’m leaving town, Mr. Preminger,” I explained, “I only phoned to wish you the best of luck with the picture you’re planning of the book I wrote.”

  “Who this is?"

  “Algren.”

  The next voice was that of his secretary.

  “Messages to Mr. Preminger have to go through his secretary, sir.”

  “How come he took his call himself then?”

  “Because Mr. Preminger likes to check on who’s calling me."

  “You mean I have to go through Mr. Preminger in order to reach his secretary in order to reach Mr. Preminger?’ ’

  “That is our modus operandi, sir.”

  “Otto keeps a tight little store, doesn’t he?”

  But she’d already hung up.

  Poor Carol Channing. Preminger required her to perch atop an electrically-operated bed, in Lover Avalon’s apartment during the screening of Skidoo, while it was lowered beneath the floor. Miss Channing, distrustful of all mechanical contraptions, thought she’d rather not. In order to reassure her, Otto sat on the bed and commanded it to be lowered. O
nly moments after Otto and the bed had disappeared there was an ominous thump: the machinery had gone haywire and Otto was trapped under the floor.

  Curiously, no immediate effort was made to rescue Otto. The actors looked at one another with faint smiles; the stagehands’ eyes took on a glaze. And everybody just stood around exchanging glances.

  All good things, of course, must come to an end. The bed was finally brought up; with Otto still atop it. And work was resumed on a picture that would have been the worst of all time had not Otto himself later made others even worse.

  One of them was the picture Otto made of the novel I’d written. The sequences were so mechanical that it left me with the impression that I’d seen a series of stills instead of a moving picture.

  And I understood how Miss Channing must have felt when she saw herself, in panties and bra, making love to Frankie Avalon.

  *Rex Reed in Home Furnishings Daily.

  I NEVER HOLLERED CHEEZIT THE COPS

  YOU don’t have to sneak around a grandstand booking bets to become a “Known Hoodlum” at a racetrack. You don’t have to pick a pocket or forge a check. You don’t have to get caught with a piece of sponge that would fit nicely into a nostril of a short-price horse. You don’t have to collect somebody else’s bad debt with a Little League baseball bat. All I ever done to become one was to be an agent for race-riders—and that ain’t even illegal. Until I handled Rusty de John I never had a trouble; neither with riders or owners.

  How he got a name like that I have no idea, as he couldn’t read English; far less French. When he had to write his folks in New Iberia, Louisiana, he’d send a postcard saying “Come” or “don’t” and get somebody else to address it. Believe me when I tell you, when that boy said “Howdy” he’d already told you everything he knew.

  He could ride. I give him that. If he saw a hole he could get a horse’s nose through, he’d pull the whole horse through it. And he could make a hole in the wind.

  Then he brought in something called Popcorn Bummy, off at 23 to 1, and as soon as the number went up the inquiry sign begun flashing: stewards’ inquiry. They hadn’t even waited for a rider to protest; they’d entered the claim of foul theirselves. Down comes the number and the horse is placed last.