A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago Part 28

That man with the black mustache. Who was he?

"Yes, your honor, I never saw her before. I walk in the street and she come up and talk to me and say, 'You wanna come home with me?'"

"Blanche, how long has this been going on?"

Look, Blanche was crying. Shh, Paula, shh! The judge was speaking. But Blanche didn't listen. The woman with the child was going to say, "Blanche, the judge," but her tongue grew frightened.

"Speak up, Blanche." The judge said this.

She could hardly hear Blanche. It was funny to see her cry. Long ago she used to cry when she was a baby like Paula. But since she went to work she never cried. Never cried.

"Oh, judge! Oh, judge! Please--"

"Shh, Paula! Da-ah-ah-ah--" Why was this? What would the judge do?

"Have you ever been arrested before, Blanche?"

No, no, no! She must tell the judge that. The woman with the child raised her face.

"Please, judge," she said, "No! No! She never arrested before. She's a good girl."

"I see," said the judge. "Does she bring her money home?"

"Yes, yes, judge! Please, she brings all her money home. She's a good girl."

"Ever seen her before, officer?"

"Well, your honor, I don't know. I've seen her in the street once or twice, and from the way she was behavin', your honor, I thought she needed watchin'."

"Never caught her, though, officer?"

No, your honor, this is the first time."

"Hm," said his honor.

Now the lawyer was talking. What was he saying? What was the matter?

Blanche was a good girl. Why they arrest her?

"Shh, Paula, shh! Mus'n't." She held the child closer to her heavy bosom.

Hungry. But it must wait. Pretty soon.

He was a nice judge. "All right," he said, "you can go, Blanche. But if they bring you in again it'll be the House of the Good Shepherd. Remember that. I'll let you go on account of her."

A nice judge. "Thank you, thank you, judge. Shh, Paula! Goo-by."

Now she would find out. She would ask Blanche. They could talk aloud in the hallway.

"Blanche, come here." A note of authority came into the woman's voice. A girl of eighteen walking at her side turned a rouged, tear-stained face.

"Aw, don't bother me, ma. I got enough trouble."

"What was the matter with the policeman?"

"Aw, he's a b.o.o.b. That's all."

"But what they arrest you for, Blanche? I knew it was a mistake. But what they arrest you for, Blanche? I gave him $10."

"Aw, shut up! Don't bother me."

The woman shrugged her shoulders and turned to the child in her arms.

"Da-ah-ah, Paula. Mamma feed you right away. Soon we find place to sit down. Shh, Paula! Mus'n't. Da-ah-ah--"

When she looked up Blanche had vanished. She stood still for a while and then, holding the year-old child closer to her, walked toward the elevator. There was nothing to see in her eyes.

CLOCKS AND OWL CARS

As they say in the melodramas, the city sleeps. Windows have said good-night to one another. Rooftops have tucked themselves away. The pavements are still. People have vanished. The darkness sweeping like a great broom through the streets has emptied them.

The clock in the window of a real estate office says "Two." A few windows down another clock says "Ten minutes after two."

The newspaper man waiting for a Sheffield Avenue owl car walks along to the next corner, listening for the sound of car wheels and looking at the clocks. The clocks all disagree. They all hang ticking with seemingly identical and indisputable precision. Their white faces and their black numbers speak in the dark of the empty stores. "Tick-tock, Time never sleeps. Time keeps moving the hands of the city's clocks around and around."

Alas, when clocks disagree what hope is there for less methodical mechanisms, particularly such humpty-dumpty mechanisms as tick away inside the owners of clocks? The newspaper man must sigh. These clocks in the windows of the empty stores along Sheffield Avenue seem to be arguing.

They present their arguments calmly, like meticulous professors. They say: "Eight minutes of two. Three minutes of two. Two. Four minutes after two.

Ten minutes after two."

Thus the confusions of the day persist even after the darkness has swept the streets clean of people. There being n.o.body else to dispute, the clocks take it up and dispute the hour among themselves.

The newspaper man pauses in front of one half-hidden clock. It says "Six."

Obviously here is a clock not running. Its hands have stopped and it no longer ticks. But, thinks the newspaper man, it is not to be despised for that. At least it is the only clock in the neighborhood that achieves perfect accuracy. Twice a day while all the other clocks in the street are disputing and arguing, this particular clock says "Six" and of all the clocks it alone is precisely accurate.

In the distance a yellow light swings like an idle lantern over the car tracks. So the newspaper man stops at the corner and waits. This is the owl car. It may not stop. Sometimes cars have a habit of roaring by with an insulting indifference to the people waiting for them to stop at the corner. At such moments one feels a fine rage, as if life itself had insulted one. There have been instances of men throwing bricks through the windows of cars that wouldn't stop and cheerfully going to jail for the crime.

But this car stops. It comes to a squealing halt that must contribute grotesquely to the dreams of the sleepers in Sheffield Avenue. The night is cool. As the car stands silent for a moment it becomes, with its lighted windows and its gay paint, like some modernized version of the barque in which Jason journeyed on his quest.

The seats are half filled. The newspaper man stands on the platform with the conductor and stares at the pa.s.sengers. The conductor is an elderly man with an unusually mild face.

The people in the car try to sleep. Their heads try to make use of the window panes for pillows. Or they prop their chins up in their palms or they are content to nod. There are several young men whose eyes are reddened. A young woman in a cheap but fancy dress. And several middle-aged men. All of them look bored and tired. And all of them present a bit of mystery.

Who are these pa.s.sengers through the night? And what has kept them up? And where are they going or coming from? The newspaper man has half a mind to inquire. Instead he picks on the conductor, and as the car bounces gayly through the dark, cavernous streets the mild-faced conductor lends himself to a conversation.