THE late spring evening extracted lights from the twilight on Ninth Avenue, like some pacing conjurer producing tiny, molten rabbits from his trailing, unseen sleeves. Blanche walked along the street, on her way home from the cafeteria, and her high heels scuffed on the dirty cement sidewalk with a weary evenness. It was all right to say that sitting on a stool all day rested your legs, but the energy that went from your arms and head drew its penalty from all of your body. That cafeteria was finally “getting on her nerves”—the place had changed proprietors a few weeks before, and the new owner, a furtive-faced man of thirty, who considered himself to be an invincible Don Juan, always hovered about Blanche’s stand as much as he could and continually touched her in ways that made it hard for her to conceal her ire. She had run out of all of her tactfully laughing withdrawals, and momentary submissions when the gesture was not “too raw,” and the situation had reached a straining-point. It would not have been so bad if he had been good-looking, or if he had sought to lavish gifts upon her, but here he was a man with a long nose and a spindly body, making advances to her because she was an employee of his at twenty-three a week—the nerve of him! She would quit the place to-morrow if he tried another thing.
A year had passed since her last spring night with Campbell at The Golden Mill, and she was now a little over twenty-one. Her figure had grown less bottom-heavy, and her bosom had curved out a bit, and her face was more resolved and inquiring beneath the many ignorances that still remained. A deeper, half hopeless question had crept into her bluish-gray eyes—an untutored I’d-like-to-know-what-it’s-all-about look—and her wide lips had come together more closely and lost some of their loose thoughtlessness. Very dimly, she had even commenced to see flaws and credulities in her hitherto uninspected family, especially in her father and her brother Harry, whose endless strut and domineering words had become more of a palpable bluff to her. Yet, at the same time, she still accepted her environs without much anger or revolt, because, after all, they were real, and near-at-hand, and seemingly permanent, and because they still held nightly escapes, and laughing conquests at parties, and dance halls, and cabarets. The only one possibility of a change was marriage, and she dreaded this loophole because it meant being tied down to one man and losing the delicious sense of juggling several men to the stress of her whims. At times she toyed with the dream of becoming the mistress of a wealthy and at least endurable man—plenty of women “got away with it,” and what was hindering her?—but it never more than flitted through her mind because her life had always pounded into her the fact that a girl had to be “respectable” at all costs, had to cling to an indignant pose of keeping men at arm’s length, so that she could look the world in the face with the glad knowledge that it was unaware of her “personal” relentings and sins. Otherwise, the girl definitely cut herself off from all safeguards and reassurances, and was regarded with contemptuous smiles, and lightly spoken of. Again, Blanche had just insight enough to see what the outcome might be if she lived with such a man or allowed him to maintain an apartment for her—to see a hint of the querulous boredoms and the eventual separation that would ensue unless she was really “crazy” about the man. Of course, she merely translated it into the statement that she was not “cut out” for such a life.
During the past year, Campbell had been away twice on long vaudeville tours, and while he was in New York, her refusals to succumb to him had piqued him to a point where he called her up at much longer intervals. What the devil—he wasn’t so “hard up” that he had to chase after a cafeteria cashier who was probably merely intent on getting a “good time” out of him. He could not quite dismiss her from his mind—she had a proud twist to her which he liked in spite of himself, and his vanity always made him believe that he would eventually subdue her—and the impulse to see her again came back to him during his weariest moods—after an unusually pronounced jag, for instance, when he was “sore at the world” and when his head throbbed heavily, for at such times she always beckoned to him as a fresher and less solved feminine variation.
Blanche’s attitude toward him had narrowed down to a sentence which she had once said to herself: “’F he ever asks me to marry him, maybe I will, maybe, but he’s not going to get me like he does other girls, not ’f he was the Prince uh Wales himself!” During the past year she had been more steadily in the company of Rosenberg—he was a necessity to her because he “knew more” than the other men in her life and could assist the feeble stirrings and problems that were beginning to spring up in her mind. He was still unattractive to her in a physical way—a very bright, good boy, but not the broad-chested, wise and yet tender man who constituted her hazy ideal—but she had permitted him embraces of greater intimacy, out of the feeling that it wasn’t right to take so much from him and give him nothing in return, although she refrained from any semblance of a full surrender. He frequently loaned her books, through which she stumbled with amusement and awe—she could not understand most of what they said (it sure was “bughouse”), but when he sought to explain it to her it grew a bit clearer, and she had glimpses of men and women in the novels, who lived more freely and searchingly than she did, and who saw and spoke of “all sorts of strange things” that she had never dreamt of—com-plex-es, and inhibishuns, and hunting for bee-oo-ty, and boldly telling life how double-faced it was, and living your own life with a laugh at the objections of other people, and always looking for something that stood behind something else. They formed themselves into perplexing lures that could never be quite banished from her mind, and became “stronger” when she was in her “bluest” moods.
