“Want to see some more?” she asked.
“Sure,” he said, “but give us something rough this time,” and he looked over at Dave for approval.
“Something like this?” She made a few Arabian passes with her navel.
“Lady, don’t do that!” begged Dave. “Oh, lady!”
Moloch calmly lit his cigar and proceeded to blow the smoke in her face as she writhed and twisted her loins.
When she had finished he remarked: “Not bad, kid, not bad.”
“How can he sit there like that?” said Dave. He pointed to his companion, who was puffing away on his cigar as though a prandial interregnum had been declared at the six-day bike race.
“For life’s pleasant retrospections nothing like a cigar,” Moloch reflected aloud, carelessly flicking the ashes on the carpet as he spoke.
“Wot is he?” asked the blonde. “A reporter?”
“No, he peddles dope,” said Dave.
“good night!” chorused the two females in unison.
The party had the gamy flavor that was peculiar to the dying days of the Roman Empire. It was hard to believe that a couple of stupid Polacks could provide such merriment. When they weren’t dancing, or mushing it up in a corner, or leaning against the mantelpiece, they were telling dirty stories. Here Dave’s natural lubricity showed to mean advantage. Occasionally even the blonde one signaled thumbs down. No one blushed because there wasn’t any time for blushing. Things happened too fast. And when the flask gave out, as it did immediately, the two malapert sluts proved their sportsmanship by dragging a case of kummel up from the cellar.
Every once in a while Moloch would sing out: “Hey, Brown, hadn’t we better think about getting back to the car barns?”
When the women got maudlinly stewed they began to tire of the smut and take a romantic turn. The blonde demanded a recitation … “somethin’ decent.”
Moloch obliged by standing on his hands with his feet propped against the wall. In that ridiculous posture it suddenly occurred to him to intone the opening lines of Virgil’s Aeneid … “Arma virumque cano,” etc., etc., for about ten lines. Here he lost the continuity, and with true poetic license, jumped to that magic line “Rari nantes ingurgite vasto. “Enchanted with this, he kept repeating the last two words—“gurgite vasto,” “gurgite vasto”—until the blonde yelled for him to come up for air.
Dave was lolling on a settee, with his tongue hanging out like a St. Bernard’s, trying to imitate the sonorous roar of Virgil’s gurgite vasto, but never quite succeeding. The runt in the black satin dress put an end to his Latinizing by squirting seltzer water over him. Everyone laughed but Dave. He was thinking of what his wife would say when she saw his bedrabbled appearance.
As no one could read his thoughts the conversation flowed along just as if there had been no seltzer water squirted over him.
Said the runt in the black satin dress: “Vat vere you spik-kink—Spahneesh or mebbe Grik?”
“No,” Moloch replied, “that was just a little Tagalog I picked up in the Philippines. You liked it, hah?”
“I like it better ven I could understand de woids.”
“No you wouldn’t, kid. Poetry is better when you don’t understand the words.”
The blonde had lost all interest in poetry. She was doing her best to entice Moloch to lie down beside her on the daybed. “Put your arms around me, kid, and squeeze the guts outa me,” she begged.
“I can’t, honey, I’m hungry, honest I am. Can’t you dig up a few sandwiches?”
Dave tittered at the mention of food and thought to smooth over Moloch’s tactlessness by dilating on the subject of tapeworms. But the blonde was hard to ruffle. She had taken quite a fancy to Dave’s boss and wasn’t going to permit a little food to get between her and the object of her affection.
While the Lithuanian miscarriage prepared the sandwiches in the kitchen, Moloch and Dave were entertained by an impromptu exhibition that revealed the blonde’s superb muscle control. Dave, who was perched like a rubber doll on the settee, glutted his greedy eyes until, exasperated beyond endurance by Moloch’s composure, he jumped up impulsively, clutched the blonde’s white thigh like a turkey leg, and fastened his yellow teeth into it. The girl screamed with terror. Dave let go with a whine and groveled at her feet, begging forgiveness.
