One On The House (13 page)

“We’re gonna use it to pay for the beer. May even have to kick in part o’ the tips to break even.” Mrs. Feeley sank down in the nearest chair. “Gawd! We been so busy since six o’clock this mornin’ that we forgot to eat! I’m faintin’.”

“That’s the truth,” Mrs. Rasmussen said. “Won’t take me but a minute to make us some hamburgers. They ain’t my usual DeLuxBurgers, but they’ll taste awful good.”

Miss Tinkham took a nickel from the pile of tips and went to the phone. Mrs. Feeley stretched her legs out in front of her and watched. Old-Timer was washing glasses and Mrs. Rasmussen was banging pots in the back room. Some morning. Mrs. Feeley mused on how certain people were born to complications while others sat around wishing something would happen.

“You know the dirtiest words in the English language?” she asked Miss Tinkham, who was busy dialing. She waved Mrs. Feeley into silence as she questioned the information clerk at the hospital.

“A slight improvement? How perfectly splendid! Still no visitors? Yes. I quite understand. When Mr. Rafferty regains full consciousness, will you please convey this message? Everything is going splendidly. Business is gratifying. We are taking full charge and he is not to worry about anything! We will come the moment he is allowed visitors…who? Ah…well…er, say his relatives.”

Mrs. Feeley perked up.

“He’s some better?”

“A slight improvement! Isn’t it wonderful?”

“Four beers, Ol’-Timer! We gotta drink to Timmy’s recovery.” Mrs. Rasmussen came in bringing the hamburgers wrapped in paper napkins. They were thick browned patties of meat well padded out with bread soaked in milk, and chopped onions fried and stirred into the mixture.

“It’s the condiments that breaks you up in business when you gotta start a pantry from scratch,” Mrs. Rasmussen said. “We couldn’t afford no ketchup, but we’ll have some tomorrow with all them tips.”

“What you buy?” Mrs. Feeley asked.

“A pound hamburger, that’ll do twice. Forty-nine cents. A three-pound haddock…they come in cheap. He was forty-five cents. Pound margarine, twenty-nine. Two pounds onions, eleven. Beans, fourteen. Cabbage, thirteen. Two loaves day-old bread, eighteen. Nine cents Bon Ami, an’ ten for the paper napkins.”

“Don’t know how you do it,” Mrs. Feeley said.

“Awful hard today, when your dollar don’t buy but twenty cents worth. You keep lookin’ an’ watchin’ out where you get the most for the least. I’m gonna stuff that haddock, an’ steam him tonight. Ain’t got no oven!”

“Gawd! It’s most three o’clock. Don’t the time fly!”

“We have many a headache, but never a dull moment,” Miss Tinkham said.

“That’s what I was sayin’: the dirtiest words I ever heard is the words ‘killin’ time.’ That’s the worst murder they is, cause you can’t get no more when it’s gone. If we had a forty-eight-hour day we might get a chance to do all we plan to do before they pat us in the face with a spade.”

“What is that line from Byron…something like, ‘That I might die before I’ve gleaned my teeming brain…” I am getting so rusty in my quotations! Dear, dear! I wish I had my
Golden Treasury.”

“Well, the Irishman says the best way to lengthen your days is to shorten your nights! We gotta get a little night-life goin’ before anybody shows up with requests for payment, as Miss Tinkham calls ’em. Reminds me of a song: ‘I Never Plant Sweet Williams: I Get Bills Enough As It Is!’”

“Richard is himself again!” Miss Tinkham banged her glass happily.

“I gotta tot up the total…Beauty Boy will be here screamin’ for the beer money ’fore you know it.”

“A miserable Shylock, demanding his pound of flesh!” Miss Tinkham was indignant. “Be sure to get the number of the brewery in case we need extra beer before his next delivery day.”

“If I had me about thirty o’ them hamburgers at noon, bet we could o’ done a land-office business.” Mrs. Rasmussen mused. “When they come at noon, if we had some bowls, I could give ’em somethin’ hot an’ soupy, a stew-like. Or beans. Real men hates sandwiches. One o’ my lima bean casseroles! But they’s no bowls. An’ no oven. Now was they just in here, like at night, I’d set out plates an’ plates o’ stuff so they could make little snitters. Hot, burny stuff so they’d buy up all the beer. Them hot sausage rolls, an’ deviled eggs, an’ red-hot potato chips, an’ baby-pizzas, little bitty ones, an’ maybe some barbecued little-necks. Sure go good with the beer!”

