A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago Part 36

"The prayer, like I told you, must be said standing up. At least it is a sin to say the last part of the prayer, particularly the 'amen,' without standing up. So as the prayer came towards its finish imagine what happened. From under a dozen seats began to appear old Jews with white beards. They crawled out and without brushing themselves off stood up and when the 'amen' finally came there were eleven Jews standing up in a group and praying. Under the seats it was completely vacant.

"And just at this moment, when the 'amen' filled the car, who should come through but the inspector in his uniform with his lantern. When he saw this whole car full of pa.s.sengers he hadn't seen before he stopped in surprise. And the finish of it was that they all had to pay their fare--extra fare, too.

"It is a nice story, don't you think, Hershela" Mishkin laughed. "It shows a lot of things, but princ.i.p.ally it shows that a holy man is a holy man first and that he will sacrifice himself to an inquisition in Madrid or a train inspector in Kiev for the simple sake of saying his 'amen' just as he believed it should be said and just as he wants to say it."

Sammy's father shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't see how what you say has anything to do with what my son said,"

he demurred. "Sammy looks user more than five and what harm is there in saving $15 if--"

Sammy interrupted with a wail.

"I won't go," he cried. "No, if I gotta tell the conductor I'm under five I better stay home. I don't wanna go. He'll know I'm 'leven going on twelve."

"All right, all right," sighed Sammy's father. "But you see," he added, turning to Mishkin, "it ain't on account of wanting to have a minyon that my son has such high ideas."

SOCIABLE GAMBLERS

"Yes, it do interfere with their game," said Bill Cochran, the deputy sheriff from Tom Freeman's office. He cut himself a slice of chewing tobacco and glanced meditatively out of the window of the Dearborn Street bastile. Whereat he repeated with gentle emphasis, "It do."

A long rain was leaning against the walls of the county jail. A dismal yellowish gloom drifted up and down the street. Deputy Cochran, with an effort, detached his eye from the lugubrious scene of the rain and the day-dark and spoke up brightly.

"But at that," said he, "I don't think their being doomed for to hang can be held entirely responsible for their losing. You see, I've made quite a study of the game o' rhummy, not to mention pinochle and other such games of chance, and if I do say so myself I doubt there's the man in Chicago, doomed for to hang or otherwise, who would find me an easy mark. Still, as I say, in the case of these gentlemen who you refer to--to wit, the doomed men as I have acted as death watch for--it do interfere with their game.

There's no denying that."

Now the rain chattered darkly on the grated windows of the Dearborn Street bastile and Deputy Cochran tilted back in his chair and thought pensively and in silence of life and death and high, low, jack and the game.

"They pick me out for the death watch on account I have a way with doomed men," he remarked at last, his voice modestly self-conscious. "Some of the deputies is inclined to get a bit sad, you know. Or to let their nerves go away with them. But me, I feel as the best thing to do in the crisis to which I refer is to make the best of it.

"So when I sit in on the death watch I faces myself with the truth. I says to myself right away: 'Bill, this young feller here is to be hanged by the neck until dead, in a few hours. Which being the case, there's no use wasting any more time or thought on the matter.' So after this self-communication, I usually says to the young feller under observation by the death watch, 'Cheerio, m'lad. Is there anything in particular as you'd like to discuss.'

"I was a bit thick with the Abyssinian prince, Grover Redding, you recall.

The man spent the whole time we were with him praying at the top of his voice and singing hymns. Not that I begrudged the fellow this privilege.

But if you've ever heard a man who's going to be hanged in a few hours try to pa.s.s the time in continual prayers shouted at the top of his voice you'll understand our predicament.

"Then there was Antonio Lopez. I was death watch on him and a difficult task that was. The lad kept up his pretense that he fancied himself a rooster to the very end. He crouched on the chair on his feet and flapped his elbows like as they were wings and emitted rooster calls all night long. I tried to dissuade him and offered to play him any game he wished for any stake. But the only way he could reconcile himself to the approaching fatal dawn was to crow like a rooster. I thought to cheer him up toward the end by congratulating him on his excellent imitations, as I bore him no ill will despite he gave us all a terrible headache before the death march took him away."

Now the rain dropped in long, quick lines outside the window and the pavements below glowed like dark mirrors. Deputy Cochran, however, had become oblivious to the scene. His eyes withdrew themselves from the rain-dark and casually traced themselves over the memories his calling had left him.

"There was Blacky Weed some years ago," he went on. "And Viana, the choir boy. And to come down to more recent incidents, Harry Ward, the 'Lone Wolf.' I played cards with them all and can truthfully say I won most of the games played to which I refer, with the exception of those played with the 'Lone Wolf,' hanged recently, if you recall.

"I will say that the chief trouble with the doomed men as I have engaged in games of chance with is their inability to concentrate. Now cards, to be properly played, requires above all a gift of the ability to concentrate. Recognizing this I have always refused to play for money with the doomed as I have been watch over, saying to them when they pressed the matter, 'No, m'lad. Let's make it just a sociable game for the fun there's in it rather than play for money.'

"There are others not so scrupulous," hinted Deputy Cochran. "Take for instance, the example of the newspaper man as was Eddie Brislane's friend and comforter. He was with him in the cell most of the time before the hanging, and two days before the aforesaid he paid Brislane $50 for a story to be printed exclusively in his paper. Then this newspaper man, which I consider unethical under the circ.u.mstances, played Brislane poker, and what with the doomed man's lack of concentration and his inability to take advantage of the turns of the game, therefore, this newspaper man won back his $50 and some few dollars besides.

