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Tales of the Jazz Age

F >> F. Scott Fitzgerald >> Tales of the Jazz Age




Gordon rose and, picking up one of the shirts, gave it a minute
examination. It was of very heavy silk, yellow, with a pale blue
stripe--and there were nearly a dozen of them. He stared
involuntarily at his own shirt-cuffs--they were ragged and linty at
the edges and soiled to a faint gray. Dropping the silk shirt, he held
his coat-sleeves down and worked the frayed shirt-cuffs up till they
were out of sight. Then he went to the mirror and looked at himself
with listless, unhappy interest. His tie, of former glory, was faded
and thumb-creased--it served no longer to hide the jagged buttonholes
of his collar. He thought, quite without amusement, that only three
years before he had received a scattering vote in the senior elections
at college for being the best-dressed man in his class.

Dean emerged from the bathroom polishing his body.

"Saw an old friend of yours last night," he remarked.
"Passed her in the lobby and couldn't think of her name to save my
neck. That girl you brought up to New Haven senior year."

Gordon started.

"Edith Bradin? That whom you mean?"

"'At's the one. Damn good looking. She's still sort of a pretty
doll--you know what I mean: as if you touched her she'd smear."

He surveyed his shining self complacently in the mirror, smiled
faintly, exposing a section of teeth.

"She must be twenty-three anyway," he continued.

"Twenty-two last month," said Gordon absently.

"What? Oh, last month. Well, I imagine she's down for the Gamma Psi
dance. Did you know we're having a Yale Gamma Psi dance to-night at
Delmonico's? You better come up, Gordy. Half of New Haven'll probably
be there. I can get you an invitation."

Draping himself reluctantly in fresh underwear, Dean lit a cigarette
and sat down by the open window, inspecting his calves and knees under
the morning sunshine which poured into the room.

"Sit down, Gordy," he suggested, "and tell me all about what you've
been doing and what you're doing now and everything."

Gordon collapsed unexpectedly upon the bed; lay there inert and
spiritless. His mouth, which habitually dropped a little open when his
face was in repose, became suddenly helpless and pathetic.

"What's the matter?" asked Dean quickly.

"Oh, God!"

"What's the matter?"

"Every God damn thing in the world," he said miserably, "I've
absolutely gone to pieces, Phil. I'm all in."

"Huh?"

"I'm all in." His voice was shaking.

Dean scrutinized him more closely with appraising blue eyes.

"You certainly look all shot."

"I am. I've made a hell of a mess of everything." He paused. "I'd
better start at the beginning--or will it bore you?" "Not at all; go
on." There was, however, a hesitant note in Dean's voice. This trip
East had been planned for a holiday--to find Gordon Sterrett in
trouble exasperated him a little.

"Go on," he repeated, and then added half under his breath, "Get it
over with."

"Well," began Gordon unsteadily, "I got back from France in February,
went home to Harrisburg for a month, and then came down to New York to
get a job. I got one--with an export company. They fired me
yesterday."

"Fired you?"

"I'm coming to that, Phil. I want to tell you frankly. You're about
the only man I can turn to in a matter like this. You won't mind if I
just tell you frankly, will you, Phil?"

Dean stiffened a bit more. The pats he was bestowing on his knees grew
perfunctory. He felt vaguely that he was being unfairly saddled with
responsibility; he was not even sure he wanted to be told. Though
never surprised at finding Gordon Sterrett in mild difficulty, there
was something in this present misery that repelled him and hardened
him, even though it excited his curiosity.

"Go on."

"It's a girl."

"Hm." Dean resolved that nothing was going to spoil his trip. If
Gordon was going to be depressing, then he'd have to see less of
Gordon.

"Her name is Jewel Hudson," went on the distressed voice from the bed.
"She used to be 'pure,' I guess, up to about a year ago." Lived here
in New York--poor family. Her people are dead now and she lives with
an old aunt. You see it was just about the time I met her that
everybody began to come back from France in droves--and all I did was
to welcome the newly arrived and go on parties with 'em. That's the
way it started, Phil, just from being glad to see everybody and having
them glad to see me."

"You ought to've had more sense."

"I know," Gordon paused, and then continued listlessly. "I'm on my own
now, you know, and Phil, I can't stand being poor. Then came this darn
girl. She sort of fell in love with me for a while and, though I never
intended to get so involved, I'd always seem to run into her
somewhere. You can imagine the sort of work I was doing for those
exporting people--of course, I always intended to draw; do
illustrating for magazines; there's a pile of money in it."

"Why didn't you? You've got to buckle down if you want to make good,"
suggested Dean with cold formalism.