Rosenberg had found another girl—a blonde, slim chatterer, who tried to write poetry between her labors as a stenographer, and worshiped his “won-der-ful brain,” but although this girl had become his mistress, he never regarded her with more than a flattered satisfaction and still saw Blanche once a week. He could not rid himself of the hope that Blanche might finally love him and marry him, and the other girl’s glib professions of culture and creative aspiration were never as appealing as Blanche’s stumbling and honest questions. He saw “something big” in Blanche and wanted to extract it from her and bask in its warm emancipations.
When Blanche entered the living-room of her home she found that Harry and her father were in her bedroom, engaging in a highly secret confab with another man. Still resenting her day at the cafeteria, and vexed at this invasion of her private domain, she burst into anger before Philip and Mabel, who were seated at the table and waiting for the mother to bring the supper in.
“Say, what right’ve they to go in my room?” she asked. “Think I want some fella to see my slip-ons ’n’ things hanging around, and maybe sitting on my bed? I’m not going to stand for it!”
“Hush up, don’t let them hear you,” said Mabel. “I know how you feel, sure, but then it don’t happen ev’ry night. They got something up their sleeves, and they don’t even want the resta us to hear about it. I don’t see why Harry and pa can’t trust their own fam’ly, though.”
“They’re cooking up something about Harry’s next scrap,” said Philip. “He’s in there with Bill Rainey, and Rainey’s managing this here Young Thomas, the kid Harry’s gonna fight Friday night.”
“Well, I’ll stand it once, but they’d better not pull it off again,” Blanche responded, as she removed her hat and her spring coat. “My room’s my own place and I don’t want any strange men looking it over.”
Her anger had gone down to a quieter sullenness.
“Come on, Blan, get off the high perch,” Philip said. “We’ll all be rolling in money if the thing comes through.”
“B’lieve me, Harry’s going to get into trouble yet with all this crooked stuff of his,” Blanche replied. “He can’t even fight on the level any more.”
“Well, I don’t blame Harry one bit,” Mabel said. “He’s just got to play the old game, that’s all. He won his las’ bout hands down and they went and give the verdict to the other fellow.”
“You can’t be a goody-goody and come out on top in this burg,” Philip said, moodily. “I don’t b’lieve in stealing ’r holding anybody up, but just the same you’ve got to be as tricky as the other side, I’m telling you.”
“That’s always the line around here, but I’m not so sure about it,” Blanche answered. “There’s plenty of people that get by ’cause they can do things better’n other people—’cause they’ve got brains in their heads and not a lotta excuses. ’F ev’rybody was dishonest all the time, they couldn’t make jails large enough to hold ’em. I’m getting tired of all this fake and fake and fake around here. It looks like a bum excuse to me.”
“Since when’ve you become so up’n the air?” asked Mabel. “You’ve been listenin’ some more to your Rosinburgs, ’n Smiths, ’n all the resta them—fellas that walk round without a cent in their pockets, ’n’ tell you how stra-aight they are, ’n’ talk like they owned the earth. They give me a pain in the back. Harry’s tryin’ to make some real money so we c’n all move outa this shack here, but you never give him any credit.”
“Have it your own way,” Blanche replied, with a light disgust. “You won’t talk like that ’f the p’lice ever come up here looking for him.”
“That’s what I’m always afraid of,” said the mother, who had come in from the kitchen. “I get turribul dreams all the time, turribul, an’ I c’n always see your father an’ Harry sittin’ in jail. I’ve always said it’s no use bein’ dishonest, no use. It’s not the right way uh actin’, it’s not, an’ you always get punished for it. I’d much rather live just like we are, plain an’ decint-like, an’ not be worryin’ all the time.”
