Tales From Gavagan's Bar (28 page)

             
Well, we got in the house and there was the other twin, and he had fell downstairs and had a big bang on his head. Old Mrs. Walsh thought that was wonderful and gave us the business about how sympathetic Lester and Leslie were, and how if one of them got hurt you couldn't hardly tell which one it was, because they'd both be yelling their heads off.

             
My cousin Pershing went to high school with them. He says it was the same way there. The two of them was together all the time, and if one got into a fight or anything, the other one would get mad and make out to help him. You ought to expect that with twin brothers, only it was more like they was still connected. Like one time Leslie got locked up in the cellar at home, and my cousin Pershing says Lester sat there all day in school like a stupe and wouldn't say nothing. And with girls—oh boy!

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Gross finished his Boilermaker in an appreciative swig and signalled to Mr. Cohan.

             
"What about girls?" asked Witherwax "Did they chase
them?"

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They didn't have to [said Gross]. Only it was always the same girl they was making time with. No
matter whether it was Leslie or Lester that picked her up first, they would go out with her together, maybe with another babe along. But they wouldn't pay no more attention to her than if she was a rag doll. Dames don't like that. They don't even like to have two guys after them, not unless they can take them one at a time. But if they made any kick to the two Walshes, they'd give her the air both together, the way that bellydancer over on Monroe Street got accused of doing with her husbands, the one with t
he ears that didn't match.

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Doc Brenner opened his mouth to say something, but before he could achieve more than an inarticulate beginning of speech, a voice pronounced: "Pardon me, but can you tell me if Mr. Lester Walsh is about? I was told that
I might find him here."

             
The group looked around at a tall man wearing striped trousers, a carnation in his buttonhole, and a worried expression. "He was here, sure enough," said Mr. Cohan, "but he left."

             
"You might find him in that Italian place around the corner," said Witherwax, "but you ain't going to like what you find."

             
"I was afraid of that," said the tall man. "This is most inconvenient, most embarrassing, for a number of people." He glanced around the bar, elevated his nose disdainfully, and l
eft.

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See? [said Gross]. Them things are always happening with the two Walshes. Anyway, by time they was getting out of high school, the old woman figured maybe she was going too good on this racket of making the kids alike. It didn't work every ti
me, only when one of them got real excited, or sore, or gloomy, but then the other one had to be like that, too, or nearly bust his britches.

             
["I see," said Doc Brenner. "The
rapport
was related to the intensity of the emotion."]

             
What do you know? [said Gross]. And I always thought a report was one of them things a spiritual medium kept in a closet. So old Mrs. Walsh thought it would be good for them to get to be different. So she sends Leslie to a college run by the Methodists up in New England, and Lester off to one of them colleges in Texas where they don't do nothing but play football. In a way, it worked all right. When they come back from college, they was quite a lot different. Lester is big as a beef trust compared to Leslie right now, and besides they was different in other ways.

             
Maybe the report didn't work from New England to Texas or something. Leslie Walsh no sooner come out of college and got a job than he began teaching in Sunday School and going to prayer meeting every Wednesday night; but Lester, he learned about playing poker and things like that down in Texas, and if there was any place he was Wednesday night, it was right here in Gavagan's or maybe one of them joints over in the Fifth. They didn't see each other so much, and that was all right with both of them.

             
That is, it was all right until that business about the church sociable. The way I get the story they meet about something connected with old Mrs. Walsh's estate—she was dead by that time—and spent all afternoon talking about it. Maybe that started up the report again. Anyway, that night Leslie went to a church sociable, and Lester, he goes over afterward to Bugs Farquhar's for a game of poker. I don't know if you know Buggsy. Everybody that goes to his games is supposed to bring a pint so that nobody won't feel too beat-up if he loses a couple of bucks. Only this time things got balled up, and nearly everybody brought a quart instead of a pint, and when they got it there, it was too much trouble to take it home again, so they drank it, and they were all laid out like a massacre.

             
The real trouble was what happened to Leslie that night. He is at this church sociable, and they are just passing the ice cream when all of a sudden he is talking loud, and the next thing he is reciting poetry, and it is not the kind of poetry I would want to repeat in Gavagan's, neither. Old man Webster
told me it was as bad as the time somebody put a pair of rubbers in the furnace. They practically had to carry him home, and they were going to expel him from the church for getting plastered, only everybody has seen him since the start of the sociable and knows he cannot have did this by himself. Only they don't know what did do it.

