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15 GIGOLO
BY
EDNA FERBER
AUTHOR OF
SO BIG, EMMA McCHESNEY & CO.,
FANNY HERSELF, THE GIRLS, ETC.
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
Made in the United States of America
COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY McCLURE's MAGAZINE, INCORPORATED
COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY P. F. COLLIER & SON COMPANY IN THE UNITED STATES,
GREAT BRITAIN AND CANADA
COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY THE CROWELL PUBLISHING COMPANY,
AND THE PICTORIAL REVIEW COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES AT
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
* * * * *
CONTENTS
PAGE
THE AFTERNOON OF A FAUN 1
OLD MAN MINICK 34
GIGOLO 69
NOT A DAY OVER TWENTY-ONE 106
HOME GIRL 150
AIN'T NATURE WONDERFUL! 188
THE SUDDEN SIXTIES 222
IF I SHOULD EVER TRAVEL! 259
_GIGOLO_
THE AFTERNOON OF A FAUN
Though he rarely heeded its summons--cagy boy that he was--the telephone
rang oftenest for Nick. Because of the many native noises of the place,
the telephone had a special bell that was a combination buzz and ring.
It sounded above the roar of outgoing cars, the splash of the hose, the
sputter and hum of the electric battery in the rear. Nick heard it,
unheeding. A voice--Smitty's or Mike's or Elmer's--answering its call.
Then, echoing through the grey, vaulted spaces of the big garage: "Nick!
Oh, Ni-ick!"
From the other side of the great cement-floored enclosure, or in muffled
tones from beneath a car: "Whatcha want?"
"Dame on the wire."
"I ain't in."
The obliging voice again, dutifully repeating the message: "He ain't
in.... Well, it's hard to say. He might be in in a couple hours and
then again he might not be back till late. I guess he's went to Hammond
on a job----" (Warming to his task now.) "Say, won't I do?... Who's
fresh! Aw, say, _lady_!"
You'd think, after repeated rebuffs of this sort, she could not possibly
be so lacking in decent pride as to leave her name for Smitty or Mike or
Elmer to bandy about. But she invariably did, baffled by Nick's
elusiveness. She was likely to be any one of a number. Miss Bauers
phoned: Will you tell him, please? (A nasal voice, and haughty, with the
hauteur that seeks to conceal secret fright.) Tell him it's important.
Miss Ahearn phoned: Will you tell him, please? Just say Miss Ahearn.
A-h-e-a-r-n. Miss Olson: Just Gertie. But oftenest Miss Bauers.
Cupid's messenger, wearing grease-grimed overalls and the fatuous grin
of the dalliant male, would transmit his communication to the uneager
Nick.
"'S wonder you wouldn't answer the phone once yourself. Says you was to
call Miss Bauers any time you come in between one and six at Hyde
Park--wait a min't'--yeh--Hyde Park 6079, and any time after six at----"
"Wha'd she want?"
"Well, how the hell should I know! Says call Miss Bauers any time
between one and six at Hyde Park 6----"
"Swell chanst. _Swell_ chanst!"
Which explains why the calls came oftenest for Nick. He was so
indifferent to them. You pictured the patient and persistent Miss
Bauers, or the oxlike Miss Olson, or Miss Ahearn, or just Gertie
hovering within hearing distance of the telephone listening,
listening--while one o'clock deepened to six--for the call that never
came; plucking up fresh courage at six until six o'clock dragged on to
bedtime. When next they met: "I bet you was there all the time. Pity you
wouldn't answer a call when a person leaves their name. You could of
give me a ring. I bet you was there all the time."
"Well, maybe I was."
Bewildered, she tried to retaliate with the boomerang of vituperation.
How could she know? How could she know that this slim, slick young
garage mechanic was a woodland creature in disguise--a satyr in store
clothes--a wild thing who perversely preferred to do his own pursuing?