Mrs. Feeley began to laugh.

“That’s the longest speech you’ve made in years.”

“She is so convivial,” Miss Tinkham said. “By rights she should go all over the world doing her miracle of the loaves and fishes.”

“I can just see them fellers now,” the chef said, her amber eyes lighting up, “walkin’ around the place with their beer, pickin’ up a nice slab o’ pumpernickle or thin Russian rye, takin’ a slice o’ this an’ a sliver o’ that…Mrs. Feeley drawin’ the beer for ’em, an’ Miss Tinkham playin’ the music an’ eggin’ ’em on to sing!”

“The picture no artist can paint!” Mrs. Feeley laughed. “But that pipe-dream o’ yours ain’t as crazy as it sounds, my lady. You make people happy an’ comfortable, give ’em cold beer an’ good food. On top o’ that let ’em lift their voices up an’ air their tonsils! Hell, you’ll never get rid of ’em! Have to burn the joint down to make ’em go home.”

“Don’t it make you kinda quivery inside when you think how we just walked in cold, right outa the street, an’ started runnin’ a beer joint for a guy we don’t know nothin’ about? We ain’t never heard the sound of his voice!” Mrs. Rasmussen shook her head in wonder.

“Seems like we been here since the Year One,” Mrs. Feeley snorted, “I most forgot what it was like ’fore we got here!”

“This is definitely a crisis,” Miss Tinkham said. “A Chinese philosopher defined a crisis as danger plus opportunity. There was an opportunity for us to find a place to sleep and a chance to work for our food. Naturally there will be danger! Especially since there was no one to brief us on the actual situation.”

“Yeup! We don’t even know if the rent’s paid or not. ’Spose his license was to run out on us? We don’t know if he’s in the union, or what. We have to feel our way along. I ain’t scared, ’cause one thing’s sure: we couldn’t leave the place in no worse shape than it was, no matter what we done.” Mrs. Feeley looked up. “Never go huntin’ for trouble, but look what’s comin’ in the door!”

A large policeman with red hair and rabbits for eyebrows saluted the ladies with his club.

“Where’s Timmy? Yesterday was my day off and I didn’t get a chance to see him. Heard somebody stove-in the fire-alarm.”

“What’d you want with him?” Mrs. Feeley asked.

“Pass the time o’ day. We was in the Air-Borne together.”

“Now that bein’ the case, sit down an’ take a load off them feet,” Mrs. Feeley said. She went over and drew a glass of beer for him. “What’s your name, Sergeant?”

The big policeman looked sheepish.

“Angel,” he said.

Mrs. Feeley prudently suppressed a desire to giggle.

“Not a very common name for a cop.” She put her hand out. “I’m Mrs. Feeley an’ this here’s Miss Tinkham an’ this other lady’s Mrs. Rasmussen.” The policeman took Mrs. Feeley’s hand in a bone-crushing grip.

“Hey, when you’re through with that thing,” she laughed, “it belongs to me.”

“You’re new around here. Timmy’s relatives?”

Mrs. Feeley decided to come clean with the law.

“Just between ourselfs, I’ll give you the straight dope. We was just goin’ by, not goin’ nowheres in particular, an’ we come in for a beer. What do you think we found? Timmy lyin’ there for dead, all by his lone-self behind the bar.”

“Dead?” Angel got up.

“Sit down an’ finish your beer. He ain’t dead, just awful dangerous ill. But he may live, thanks to Miss Tinkham bustin’ in the fire-alarm an’ gettin’ them firemen here on the double.”

“That’s fierce,” the policeman said. “He never complained about feeling bad. Must have been sudden.”

“Ruptured appendix in a gangrenous state,” Miss Tinkham said.

“Where is he?”

“He’s at the General Hospital, but he ain’t allowed to see nobody. Too sick,” Mrs. Feeley said.

“And you came back today to keep the place open for him?”

“Sort of,” Mrs. Feeley said. “Seemed a pity, since we wasn’t doin’ nothin’ at the moment. Shame to let the boy’s place go to wreck an’ ruin, him here all alone. He don’t seem to have been doin’ so hot.”

Angel shook his head. “A shame, too. Awful nice fellow, Timmy. Only quiet. He’s not aggressive. And he’s got funny ideas.”