"I tried, a little, but my stuff's crude. I've got talent, Phil; I can
draw--but I just don't know how. I ought to go to art school and I
can't afford it. Well, things came to a crisis about a week ago. Just
as I was down to about my last dollar this girl began bothering me.
She wants some money; claims she can make trouble for me if she
doesn't get it."

"Can she?"

"I'm afraid she can. That's one reason I lost my job--she kept calling
up the office all the time, and that was sort of the last straw down
there. She's got a letter all written to send to my family. Oh, she's
got me, all right. I've got to have some money for her."

There was an awkward pause. Gordon lay very still, his hands clenched
by his side.

"I'm all in," he continued, his voice trembling. "I'm half crazy,
Phil. If I hadn't known you were coming East, I think I'd have killed
myself. I want you to lend me three hundred dollars."

Dean's hands, which had been patting his bare ankles, were suddenly
quiet--and the curious uncertainty playing between the two became taut
and strained.

After a second Gordon continued:

"I've bled the family until I'm ashamed to ask for another nickel."

Still Dean made no answer.

"Jewel says she's got to have two hundred dollars."

"Tell her where she can go."

"Yes, that sounds easy, but she's got a couple of drunken letters I
wrote her. Unfortunately she's not at all the flabby sort of person
you'd expect."

Dean made an expression of distaste.

"I can't stand that sort of woman. You ought to have kept away."

"I know," admitted Gordon wearily.

"You've got to look at things as they are. If you haven't got money
you've got to work and stay away from women."

"That's easy for you to say," began Gordon, his eyes narrowing.
"You've got all the money in the world."

"I most certainly have not. My family keep darn close tab on what I
spend. Just because I have a little leeway I have to be extra careful
not to abuse it."

He raised the blind and let in a further flood of sunshine.

"I'm no prig, Lord knows," he went on deliberately. "I like
pleasure--and I like a lot of it on a vacation like this, but
you're--you're in awful shape. I never heard you talk just this way
before. You seem to be sort of bankrupt--morally as well as
financially."

"Don't they usually go together?"

Dean shook his head impatiently.

"There's a regular aura about you that I don't understand. It's a sort
of evil."

"It's an air of worry and poverty and sleepless nights," said Gordon,
rather defiantly.

"I don't know."

"Oh, I admit I'm depressing. I depress myself. But, my God, Phil, a
week's rest and a new suit and some ready money and I'd be like--like
I was. Phil, I can draw like a streak, and you know it. But half the
time I haven't had the money to buy decent drawing materials--and I
can't draw when I'm tired and discouraged and all in. With a little
ready money I can take a few weeks off and get started."

"How do I know you wouldn't use it on some other woman?"

"Why rub it in?" said Gordon, quietly.

"I'm not rubbing it in. I hate to see you this way."

"Will you lend me the money, Phil?"

"I can't decide right off. That's a lot of money and it'll be darn
inconvenient for me."

"It'll be hell for me if you can't--I know I'm whining, and it's all
my own fault but--that doesn't change it."

"When could you pay it back?"

This was encouraging. Gordon considered. It was probably wisest to be
frank.

"Of course, I could promise to send it back next month, but--I'd
better say three months. Just as soon as I start to sell drawings."

"How do I know you'll sell any drawings?"

A new hardness in Dean's voice sent a faint chill of doubt over
Gordon. Was it possible that he wouldn't get the money?

"I supposed you had a little confidence in me."

"I did have--but when I see you like this I begin to wonder."

"Do you suppose if I wasn't at the end of my rope I'd come to you like
this? Do you think I'm enjoying it?" He broke off and bit his lip,
feeling that he had better subdue the rising anger in his voice. After
all, he was the suppliant.

"You seem to manage it pretty easily," said Dean angrily. "You put me
in the position where, if I don't lend it to you, I'm a sucker--oh,
yes, you do. And let me tell you it's no easy thing for me to get hold
of three hundred dollars. My income isn't so big but that a slice like
that won't play the deuce with it."

He left his chair and began to dress, choosing his clothes carefully.
Gordon stretched out his arms and clenched the edges of the bed,
fighting back a desire to cry out. His head was splitting and
whirring, his mouth was dry and bitter and he could feel the fever in
his blood resolving itself into innumerable regular counts like a slow
dripping from a roof.

Dean tied his tie precisely, brushed his eyebrows, and removed a piece
of tobacco from his teeth with solemnity. Next he filled his cigarette
case, tossed the empty box thoughtfully into the waste basket, and
settled the case in his vest pocket.