How could Miss Bauers know--she who cashiered in the Green Front Grocery
and Market on Fifty-third Street? Or Miss Olson, at the Rialto ticket
window? Or the Celtic, emotional Miss Ahearn, the manicure? Or Gertie
the goof? They knew nothing of mythology; of pointed ears and pug noses
and goat's feet. Nick's ears, to their fond gaze, presented an honest
red surface protruding from either side of his head. His feet, in tan
laced shoes, were ordinary feet, a little more than ordinarily expert,
perhaps, in the convolutions of the dance at Englewood Masonic Hall,
which is part of Chicago's vast South Side. No; a faun, to Miss Bauers,
Miss Olson, Miss Ahearn, and just Gertie, was one of those things in the
Lincoln Park Zoo.
Perhaps, sometimes, they realized, vaguely, that Nick was different.
When, for example, they tried--and failed--to picture him looking
interestedly at one of those three-piece bedroom sets glistening like
pulled taffy in the window of the installment furniture store, while
they, shy yet proprietary, clung to his arm and eyed the price ticket.
Now $98.50. You couldn't see Nick interested in bedroom sets, in price
tickets, in any of those settled, fixed, everyday things. He was fluid,
evasive, like quicksilver, though they did not put it thus.
Miss Bauers, goaded to revolt, would say pettishly: "You're like a
mosquito, that's what. Person never knows from one minute to the other
where you're at."
"Yeh," Nick would retort. "When you know where a mosquito's at, what do
you do to him? Plenty. I ain't looking to be squashed."
Miss Ahearn, whose public position (the Hygienic Barber Shop. Gent's
manicure, 50c.) offered unlimited social opportunities, would assume a
gay indifference. "They's plenty boys begging to take me out every hour
in the day. Swell lads, too. I ain't waiting round for any greasy
mechanic like you. Don't think it. Say, lookit your nails! They'd queer
you with me, let alone what else all is wrong with you."
In answer Nick would put one hand--one broad, brown, steel-strong hand
with its broken discoloured nails--on Miss Ahearn's arm, in its flimsy
georgette sleeve. Miss Ahearn's eyelids would flutter and close, and a
little shiver would run with icy-hot feet all over Miss Ahearn.
Nick was like that.
Nick's real name wasn't Nick at all--or scarcely at all. His last name
was Nicholas, and his parents, long before they became his parents,
traced their origin to some obscure Czechoslovakian province--long
before we became so glib with our Czechoslovakia. His first name was
Dewey, knowing which you automatically know the date of his birth. It
was a patriotic but unfortunate choice on the part of his parents. The
name did not fit him; was too mealy; not debonair enough. Nick. Nicky in
tenderer moments (Miss Bauers, Miss Olson, Miss Ahearn, just Gertie, et
al.).
His method with women was firm and somewhat stern, but never brutal. He
never waited for them if they were late. Any girl who assumed that her
value was enhanced in direct proportion to her tardiness in keeping an
engagement with Nick found herself standing disconsolate on the corner
of Fifty-third and Lake trying to look as if she were merely waiting for
the Lake Park car and not peering wistfully up and down the street in
search of a slim, graceful, hurrying figure that never came.
It is difficult to convey in words the charm that Nick possessed. Seeing
him, you beheld merely a medium-sized young mechanic in reasonably
grimed garage clothes when working; and in tight pants, tight coat, silk
shirt, long-visored green cap when at leisure. A rather pallid skin due
to the nature of his work. Large deft hands, a good deal like the hands
of a surgeon, square, blunt-fingered, spatulate. Indeed, as you saw him
at work, a wire-netted electric bulb held in one hand, the other plunged
deep into the vitals of the car on which he was engaged, you thought of
a surgeon performing a major operation. He wore one of those round
skullcaps characteristic of his craft (the brimless crown of an old felt
hat). He would deftly remove the transmission case and plunge his hand
deep into the car's guts, feeling expertly about with his engine-wise
fingers as a surgeon feels for liver, stomach, gall bladder, intestines,
appendix. When he brought up his hand, all dripping with grease (which
is the warm blood of the car), he invariably had put his finger on the
sore spot.