"As for me, I doubt whether all my card playing with these doomed men, successful though it has been, has ever brought me as much as a half dollar. No, as I said, sociability is the object of these games and all I aim for is to put the doomed man at his ease for the time being."

Deputy Cochian suddenly smiled, although before an impersonal air had marked his discourse.

"There was the 'Lone Wolf,' as I mentioned," he continued. "A cold-blooded feller and a sinner to the end. But he was the best rhummy player as I have ever had the pleasure of matching skill with. Yes, sir, it was his ability for to concentrate. As I said, that is, the prime ability necessary and the 'Lone Wolf' had more concentration than any one I have matched skill with in or out of the jail.

"That was an interesting evening we spent on the death watch for the 'Lone Wolf.' He regaled us for an hour or so telling us how he used to steal motor cars. Yes, sir, whenever the 'Lone Wolf' wanted a new car he just went out and took it. A cold-blooded feller, as I say.

"Then he asked if I would mind playing him a game of rhummy and I answered, 'No, Harry. As you are aware, I am here to oblige. So we got out the deck and Harry insisted upon gambling. 'Make it a dollar a hand,' he said. But I would listen to none of that. We played eight games in all and he beat me six of them. Perhaps I was not at my best that night. But I never played against such a cold-blooded feller. He took a positive joy in winning his games and on the whole acted like a b.u.m winner, making the most of his unusual good luck. I hold no grudge for that, however. But I feel that if we could have continued the play some other time I'd easily have finished him off."

Now the sun was slowly recovering its place and the rain had become a light mist. Deputy Cochran seemed to regard this as a signal for a conclusion.

"Summing the matter all up, pro and con," he offered, "it do interfere with their game a lot. But I lay this to the fact that they all fancy they're going to be reprieved and they keep waiting and listening for an announcement which will save them from the gallows. I've known some of them to lead a deuce thinking it was an ace and vice versa. But at that I can fully recommend a good, sociable game of cards as the best way for a doomed man to pa.s.s the few hours before the arrival of the fatal moment."

RIPPLES

It rains. People carry umbrellas. A great financier has promised me an interview. The windows of his club look out on a thousand umbrellas. They bob along like drunken beetles.

Once in a blue moon one becomes aware of people. Usually the crowds and their endless faces are a background. They circle around one the way ripples circle around a stone that has fallen into the water. The torments, elation of others; the ambitions, defeats of others; the bedlam of others--who the piano. A cornet, probably. Or a ukulele.

_Parbleu_, what creates in the plunge from youth to age.

Here, then, under the umbrellas outside the great financier's club, are people. One must marvel. They pa.s.s one another without so much as a glance. To each of them all the others--the bedlam of others--are ripples emanating from themselves. The great quests and struggles going on and the million agonies and tumults beating in the veins of the world--ripples.

Yes, vague and vaguer ripples which surround the fact that one is going to buy a pair of suspenders; which circle the fact that one is invited out for dinner this evening.

Ah, the smug and oblivious ones under umbrellas! It rains, but the umbrellas keep off the rain. The world pours its distinctions and elations over their souls, but other umbrellas, invisible, keep off distractions and elations. And each of them, scurrying along outside the window of the great financier's club, is an omniscient world center to himself. The great play was written around him, a blur of disasters and ecstasies, a sort of vast and inarticulate Greek chorus mumbling an obbligato to the leitmotif which is at the moment the purchase of a pair of suspenders or a dinner invitation for the evening.

None so small under these umbrellas outside the window but fancies himself the center of the cosmos. None so stupid but regards himself as the oracle of the times. And they scurry along without a glance at one another, each innately convinced that his ideas, his prejudices, his ambitions, his tastes are the Great Standard, the Normal Criterion. Puritan, paranoiac, sybarite, katatoniac, hardhead, dreamer, coward, desperado, beaten ones, striving ones, successful ones--all flaunt their umbrellas in the rain, all unfurl their invisible umbrellas to the world. Let it rain, let it rain--calamities and ecstasies tipped with fire and roaring with thunder--nothing can disturb the terrible preoccupation of the plunge from youth to age.

The pavements gleam like dark mirrors. The office window lights chatter in the gloom. An umbrella pauses. The great financier is giving directions to his chauffeur. The directions given, the great financier stands in the rain for a moment. His eyes look up and down the street. What does he see?

Ripples, vague and vaguer ripples, that mark his pa.s.sage from the limousine into the club.

He is wet. A servant helps him remove his coat. Then he comes to the window and sinks into a leather chair and stares at the rain and the umbrellas outside. The great financier has been abroad. His highly specialized mind has been, poking among columns of figures, columns of reports. He desired to find out if possible what conditions abroad were.

For six months the great financier closeted himself daily with other great financiers and talked and talked and discussed and talked.

But he says nothing. It is curious. The whole world and all its marvelous distractions seem to have resolved themselves into the curt sentence, "It rains." And somehow the great financier's faculty for the glib manipulation of plat.i.tudes which has earned him a reputation as a powerful economist seems for the moment to have abandoned him. His eyes remind one of a boy standing on tiptoe and staring over a fence at a baseball game.