Every Soul Hath Its Song Part 70

"Now, now, Mae; come, come! You're a sensible woman. I ain't stuck on this business any more than you are. You ought to have let me stay away and just let it die out instead of raking up things like this. Come, buck up, old girl! Don't make it any harder than it's got to be. These things happen every day. This is business. There, there! Now! Now!"

The sudden bout of tenderness brought the tears stinging to her eyes and she was for ingratiating herself into his embrace, but he withdrew, edging toward the piano with an entire flattening of tone.

"Now, now, Mae, I tell you that you got to cut it. It would have been better if you had just let the old cat die, You oughtn't to tried that gag to get me here to-night. You'll get a lot more out of me if you do it dry, girl. A crying woman can drive me out of the house quicker 'n plague, and you ought to know it by now."

She sat down suddenly, feeling queasy.

"Now, now, old girl, buck up! Be a sport!"

"Gimme a drink, Max. I--Just a swallow. I--I'm all right." And she squeezed her eyes tight shut to blink out the tears.

He handed her a tumbler from the table, keeping his head averted, and after a bit she fell to sobbing and choking and trembling.

"It's her! It's your old woman. She's been chloroforming you with a lot of dope talk about hitting the altar rail with a bunch of white satin with a good fat wad sewed in the lining. It's your old--"

"Cut that!"

"It's your old woman. She--she don't know you like I do, Max. She--"

"Now, now, Mae! You knew this had to come sooner or later, I 'ain't never lied, have I? Right here in this room 'ain't you told me a dozen times you'd let me go quietly when the time came? 'Ain't you?"

"I never thought you meant it, Max. You don't mean it now. Don't let your old woman upset you, dear. What she don't know won't hurt her.

Stick around her a little more if you think she's got a hunch about me and the flat. But she 'ain't, dearie; there ain't a chance in the world she's got a hunch about me. Don't let her make a mollycoddle out of you, Max. That old woman don't know enough about life and things to--"

"You cut that and cut it quick! I'm a decent fellow, I am. For six years I been tipping you off to leave my mother's name out--out of your mouth.

There's a place for everything and, by gad! your mouth ain't the place for her name! By gad! I ain't no saint, but I won't stand for that! By gad! I--I won't!"

"Oh-h-h-h-h! Oh-h-h-h! Oh-h-h!"

She struck her breast twice with the flat of her hand, her voice so tight and high that it carried with it the quality of strangulation.

"Ain't fit to mention her name, ain't I? Ain't fit to mention her name?

My kind ain't fit to mention her name, eh?"

"No, if you got to know it. Not--like that! My old mother's name. Not like that!"

"Not fit, eh? What are we fit for, then, us that only get the husks of you men and nothing else?"

"I--"

"What am I fit for? Fit to run to when your decent friends won't stand for you? Fit to run to when you get mixed up in rotten customs deals?

Fit to stand between you and h.e.l.l when you got the law snapping at your heels for--for smuggling? Who was fit to run to then? Her whose name I ain't fit to mention? Her? Naw, you was afraid she'd turn on you. Naw, not her! Me! Me! I'm the one whose mouth is too dirty to mention your old lady's name--"

"By gad! you got to cut that or--"

"Just the same, who was it you hollered for when you woke up in the hospital with your back like raw meat? Who was it you hollered for then?

Her whose name I ain't fit to mention? Naw, it wasn't! Me! Me! I was good enough then. I was good enough to smuggle you out of town overnight when you was dodging the law, and to sleep in my clothes for two weeks, ready to give the signal."

"That's right, dig up! Dig up! You might forget something."

"I been good enough to give you free all these years what you wasn't man enough to pay for. That's what we women are; we're the free lunch that you men get with a gla.s.s of beer, and what the h.e.l.l do you care which garbage-pail what's left of us lands in after you're done with us!"

"Cut that barroom talk around here if--"

"Good enough for six years, wasn't I, to lay down like a door-mat for you to walk on, eh? Good enough. Good enough when it came to giving up chunks of my own flesh and blood when your burns was like h.e.l.l's fire on your back and all your old woman could do to help was throw a swoon every time she looked at you. Good enough to--"

"Gad! I knew it! I knew it! Knew you'd show your yellow streak."

She fell to moaning in her hands. "No, no, Max, I--"

"Bah! you can't throw that up to me, though. I never wanted it! I could have bought it off any one of them poor devils that hang around hospitals, as many inches off any one of 'em as I wanted. I never wanted them to graft it on me off you. I told the doctor I didn't. I knew you'd be throwing it up to me some day. If I'd bought it off a stranger I--I wouldn't have that limp in front of me always to--to rub things in. I knew you'd throw it up to me. I--Gad! I knew it! I knew it!"

"No, no, Max, I didn't mean it. You--you just got me so crazy I don't know what I'm saying. Sure, I--I made you take it off me. I wanted 'em to cut it off me to graft on your burns because it--it was like finding a new way of saying how--how I love you, Max. Every drop of blood was like--like I could see for myself how--how I loved you, Max. I--"

"Oh, my G.o.d!" he said, folded his arms atop the piano, and let his head fall into them. "Oh, my G.o.d!"

"That's how I love you, Max. That's how you--you're all in the world I got, Max. That's why I--can't, just can't let you go, dear. Don't throw me over, Max. Cut the comedy and come down to earth. You 'ain't had a holy spell for two years now since the old woman sniffed me and wanted to marry you off to that cloak-and-suit buyer with ten thou in the bank and a rush of teeth to the front. You remember how we laffed, dearie, that night we seen her at the show? Don't let your old lady--"

"Cut that, I tell you!"

"You'd be a swell gink hitting the altar trail with a bunch of white satin, wouldn't you? At your time of life, forty and set in your ways, you'd have a swell time landing a young frisky one and trying to learn one of them mother's darlings how to rub in your hair-tonic and how to rub your salad-plate with garlic? Gosh-golly! I bust right out laffing when I even think about it! Come down to earth, Max! You'd be a swell hit welded for life with a gold band, now, wouldn't you?"

She was suddenly seized with immoderate laughter not untinctured with hysteria, loud and full of emptiness, as if she were shouting for echoes in a cave.

"Like h.e.l.l you would! _You_ tied to a bunch of satin and tending the kids with the whooping-cough! Whoops la, la!" She fell to rocking herself backward and forward, her rollicking laughter staining her face dark red.

"Whoops la, la! Whoops la, la!"

Suddenly Max Zincas rose to his height, regarding her sprawling uncontrolled pose with writhing lips of distaste, straightened his waistcoat, cleared his throat twice, and, standing, drank the last of his wine. But a pallor crept up, riding down the flush.

"Funny, ain't it? Laff! Laff! But I'd wait till you hear something funnier I got to tell you. Funny, ain't it? Laff! Laff!"

She looked up with her lips still sagging from merriment, but the dark red in her face darker.

"Huh?"

His bravado suddenly oozed and the clock ticked roundly into the silence between them.

"Huh?" she repeated, c.o.c.king her head.

"You got to know it, Mae, and the sooner I get it out of me the better.

But, remember, if you wanna drive me out before I'm finished, if you wanna get rid of me a d.a.m.n sight quicker than any other way, throw me some sob stuff and watch. You--Well--I--The sooner I get it out of me the better, Mae."

"Huh?"

"She's a--a nice little thing, Mae. Her mother's a crony with my old lady. Lives in a brownstone out on Lenox Avenue. Met her first at--at a tennis-match she was winning at--at Forest Park Club."

"Huh?"