All this, of course, could not serve to endear him to the girls. On the
contrary, you would have thought that his hands alone, from which he
could never quite free the grease and grit, would have caused some
feeling of repugnance among the lily-fingered. But they, somehow, seemed
always to be finding an excuse to touch him: his tie, his hair, his coat
sleeve. They seemed even to derive a vicarious thrill from holding his
hat or cap when on an outing. They brushed imaginary bits of lint from
his coat lapel. They tried on his seal ring, crying: "Oo, lookit, how
big it is for me, even my thumb!" He called this "pawing a guy over";
and the lint ladies he designated as "thread pickers."
No; it can't be classified, this powerful draw he had for them. His
conversation furnished no clue. It was commonplace conversation,
limited, even dull. When astonished, or impressed, or horrified, or
amused, he said: "Ken yuh feature that!" When emphatic or confirmatory,
he said: "You _tell_ 'em!"
It wasn't his car and the opportunities it furnished for drives, both
country and city. That motley piece of mechanism represented such an
assemblage of unrelated parts as could only have been made to cooerdinate
under Nick's expert guidance. It was out of commission more than half
the time, and could never be relied upon to furnish a holiday. Both
Miss Bauers and Miss Ahearn had twelve-cylinder opportunities that
should have rendered them forever unfit for travel in Nick's one-lung
vehicle of locomotion.
It wasn't money. Though he was generous enough with what he had, Nick
couldn't be generous with what he hadn't. And his wage at the garage was
$40 a week. Miss Ahearn's silk stockings cost $4.50.
His unconcern should have infuriated them, but it served to pique. He
wasn't actually as unconcerned as he appeared, but he had early learned
that effort in their direction was unnecessary. Nick had little
imagination; a gorgeous selfishness; a tolerantly contemptuous liking
for the sex. Naturally, however, his attitude toward them had been
somewhat embittered by being obliged to watch their method of driving a
car in and out of the Ideal Garage doorway. His own manipulation of the
wheel was nothing short of wizardry.
He played the harmonica.
Each Thursday afternoon was Nick's half day off. From twelve until
seven-thirty he was free to range the bosky highways of Chicago. When
his car--he called it "the bus"--was agreeable, he went awheel in search
of amusement. The bus being indisposed, he went afoot. He rarely made
plans in advance; usually was accompanied by some successful
telephonee. He rather liked to have a silken skirt beside him fluttering
and flirting in the breeze as he broke the speed regulations.
On this Thursday afternoon in July he had timed his morning job to a
miraculous nicety so that at the stroke of twelve his workaday garments
dropped from him magically, as though he were a male (and reversed)
Cinderella. There was a wash room and a rough sort of sleeping room
containing two cots situated in the second story of the Ideal Garage.
Here Nick shed the loose garments of labour for the fashionably tight
habiliments of leisure. Private chauffeurs whose employers housed their
cars in the Ideal Garage used this nook for a lounge and smoker. Smitty,
Mike, Elmer, and Nick snatched stolen siestas there in the rare absences
of the manager. Sometimes Nick spent the night there when forced to work
overtime. His home life, at best, was a sketchy affair. Here chauffeurs,
mechanics, washers lolled at ease exchanging soft-spoken gossip, motor
chat, speculation, comment, and occasional verbal obscenity. Each
possessed a formidable knowledge of that neighbourhood section of
Chicago known as Hyde Park. This knowledge was not confined to car costs
and such impersonal items, but included meals, scandals, relationships,
finances, love affairs, quarrels, peccadillos. Here Nick often played
his harmonica, his lips sweeping the metal length of it in throbbing
rendition of such sure-fire sentimentality as The Long, Long Trail, or
Mammy, while the others talked, joked, kept time with tapping feet or
wagging heads.
To-day the hot little room was empty except for Nick, shaving before the
cracked mirror on the wall, and old Elmer, reading a scrap of
yesterday's newspaper as he lounged his noon hour away. Old Elmer was
thirty-seven, and Nicky regarded him as an octogenarian. Also, old
Elmer's conversation bored Nick to the point of almost sullen
resentment. Old Elmer was a family man. His talk was all of his
family--the wife, the kids, the flat. A garrulous person, lank, pasty,
dish-faced, and amiable. His half day off was invariably spent tinkering
about the stuffy little flat--painting, nailing up shelves, mending a
broken window shade, puttying a window, playing with his pasty little
boy, aged sixteen months, and his pasty little girl, aged three years.