"Had breakfast?" he demanded.

"No; I don't eat it any more."

"Well, we'll go out and have some. We'll decide about that money
later. I'm sick of the subject. I came East to have a good time.

"Let's go over to the Yale Club," he continued moodily, and then added
with an implied reproof: "You've given up your job. You've got nothing
else to do."

"I'd have a lot to do if I had a little money," said Gordon pointedly.

"Oh, for Heaven's sake drop the subject for a while! No point in
glooming on my whole trip. Here, here's some money."

He took a five-dollar bill from his wallet and tossed it over to
Gordon, who folded it carefully and put it in his pocket. There was an
added spot of color in his cheeks, an added glow that was not fever.
For an instant before they turned to go out their eyes met and in that
instant each found something that made him lower his own glance
quickly. For in that instant they quite suddenly and definitely hated
each other.


II

Fifth Avenue and Forty-fourth Street swarmed with the noon crowd. The
wealthy, happy sun glittered in transient gold through the thick
windows of the smart shops, lighting upon mesh bags and purses and
strings of pearls in gray velvet cases; upon gaudy feather fans of
many colors; upon the laces and silks of expensive dresses; upon the
bad paintings and the fine period furniture in the elaborate show
rooms of interior decorators.

Working-girls, in pairs and groups and swarms, loitered by these
windows, choosing their future boudoirs from some resplendent display
which included even a man's silk pajamas laid domestically across the
bed. They stood in front of the jewelry stores and picked out their
engagement rings, and their wedding rings and their platinum wrist
watches, and then drifted on to inspect the feather fans and opera
cloaks; meanwhile digesting the sandwiches and sundaes they had eaten
for lunch.

All through the crowd were men in uniform, sailors from the great
fleet anchored in the Hudson, soldiers with divisional insignia from
Massachusetts to California, wanting fearfully to be noticed, and
finding the great city thoroughly fed up with soldiers unless they
were nicely massed into pretty formations and uncomfortable under the
weight of a pack and rifle. Through this medley Dean and Gordon
wandered; the former interested, made alert by the display of humanity
at its frothiest and gaudiest; the latter reminded of how often he had
been one of the crowd, tired, casually fed, overworked, and
dissipated. To Dean the struggle was significant, young, cheerful; to
Gordon it was dismal, meaningless, endless.

In the Yale Club they met a group of their former classmates who
greeted the visiting Dean vociferously. Sitting in a semicircle of
lounges and great chairs, they had a highball all around.

Gordon found the conversation tiresome and interminable. They lunched
together _en masse_, warmed with liquor as the afternoon began.
They were all going to the Gamma Psi dance that night--it promised to
be the best party since the war.

"Edith Bradin's coming," said some one to Gordon. "Didn't she used to
be an old flame of yours? Aren't you both from Harrisburg?"

"Yes." He tried to change the subject. "I see her brother
occasionally. He's sort of a socialistic nut. Runs a paper or
something here in New York."

"Not like his gay sister, eh?" continued his eager informant. "Well,
she's coming to-night--with a junior named Peter Himmel."

Gordon was to meet Jewel Hudson at eight o'clock--he had promised to
have some money for her. Several times he glanced nervously at his
wrist watch. At four, to his relief, Dean rose and announced that he
was going over to Rivers Brothers to buy some collars and ties. But as
they left the Club another of the party joined them, to Gordon's great
dismay. Dean was in a jovial mood now, happy, expectant of the
evening's party, faintly hilarious. Over in Rivers' he chose a dozen
neckties, selecting each one after long consultations with the other
man. Did he think narrow ties were coming back? And wasn't it a shame
that Rivers couldn't get any more Welsh Margotson collars? There never
was a collar like the "Covington."

Gordon was in something of a panic. He wanted the money immediately.
And he was now inspired also with a vague idea of attending the Gamma
Psi dance. He wanted to see Edith--Edith whom he hadn't met since one
romantic night at the Harrisburg Country Club just before he went to
France. The affair had died, drowned in the turmoil of the war and
quite forgotten in the arabesque of these three months, but a picture
of her, poignant, debonnaire, immersed in her own inconsequential
chatter, recurred to him unexpectedly and brought a hundred memories
with it. It was Edith's face that he had cherished through college
with a sort of detached yet affectionate admiration. He had loved to
draw her--around his room had been a dozen sketches of her--playing
golf, swimming--he could draw her pert, arresting profile with his
eyes shut.

They left Rivers' at five-thirty and parsed for a moment on the
sidewalk.

"Well," said Dean genially, "I'm all set now. Think I'll go back to
the hotel and get a shave, haircut, and massage."

