One On The House (23 page)

“What we gave you, we gave you! Keep it, sell it…throw it away. We only hate to think you’re going!”

“We won’t forget you!” Mrs. Feeley said. “Take the address, ’cause friends meet before mountains do!”

Two customers were involved in a noisy argument at the bar. Mrs. Feeley put down her spoon and went over to quell them with the bung starter. “This is what I give advice with,” she said. “My advice to you two is to lower your voices an’ don’t start no bickerin’…otherwise that quiet gent with the mustache will have to lower the boom!”

“He don’t believe I can play ‘The World Is Waiting For The Sunrise’ on a big blowed-up balloon by letting the air out real slow! I been practicing for years and I can do it, too!”

“Come around tomorrow,” Mrs. Feeley said. “It’s amateur night. Got a guy with a swinette comin’ in!”

The drunks stared at her. “What’s a swinette?”

“Where you guys been all your lives? Don’t know what a swinette is! It’s a long board with holes bored in it: you line up eight pigs, from bass to sopranner, an’ pull their tails through the holes. Then you play music by pullin’ their tails, high notes or low ones, dependin’ on what the tune calls for. Takes a good man to play one: long legs an’ big feet to kick the right pigs to make ’em squeal good an’ loud!”

The wranglers stared at her silently. Then they finished their beer. Then they stared at each other solemnly.

“I hear my mother calling me,” the first one said.

“Past my bed-time, too.” Arm and arm they walked out into the night.

Miss Tinkham was indulging in mild hysterics.

“Give ’em a fresh idea to work on,” Mrs. Feeley said. “All the world the matter with drunks is they got a single-track mind. Give ’em somethin’ else to think about an’ they handle like lambs.”

McGoon came up to the bar.

“I may have been just a shade low in my figure,” he said. “I want to close the deal before I go away for the week-end.”

“You’re a shade low, but it ain’t just in your figger. I’m not closin’ before Saturday.”

“Just remember I made the first offer! I’m entitled to a little extra consideration after all I’ve done for Rafferty.”

“Extra, hell! Your offer’s topped now by a grand! Go on home an’ get you some shoelaces to peddle, Small Stuff! McGillicuddy’s installing television! Not just one lousy set…but one in each booth. This place is goin’ on the map…an’ it ain’t for a cheap grifter like you!”

“Now you can’t talk to me like that, Mrs. Feeley! I asked you first and you can forget my original price…I’ll make it four and you take it ahead of his bid.”

Mrs. Feeley gave in gracefully. She raised her voice to a pitch suitable for hog-calling or “The Ride of the Valkyrie.”

“Hey, Mrs. Rasmussen! Whitey! Listen here, Blondelle!” She took hold of McGoon’s sleeve.

“You’re offerin’ me four thousand dollars, spot cash, for the lease, fixtures, an’ good will o’ this place in Timmy Rafferty’s name…is that straight?”

“It is,” McGoon admitted. “But that’s my last and final offer. Do you take it?”

“Well, now…I can’t rightly say. We gotta give Mr. McGillicuddy a chance to better his offer. Where is he, anyway?”

Whitey sailed up. “He had to leave for the Airport.”

“Ain’t he the humdinger? No grass growin’ between his toes!”

“Then it’s mine,” McGoon said.

“Oh, no you don’t!” Whitey said. “He told me to see that he gets the property…and to hell with the price! Excuse me for swearin’, Mrs. Feeley!”

“McGoon here has bid four thousand out loud in front o’ all these people,” Mrs. Feeley said.

“Long as it’s a party, you shouldn’t settle no business,” Whitey said. “Wait till Monday. He can phone from the Coast by then.”

“That’s sensible,” Mrs. Feeley was quickly convinced. “I never do no serious business when I been imbibin’,” she laughed. “Too hard on the other party! When they say four, I say five…right on up!”

“Come on, Blondelle!” McGoon said. “I’m saying my last word: forty-five hundred dollars and to hell with all meddling old women! That bid’s in before McGillicuddy’s…he only offered four. I heard him!”

“That’s fair enough,” Mrs. Feeley conceded. The only thing Mrs. Feeley had that Talullah Bankhead might envy was her lung-power and she made full use of it:

“Everybody hear what Mr. McGoon’s sayin’: forty-five hundred dollars an’ if McGillicuddy don’t top it by Monday, the baby’s yours!”