Next day he regaled his fellow workers with elaborate recitals of his
holiday hours.
"Believe me, that kid's a caution. Sixteen months old, and what does he
do yesterday? He unfastens the ketch on the back-porch gate. We got a
gate on the back porch, see." (This frequent "see" which interlarded
Elmer's verbiage was not used in an interrogatory way, but as a period,
and by way of emphasis. His voice did not take the rising inflection as
he uttered it.) "What does he do, he opens it. I come home, and the wife
says to me: 'Say, you better get busy and fix a new ketch on that gate
to the back porch. Little Elmer, first thing I know, he'd got it open
to-day and was crawling out almost.' Say, can you beat that for a kid
sixteen months----"
Nick had finished shaving, had donned his clean white soft shirt. His
soft collar fitted to a miracle about his strong throat. Nick's
sartorial effects were a triumph--on forty a week. "Say, can't you talk
about nothing but that kid of yours? I bet he's a bum specimen at that.
Runt, like his pa."
Elmer flung down his newspaper in honest indignation as Nick had
wickedly meant he should. "Is that so! Why, we was wrastling round--me
and him, see--last night on the floor, and what does he do, he raises
his mitt and hands me a wallop in the stomick it like to knock the wind
out of me. That's all. Sixteen months----"
"Yeh. I suppose this time next year he'll be boxing for money."
Elmer resumed his paper. "What do _you_ know." His tone mingled pity
with contempt.
Nick took a last critical survey of the cracked mirror's reflection and
found it good. "Nothing, only this: you make me sick with your kids and
your missus and your place. Say, don't you never have no fun?"
"Fun! Why, say, last Sunday we was out to the beach, and the kid swum
out first thing you know----"
"Oh, shut up!" He was dressed now. He slapped his pockets. Harmonica.
Cigarettes. Matches. Money. He was off, his long-visored cloth cap
pulled jauntily over his eyes.
Elmer, bearing no rancour, flung a last idle query: "Where you going?"
"How should I know? Just bumming around. Bus is outa commission, and I'm
outa luck."
He clattered down the stairs, whistling.
Next door for a shine at the Greek bootblack's. Enthroned on the dais, a
minion at his feet, he was momentarily monarchial. How's the boy? Good?
Same here. Down, his brief reign ended. Out into the bright noon-day
glare of Fifty-third Street.
A fried-egg sandwich. Two blocks down and into the white-tiled
lunchroom. He took his place in the row perched on stools in front of
the white slab, his feet on the railing, his elbows on the counter. Four
white-aproned vestals with blotchy skins performed rites over the
steaming nickel urns, slid dishes deftly along the slick surface of the
white slab, mopped up moisture with a sly grey rag. No nonsense about
them. This was the rush hour. Hungry men from the shops and offices and
garages of the district were bent on food (not badinage). They ate
silently, making a dull business of it. Coffee? What kinda pie do you
want? No fooling here. "Hello, Jessie."
As she mopped the slab in front of him you noticed a slight softening of
her features, intent so grimly on her task. "What's yours?"
"Bacon-and-egg sandwich. Glass of milk. Piece of pie. Blueberry."
Ordinarily she would not have bothered. But with him: "The blueberry
ain't so good to-day, I noticed. Try the peach?"