“I know how you feel ’bout it, ma,” said Blanche, patting her mother’s shoulder and stroking her hair, “but there’s no use in saying anything. Try and tell something to Harry and pa—just try!”
“Aw, ma, don’t be so foolish,” Mabel said, with affection and condescending pity mingled, as she pinched her mother’s cheek. “’F you went round like I do, an’ saw what was goin’ on, you wouldn’t be so worried. Why, there’s fellas gettin’ away with murder all the time, an’ nobody touches them. Big ones, too, the bigges’ they’ve got in this burg.”
“Well, I think ma’s right, in a way,” said Philip, cautiously, “but she don’t know what Harry’s up against. You can’t be straight in this scrapping game.”
“It’s I that always tried to raise all of you to be honest an’ good—it’s no fault uh mine, it’s not,” his mother said, mournfully, as she returned to the kitchen.
The door of Blanche’s room opened and the two Palmers emerged with Rainey, the rival manager. Rainey was a tall, beefy man with a paunch, who wore an immaculate suit of brown checks and sported a gray derby hat and a heavy gold chain on his white linen vest. He was almost totally bald, and his smoothly ruddy face had the look of a politician who had just kissed an unusually homely infant, in the interest of his election. He uttered a few brightly bovine compliments to the women and then departed, after a last whispered talk with the father outside of the apartment door.
“Say, what’s the idea of keepin’ us outside?” asked Mabel, peevishly, after her father had returned. “You oughta know we’re safe, you ought.”
“What you don’t know won’t hurt you none,” her father answered, rubbing a finger over his thick lips. “Anybody’ll start blabbin’ when he gets a little booze in him—’specially a woman.”
“Aw, we know what it’s all about,” said Philip. “They’re pointing Thomas f’r a go with the champion, and Harry’s one guy he can’t beat, an’ he knows it. What’s Rainey going to hand out f’r Harry’s putting the wraps on, that’s what I’d like to know.”
“Listen, talk about somethin’ else,” Harry said, surlily.
He was a bit ashamed of his rôle in the affair—not from a sense of guilt but because it was a refutation of his two-fisted supremacy—and a bit childishly fearful that the “frame-up” would be discovered if any one, even a member of his family, conversed on the subject.
“You people sure hate to mind your own business,” he went on.
“That’s right, lay off,” said the father. “We’ll be havin’ thousands nex’ week, ’f ev’rythin’ goes right—I’ll tell yuh that much—but I don’t want none of yuh to start blah-blahin’ all over the place. You girls wanna keep a close mouth, d’yuh hear me?”
“Oh, hush up, you never give us a chance to say anythin’—you’re always gabbin’ yourself,” Mabel said, petulantly, as she went into her room.
“I’ll bet both of you get into a peck of trouble before you’re through, but it’s not my funeral,” said Blanche, in a spirit of weary indifference.
“Stop croakin’ all the time, will yuh,” answered Harry. “You talk like you was anxious f’r us to get in bad, you do.”
“Oh, let’s drop it—you never pay any attention to what I say,” she replied. “I’m just looking on—don’t mind me.”
“Well, see that yuh don’t do nothin’ but look,” her father admonished. “You’ve been havin’ too damn much to say, these days.”
Blanche repressed her irritation and retired to prepare for her night’s engagement. She was to meet a boy named Fred Roper at the corner drug store, and hints of coming gayety strove to dispel her darker feelings. She’d get away from her family some time, even if she had to wind up by marrying a hunchback with one eye, never fear, but in the meantime there was nothing that she could do. Almost unconsciously, she had begun to classify the members of her family in general ways that were far from complimentary. Her mother was a weak, abused woman; her father was brainless, and conceited, and bossy; Harry was an ill-tempered bully and gangster; Mabel thought of nothing but deceiving men and landing a wealthy one; and Phil was afraid of his shadow, and never taking sides. Still, they were her family, and it was necessary to “stick up” for them—a great deal to other people and even a little to herself—and in spite of their faults they did love each other, and they were generous to each other, and, after all, they were no worse than most of the people in the world, as far as she could see. She would always be loyal to them, sure, but she did want to get off by herself, and be independent, and not bear the brunt of their orders, and displeasures, and knaveries, and to achieve this she would probably have to pay the penalty of marrying some man whom she did not love, but who could comfortably provide for her. What could she do herself—she had no particular talent or ability (she was getting wise to that), and it seemed to be a toss-up between working like a Turk and doing more as she pleased in a home of her own. She would never accept any large sums of money from her family, even if her brother’s dishonest schemes should succeed, because she would never be able to feel right about it—she didn’t want money that was “dirty” and not her own.
