by Henry Miller
“Young roughnecks,” he commenced, “you see before you this noon, in this glorious land of equality and fraternity, a representative of the greatest culture the world has ever known. I consider it a privilege, a rare privilege”—his “rare” is impossible to reproduce—”to be permitted to answer the question which the young lout before me has just propounded. I am a son of India, you joyous vagabonds … a son of that vast empire which stretches from the Himalayas to the coral tip of Ceylon. A nation of three hundred million souls, speaking a hundred different tongues, worshiping a thousand unknown gods.... The most precious jewel in the wallet of that predatory monster, the British government.”
A few young Chinamen in American dress swelled the ranks of his audience. Toward these Hari flung his ropes of pearls.
“Men of the Orient, I greet you! Followers of Confucius, disciples of the Great Gautama, I have a message for you … a message for all mankind, black or white, red or yellow.” His teeth gleamed white and strong in the bright sunlight. “Men of Cathay, behold in me the Promised Redeemer … the new Savior of the World! O men, nothing surprises me more than the vague, diverse, often contradictory popular conceptions of the coming of Christ. Do you expect the man from the moon to descend on earth and be your ruler? Men of the twentieth century, I think you will have sense enough to recognize this fact: scattered far and wide are the genuine credentials in the Bible, entitling me to the role I aspire to play—’the scroll and the book written within and without, speaking a foreign language, lisping and smattering, publishing peace, and so on and so on....’ Even a cursory review of the Bible, with a view to establishing my identity with the Promised One, will convince the skeptic of the force of my claims.... The very stupendousness of my task, that is, evolving order out of the present chaos, is its simplicity. If I appear to be paradoxical, I am none the less truthful. I do not know how far I shall be able to satisfy the cravings of the world.” (Sic!) “The world has thoroughly disappointed me.... However, the modern Christ does not claim to be infallible. You smile.” (A mere oratorical gesture … no one understood what he was talking about.) “I am human, all too human. These petty human weaknesses are, however, overshadowed and eclipsed by human greatness, human loftiness inherent in this frail body.… Either I am crazy or the world is crazy.”
This mellifluous exordium was cut short by the approach of Officer Mulligan. That scion of the law grabbed Hari’s emaciated arm and squeezed it viciously.
“What’s all the fuss?” he inquired savagely.
“He’s a nut!” yelled someone.
A swarm of Chinamen in blue and black silk vestments suddenly appeared and pressed close about Officer Mulligan. They seemed whimsically pleased over the prospect of an arrest.
Officer Mulligan brandished his club. “Back up, you slit-faced buggers!”
The sea of yellow faces remained calm and tranquil. No one budged.
“Whaddayagotta say?” A still more vicious squeeze apprised Hari Das that Officer Mulligan was not jesting.
“Wot wuz de eyedear? Doncha know yuh gotta have a permit ter make a speech? Wotderhell wuz yer squawkin’ about, hah? Gwan and deliver your messages.”
The rudeness of Officer Mulligan was exasperating. It smacked of petty British officialdom.
“I beg your pardon, Officer, if I have broken any of the statutes. You may well see, I am a stranger here.”
Officer Mulligan gave indications of softening. The fiery young orator softened, too, at the thought of spending another three days in jail. He was not totally ignorant, as he pretended, of American institutions.
Sensing Officer Mulligan’s leniency, Hari Das felt impelled to risk a final clause about “free speech.” He was immediately rebuffed.
“Can that stuff,” bellowed Officer Mulligan.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Cut it, I said. Doncha un’erstand English?”
“I ought to,” Hari replied with affected politeness. “I was educated at Oxford.” He allowed the full significance of this to sink into Officer Mulligan’s thick-micked skull. Then he continued, after the manner of a rajah settling an ancient score with Anglo-Saxon brigands. “It’s possible, Officer, that there are some Americanisms which I don’t understand. That’s my fault, I assure you. A few more weeks, I daresay, and I’ll understand your dialect.”
“D-I-A-L-E-C-T?” Officer Mulligan handled the word as if it were a stick of dynamite. His brain became active, in its unatrophied area, and corroborative parallels of suspicion began to assemble like the parts of a Ford car under the nimble hands of a gang of mechanics. At the police station there was a West Indian Negro janitor. He had the same suave accent, the polished diction, and the copious jargon of the culprit confronting him. Ergo, this was a West Indian nigger! Still, officer Mulligan was perplexed by the long, straight, black hair, by the aquiline features, by the delicate, sensitive skull of his victim. It dawned on him as he scratched his head that perhaps his knowledge of ethnological differences was limited. Nevertheless, he had to be convinced.
“Where do you come from?” he asked bluntly.
“I am a Hindu,” Hari answered with dignity.
“You’re not a nigger, then?”
“Not precisely … the difference is a specious one.”
“Hey, don’t try to high-hat me. Come down off yer perch, young fella, or I’ll lay this across yer backside, see?”
