One On The House (19 page)

“You are intrigued, no doubt, by her ineffable talent for subtle innuendo?”

Mrs. Feeley cocked her head on one side. “What’s that?”

“The way in which you hint so delicately around a subject,” Miss Tinkham said.

“Like a pile-driver!” Mrs. Feeley drank the last of her beer. “Let’s go home an’ let these people go to bed. Gotta find Mrs. Rasmussen.” She went in search of the chef.

“I have had a magnificent evening,” Miss Tinkham said. “What I enjoyed most was the calm acceptance of the new, linked with the staunch preservation of the old. Your mother’s electric stove and the illuminated tablet with the Ten Commandments above the door.”

“Both necessary,” Stuart said.

“Something tells me there will be many changes in your lifetime. My wish for you is that you never let anything change the warm, hearthstone quality of your religion.”

Sadie and Mrs. Rasmussen staggered in under a load of large aluminum cooking utensils. They were covered with dust and must have been in the basement.

“Such a dirty shame,” Sadie wailed. “Such a cook, an’ she ain’t got no oiven! One lousy burner! Tomorrow when you’ll come for the pianola, take too the gas stove from the basement! I couldn’t be able to close my eyes the whole night, thinking she had no oiven!”

“A person’s afraid to say they like anything around here,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

“Damn if they won’t give it to you!” Mrs. Feeley agreed.

Sammele and Sadie accompanied the ladies to the sidewalk. In addition to the pots and pans Sadie had given her, Mrs. Rasmussen carried a quart jar of chicken soup, for Timmy. Miss Tinkham had a cardboard box filled with pastrami, pumpernickle bread, and a jar of kosher dill pickles. Mrs. Feeley had a Pyrex dish full of gefillte fish and a pint of herring in cream.

“Now Mr. Miller,” Mrs. Feeley said firmly, “you gotta bring Mrs. Miller down to the saloon…a little recreation’ll do her good.”

“We are planning a de luxe soirée,” Miss Tinkham said. “Now that we have a piano and a stove.”

“Don’t forget them lovely pots!” Mrs. Rasmussen said. “You sure you didn’t leave yourself short?”

Sadie shook her head.

“Club aluminum I got by Mother’s Day.”

“We don’t know how to thank you.” Mrs. Feeley shook hands all around. “You got a wonderful welcome in your home. You couldn’t o’ treated us better if you’d knew us all our lives.”

“Don’t mention it!” Sadie kissed Mrs. Rasmussen: “Such a doll!”

“All I can wish for you both,” Miss Tinkham said, “is that your treasured grandson grow up with the same golden heart as his grandparents.” She raised her hand in stately salute.

“Shalom Alechem!” she said.

“Listen!” Sammele shouted in glee, “Hear what Miss Tinkle says, Sadie?”

“It means,” Miss Tinkham said, “Peace be with you! I got it from Lawrence of Arabia.”

F
IRED
BY VISIONS OF A REAL STOVE
,
M
RS.
R
ASMUSSEN
woke her friends early Tuesday morning. The back room gave out enticing odors of coffee, bacon, and hashed brown potatoes.

“I’ll get Beauty Boy,” Mrs. Feeley said. “We need beer an’ he promised me he’d help move the pie-anna. He won’t balk at the stove.”

“We must deliver the chicken soup to Timmy,” Miss Tinkham said.

“I’m gonna need help pickin’ out them crabs,” Mrs. Rasmussen got her bid in.

“Hell, let ’em pick ’em out theirselfs! You boiled ’em.”

“I could just set out the sauce to dip ’em in…it’s cabbage soup this noon.”

“We gotta get the gas company for the stove.”

“Get the stove first,” Mrs. Rasmussen said. “Some o’ these bruisers is bound to know how to hook it up.”

Mrs. Feeley folded the beds and hustled them into the back room.

At ten the beer truck drove up and the driver came in.

“Could we get our beer cheaper if we was to have it all delivered at once?”

“I don’t think it would make any difference in the price…but we could arrange that bonus you was talkin’ about…”

“That’s for sure!” Mrs. Feeley said. “Or we switch breweries!”

