• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“Say, are they sick?” drawled Vinc.

“Don’t mind that chump,” Slug said, when the bouncer looked curiously at him.

A thin guy crawled towards them on his hands and knees, bumping others, falling over one bloated fat fellow. He told them he had to crawl because he was having a terrible time with his feet; every time he tried to walk, his left foot got ahead of his right one. He braced himself along the wall, and with effort. He walked in zigzags, and then turned, and told them to judge for themselves if his right foot didn’t always keep getting ahead of his left one.

“Siddown!” the bouncer said.

The guy crawled away. A fellow who had been sleeping suddenly lifted himself from the hips, and heaved; he fell back in his own vomit. Two guys in a corner tried to drown out the room by singing She’s My Lulu.

“Jesus, let’s go. That odor will kill me,” said Studs.

A blond boy of about eighteen let out an insane shriek, and dashed towards them, stepping on the face of an unconscious drunk. He fell on his knees before them, and loudly begged that he be saved from the snakes. It was funny. He arose, clapped his hands to his ears, and yelled. He fell before the bouncer, and repeated his entreaties to be saved from the snakes; pointing dramatically in back of them. He crawled to the wall, still shrieking. The bouncer jerked out a blackjack and neatly put him to sleep. His face was pale and sickly in the artificial illumination.

A husky fellow rolled over to them, and yelled he’d been rolled.

“Fade!” the bouncer commanded.

“Give me my money back, you sonofabitches or I’ll. . . .

The bouncer cracked him in the jaw; he fell on top of a sleeping Polack.

“Mother! Mama! Your little boy needs you. He’s sick. Mama in heaven, Mama,” a fat fellow moaned on his knees in a corner.

“Jesus, they’re blind,” Slug said with a laugh.

“We got to do something with them,” the bouncer said, turning off the light, and shutting the door. Two bouncers, with padded shoulders, passed, carting a drunk along the hallway.

“Boys will be boys!” Red said.

“Makes you want to puke,” Studs said.

“Say, Studs, why do they do that?” Curley asked, innocently.

“Shut up!”

“Say, Red. . . .”

“Curley, you talk too goddamn much,” Red interrupted.

The bouncer explained, in answer to Red’s question, that they dumped them out in the morning.

“Say, most of the guys who work here look like they bought their faces at a second hand auction,” Studs said.

They returned to their tables. The girls were there. Slug whispered to a big, angular-faced, high-cheeked, blond Polack in pink teddies.

“Gimme the dough now,” she said, pronouncing her words as Slug did.

He whispered to Studs, Doyle, and Red. They handed him some change. He slipped two bills to the Polack broad.

“Hello, Vincent,” she cooed, draping herself on his lap.

“Say, how did you know my name?” he asked, as drinks were set down on the table.

“Vincent, a little love-bird whispered it in my ear.”

Vinc turned from the girl and called to Shrimp. Haggerty was busy telling the girl on his lap that he got tired of his wife, and needed a change. Vinc yelled to him. He turned.

“Do you want to go to the Michigan with me tomorrow afternoon, and see the picture?”

They roared. Studs told his girl that the goof had water on the brain; born that way, and no hope.

The jazz blared. Arnold, Studs, and Shrimp belly-danced with their girls. The Polack led Vine onto the dance floor. He protested that he couldn’t dance. She said she’d teach him. She rubbed against him. His face looked as if it were on the verge of being consumed by flames.

When he came back, he was kidded. He couldn’t understand them. He suddenly called Mush Joss to say the other day Mush had said he had lived in the neighborhood a long time. Vine said well he would bet ten cents he had lived in the neighborhood longer than Mush.

“You wouldn’t bull me,” said Mush.

“Come on, big boy, kiss me!” the Polack said.

“And kiss your maidenhead good-bye, you, you goddamn fathead,” Studs said.

“But, Studs. . . .”