Moloch laughed inordinately and gave Dave a vigorous shove with his feet which sent him sprawling on his back. Dave looked like a turtle that had been turned over. His eyes were bloodshot and terror-stricken. He had never bitten a woman before.
“Get up, you dirty little bum,” cried Moloch, pretending to be furious with him. “This is no Billy Sunday show,” he added savagely, yanking Dave to his feet. “Now apologize to the lady.”
Dave wondered if a mere apology would clear him. The blonde was evidently impressed by his earnestness, although it took quite a few drinks of kummel to restore her equanimity. However, the episode was finally forgotten and they were soon seated in convivial mood in the kitchen, surrounded by slimy green walls, munching cheerfully on caviar sandwiches and pickled herring.
After her third sandwich the blonde sighed and remarked that her appetite had flown. A polite inquiry into the cause of this regrettable condition revealed the fact that on her way home that evening she had witnessed a terrifying spectacle. It seems that a man, evidently respectable, well dressed, had suddenly decided to commit suicide… right before her eyes. Just as the subway train pulled into the station he had jumped from the platform and landed under the wheels. He was ground to a pulp. Later they found his head lying a few yards from his mangled body. She was unaccustomed to the sight of severed heads.
“I think it’s dreadful,” she said, working herself up into a frenzy. “To think that he went and did it right in front of my eyes. I can’t eat a thing when I think of it. It takes all my appetite away.”
Moloch offered his sympathies. “The big brute, he ought to have been more considerate… the idea, committing cusensyrup before my little tootsie had her dinner. I’m damned glad he had his head cut off, the big bum! He didn’t have any sense, anyhow.”
The women looked at each other in astonishment, uncertain whether to laugh or grow indignant. Dave came to the bat, however, with a brand-new quip from the Olympic. A merry little jest about Santa Claus, in which someone got a fine new set of false teeth instead of a lavalier.
Then Dave felt a song coming on. He suggested that they try a little close harmony. Everyone felt agreeable. The decapitated trunk lying on the subway tracks was forgotten, which was fine because it would have spoiled the quartet.
Dave had a funny falsetto. The girls thought it was lovely. “Let’s sing ‘Sweet Genevieve,’” Moloch suggested. He didn’t care a rap what they sang so long as everybody felt happy. “Hadn’t we better swab our throats with a little kummel first?” He filled the glasses and gave the blonde a friendly pinch under the table.
“We don’t know that song,” she said, getting up and putting her arms around his neck. “How about ‘Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland’?”
Dave sounded off, timid and quavery. The girls giggled a bit, but it was only a flurry. In a minute they had their heads together and were yodeling in dismal earnest:
“Where love’s sweet dreams come true, ooh, ooh …” When it came time for the second verse everyone was delighted that they had all ended upon the same note. This time the blonde opened the barrage with a sour whine that was meant to convey deep pathos. Her adenoids served to tauten the deep pathos.
God knows how long the harmonizing would have continued, but after the fifth attempt, someone knocked at the door and in a gruff voice bade them all jump in the river. The blonde was for ignoring such incivility, but Dave kept remonstrating that he intended to go home with the same mug. His paramour finally grew hysterical with laughter and they forgot all about “Mammy Jinny’s Jubilee.”
During a brief interlude in which the girls excused themselves to run to the lavatory, which was d
own the hall, Dave pleaded with Moloch to make a break.
When the girls came back Dave and Moloch excused themselves and went searching for the lavatory also. “A big day tomorrow,” said Dave, trying to break the ice. He knew they were going to have a hell of a time to tear away from the two females.
The blonde glued herself to Moloch. “Ah, no! You’re not going now,” she pleaded. “You can stay for the night, kid; nobody’s gonna put you out.”
“He’s gotta go,” said Dave solemnly.
“That’s right, kid. We gotta be at the car barns in a couple of hours,” grinned Moloch, as he tried to release himself from the frantic clutches of the blonde.
“Gee, and we were havin’ such a swell time, too,” the other moaned.