“Such as?”

“Not wanting to belong to the union, or hire a bartender. He don’t want to join the Democratic Club. You know how it is, in every precinct there’s one or two grafters. To get the little favors, you got to grease a few palms now and then. I don’t believe in using the badge, myself, but Timmy can’t get it through his head that you can’t fight City Hall. I know protection’s a racket. But show me any place today where you won’t find them peddling it!”

“You mean you don’t believe in swipin’ no bananas off fruitcarts?” Mrs. Feeley grinned. “Have a beer!” She drew a fresh one for Angel and three for her friends and herself.

“When the individual no longer has the right to stand alone for his beliefs, without banding into herds and packs, America is no longer America!” Miss Tinkham said. “Every citizen is guaranteed freedom of choice in such matters under the Constitution of the United States. This country was founded on the belief of personal and business freedom. On the robust and stimulating principle of individual enterprise.”

“Do you hear that?” Mrs. Feeley whacked Angel between the shoulders raising a cloud of dust.

“She’s right,” he said. “The trouble is that too many people doing the hiring and firing lose sight of that principle.”

“Fear!” Miss Tinkham said. “Fear of facing the consequences of independent action! That’s what makes them mob-up! Wavering and vacillating people, the weak twigs and sticks tie themselves into bigger bundles, hoping for strength. Then you have fascism.”

“They do that,” Angel agreed. “It’s easier to go along with the gang.”

“The strength of the State can be no greater than the strength of the individuals that go to make it up!” Miss Tinkham finished her beer.

“Now, Angel,” Mrs. Feeley said. “Will you go out an’ spread the Gospel? Tell every mother’s-son on the beat what he gets free with a ten-cent beer at Timmy’s!”

“Where’d you know Timmy? I never heard him mention you.”

“We don’t.” Mrs. Feeley grinned.

Angel shook his head.

“That’s one for the book,” he said. “But I’m all for you. I’m pretty sure the owner of this building can get a whole lot more money from a guy that’s the Head Grafter of the Fifth Ward. He has connections, too. Timmy barely made ends meet the last few months.”

“A blind man runnin’ for his life could see that,” Mrs. Feeley said.

“Credit’s gone, and he used the last of his savings thirty days ago. Wonder how soon I could see him?”

“We’ll let you know as soon as we are notified,” Miss Tinkham said.

“You’re going to stay till he gets well?”

“We’re not in any position to leave him,” Mrs. Feeley said.

“Damn white of you,” Angel said. “I’ll do anything I can to help.”

“Timmy hasn’t got no evenin’ trade at all, has he?”

Angel shook his head.

“Lunch-hour crowd of regulars and a few that stop on the way home. This is all factory and distributing places around here. No residences. They live far away and don’t come back nights.”

“You wouldn’t know how much beer he sold a week?”

“Three, four half-barrels at the most.”

“Gawd, how’d he pay the rent?”

“He’s about to chuck the lease up now. I hate to see it. He is one right guy. Got the Bronze Star.”

“Our dear Timmy?” Miss Tinkham said forgetting that she had never seen the young man with his eyes open or in full possession of his wits.

“You know,” Mrs. Feeley mused, “them guys had to get wounded or smashed to bits to get any advantages. Don’t seem right.”

“No,” Angel said. “Them that wanted, could go to college, and some got loans to go into business. But Timmy’s a quiet duck. Said he just wanted time to sit and think things over.”

“It looks like time was the thing he had the most of!” Mrs. Feeley laughed. “I ain’t that type myself. Action! That’s what I like.”

The door opened and the boy from the brewery came in. Mrs. Feeley looked at the clock.

“Kinda jumpin’ the gun, ain’t you, Buster?”

“I had to go by this way. Could you let me have that now instead of at five?”

“Just sit down a minute, and I’ll pay you.” She went back of the bar to the cigarbox and took out the money that Whitey’s gang had donated and the nine dollars and sixty cents she took in at noon.

“Count this,” she said.

“Ain’t but twenty-two dollars!”

“Keep your shirt on! An’ nine-sixty…”

“That’s only thirty-one-sixty. You owe me thirty-four fifty!”

“Honest, you’re tryin’ my patience somethin’ fierce!” Mrs. Feeley warned. “Here’s the other three bucks. Gimme back a dime.”