“I want it settled before Saturday…”

“Keep your shirt on! How’d you like it if we was to treat you that way? Everybody’s gettin’ a fair shake!” She winked at Whitey.

“I’ll give you the cash Friday night,” McGoon insisted. “It’s in my strong-box down at headquarters.”

“Monday,” Mrs. Feeley said.

“We’ll see!” McGoon took Blondelle’s arm and dragged her off.

Mrs. Feeley laughed and banged Whitey on the back.

“Give McGillicuddy the Oscar! This is turnin’ out to be a real party! Miss Tinkham, I’ll just sing something for the folks! How about ‘I’m Saving Green Coupons For Mother To Purchase A Tombstone For Pa’?” As an encore, she obliged with ‘When Maggie Dooley Does The Huley Huley,’ including a hula hula which left her a quivering mass sitting on the floor. When she got her breath she said:

“Now comes the highspot of the evenin’…Miss Tinkham’s solo!”

“I shall play,” Miss Tinkham said tucking up her long black angel-sleeves, “‘The Rustle Of Spring.’” Beauty Boy politely raised the lid of the piano and propped it open with the telephone book. Even the beer glasses were kept decorously on the tables during Miss Tinkham’s performance. She swept into a cascade of notes that suggested an advancing hurricane rather than the rustle of spring. The customers loved it.

“That’s classical,” Mrs. Feeley roared over the applause. “Pretty, too!”

Miss Tinkham bowed graciously and accepted fresh beer.

Angel came in the door in civilian clothes.

“What’s going on?” he smiled. “For a minute I thought you were holding an Elk’s ball!”

“Jazzy, ain’t it?” Mrs. Feeley agreed. “Have a beer. Mrs. Rasmussen’s bound to o’ saved you some stew.”

“We’re sorta closin’ things out with a bang,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

“Our incomes come today,” Mrs. Feeley said. “We gotta hit the road. Been swell, but Timmy’s gotta go to school an’ we’re leavin’ soon as we sell the lease. Take our address! If you ever come out, we’ll give you a warm an’ rowdy welcome!”

“You’ve only been here about ten days,” Angel said, “but all of us will miss you.”

“We like people,” Mrs. Feeley said.

“Man is the animal that most resembles man.” Miss Tinkham swayed slightly. The evening had been long and moist. Beauty Boy followed her like a slave, hoping for one more chance to sing.

“I’m checkin’ the barrels for you,” he said to Mrs. Feeley, and went down to the basement. In a short while he was back.

“You know what?” he said. “I already hooked up three fresh ones about ten o’clock, an’ there wasn’t but about half a barrel left! I had to hook up the last two!”

“Then there sure as hell better be over a hundred bucks in the till! Or I’m gonna knock the haslett outa somebody!”

“It’s a good thing there aren’t any residences around here,” Angel said.

“There’s only one!” Mrs. Feeley said. “This is it…an’ there’ll be no complaints!”

“This battered caravanserai has been a pleasant oasis on our journey towards the hills of home,” Miss Tinkham said.

“A toast to the Queen Bee!” Whitey stood up. All the customers got up: some by one means of levitation, some by another.

“Mrs. Feeley, God bless her!”

The toastmaster turned to Miss Tinkham.

“Miss Tinkham. The Poet of the Pianola!”

Lurching slightly, he signaled out Mrs. Rasmussen.

“Mrs. Rasmussen, At Home On Any Range!”

The ladies were as pleased as punch. Mrs. Feeley stood up.

“I thank you, an’ my friends thank you. Let’s all have a drink together while we can!” She held a full glass of beer up to the light and recited:

The bubble winked at me an’ said

“You’re gonna miss me when you’re dead!”

Drink up! This is one on the house!” She and Angel filled the big bucket from the kitchen and went around filling the empty glasses and pouring heads on the half-full.

From a far corner came a plaintive sound, nostalgic and wistful. Old-Timer was seated on the floor holding a large four-note automobile horn. On either side of him, Mrs. Rasmussen and Miss Tinkham lifted up their voices in harmony:

How dry I am!

How dry I am!

Nobody seems to give a damn!

F
RIDAY
MORNING
M
RS.
F
EELEY DID NOT WAKE
till the sun was high in the sky.