“Don’t get mad now! Only one thing: hookin’ them barrels up ain’t no job for a woman. Gotta roll ’em into the refrigerator an’ then hook ’em up.”

“Couldn’t you just drop by, on your own, like, an’ hook ’em up? Anyway, you can show Ol’-Timer how, if he don’t already know! Miss Tinkham might toss in a free singin’ lesson, now that we got the beautiful pie-anna.”

“You got one?”

“That’s where you come in, love! You deliver me six barrels this mornin’ before lunch, then come back at five. I need the loan o’ your Lionel Strongfort…an’ the beer truck. It ain’t but a little piece down the way.”

The giant scratched his head and looked doubtful.

“Sure!” Mrs. Feeley decided for him, “You wouldn’t have them Jewish people show you up, now would you?”

“I couldn’t move no piano by my lone self,” he confessed.

“You hurry through your deliveries. Then you’ll come here at five an’ pick up some o’ the strongest fellers an’ be back before you’re even missed at the brewery. It’ll fair do your heart good to sing with Miss Tinkham playin’.”

“I’ll do it!” He banged the bar with his fist. “Can she play ‘When Irish Eyes Are Smiling’?”

“She’ll bring tears to your eyes the size o’ hundred-watt bulbs, it’s that movin’,” Mrs. Feeley assured him.

The advent of so many improvements called for renewed scouring and polishing. Mrs. Rasmussen went out to buy extra beer glasses and came back with an enormous bag of groceries.

“Chicken necks an’ backs, sixteen cents a pound! Couldn’t pass that up. Just got time to get the soup out for noon.”

Mrs. Feeley and Miss Tinkham were kept busy drawing beer and serving it at the tables. The increased heat caused a general drought. Mrs. Rasmussen’s soup was a little on the fiery side, but she met no refusals as she walked about doling out seconds.

The door slammed open and Aloysius Francis McGoon walked in. “Draw me a beer,” he ordered.

“Strain your lungs to say please?” Mrs. Feeley eyed him coldly.

“Please!” McGoon bit the word off with his mouth like the slit in a pumpkin on Hallowe’en.

Mrs. Feeley drew the beer and handed it to him.

He left it untouched and glared at her.

“Now!” he said. “Come out from behind that bar!”

“I can hear flies walkin’ on a pane o’ glass, my hearin’s that sharp,” Mrs. Feeley said, “but I don’t think I heard you right.”

“Come out from behind that bar before I make you,” McGoon said.

“You an’ what army?”

“I got you cold this time,” he said. “No women barmaids in Jersey. No women allowed behind the bar. For no reason whatsoever. I’m gonna arrest you. I’m gonna have this place shut.”

“You really fancy yourself, don’t you, Grommet Eye?” she said. “We ain’t barmaids. We don’t take one cent for our work an’ we’re operatin’ with the consent o’ the owner, just like he was here his own self!”

“In loco parentis!” Miss Tinkham said.

“I can have you arrested…and I will!” McGoon’s pig-eyes snapped.

“How do you think your brains would look spattered on that bulkhead?” Mrs. Feeley said. “We ain’t done nothin’ against the law. If you come in here again, I’ll have the cop on you.”

“You’ll
have the cops? I can call them and close the joint this minute.”

“You can do nothing without a warrant!” Miss Tinkham said with frigid distaste.

“That’s easy fixed.” He turned and stomped out of the bar.

Mrs. Feeley sat down on the bar-stool.

“Reckon he can?” she asked Whitey.

“I never seen no women dispensin’ beer before! But it’d be a hard thing to prove in a court of law.”

“I think there’s really a law about not lettin’ women behind the bar,” Smiley said. “Some joints they won’t even let women stand up at the bar. They gotta sit at a table.”

“Remember at the races?” Mrs. Rasmussen said, “We had to get a sailor to buy them beers for us.”

Mrs. Feeley drew herself a beer and swallowed it defiantly. “We ain’t gonna be done in by no cheap bastard like that! He’s just tryin’ to show his author-iety!”

Sammele came up to the bar.

“When you’ll send the truck?”

“Oh, Mr. Miller! How are you! That weasel chased the manners clear outa my head. We sure had one marvelous time at your party! Beauty Boy’s promised to haul the things for us this evenin’ after five, if it’s all right with you and your wife!”