"All right." He looked at her. She smiled. Incredibly, the dishes
ordered seemed to leap out at her from nowhere. She crashed them down on
the glazed white surface in front of him. The bacon-and-egg sandwich was
served open-faced, an elaborate confection. Two slices of white bread,
side by side. On one reposed a fried egg, hard, golden, delectable,
indigestible. On the other three crisp curls of bacon. The ordinary
order held two curls only. A dish so rich in calories as to make it food
sufficient for a day. Jessie knew nothing of calories, nor did Nick. She
placed a double order of butter before him--two yellow pats,
moisture-beaded. As she scooped up his milk from the can you saw that
the glass was but three quarters filled. From a deep crock she ladled a
smaller scoop and filled the glass to the top. The deep crock held
cream. Nick glanced up at her again. Again Jessie smiled. A plain
damsel, Jessie, and capable. She went on about her business. What's
yours? Coffee with? White or rye? No nonsense about her. And yet: "Pie
all right?"
"Yeh. It's good."
She actually blushed.
He finished, swung himself off the stool, nodded to Jessie. She stacked
his dishes with one lean, capable hand, mopped the slab with the other,
but as she made for the kitchen she flung a glance at him over her
shoulder.
"Day off?"
"Yeh."
"Some folks has all the luck."
He grinned. His teeth were strong and white and even. He walked toward
the door with his light quick step, paused for a toothpick as he paid
his check, was out again into the July sunlight. Her face became dull
again.
Well, not one o'clock. Guessed he'd shoot a little pool. He dropped into
Moriarty's cigar store. It was called a cigar store because it dealt in
magazines, newspapers, soft drinks, golf balls, cigarettes, pool,
billiards, chocolates, chewing gum, and cigars. In the rear of the store
were four green-topped tables, three for pool and one for billiards. He
hung about aimlessly, watching the game at the one occupied table. The
players were slim young men like himself, their clothes replicas of his
own, their faces lean and somewhat hard. Two of them dropped out. Nick
took a cue from the rack, shed his tight coat. They played under a
glaring electric light in the heat of the day, yet they seemed cool,
aloof, immune from bodily discomfort. It was a strangely silent game and
as mirthless as that of the elfin bowlers in Rip Van Winkle. The
slim-waisted shirted figures bent plastically over the table in the
graceful postures of the game. You heard only the click of the balls, an
occasional low-voiced exclamation. A solemn crew, and unemotional.
Now and then: "What's all the shootin' fur?"
"In she goes."
Nick, winner, tired of it in less than an hour. He bought a bottle of
some acidulous drink just off the ice and refreshed himself with it,
drinking from the bottle's mouth. He was vaguely restless, dissatisfied.
Out again into the glare of two o'clock Fifty-third Street. He strolled
up a block toward Lake Park Avenue. It was hot. He wished the bus wasn't
sick. Might go in swimming, though. He considered this idly. Hurried
steps behind him. A familiar perfume wafted to his senses. A voice nasal
yet cooing. Miss Bauers. Miss Bauers on pleasure bent, palpably, being
attired in the briefest of silks, white-strapped slippers, white silk
stockings, scarlet hat. The Green Front Grocery and Market closed for a
half day each Thursday afternoon during July and August. Nicky had not
availed himself of the knowledge.
"Well, if it ain't Nicky! I just seen you come out of Moriarty's as I
was passing." (She had seen him go in an hour before and had waited a
patient hour in the drug store across the street.) "What you doing
around loose this hour the day, anyway?"
"I'm off 'safternoon."
"Are yuh? So'm I." Nicky said nothing. Miss Bauers shifted from one
plump silken leg to the other. "What you doing?"
"Oh, nothing much."
"So'm I. Let's do it together." Miss Bauers employed the direct method.
"Well," said Nick, vaguely. He didn't object particularly. And yet he
was conscious of some formless programme forming mistily in his mind--a
programme that did not include the berouged, be-powdered, plump, and
silken Miss Bauers.
"I phoned you this morning, Nicky. Twice."
"Yeh?"
"They said you wasn't in."
"Yeh?"
A hard young woman, Miss Bauers, yet simple: powerfully drawn toward
this magnetic and careless boy; powerless to forge chains strong enough
to hold him. "Well, how about Riverview? I ain't been this summer."
"Oh, that's so darn far. Take all day getting there, pretty near."
"Not driving, it wouldn't."
"I ain't got the bus. Busted."
His apathy was getting on her nerves. "How about a movie, then?" Her
feet hurt. It was hot.