“Most as high as we was last night!” she said to Mrs. Rasmussen.

“We’ll have some job sweepin’ out the mud, blood, an’ corruption!” The floor was covered with empty cigarette packs, paper napkins, crumbs, and beer stains.

“The invariable aftermath of the Bacchanale,” Miss Tinkham sighed. “I’d like a glass of cold beer and a slice of cheese, if there is any.”

“You’re goin’ to drink before me!” Mrs. Feeley laughed. “Remember when we first got acquainted, you wasn’t in favor o’ no beer the mornin’ after!”

“That, dear lady, was several hundred hog’s-heads ago!”

Mrs. Rasmussen came in with the cash box. “We got a hundred an’ seventy-six dollars in here. Just what did we do last night?”

Mrs. Feeley dismissed the thought.

“They was payin’ double for most all of it…didn’t take no change at all. That Whitey put ’em up to it. You forgot the thirty-six dollars I got in my sock?”

“Sure funny,” Mrs. Rasmussen smiled, “That friend o’ Whitey’s boostin’ the price on McGoon.”

“In the parlance of the underworld,” Miss Tinkham said, “he was a perfect shill.”

“I’ll feel better when I see the color o’ his money an’ Timmy gives him a receipt.”

“Sure gettin’ homesick,” Mrs. Rasmussen said. “I’m takin’ them pots home that Mrs. Miller give us. They’re sure fine an’ I like a little momento o’ her.”

“Where the hell is Ol’-Timer?” Mrs. Feeley said. “He’s gotta get off an’ help us clean out this pigsty.” Whitey came in the door.

“Gawd, man!” Mrs. Feeley groaned. “It’s too early.”

“I don’t want nothin’ but some beer,” he said. “Large evenin’.”

“We done all right,” Mrs. Feeley said, “but how I hate cleaning up all that dur-biss.”

“Débris,” Miss Tinkham murmured.

“Dur-biss. I seen it in the paper. Means trash.”

Miss Tinkham was in no condition to undertake the correction of Mrs. Feeley’s unique system of reading. Progressive education had produced some weird and wonderful results to Miss Tinkham’s way of thinking.

Whitey finished his beer and put down a dime.

“Put that in your pocket,” Mrs. Feeley said.

“Leave it for the sweepers!”

“Speakin’ o’ sweepers…would you step to the car-lot an’ get Ol’-Timer? He’s gotta help swab down.”

“I bet he won’t come,” Whitey said. “He’s paintin’ the Caddy bright Easter-egg blue. Musta cost sixteen thousand when it was new, twenty-five years ago, almost.

Seven passenger, cut-glass vases for flowers, an’ that motor! Musta been ordered special for some fly-jane or other. Ol’-Timer’s gonna sell it. Sol told him he could keep what he gets for it…over the price o’ the car, o’ course. God, they made ’em in them days! A person couldn’t afford to drive one of ’em a block with gas the price it is today.”

“Them days is gone forever,” Mrs. Feeley said. “He can just drop it, ’cause we got our money to go home now, soon as we turn the whole thing over to Timmy. Guess McGoon’ll be around.”

“Think we give him enough of a hot-foot?”

“Sure!” Mrs. Feeley said. “Please get Ol’-Timer! I can’t stand the dirt another minute!”

“No lunch today, Whitey,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

“Who could eat it?”

B
Y
FIVE O’CLOCK
THE ROAD TO RUIN SALOON WAS
restored to something like its usual neatness. Mrs. Rasmussen laid out some pickled herring and smoked salmon. She sliced some red onions into a bowl of French dressing and passed it around with hunks of dark bread. The beer-truck driver stuck his head in the door.

“Six halfs,” Mrs. Feeley said, “an’ if you sing a note, I’ll murder you.”

Miss Tinkham came out of the washroom looking fresh and cool in her Roman-striped jersey dress.

“I’ll just scour myself,” Mrs. Feeley said. “Make me feel better, not to mention what it’ll do to my looks.”

“I’m leveled off.” Mrs. Rasmussen was calmly eating an onion sandwich. Miss Tinkham waited on the customers in the cool quiet bar. No one touched the pianola.

“The cathedral hush of a funeral parlor or an art gallery,” Miss Tinkham said.