Her mood was unduly reckless as she walked down Ninth Avenue to meet her “boy-friend,” for she had a reaction to “forget the whole thing” for the night, at least. In her light brown coat, thinly trimmed with cheap white rabbit-fur at the bottom and top, and her short black and lavender crêpe-de-chine dress, and the round, gray hat snugly fitting over her bobbed hair, she had the self-contained, jauntily ordinary look of scores of other girls tripping down the street. Her escort of the evening, Fred Roper, was a pimply-faced, stocky youth, with sandy hair and lascivious eyes. He dressed in expensive gray-checked suits, and wore a narrow-brimmed, black derby hat, and regarded himself as one of the Beau Brummells of the neighborhood. He worked on and off as a clerk in a Ninth Avenue cigar store, but his main passion and source of revenue was playing the races, and his financial state varied from hundreds of dollars on one week to being “broke” and borrowing money on the next. On this night he had “cleaned up” on a ten-to-one shot at Belmont Park, and he had the truculent swagger of the successful and not yet hardened gambler, who feels that he is the darling of chance and need only lift a finger to cow anything in the world. Blanche considered him to be an aimless fool—one of the hordes of bozoes who were always trying to get something for nothing—but since he was willing to spend money freely for her entertainment, she saw no reason for refusing to accompany him now and then. Also, he was a good dancer, and so far had never sought to do more than kiss her—a contact which always had to be endured as a payment for your evening’s fun. She knew, of course, that he was “laying for her,” and would sooner or later attempt to seduce her, but that was the element of lurking risk that prevented such occurrences from becoming too stale and peaceful—it gave you the watchful tingle, and the sought-after feeling, that established your feminine importance, even though you disdained the man in question and had no intention of responding to him.
“’Lo, Blanche, how’s the girlie?” he asked, when she had walked up to him at the drug-store entrance.
“Fine as silk,” she answered.
They stepped to the curb-stone and looked for an empty taxicab among those that rolled by.
“What d’you wanna do to-night?” he asked.
“Well, let’s see, I guess I’d better leave you car-fare,” said Blanche, impudently.
“I can’t laugh to-night, my lip hurts,” he responded. “I raked in a coupla hundred on the fifth race to-day, so don’t let that part of it worry you none.”
“How about a show, and then the Breauville afterwards?” asked Blanche.
“You’re on,” he replied. “You’ll meet a lotta guys before you find one’s loose as I am, girlie.”
“I know—you’re a peach, Fred,” she answered, putting a note of cajoling praise in her voice.
They rode in a cab to a Broadway theater, where he purchased the best orchestra seats. The show was one of those musical revues—“The Strolling Models of 1925”—where fully endowed, and slenderly semi-chubby, chorus girls revealed everything except the extreme middle portion of their anatomies, and pranced and kicked about the stage, with a manufactured blitheness and a perfect cohesion; and where male and female dancers pounded, leapt, and whirled, like inhumanly nimble and secretly bored manikins; and where the scenes were rococo or minutely simple—multicolored Chinese scenes, Oriental harem scenes, streets on the Bowery, Russian peasant festivals; and where the music and songs were either sweetly languorous or full of a rattling, tattling sensuality. The music had a precarious charm, a charm that could not bear much reiteration but just failed to be obvious at a first hearing.
Blanche sat, transported, and sorry that she had to return to her partner between the scenes. This was the life—throwing up your head and winking an eye at all invitations, like you had a first mortgage on the earth! She envied the girls on the stage, even though she knew something of the labors and uncertainties attached to their profession. How she wished that she, too, could do something different, and get applauded for it, and lose the buried sense that often recurred to her.