Hari saw with some misgivings the emblem of the sanctity of the law. He had felt the weight of that emblem two weeks after his arrival in America. He had no desire to repeat the experience. In a few rapt words he made it clear to his inquisitor that he regarded himself beyond all question of a doubt as an insignificant, worshipful atom of society—”a little unused to the free and easy ways of America.”
“That’s done. We won’t go into that,” said Officer Mulligan. “You’re in the United States now, remember! Don’t go shootin’ off yer mouth too much….”
Hari started to thank him for this gratuitous piece of advice.
With high impatience Officer Mulligan raised a large, hairy paw and stuck it squarely in front of Hari’s face.
“You’ve got the gift of gab all right, you black bastard. Now get this! I wanta treat yer right. I’m gonna setcha straight … DON’T GO MAKIN’ STUMP SPEECHES AROUND HERE ON MY BEAT, UN’ERSTAND? It won’t do you no good. If yuh got anything on yer chest, look me up and spill it to me, see? Don’t practice on these Chinks. They don’t know wotderhell it’s all about, get me?”
An amused expression hovered over Hari’s features.... Should he explain his mission to Officer Mulligan, his newfound friend? Doubts assailed him. After all, would Officer Mulligan relish the advent of a black Messiah? He stole a glance at the smooth, hard club which Officer Mulligan twirled so innocently. Associations connected with the club defeated the idea of salvation-mongering. On the whole, he thought Officer Mulligan was a very decent fellow. Further than that, Officer Mulligan had a right to worship as he pleased. Withal he was certain that Officer Mulligan understood his rights.
Now that the difficulties attending the introduction had been smoothed out, he felt like continuing the conversation with this emissary of the law. But, for once, he was at a loss to know just what tack to pursue—the injustice of the British rulers, or Ireland’s economic dilemma?
Officer Mulligan relieved him of further cogitations.
“Where’s yer messages?” he exclaimed.
Hari dove into his hat.
“Let’s see ‘em!”
There were eight telegrams, two of them death messages. Hari had been instructed to visit the bereaved Armenian and Greek families first. He mentioned this fact to Officer Mulligan.
“Git along with yer,” said that individual with sudden animation. “Yuh c’n chew de fat some other time. You’ll be gettin’ fired if yuh ain’t keerful.”
Hari started to elbow his way through the crowd. He was almost on the point of running.
“Hold on,” sh
outed Officer Mulligan. Hari wondered what next.
“Say, you ain’t such a dumb bastard. Chuck this job! Come around and see me tomorrow; I’ll get you an elevator job. C’n yer run a switchboard?”
Hari thanked him profusely and shook the officer’s hand. It was necessary for Officer Mulligan to switch his club to his left hand. Hari looked down at the symbol of the majesty of the law with deference and misgivings.
“Gwan now, git aboutcha bisnis, or I’ll be minded to give yuh a polite fannin’.”
The way the club was maneuvered back and forth from one hand to the other was astonishing. It made Hari Das shiver with expectancy.
“Come on now, you guys, git along, beat it, scuffle Shoo!”
Officer Mulligan shuffled along on his beat in a coma. He was thinking of what a fine, upstanding, soft-lipped, educated, black bastard of a heathen that Hindoo was, what a “foine countree” Ireland was before the blimey English got hold of it. Occupied with these thoughts, he ducked into the back door of a saloon and called for a thimbleful of rum.
3
THE GREAT AMERICAN TELEGRAPH COMPANY HOUSED its messenger employment department in a low ramshackle building in the downtown section of the city. On the top floor was a wardrobe depot; on the floor below a tailor shop, where the discarded uniforms of the messengers were renovated, cleaned, and pressed. The tailor-in-chief was the Vice-President’s factotum. He traveled all over the United States, instructing his subordinates in the art of economy, equipping offices with blacking brushes, authorizing patches, and so on. He also wrote voluminous reports in pidgin English, informing the Vice-President that the office in Omaha, for instance, on a certain morning of the year was not opened until 8:15 a.m.; that in Denver he had found writing tables unequipped with chain and pencil; that the receiving clerk in New Orleans had dirty fingernails and chewed tobacco. For information of this sort he received a handsome salary.
Naturally, wherever he went he was welcomed like a leper.
The ground floor of this building was sectioned off into the employment office proper, facing the street, and a dressing room which occupied the rear of the premises. Along the side wall of this rear room tiny cubicles were partitioned off so as to permit the newly appointed messengers to dress and undress. At the rear exit was a table covered with sheet metal on which was fastened a huge roll of wrapping paper and a ball of twine. After a messenger was engaged, and had changed into the uniform, he was obliged to wrap his citizen clothes into a neat bundle and make his departure through the rear exit. If the office he was dispatched to was beyond walking distance, he was allowed carfare. This carfare allowance was theoretical. Usually Moloch reserved it for his lunch money, dolling it out only to “repeaters” who knew of its existence and were cheeky enough to demand it.
