Tales From Gavagan's Bar (29 page)

             
"And what of it? I'm Adolphus Gross myself and not ashamed of it."

             
"And is there any reason why you should be?" said Mr. Cohan, and turned to the blue-suited man. "Listen, mister; I'll say nothing against him for an honest man. He is that; but he is not the felly I'd be having feel friendly toward me. That fine lad of a Baggot broke up some of the best trade Gavagan's ever had, and all because he liked the place."

             
"Huh?" said Gross. The blue-suited man said: "What do you mean?"

             
"What do I mean? I'll show you." Mr. Cohan fumbled beneath his apron for a wallet, from which he produced a worn piece of paper. "Read that now." He turned and called to the bar boy: "Jim, turn on them sidelights. With that thunderstorm coming on, it's that dark in here a man can't tell whose drink he's drinking."

             
"That reminds me," said the man in the blue suit, "you had better fix me a Whiskey Sour," and he bent with Gross over the paper. It was a page torn from a pulp magazine, with the continuation of a story marching in column beside a row of advertisements—hernia trusses, albums of nude photographs, and articles which it took a second reading to reveal as loaded dice.

             
"Right there it is," said Mr. Cohan, pouring and pointing. "That's the thing was the ruination of a fine young felly." The
others looked at an ad which read:

-

A DIME BRINGS YOU SUCCESS

Develop
a
commanding personality! Win companionship, love, financial success! This coupon, plus
a
dime to cover mailing charges, brings you your first FREE lesson in our guaranteed course in personality development. . .

-

             
"What is it? A swindle of some kind?" asked the blue-suited man.

#
★
#

             
Now that's where you'd be wrong [said Mr. Cohan]. They done what they said for him and more, too, and there's the trouble, because he didn't need it, no more than Flaherty's dog needed five legs. I remember when this Lucian Baggot first began to come
in here, a decent young felly and on his way up, the way a young felly should be; and like you said, mister, a young felly a man was pleased to know and to do things for.

             
He had a job with the Standard Oil in them days, down in the Henshaw Building. They all used to come in here to Gavagan's, the whole bunch of the Standard Oil boys, and have maybe a drink or two after work, and he'd come with them. It would only be a beer he'd be having then, because he was just an office boy, and not for touching the hard stuff. But he got along good with the rest—real good. You could see even when they kidded him, it was in a way that showed they liked him.

             
I call to mind the day when he got promoted to running one of them adding machines in the accounting department. He celebrated right in here, having a drink of whiskey to himself, and Mr. Brinkerhoff, that was the head of the department, bought the drink for him, and all the Standard Oil boys wished him health. He was that proud you'd think he had been made president of Ireland.

             
Listen to that thunder, will you? How would you like a drink on the house, to take the sound of it away? Well, as I was saying, this Lucian Baggot was proud as he could be over his new job at first, but after a while, you could see that
everything wasn't all pork-pies and roses, because the other Standard Oil boys were treating him different. Not like they didn't like him, you understand, but when he was just the office boy, they'd be looking after him and giving him a ticket to a show or maybe a ball game, or taking him home to dinner. But now he was in the accounting department, that was all gone. The boys would have their two-three drinks, and it would be "Good-night, good-night," and him sitting alone there at the bar with the last of his whiskey.

             
Mind you, this wasn't every time. Many's the night he'd never show up at all, and when I asked for him, they'd say, "Oh, Mr. Baggot, he's got a heavy date with a girl," or maybe that two of them had gone somewhere together. Not so much different from any other young felly on a job and living by himself, he was, except that he seemed to think so. Many's the time he sat right at that bar and complained what a hard life he led, because nobody liked him no more, and how some felly he used to be friends with at the office had been married and hadn't a minute for him, and he had to spend all his evenings by himself, and at the office he could get nowhere.

             
I used to tell him that there was nothing happening to him that didn't happen to all. "Mr. Baggot," I would say to him. "Mr. Baggot, one of these fine days you'll be stepping off with some girl yourself, and then you'll find out that a man may choose his own wife, but his friends she picks for him, by God, just to remind him he has a leash on his neck." I used to ask him whether the people he met here in Gavagan's did not like him and sometimes buy him a drink on first sight, which was true enough.

             
But it was no use. He was that anxious to be popular, you'd of thought he was running for Congress, and one night he comes in here with an ad in a magazine like this one, and says he's going to send for the course. I said to him, let well enough alone, but I might as well of been talking to the stuffed owl up there, because the next thing I know, he tells me the courses have started and they're wonderful. I don't rightly understand them things, but as near as I could make
out, the people in this course taught Mr. Baggot to fix his eyes on somebody without winking or yet blinking, as if he wasn't nothing but a poor dead corp, and also fixing his mind on them at the same time. He said it would distill his personality if he did it right. "Mr. Baggot," I told him, "you'll be no better for it. The only thing that's improved by distilling is honest liquor." But he only said: "It's a fine course, Mr. Cohan. I feel better for it already, and when I finish it up two weeks from now, I'll give you a practical demonstration, and you can see for yourself."