After the show she went with Roper to the Club Breauville, a private hang-out off upper Broadway. The place was plastered with frescoes and decorations in gilt, red, and purple, and had a jazz-orchestra of ten men. It prided itself upon its air of gleeful informality—a spirit of natural good-fellowship—although you divined that all of the uproar was doing its best to hide the passage of money, and a less humorous sensual game. Theatrical celebrities were hailed at the tables and asked to make speeches, or give impromptu performances, and people spoke to each other without an introduction, and a stout hostess in a black and silver jet evening gown wandered among the tables and made witty remarks to everybody, and never lost her “I’m-doing-it-to-keep-you-amused” mien. As Blanche and Roper followed the head waiter to a table, the hostess, who had chemically yellowed, abundant hair, and a round, fake-babyish face, was bandying words with a group of tall, rakish men in tuxedoes.
“D’you hear the latest?” she asked. “They’re going to give all the chorines a machine and a diamond bracelet to keep them honest.”
“Rockefeller’s donating a million to the cause.”
“Pass that pipe around and we’ll all take a whiff,” answered one of the men.
“I’ll give you the needle instead—I sold the pipe to a stock-broker this morning,” she answered.
The man laughed at this jibe at their profession, and the hostess turned to another table.
Champagne was sold at fifteen dollars a bottle, and Roper spent his money lavishly, in the effort to impress Blanche. When the second bottle came she drank sparingly—you grew too darn careless if you drank too much, and then you frankly “bawled out” the fellow with you, or let him take too many liberties. Sometimes the matter passed out of your control and you became merrily hazy about everything, but you had to fight against such an ending. Roper drank freely and passed into an inebriated condition that was sullen and hilarious at different times. This girl would have to be good to him to-night—he had played around with her long enough—but he would have to laugh it off for a few hours, until his chance came.
As they rode away in a cab, he kissed her, and she made no remonstrances. It was all part of the system—a kiss or two at the start of the evening, and allowing the man to hug you a little too closely sometimes, while you were dancing, and then some more kisses during the ride home, with a few “Don’t, please don’ts” thrown in to provide the proper touch of objection. Then Roper became more daringly insistent, and she spoke indignantly over an inner sigh. Here it was again, the old finale.
“You musn’t do that to me,” she said. “I don’t like you well enough for that, Fred. I mean it. I’m not a bad sport, and I’m willing to go so far, but I won’t give in to a fellow ’less I really care for him. That’s the way I’m made.”
Roper’s drunkenness gave him an irresistible anger—if this girl thought he was a “sucker” he’d soon correct her.
“You’re gonna come across with me,” he said. “I’m jes’ as good’s any other fellow, ’n’ I’ve been treatin’ you white, an’ you know it. What’s the idea, stringin’ me along like this?”
“’F you can’t talk decent to me I’ll leave the cab,” she replied, really aggravated this time. “I never promised you anything, and ’f you wanted to take me out, that was up to you.”
For a moment, caution contended against Roper’s drunkenness.
“Aw, can’t you be nice to me?” he asked, trying to resume his overtures. “You know I’m crazy ’bout you, you know that.”
“I can’t be like you want me to,” she answered, as she pushed him away.
This time, a rage took full possession of his muddled head.
“Suppose I stop the cab an’ let you get out,” he said. “You’re too damn stuck-up to suit me, an’ I won’t stand f’r any more of it, see? You’re nothin’ but a lousy gold-digger, you are!”
A cool sneer rose up within Blanche—she’d “call his bluff” this time, and show him that he couldn’t insult her with impunity. She tapped on the glass panel and stopped the cab. Roper tried to detain her, but she shook off his hands and stepped out to the pavement. The cab driver looked on with a quizzical ennui—this thing happened in his cab at least once every night.
“C’m on back, Blanche, I’ll be good,” Roper cried, but she ignored him and strode down the street.
He followed her in the cab to the next corner, repeating his entreaties and not quite daring to leap after her, but the presence of an inquisitive policeman caused him to abandon the chase, with a final oath. As she walked home, Blanche had a feeling of relief and of self-reproach. She had taught this fellow a lesson, but what was the sense of such happenings? She couldn’t dismiss a twinge of guilt at having taken his entertainment and then rejected him, but what could a girl do—sit at home all the time and watch the walls? Oh, darn, it was all a mess, all right.
