The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow [36]
in the crowd began to shout that Five Properties was yellow, and it was thought the right thing to hold Dingbat back, by the arms, struggling with a blinded, drawn face of rage, A pal of his said what a shame that a veteran of Chateau Thierry should be shoved around by a greenhorn. Five Properties took it to heart and thereafter stayed away from the poolroom .62 Dingbat had had charge of the poolroom at one time, but he was nreliable and the Commissioner had replaced him with a manager. ^ow he was around as the owner's son--racked up balls, once in a 'hile chanced color like a coal when a green table felt was ripped--ind in the capacity of key-man and bravo, referee, bet-holder, sports expert and gang-war historian, on the watch for a small deal, a fighter to manage, or a game of rotation at ten cents a ball. Between times he was his father's chauffeur. The Commissioner couldn't drive the big red Blackhawk-Stutz he owned--the Einhoms never could see anything in a small car--and Dingbat took him to the beach when it was too hot to walk. After all, the old man was pushing seventy-five and couldn't be allowed to risk a stroke. I'd ride with him in the back seat while Dingbat sat with mauled, crazy neck and a short grip on the wheel, ukelele and bathing suit on the cushion beside him; he was particularly sex-goaded when he drove, shouting, whistling, and honking after quiff, to the entertainment of his father. Sometimes we had the company of Clem or Jimmy, or of Sylvester, the movie bankrupt, who was now flunking out of his engineer's course at Armour Tech and talking about moving away to New York altogether. On the beach Dingbat, athletically braced up with belt and wristbands, a bandanna to keep the sand out of his hair when he stood on his head, streaked down with suntan oil, was with a crowd of girls and other beach athletes, dancing and striking into his ukelele with: Ani-ka, hula wicki-wicki *i Sweet brown maiden said to me, i- And she taught me hula-hula " On the beach at Waikiki... Kindled enough, he made it suggestive, his black voice cracking, and his little roosterish flame licked up clear, queer, and crabbed. His old sire, gruff and mocking, deeply tickled, lay like the Buffalo Bill of the? Etruscans in the beach chair and bath towel drawn up burnoose-wise4 to keep the dazzle from his eyes--additionally shaded by his soft, flesh-heavy arm--his bushy mouth open with laughter. "Ee-rfyo?/" he said to his son. If the party began after the main heat of the day William Einhom flight come down too, wheel chair brought on the baggage rack of the ^utz, and his wife carrying an umbrella to shade them both. He was taken pick-a-back by his brother, or by me, from the office into the car, tom the car to the right site on the lakeshore; all as distinguished, oh- ^rving, white, untouched and nobiliare as a margrave. Quickeyes. Originally a big man, of the Commissioner's stature, well formed, well favored, he had more delicacy of spirit than the Commissioner, and of course Dingbat wasn't a patch on him. Einhom was very pale, a little flabby in the face; considerable curvature of the nose, small lips, and graying hair let grow thickly so that it touched on the ears; and continually watchful, his look going forward uninterruptedly to fasten on subject matters. His heavy, attractive wife sat by him with the parasol, languorous, partly in smiles, with her free, soft brown fist on her lap and strong hair bobbed with that declivity that you see in pictures of the Egyptian coif, the flat base forming a black brush about the back of -the neck. Entertained by the summer breeziness and the little boats on the waves and the cavorting and minstrelsy. If you want to know what she thought, it was that back home was locked. There were two pounds of hotdogs on the shelf of the gas range, two pounds of cold potatoes for salad, mustard, a rye bread already sliced. If she ran out, she could send me for more. Mrs. Einhom liked to feel that things were ready. The old man would want tea. He needed to be pleased, and she was willing, asking only in return