“Don’t let that low-life put you in trouble, Mrs. Freelig. We don’t want nothin’ bad should happen to such a nice place.”

“Rest easy,” Mrs. Feeley said. “Sometimes all ain’t gold that glitters! Give our regards to Sadie an’ thank her again for the stove an’ the elegant pie-anna!”

“They give you a piano?” Whitey said. “Didn’t you have no stove? How’d you cook the eats we been having? Did they give ’em to you for free?”

“Sure they did, God bless ’em!” Mrs. Feeley bellowed. “What did our own give us? Nothin’ but a good swift kick in the…”

“Astrological fluctuations are indicated,” Miss Tinkham said. “When Saturn enters the house of Venus, trouble always follows. The contretemps with that beastly man is clearly indicated.”

The beer driver came in the door and winked at Mrs. Rasmussen.

“Hook up three,” Mrs. Feeley said, “an’ then eat your soup.”

When he came out of the kitchen, Mrs. Feeley paid him and then shouted to the crowd:

“How many of you huskies is gonna help Man Mountain move the presents Sam Miller give us…after five this evenin’?”

Twenty voices volunteered.

“Can’t the whole lot go,” she laughed. “Bad for business! We gotta make hay before Ratchet Face shuts us up!”

“Five of us’ll go,” Whitey said. “But don’t let them guys eat up all the tidbits before we get back!”

“You better make a good job of it! It’s boiled crabs an’ her butter-mustard sauce!”

Smiley rose with an inspiration:

“We’d oughta picket all the other bars…walk up an’ down outside with signs sayin’ ‘You Get Crabs at Timmy’s’!”

“At this stage o’ the game,” Mrs. Feeley said sadly, “Advertisin’ like that is all we need!”

M
ISS
TINKHAM
SAILED IN THE DOOR JUST BEFORE
FIVE
.

“Timmy is much improved! They let him sit up today! And that Barbara is out! Out of this world! Blue chambray and auburn pigtails! So in love!”

“You tell him about the Goon threatenin’ us?”

Miss Tinkham drank a glass of beer at a swallow.

“I did. He was not terribly distressed, however. He urged us not to get into any difficulty on his account. He said if it became necessary, we could close the place and live on what we had accumulated until our money came…by the way, I wonder why Darleen hasn’t sent it? Timmy has made up his mind to sell the lease if he can, and since he is giving up the saloon, he wants us to be spared any unpleasantness.”

“Did he eat the soup?” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

“It had the effect of a blood-transfusion on him!”

“Hell, even if Timmy is gonna let him have the lease, I’m gonna keep open till the wagon backs up an’ hauls us off! The fellers is goin’ for the things at five…an’ if Timmy sells to him, we gotta see that he gets shook down, but good!”

The pianola arrived without a scratch. To Mrs. Feeley’s delight there was a large carton full of rolls for the player. “Then somebody with a stout pair o’ legs can spell Miss Tinkham. Hope they’re all loud an’ fast!”

“Did you ever hear one that wasn’t?” Miss Tinkham winced, thinking of the opus that had mingled with Massenet the night before.

Mrs. Rasmussen and Whitey were out in the kitchen coaxing the gas range up against the wall.

“I’d hook it up for you, but the piece of pipe’s missin’,” he said.

Mrs. Rasmussen’s face sagged. “I’d set my heart on it.”

“I’ll fix it if it takes all night,” Whitey promised.

Miss Tinkham was trying out the piano.

“Play ‘When Irish Eyes Are Smiling’,” the truck driver begged.

Miss Tinkham did. Her practiced eye could see him filling out his great chest. He was clearing his throat for the attack.

“I’m dreadfully sorry,” she said. “Please take over for a while. I have to help Mrs. Feeley wait on the customers.”

“Aw!” the giant groaned, “let them wait on theirselfs!”

“My good man,” Miss Tinkham got up, “you might just possibly have something there!”

She hurried to the bar and took Mrs. Feeley to one side.

“Why not?” Mrs. Feeley smacked her hands together. “It works in newspaper stands!”

“The honor system!” Miss Tinkham said.

“How about some beer over here?” a voice yelled from one of the booths.