On the following morning at the cafeteria, she had a heavy head and a scarcely veiled sulkiness. If Harrison, the proprietor, started anything now, she’d have to quit her job—it was about time that men found out that they couldn’t treat her as though she were a bag of oatmeal! Nothing occurred until the middle of the afternoon, when Harrison, a tall, thin man with a long nose and blinking eyes beneath his curly brown hair, hung around her desk.
“Wanna go somewheres to-night?” he asked.
“No, thanks, I’ve got ’n engagement,” she replied, trying to make her voice a little cordial.
“Say, you’re always turnin’ me down,” he said. “What’s the matter, don’t I look good to you?”
“Oh, you’re all right,” she answered, “but I can’t help it ’f I’m usually dated up. There’s a lot of men in this town, you’d be surprised, and there’s only seven days in the week, y’ know.”
“Don’t stall around so much,” he said. “Come on, let’s go to a show to-night, what do you say? You know you like me, Blanche, sure you do. You just wanted to see how often I’d ask you, that’s it.”
He accompanied his words by placing a hand upon one of her hips, and this time her endurance fled.
“I’m leaving to-night—you’ll have to find another cashier,” she said, coolly. “Try all of this stuff on some other girl and see how she likes it.”
He looked at her for a moment, with a heavy incredulity, and then broke into wrath—this girl thought she was better than he was, eh?
“You can’t leave too soon to suit me,” he said. “You act like you was Queen of Hoboken, ’r something like that! I’ll pay you off to-night, and good riddance!”
“’F I had your conceit I’d think I was a queen, all right,” she replied, as she went on punching the register.
“You give me a pain,” he retorted, as he walked away.
She looked after him with an immense relief. Thank the Lord, this was over at last.
As she walked to her home that night, she felt an emboldened mood, as though she had asserted herself for the first time in her life. When she broke the news to Mabel, who was sitting in the living-room, her sister was sympathetic.
“You’re a darn sight better off away from that place,” Mabel said. “Stop workin’ for a while an’ just step out, Blan. You’ve got a rest comin’ to you.”
“I’ll say I have,” answered Blanche.
For the next week Blanche hung around the apartment, and enjoyed the luxury of rising at ten in the morning and losing the old feeling of drowsy, meek bondage, and went to moving-picture theaters or read some of Rosenberg’s books during the afternoon, and romped about with men every other night, but at the end of the week, the relish in her freedom disappeared, and a nervous weariness took its place. She wanted to be doing something again, and to feel that she was earning the right to her nightly pleasures, and to rid herself of the sense that she “didn’t amount to anything” and was just hugging her bed to forget about it. To be sure, work was disagreeable and often exhausting, but if you had no other gifts, what else could you do? That phrase that Rosenberg was always using—“expressing yourself”—it kind of got under your skin. Why couldn’t she write things, or be an actress, or learn something and teach it to other people, like the men and women whom she read of in the borrowed novels? Well, maybe she would some day, if she ever found out just how to go about it. She was still a mere girl and she didn’t intend to be kept down forever. In the meantime, working could prevent her from getting “too blue” about everything—a brisk distraction which was the only one within her reach.
She secured a position in a beauty parlor, giving “waves” to the hair of young women fidgeting over their allurements, and passé women rescuing the vanished or vanishing charm, and on the evening of her first working day she met Rosenberg at their usual street-corner rendezvous.
“Let’s just have a talk and not go anywheres to-night,” she said, as they walked down the glittering hardness of Forty-second Street.
“I’m with you,” he answered, with an elation upon his narrow face.
When a girl didn’t want you to spend anything on her, and yet desired to be with you, it was an exquisitely promising sign, and perhaps Blanche had begun to fall in love with him. They sat on one of the stone benches in front of the Public Library building and beneath one of the huge carved lions that guard its portals, and they looked out at Fifth Avenue, with its endless stream of crawling, shiny, smoothly soulless automobiles and busses.
“Look at all those machines, going somewhere and nowhere at the same time,” he said, dreamily. “Don’t they all look important though, all rolling along in two directions, and still they’re just filled with all kinds of people hunting for an evening’s fun, that’s all.”
“S’pose they are, what of it?” she asked. “You’ve got to get some amusement outa life, haven’t you?”
“Oh, if that’s all you’re after then you’re just like an animal,” he answered, importantly. “D’you know, sometimes I wonder why people have heads—they hardly ever use them.”
“Well