             
But Leslie, he knows all right, that it is the old report coming back. So the next day, when he got rid of his hangover, he goes around to Lester's place, and tries to get him to take the pledge like he has done hisself. Well, Lester is not feeling so good that day, as you maybe can think, so he says he will not drink no more. That night is prayer meeting night, and Leslie goes to the church to have a couple of prayers for his brother, and that is also the night when Lester, thinking that one drink won't hurt him, comes in here; only before he can get the drink, the report starts working, and he asks everybody in Gavagan's to have a prayer with him.

             
So they figured it out this way, that the report works when the two of them are together. And they figured out a system so they wouldn't bother each other no more. But it busted up. You know what made it bust up?

             
[Gross looked at the other two with the air of a man in possession of an earth-shaking secret. Witherwax said: "I'll have another Martini, Mr. Cohan."]

             
It was love [Gross went on solemnly]. It was love. They both picked out the same dame, like they used to back in high school. I don't remember her name, and my cousin Pershing says she ain't too much to look at; but what the hell, when a guy is in love, he don't care how a dame looks. There was a cousin of my wife's once that took tickets in the circus, and he fell in love with the tattooed fat girl in the sideshow.

             
So the both of them Walshes are chasing the same dame, and they are chasing each other, trying to use the report to slip one over. Maybe they meet at her house, see? So they talk a couple of minutes, and then Leslie says he's forgot, he's gotta go somewhere, and he goes off to a church if
there's a prayer meeting on, and starts singing hymns or something. And Lester says he's got a date and runs out and starts loading them in or gets in a fight with a hackie. Leslie won't go to this dame's house except on Sundays or prayer meeting nights on account of he might meet Lester there, and on other nights Lester has the edge on him. But on them days he lays for Lester outside his own house, and talks to him a while and then goes to church and puts the report on him. And them two brothers that used to be just like this—

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Gross held up a pair of fingers. Witherwax said: "How are they coming out with the girl?"

             
"Oh, her. You know how it is with dames. They want a guy that's a steady meal ticket. Last I heard she was going to marry Leslie."

             
The door swing open and t
hrough it staggered Mr. Lester Walsh, considerably the worse for wear. His hat had suffered a case of assault and battery; there was a tear in his coat and a long stain down it. It took him three staggering steps to reach the bar, which he clutched as a sea-sick oceanic traveler grips a rail.

             
"Mis'r Cohan!" he called. "Mis'r Cohan! Nurr whiskey, whiskey chaser."

             
He turned and faced the others with an oratorical gesture. "My bro'r's getting married toni'. Marrying my girl. But I'll fix'm. Got bes' man and whole town looking for me. Gotta get drunk for two. Nurr whiskey, whiskey chaser."

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Mr. Gross was leaning against the bar, rather apathetically sipping his Boilermaker, when the voices at the back table suddenly became loud.

             
"No you don't," Mr. Cohan was saying, with quite unusual energy. "I'm telling you once as I've told you before. This is a public place, and you can come into it, and it's against the law for me not to serve you, but not one dime of your money will I take!"

             
He held his hands before him as though pushing something away, then turned and surprisingly spat on the floor. The thin young man with a pale face flashed an apologetic smile across the table at his companion. "I'm very sorry," he said, "but you see how it is. Would you mind—? I'll make it up to you later."

             
The other, a fairly well-upholstered individual in a blue suit, produced a couple of dollar bills and shook hands with the pale young man. "Well, I think we've done all we can today, anyway," he said. "I like the policy your firm puts out, and the rates are reasonable."

             
"Thank you," said the pale young man, standing up. "You're covered against practically everything but fire now, but I'll look up what a fire policy on your car would cost and call you about it first thing in the morning." He smiled again, pleasingly if a trifle sadly, nodded at Mr. Cohan, and went out.

             
The individual in the blue suit picked up his change and stepped over to the bar. "Would you mind telling me," he
addressed Mr. Cohan, "why you refused to take that gentleman's money? Is there anything wrong with him? I've just bought an insurance policy on my new car from him, and it seemed all right to me. Good strong company, and he has a very pleasing personality."

             
"Yes," said Gross. "I'm surprised at you, Mr. Cohan. We should always be kindly to people in troubles, and the deeper the troubles, the more kindlier we should be. I had a great-uncle once that used to go through the state prison at Geneva, passing apples out of a basket to all the poor fellows there, and he was very well thought of."

             
"If he passed one to that young felly, he'd be sorry," said Mr. Cohan, grimly. "That there's Lucian Baggot."