"Good enough," said the other man, "I think I'll join you."

Gordon wondered if he was to be beaten after all. With difficulty he
restrained himself from turning to the man and snarling out, "Go on
away, damn you!" In despair he suspected that perhaps Dean had spoken
to him, was keeping him along in order to avoid a dispute about the
money.

They went into the Biltmore--a Biltmore alive with girls--mostly from
the West and South, the stellar débutantes of many cities gathered for
the dance of a famous fraternity of a famous university. But to Gordon
they were faces in a dream. He gathered together his forces for a last
appeal, was about to come out with he knew not what, when Dean
suddenly excused himself to the other man and taking Gordon's arm led
him aside.

"Gordy," he said quickly, "I've thought the whole thing over carefully
and I've decided that I can't lend you that money. I'd like to oblige
you, but I don't feel I ought to--it'd put a crimp in me for a month."

Gordon, watching him dully, wondered why he had never before noticed
how much those upper teeth projected.

"I'm--mighty sorry, Gordon," continued Dean, "but that's the way it
is."

He took out his wallet and deliberately counted out seventy-five
dollars in bills.

"Here," he said, holding them out, "here's seventy-five; that makes
eighty all together. That's all the actual cash I have with me,
besides what I'll actually spend on the trip."

Gordon raised his clenched hand automatically, opened it as though it
were a tongs he was holding, and clenched it again on the money.

"I'll see you at the dance," continued Dean. "I've got to get along to
the barber shop."

"So-long," said Gordon in a strained and husky voice.

"So-long."

Dean, began to smile, but seemed to change his mind. He nodded briskly
and disappeared.

But Gordon stood there, his handsome face awry with distress, the roll
of bills clenched tightly in his hand. Then, blinded by sudden tears,
he stumbled clumsily down the Biltmore steps.


III

About nine o'clock of the same night two human beings came out of a
cheap restaurant in Sixth Avenue. They were ugly, ill-nourished,
devoid of all except the very lowest form of intelligence, and without
even that animal exuberance that in itself brings color into life;
they were lately vermin-ridden, cold, and hungry in a dirty town of a
strange land; they were poor, friendless; tossed as driftwood from
their births, they would be tossed as driftwood to their deaths. They
were dressed in the uniform of the United States Army, and on the
shoulder of each was the insignia of a drafted division from New
Jersey, landed three days before.

The taller of the two was named Carrol Key, a name hinting that in his
veins, however thinly diluted by generations of degeneration, ran
blood of some potentiality. But one could stare endlessly at the long,
chinless face, the dull, watery eyes, and high cheek-bones, without
finding suggestion of either ancestral worth or native resourcefulness.

His companion was swart and bandy-legged, with rat-eyes and a
much-broken hooked nose. His defiant air was obviously a pretense, a
weapon of protection borrowed from that world of snarl and snap, of
physical bluff and physical menace, in which he had always lived. His
name was Gus Rose.

Leaving the café they sauntered down Sixth Avenue, wielding toothpicks
with great gusto and complete detachment.

"Where to?" asked Rose, in a tone which implied that he would not be
surprised if Key suggested the South Sea Islands.

"What you say we see if we can getta holda some liquor?" Prohibition
was not yet. The ginger in the suggestion was caused by the law
forbidding the selling of liquor to soldiers.

Rose agreed enthusiastically.

"I got an idea," continued Key, after a moment's thought, "I got a
brother somewhere."

"In New York?"

"Yeah. He's an old fella." He meant that he was an elder brother.
"He's a waiter in a hash joint."

"Maybe he can get us some."

"I'll say he can!"

"B'lieve me, I'm goin' to get this darn uniform off me to-morra. Never
get me in it again, neither. I'm goin' to get me some regular
clothes."

"Say, maybe I'm not."

As their combined finances were something less than five dollars, this
intention can be taken largely as a pleasant game of words, harmless
and consoling. It seemed to please both of them, however, for they
reinforced it with chuckling and mention of personages high in
biblical circles, adding such further emphasis as "Oh, boy!" "You
know!" and "I'll say so!" repeated many times over.

The entire mental pabulum of these two men consisted of an offended
nasal comment extended through the years upon the institution--army,
business, or poorhouse--which kept them alive, and toward their
immediate superior in that institution. Until that very morning the
institution had been the "government" and the immediate superior had
been the "Cap'n"--from these two they had glided out and were now in
the vaguely uncomfortable state before they should adopt their next
bondage. They were uncertain, resentful, and somewhat ill at ease.
This they hid by pretending an elaborate relief at being out of the
army, and by assuring each other that military discipline should never
again rule their stubborn, liberty-loving wills. Yet, as a matter of
fact, they would have felt more at home in a prison than in this
new-found and unquestionable freedom.