“I hate to do it, ladies, but we gotta go,” Dave repeated.
The girls followed them down into the vestibule and they stood there awhile in the dark, leaning against the doorbells.
“Jesus, they were steamed up,” Dave exclaimed when they emerged from the vestibule. “Look at my collar, D. M. I’m just a wet rag!”
“Well, you had a good time, didn’t you?”
Dave grunted and fussed with his tie as if to restore a portion of his respectability.
“That blonde was no slouch,” Moloch remarked as they strode up the street toward the car line.
“She was mine by rights, D. M.”
“Well, you know where to find her now. I saw enough of her.”
In a few minutes a crosstown car came along. They sat on the rear seat this time. Soon Dave began in his quavering falsetto: “Meet me tonight in Dreamland, under the silvery moon, meet me tonight …”
Suddenly he broke off and slapped Moloch’s knee.
“Wasn’t that funny when the guy rapped on the door and bawled hell out of us?”
“You didn’t act as though you thought it funny then,” Moloch retorted.
“I thought we were in for a good beating.”
Dave didn’t forget to remember about the books. He started off by inquiring about Shakespeare. “Somebody told me there was a lot of dirt in his plays. Is that on the up-and-up, D. M.?”
“Yeah, Shakespeare got away with murder. But you wouldn’t like him.”
Dave ignored the last remark. “Funny,” he said. “I never saw any rough stuff in Julius Caesar.”
Moloch promised to take Dave to the 42nd Street library someday and show him what he had missed.
“I’m willin’ to go blind if I can get the real goods, D. M.”
Moloch thought that was splendid of Dave. “I’ll make a scholar of you yet, you little smut-hound.”
“And how about the Bible, D. M.?”
“I’ll show you the Bible, too.”
“They won’t kick us out if we ask for the Bible?”
“Shucks! Where did you get that idea? Tell ‘em you’re doing research work.”
Dave was still a little leery about this proposition. He expressed the idea that they might recognize him for a Jew and become suspicious.
“What the hell, Dave, you’ve got a right to read the Bible. You’re a citizen, ain’t you?”
“I thought maybe you had to be a Catholic or a Protestant.”
Even Dave had to laugh when he got through saying this.
Religion seemed to fascinate Dave. He was curious to know how many religions there were in the world, and which was the best one, the most liberal.
“One is about as bad as another,” Moloch confided. Suddenly he turned on Dave and said: “Say, I’m beginning to think you’re an atheist. Don’t you know anything about your own religion?”
“Only what the rabbi tells me. He puts me to sleep.”
“A fine guy you are! I’ll bet you don’t go to the synagogue more than once a year.”
“Ah, hell!” said Dave. “It’s too dry. I’d rather go to the movies. If it wasn’t for the old folks I wouldn’t bother to go even on Yom Kippur. That’s how much I think of religion.”
Moloch chided him some more about his lack of faith and suddenly Dave burst out: “What’s the diff! Who knows what’s goin’ to happen to us when we croak? Them geezers don’t know any more about it than we do. Am I right?”
“Who do you mean … them geezers?”
“The rabbis … you know, the greasy beards, the matzoths. Where do they get that stuff about the hereafter? It’s a lot of bologna, if you ask me.”
“Dave, you’re not such an awful dub after all.”
Dave grinned and lit a cigar. He was all out of Luckies. They rode along in silence for a while. Moloch took off his hat to enjoy the breeze.
“D’yuh know you’re losin’ your hair?” Dave observed.
Moloch rubbed his head to corroborate the statement.
“I know you can stop it, D. M. Maybe it’ll sound funny to you but I got a lot of faith in it.”
“I’ll bet it’s Glover’s Mange Cure.”
“No, this is an old Norwegian remedy a fella told me about. His family used it for years and you oughta see the head of hair he’s got.”
“Well, spit it out.”
Dave explained that it wasn’t kerosene oil or pigeon fat or any of those things. Just plain boiled urine. (He didn’t say urine… he used a more familiar Anglo-Saxon term.)