His glance went up the street toward the Harper, down the street toward
the Hyde Park. The sign above the Harper offered Mother o' Mine. The
lettering above the Hyde Park announced Love's Sacrifice.
"Gawd, no," he made decisive answer.
Miss Bauers's frazzled nerves snapped. "You make me sick! Standing
there. Nothing don't suit you. Say, I ain't so crazy to go round with
you. Cheap guy! Prob'ly you'd like to go over to Wooded Island or
something, in Jackson Park, and set on the grass and feed the squirrels.
That'd be a treat for me, that would." She laughed a high, scornful
tear-near laugh.
"Why--say----" Nick stared at her, and yet she felt he did not see her.
A sudden peace came into his face--the peace of a longing fulfilled. He
turned his head. A Lake Park Avenue street car was roaring its way
toward them. He took a step toward the roadway. "I got to be going."
Fear flashed its flame into Miss Bauers's pale blue eyes. "Going! How do
you mean, going? Going where?"
"I got to be going." The car had stopped opposite them. His young face
was stern, implacable. Miss Bauers knew she was beaten, but she clung to
hope tenaciously, piteously. "I got to see a party, see?"
"You never said anything about it in the first place. Pity you wouldn't
say so in the first place. Who you got to see, anyway?" She knew it was
useless to ask. She knew she was beating her fists against a stone wall,
but she must needs ask notwithstanding: "Who you got to see?"
"I got to see a party. I forgot." He made the car step in two long
strides; had swung himself up. "So long!" The car door slammed after
him. Miss Bauers, in her unavailing silks, stood disconsolate on the hot
street corner.
He swayed on the car platform until Sixty-third Street was reached.
There he alighted and stood a moment at the curb surveying idly the
populous corner. He purchased a paper bag of hot peanuts from a vender's
glittering scarlet and nickel stand, and crossed the street into the
pathway that led to Jackson Park, munching as he went. In an open space
reserved for games some boys were playing baseball with much hoarse
hooting and frenzied action. He drew near to watch. The ball,
misdirected, sailed suddenly toward him. He ran backward at its swift
approach, leaped high, caught it, and with a long curving swing, so easy
as to appear almost effortless, sent it hurtling back. The lad on the
pitcher's mound made as if to catch it, changed his mind, dodged,
started after it.
The boy at bat called to Nick: "Heh, you! Wanna come on and pitch?"
Nick shook his head and went on.
He wandered leisurely along the gravel path that led to the park golf
shelter. The wide porch was crowded with golfers and idlers. A foursome
was teed up at the first tee. Nick leaned against a porch pillar waiting
for them to drive. That old boy had pretty good practise swing ...
Stiff, though ... Lookit that dame. Je's! I bet she takes fifteen shots
before she ever gets on to the green ... There, that kid had pretty good
drive. Must of been hundred and fifty, anyway. Pretty good for a kid.
Nick, in the course of his kaleidoscopic career, had been a caddie at
thirteen in torn shirt and flapping knickers. He had played the smooth,
expert, scornful game of the caddie with a natural swing from the lithe
waist and a follow-through that was the envy of the muscle-bound men
who watched him. He hadn't played in years. The game no longer
interested him. He entered the shelter lunchroom. The counters were
lined with lean, brown, hungry men and lean, brown, hungry women. They
were eating incredible dishes considering that the hour was 3 P.
M. and the day a hot one. Corned-beef hash with a poached egg on
top; wieners and potato salad; meat pies; hot roast beef sandwiches;
steaming cups of coffee in thick white ware; watermelon. Nick slid a leg
over a stool as he had done earlier in the afternoon. Here, too, the
Hebes were of stern stuff, as they needs must be to serve these ravenous
hordes of club swingers who swarmed upon them from dawn to dusk. Their
task it was to wait upon the golfing male, which is man at his
simplest--reduced to the least common denominator and shorn of all
attraction for the female eye and heart. They represented merely hungry
mouths, weary muscles, reaching fists. The waitresses served them as a
capable attendant serves another woman's child--efficiently and without
emotion.
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