Suddenly Key increased his gait. Rose, looking up and following his
glance, discovered a crowd that was collecting fifty yards down the
street. Key chuckled and began to run in the direction of the crowd;
Rose thereupon also chuckled and his short bandy legs twinkled beside
the long, awkward strides of his companion.

Reaching the outskirts of the crowd they immediately became an
indistinguishable part of it. It was composed of ragged civilians
somewhat the worse for liquor, and of soldiers representing many
divisions and many stages of sobriety, all clustered around a
gesticulating little Jew with long black whiskers, who was waving his
arms and delivering an excited but succinct harangue. Key and Rose,
having wedged themselves into the approximate parquet, scrutinized him
with acute suspicion, as his words penetrated their common
consciousness.

"--What have you got outa the war?" he was crying fiercely. "Look
arounja, look arounja! Are you rich? Have you got a lot of money
offered you?--no; you're lucky if you're alive and got both your legs;
you're lucky if you came back an' find your wife ain't gone off with
some other fella that had the money to buy himself out of the war!
That's when you're lucky! Who got anything out of it except J. P.
Morgan an' John D. Rockerfeller?"

At this point the little Jew's oration was interrupted by the hostile
impact of a fist upon the point of his bearded chin and he toppled
backward to a sprawl on the pavement.

"God damn Bolsheviki!" cried the big soldier-blacksmith, who had
delivered the blow. There was a rumble of approval, the crowd closed
in nearer.

The Jew staggered to his feet, and immediately went down again before
a half-dozen reaching-in fists. This time he stayed down, breathing
heavily, blood oozing from his lip where it was cut within and
without.

There was a riot of voices, and in a minute Rose and Key found
themselves flowing with the jumbled crowd down Sixth Avenue under the
leadership of a thin civilian in a slouch hat and the brawny soldier
who had summarily ended the oration. The crowd had marvellously
swollen to formidable proportions and a stream of more non-committal
citizens followed it along the sidewalks lending their moral support
by intermittent huzzas.

"Where we goin'?" yelled Key to the man nearest him

His neighbor pointed up to the leader in the slouch hat.

"That guy knows where there's a lot of 'em! We're goin' to show 'em!"

"We're goin' to show 'em!" whispered Key delightedly to Rose, who
repeated the phrase rapturously to a man on the other side.

Down Sixth Avenue swept the procession, joined here and there by
soldiers and marines, and now and then by civilians, who came up with
the inevitable cry that they were just out of the army themselves, as
if presenting it as a card of admission to a newly formed Sporting and
Amusement Club.

Then the procession swerved down a cross street and headed for Fifth
Avenue and the word filtered here and there that they were bound for a
Red meeting at Tolliver Hall.

"Where is it?"

The question went up the line and a moment later the answer floated
hack. Tolliver Hall was down on Tenth Street. There was a bunch of
other sojers who was goin' to break it up and was down there now!

But Tenth Street had a faraway sound and at the word a general groan
went up and a score of the procession dropped out. Among these were
Rose and Key, who slowed down to a saunter and let the more
enthusiastic sweep on by.

"I'd rather get some liquor," said Key as they halted and made their
way to the sidewalk amid cries of "Shell hole!" and "Quitters!"

"Does your brother work around here?" asked Rose, assuming the air of
one passing from the superficial to the eternal.

"He oughta," replied Key. "I ain't seen him for a coupla years. I been
out to Pennsylvania since. Maybe he don't work at night anyhow. It's
right along here. He can get us some o'right if he ain't gone."

They found the place after a few minutes' patrol of the street--a
shoddy tablecloth restaurant between Fifth Avenue and Broadway. Here
Key went inside to inquire for his brother George, while Rose waited
on the sidewalk.

"He ain't here no more," said Key emerging. "He's a waiter up to
Delmonico's."

Rose nodded wisely, as if he'd expected as much. One should not be
surprised at a capable man changing jobs occasionally. He knew a
waiter once--there ensued a long conversation as they waited as to
whether waiters made more in actual wages than in tips--it was decided
that it depended on the social tone of the joint wherein the waiter
labored. After having given each other vivid pictures of millionaires
dining at Delmonico's and throwing away fifty-dollar bills after their
first quart of champagne, both men thought privately of becoming
waiters. In fact, Key's narrow brow was secreting a resolution to ask
his brother to get him a job.

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