“Well, that’s new to me, Dave. How does he explain it?”
“I don’t remember what he said now about baldness. I know he said it was good for that, too. He was talkin’ at the time about rheumatism. You know, rheumatism is supposed to come from too much uric acid in the system. Well, urine is ninety percent uric acid, or thereabouts. I don’t remember exactly. Anyway, when you apply the uric acid on the outside it affects the uric acid on the inside. It’s like a double negative, you see. One wipes out the other … just like electricity.”
“That certainly is clear enough. The next question is, Dave, where do we get the uric acid? You haven’t any uric acid you don’t know what to do with, have you?”
Dave hawhawed and got red as a beet. Moloch hummed “Sweet Genevieve.” It came time soon for Dave to hop off.
“Will you be in early?” asked Dave, as he stood on the running board.
“Sure, same as usual.”
“Get in early, will you, D. M.? The old man’s liable to call up tomorrow morning. He asked for you three times last week.”
“What did you say?”
“I told him what you told me to say: that you were in the back.”
“Every time?”
“Yeah. And I forgot to tell you this. The last time he called up and I told him what you said, he said: ‘You might suggest to Mr. Moloch that he transfer his desk to the lavatory’… and he hung up.”
“All right, Dave. See you bright and early.”
Dave hopped off. “It’s almost daylight,” he yelled as the car started forward.
11
RETIRING BESIDE THE CATALEPTIC FIGURE OF HIS WIFE, Dion Moloch at once sank five fathoms deep into a splendorous sea of unconsciousness.
His dream was of such a quality as we experience only in the trammeled depths of a profound stupor. It commenced with a nightmarish vertigo that sent him hurtling from a dizzy precipice into the warm waters of the Caribbean. The waters closed over him but failed to suffocate. He felt himself swirling down, down, down in great spiral curves that had no beginning and promised to end in eternity.
During this ceaseless descent a bewildering and enchanting panorama of marine life unrolled before his eyes. Enormous sea-dragons of legendary awesomeness wriggled and shimmered in the powdered sunlight which filtered through the green waters; huge cactus plants with hideous detached roots floated by, followed by sponge-like coral growths of curious hues, some sullen as ox-blood, some a brilliant vermilion or soft lavender. Out of this teeming aquatic life poured myriads of animalcules, resembling gnomes and pixies, streaming up in bubbles like a gorgeous flux of Stardust in the tail-sweep of a comet.
Gradually the successive scenes were bathed in a mis
t which reminded him of Debussy’s unresolved chords and shattering vertical harmonies. The roaring in his ears had given way to plangent, verdant melodies; he became aware of the tremors of earth, or poplars and birches, shrouded in ghost-like vapors, bending gracefully to the caress of fragrant land-breeze.
Stealthily the vapors rolled away and he found himself trudging through a mysterious forest alive with screaming monkeys and birds of tropical plumage. To his astonishment he discovered a quiver of arrows in his girdle and a giant golden bow over his shoulder.
As he penetrated deeper and deeper into the woods the music became more celestial, the light more golden, and the earth beneath his feet became a carpet of soft blood-red leaves and twigs the color of burnt orange. Overwhelmed by the stifling beauty that surrounded him, he swooned away. When he awoke the forest had vanished and it seemed to his befuddled mind that he was standing before a pale, towering canvas on which a simple pastoral scene of classic dignity had been painted. A mural such as Puvis de Chavannes has given us out of the grave, seraphic void of his dream life. The sedate, sombre wraiths of the canvas moved with a measured, dreamlike elegance that made our awkward earthly movements appear grotesque. Without realizing quite what he was doing, he stepped into the canvas and followed a quiet path which led back toward the retreating horizon. A full-hipped figure in a Grecian robe, balancing a faience urn, directed his footsteps toward the turret of a castle which was dimly visible above the crest of a gentle knoll. He followed the undulating hip until it was lost in a dip beyond the distant knoll.