Stories of John Cheever (1979 Pulitzer Prize), The - John Cheever [28]
Their destination, the Hotel Mentone, was on a side street west of Sixth Avenue. It was a dark place, with malodorous chambers, miserable food, and a lobby ceiling decorated with as much gilt and gesso as the Vatican chapels. It was a popular hotel among the old, it was attractive to the disreputable, and the Malloys had found the way there because the Mentone advertised on railroad-station boardings all through the West. Many innocents had been there before them, and their sweetness and humility had triumphed over the apparent atmosphere of ruined splendor and petty vice and had left in all the public rooms a humble odor that reminded one of a country feed store on a winter afternoon. A bellboy took them to their room. As soon as he had gone, Alice examined the bath and pulled aside the window curtains. The window looked onto a brick wall, but when she raised it, she could hear the noise of traffic, and it sounded, as it had sounded in the station, like the irresistible and titanic voice of life itself.
The Malloys found their way, that afternoon, to the Broadway Automat. They shouted with pleasure at the magical coffee spigots and the glass doors that sprang open. "Tomorrow, I'm going to have the baked beans," Alice cried, "and the chicken pie the day after that and the fish cakes after that." When they had finished their supper, they went out into the street. Mildred-Rose walked between her parents, holding their callused hands. It was getting dark, and the lights of Broadway answered all their simple prayers. High in the air were large, brightly lighted pictures of bloody heroes, criminal lovers, monsters, and armed desperadoes. The names of movies and soft drinks, restaurants and cigarettes were written in a jumble of light, and in the distance they could see the pitiless winter afterglow beyond the Hudson River. The tall buildings in the east were lighted and seemed to burn, as if fire had fallen onto their dark shapes. The air was full of music, and the light was brighter than day. They drifted with the crowd for hours.
Mildred-Rose got tired and began to cry, so at last her parents took her back to the Mentone. Alice had begun to undress her when someone knocked softly on the door.
"Come in," Evarts called.
A bellboy stood in the doorway. He had the figure of a boy, but his face was gray and lined. "I just wanted to see if you people were all right," he said. "I just wanted to see if maybe you wanted a little ginger ale or some ice water."
"Oh, no, thank you kindly," Alice said. "It was very nice of you to ask, though."
"You people just come to New York for the first time?" the bellboy asked. He closed the door behind him and sat on the arm of a chair.
"Yes," Evarts said. "We left Wentworth—that's in Indiana—yesterday on the nine-fifteen for South Bend. Then we went to Chicago. We had dinner in Chicago."
"I had the chicken pie," Alice said. "It was delicious." She slipped Mildred-Rose's nightgown over her head.
"Then we came to New York," Evarts said.
"What are you doing here?" the bellboy asked. "Anniversary?" He helped himself to a cigarette from a package on the bureau and slipped down into the chair.
"Oh, no," Evarts said. "We hit the jackpot."
"Our ship's come in," Alice said.
"A contest?" the bellboy asked. "Something like that?"
"No," Evarts said.
"You tell him, Evarts," Alice said.
"Yes," the bellboy said. "Tell me, Evarts."
"Well, you see," Evarts said, "it began like this." He sat down on the bed and lighted a cigarette. "I was in the Army, you see, and then when I got out of the Army, I went back to Wentworth..." He repeated to the bellboy