             
It would be two weeks, almost to the day, when he comes in here one afternoon with some of the Standard Oil boys, and this Mr. Brinkerhoff, that was the department head, is one of them. I remember it like it was yesterday, raining hard outside, like it is tonight, and all of them shaking water off their hats and laughing as they ordered drinks. Mr. Baggot was right in the middle of the bunch; when he got his, which was a Rye and Soda, as usual, he slapped his hand on the bar in front of me and motioned with his head toward Mr. Brinkerhoff, and I knew he was going to give me the demonstration.

             
"Mr. Brinkerhoff," he says, "you know what I think we should do?" And he starts staring at him hard, wrinkling up his forehead, so I can see he is distilling personality.

             
Mr. Brinkerhoff's face took on a kind of funny look, and he took a step backward, and the next thing you know, he is on the floor, with good liquor spilled all around him, and the rest of them jabbering and trying to help him up. They found out Mr. Brinkerhoff not only had a heart attack, but when he went down, he twisted his leg under him and got a broken ankle, so it was many a long day before he was back at work or in Gavagan's again.

             
Afterward I told Mr. Baggot that it was the most wonderful demonstration since Finn M'Cool's wife baked the stove lids in the griddlecakes, but if it was me I would not be wanting to distill my personality at nobody again. He looked worried over it, but he says: "Why, I wouldn't harm Mr. Brinkerhoff for the world! He's been like a father to me, ever
since I came with the firm. It must have been a coincident."

             
"Mark my words, Mr. Baggot," I says to him, "and call it what you like," I says. "But if a thing like that happened in the old country, they would say the man had the Eye put on him."

             
"Oh, I don't believe in that," said he and went out. But the next thing was I noticed Mr. Harmsen, that was a great friend of Mr. Baggot's, didn't come in with the other Standard Oil boys no more, and devil a word could I get out of Mr. Baggot about it. But the others, they told me that Mr. Harmsen is in jail for having too many wives, and this is the way it happened:

             
Mr. Harmsen has just taken over the department while Mr. Brinkerhoff is sick, and he is just talking to everyone in it, and they are all watching him when he falls down in a fit and has to be taken to the hospital. And the phone girl at the office noticed there was two home phone numbers for Mr. Harmsen, and thinking nothing of it, calls both of them to pass the bad news to his wife, and would you believe it? He was keeping two separate apartments with a wife in each one, and the both of them met at the hospital. You wouldn't expect it of Mr. Harmsen, that was a nice, quiet felly, but some of them are the worst underneath.

             
All the same, I could see something else, too, and the next time Mr. Baggot was in here, I ast him, did he try distilling his personality on Mr. Harmsen, and he said yes, he did, but without thinking, and he didn't mean to do it. And—

             
[Outside, there was an earsplitting crash of nearby thunder, and a blue flicker of lightning briefly illuminated the windows.] That was a good one, wasn't it now? Well, it was just like that lightning with Mr. Baggot and the Standard Oil boys. One afternoon, right in here, he was talking to Mr. Cassadeo, and Mr. Cassadeo is explaining something, and Mr. Baggot is looking at him hard, trying to catch what he is saying because everyone else is talking. All of a sudden Mr. Cassadeo sits down hard, and says he is feeling faint. They got him out of here, and the next I heard was that he has one of them—what do you call them, when you go sneezing from
smelling flowers?—allergies, thank you, Mr. Gross—and he cannot drink nothing no more at all, not only gin that he had in his Martini, but wine and beer and anything you could mention.

             
After that I got hold of Mr. Baggot, and I said to him: "It's no matter of mine what you do with yourself, but this is bad for Gavagan's business, and I'm in charge of that. If you have to distill your personality on someone, why don't you pick on him?" And I nodded my head over toward the end of the bar, where Angelo Carnuto, that was in the numbers racket, happened to be standing with one of his boys. Not that they're welcome in here, it's a respectable house, but it's public.

             
"All right," said Mr. Baggot, "I will," and he steps up to the bar and starts frowning at Angelo Carnuto. After a minute Carnuto turns around and says:

             
"What are you trying to do, put the Eye on me?" and crosses his fingers and spits on the floor and then walks out.

             
Mr. Baggot looks like he just heard the income tax was after him. "You see?" he says. "That's the trouble. I can't seem to distill my personality on anyone unless I like them or want something from them. I don't know what to do."

             
Well, finally, he made up his mind that the only thing he could do was get away from the Standard Oil office altogether and sell insurance, which is a business where you don't know people long enough to distill personality at them. But by that time it was too late; one of the boys fell downstairs and hurt hisself, and another one got took with consumption and had to go to Denver, and of all of them that used to come in here, there was hardly a one left. Myself, I always spit when I talk to him, since they say in the old country that's the way to keep the Eye from doing harm; and his money I will not take, for the Eye might come with it.

#
★
#

             
The man in the blue suit smiled slightly. "Well, thank you for warning me," he said, "but I don't imagine there'll be much danger in a casual business deal. Seems to be clearing up; I guess
I'll be on my way."

             
As he turned, a policeman in a wet-gle
aming rain cape came in the door. "Good evening, Mr. Cohan," he said. "Anybody in here own a blue Chrysler sedan, license number—" he consulted a notebook-"CY-37-72?"

             
"I do," said the man in the blue suit. "What's the matter?"