The employment office itself was exposed to the public eye. Two enormous plate-glass windows permitted the curious passerby a full sweep of the drama that was constantly being enacted within. Ofttimes it was necessary to send the porter outside to persuade the idlers and vagabonds who collected to remove their noses from the windowpanes. A life-size cardboard figure of a bright, handsome-looking youngster, attired in the full regalia of the service, was placed conspicuously in each of the show windows. This piece of bait served two purposes: it pretended to persuade the idler and the nitwit that in the service of the telegraph company there was ever open a glorious career; it also helped to break down an erroneous popular conception. All messengers, it seemed to say, are not idiots or septuagenarians.
It must be mentioned, in passing, that the rosy-cheeked youngster who had posed for this cardboard effigy (which was on display in every office of the Great American Telegraph Company throughout the United States) was no longer in possession of that bloom and hustle which was so ostentatiously exploited. Through an excess of zeal he had acquired tuberculosis of the foot, and was at this period languishing at home, vainly begging for disability compensation. To be sure, such unfortunate circumstances were not uncommon, nor were they particularly remarkable considering the thousands of individuals who were put through the hopper.
To lighten the burdens of the legal department a “Safety First” campaign had been inaugurated. Large posters were tacked on the bulletin boards in the offices, and on the partitions of the dressing booths, giving the latest country-wide statistics relating to messengers killed, crippled, or incapacitated. To lend a touch of realism, snapshots showing the most prevalent ways in which accidents occurred were often sandwiched in among the statistics. The question of whether or not this gruesome liability roll should be displayed in the dressing booths had been debated for a long while between the Vice-President and the General Manager. The Vice-President had a theory that these announcements acted as a boomerang. Perhaps the Vice-President had been given this impression through reading Moloch’s monthly report of “resignations and dismissals.” The report showed that no less than ten percent of the force resigned after working less than a day. To the Vice-President this was an inexplicable situation. Perhaps the latter had really convinced himself that the telegraph company offered a career to the messengers in its employ.
Moloch returned to his desk after the razzle-dazzle of the Bowery in a fever of excitement. He had left the office toward noon to make an investigation. One of the messenger force had gone bughouse.
It was now going on to three o’clock. The day was warm and sultry and he was perspiring freely. His discomfiture was made more acute by the pungent, acrid odor of camphor and Lysol escaping from the dressing room and the wardrobe depot. Moreover, he was annoyed to find so many applicants lined up on the benches, waiting for him with that stolid patience which one so often observes in the anteroom of a charity bureau. He looked at the clock impatiently.
Opposite him at the big, double desk sat his friend and assistant. Matt Reardon. Reardon was incompetent, recalcitrant, and temperamental. Moloch had given him the job out of friendship.
It was apparent that Reardon was excited about something.
“We just had a helluva time here a few minutes ago,” he said breathlessly.
Matt had an endless string of anecdotes, none of them particularly beguiling.
“Hold it, Matt … later. I’ve a lot of work to plow through first.”
Matt glowered rebelliously and turned sour. Moloch was forever squelching him, as if he were the office boy and not the assistant employment manager.
“And look here,” Moloch fired, without the least regard for his friend’s injured feelings, “tell Lawson to get rid of that gang out there. This place looks like a waxworks exhibit!”
“You’re making this place an Eden Musée, not I,” thought Matt, as he rose, sullen and dispirited, to carry out instructions. He was bitterly opposed to Moloch’s high-handed way of doing things. He had a dozen arguments up his sleeve, but none of them were worth a damn. He was tired of arguing; they did nothing else but wrangle the whole day long. And in the end, Moloch always had his way. Moloch could be one god-damned son-of-a-bitch, when he wanted to....
Matt Reardon approached the railing which separated the applicants from the office staff, and began telling off the youngsters one at a time. He puffed away at a cigarette as he disposed of one batch after another. “Make it snappy!” he growled, chafing over the tedious drift of each appeal. About a minute and a half was allotted to each plea, followed by a brusque “Tomorrow morning at eight sharp!”
“Say, Matt, what the hell’s the matter with you, anyway? Didn’t I tell you to let Lawson take care of that? What’s he here for?” shouted Moloch, suddenly observing Matt’s tactics.
Matt grumbled and got off something about Lawson taking all day to do a trifle. “Besides,” he went on, “I think we ought to show these kids a little courtesy. They’re not asking for a handout. They want jobs.”
“Who’s running this joint?”
“Aw, hell, don’t be a crab,” said Matt coaxingly. “Do you know you’re getting to be an old crab? I say,” he cooed, �
��you missed something funny. You got here ten minutes too late.”
Moloch’s irritation was increasing. “Well, get it off your chest … what was it?”
“Ah, can that!” said Matt. “Listen a minute, like a regular guy, will you? I had a guy in here after you left—see? I spotted him right away. At first I didn’t say much to him … let him fill the application out in the usual way. Every now and then I’d throw out a harmless question. He was leery of me all right, I could see that, but after a while when he saw how damn nice I treated him he didn’t know what the hell to think. Anyhow we chewed the fat a while, about this and that—Christ, I dragged in everything I could think of except what was on my mind…. All of a sudden I says to him, ‘Let me look at your throat.’ He jumped when I said that, but I passed right over it and mumbled something about having his tonsils removed. What I was after, of course, was to get a good look at his tongue.”