The Iceman Cometh (16 page)

LARRY
again is staring at him fascinatedly
.
HICKEY
grins
.

As for my being bughouse, you can’t crawl out of it that way. Hell, I’m too damned sane. I can size up guys, and turn ’em inside out, better than I ever could. Even where they’re strangers like that Parritt kid. He’s licked, Larry. I think there is only one possible way out you can help him to take. That is, if you have the right kind of pity for him.

LARRY

Uneasily
.

What do you mean?

Attempting indifference
.

I’m not advising him, except to leave me out of his troubles. He’s nothing to me.

HICKEY

Shakes his head
.

You’ll find he won’t agree to that. He’ll keep after you until he makes you help him. Because he has to be punished, so he can forgive himself. He’s lost all his guts. He can’t manage it alone, and you’re the only one he can turn to.

LARRY

For the love of God, mind your own business!

With forced scorn
.

A lot you know about him! He’s hardly spoken to you!

HICKEY

No, that’s right. But I do know a lot about him just the same. I’ve had hell inside me. I can spot it in others.

Frowning
.

Maybe that’s what gives me the feeling there’s something familiar about him, something between us.

He shakes his head
.

No, it’s more than that. I can’t figure it. Tell me about him. For instance, I don’t imagine he’s married, is he?

LARRY

No.

HICKEY

Hasn’t he been mixed up with some woman? I don’t mean trollops. I mean the old real love stuff that crucifies you.

LARRY

With a calculating relieved look at him
—
encouraging him along this line
.

Maybe you’re right. I wouldn’t be surprised.

HICKEY

Grins at him quizzically
.

I see. You think I’m on the wrong track and you’re glad I am. Because then I won’t suspect whatever he did about the Great Cause. That’s another lie you tell yourself, Larry, that the good old Cause means nothing to you any more.

LARRY
is about to burst out in denial but
HI CKEY
goes on
.

But you’re all wrong about Parritt. That isn’t what’s got him stopped. It’s what’s behind that. And it’s a woman. I recognize the symptoms.

LARRY

Sneeringly
.

And you’re the boy who’s never wrong! Don’t be a damned fool. His trouble is he was brought up a devout believer in the Movement and now he’s lost his faith. It’s a shock, but he’s young and he’ll soon find another dream just as good.

He adds sardonically
.

Or as bad.

HICKEY

All right. I’ll let it go at that, Larry. He’s nothing to me except I’m glad he’s here because he’ll help me make you wake up to yourself. I don’t even like the guy, or the feeling there’s anything between us. But you’ll find I’m right just the same, when you get to the final showdown with him.

LARRY

There’ll be no showdown! I don’t give a tinker’s damn—

HICKEY

Sticking to the old grandstand, eh? Well, I knew you’d be the toughest to convince of all the gang, Larry. And, along with Harry and Jimmy Tomorrow, you’re the one I want most to help.

He puts an arm around
LARRY’S
shoulder and gives him an affectionate hug
.

I’ve always liked you a lot, you old bastard!

He gets up and his manner changes to his bustling party excitement
—
g
la
ncing at his watch
.

Well, well, not much time before twelve. Let’s get busy, boys and girls.

He looks over the table where the cake is
.

Cake all set. Good. And my presents, and yours, girls, and Chuck’s, and Rocky’s. Fine. Harry’ll certainly be touched by your thought of him.

He goes back to the girls
.

You go in the bar, Pearl and Margie, and get the grub ready so it can be brought right in. There’ll be some drinking and toasts first, of course. My idea is to use the wine for that, so get it all set. I’ll go upstairs now and root everyone out. Harry the last. I’ll come back with him. Somebody light the candles on the cake when you hear us coming, and you start playing Harry’s favorite tune, Cora. Hustle now, everybody. We want this to come off in style.

He bustles into the hall
.
MARGIE
and
PEARL
disappear in the bar
.
CORA
goes to the piano
.
JOE
gets off the stool sullenly to let her sit down
.

CORA

I got to practice. I ain’t laid my mits on a box in Gawd knows when.

With the soft pedal down, she begins gropingly to pick out
“
The Sunshine of Paradise Alley
.”

Is dat right, Joe? I’ve forgotten dat has-been tune.

She picks out a few more notes
.

Come on, Joe, hum de tune so I can follow.

JOE
begins to hum and sing in a low voice and correct her. He forgets his sullenness and becomes his old self again
.

LARRY

Suddenly gives a laugh
—
in his comically intense, crazy tone
. Be God, it’s a second feast of Belshazzar, with Hickey to do the writing on the wall!

CORA

Aw, shut up, Old Cemetery! Always beefin’!

WILLIE
comes in from the hall. He is in a pitiable state, his face pasty, haggard with sleeplessness and nerves, his eyes sick and haunted. He is sober
.
CORA
greets him over her shoulder kiddingly
.

If it ain’t Prince Willie!

Then kindly
.

Gee, kid, yuh look sick. Get a coupla shots in yuh.

WILLIE

Tensely
.

No, thanks. Not now. I’m tapering off.

He sits down weakly on
LARRY’S
right
.

CORA

Astonished
.

What d’yuh know? He means it!

WILLIE

Leaning toward
LARRY
confidentially
—
in a low shaken voice
. It’s been hell up in that damned room, Larry! The things I’ve imagined!

He shudders
.

I thought I’d go crazy.

With pathetic boastful pride
.

But I’ve got it beat now. By tomorrow morning I’ll be on the wagon. I’ll get back my clothes the first thing. Hickey’s loaning me the money. I’m going to do what I’ve always said—go to the D.A.’s office. He was a good friend of my Old Man’s. He was only assistant, then. He was in on the graft, but my Old Man never squealed on him. So he certainly owes it to me to give me a chance. And he knows that I really was a brilliant law student.

Self-reassuringly
.

Oh, I know I can make good, now I’m getting off the booze forever.

Moved
.

I owe a lot to Hickey. He’s made me wake up to myself—see what a fool—It wasn’t nice to face but—

With bitter resentment
.

It isn’t what he says. It’s what you feel behind—what he hints—Christ, you’d think all I really wanted to do with my life was sit here and stay drunk.

With hatred
.

I’ll show him!

LARRY

Masking pity behind a sardonic tone
.

If you want my advice, you’ll put the nearest bottle to your mouth until you don’t give a damn for Hickey!

WILLIE

Stares at a bottle greedily, tempted for a moment
—
then bitterly
.

That’s fine advice! I thought you were my friend!

He gets up with a hurt g
la
nce at
LARRY
,
and moves away to take a chair in back of the left end of the table, where he sits in dejected, shaking misery, his chin on his chest
.

JOE

To
CORA
.

No, like dis.

He beats time with his finger and sings in a low voice
.

“She is the sunshine of Paradise Alley.”

She plays
.

Dat’s more like it. Try it again.

She begins to play through the chorus again
.
DON PARRITT
enters from the hall. There is a frightened look on his face. He slinks in furtively, as if he were escaping from someone. He looks relieved when heseeslarry and comes and slips into the chair on his right
.
LARRY
pretends not to notice his coming, but he instinctively shrinks with repulsion
.
PARRITT
leans toward him and speaks ingratiatingly in a low secretive tone
.

PARRITT

Gee, I’m glad you’re here, Larry. That damned fool, Hickey, knocked on my door. I opened up because I thought it must be you, and he came busting in and made me come downstairs. I don’t know what for. I don’t belong in this birthday celebration. I don’t know this gang and I don’t want to be mixed up with them. All I came here for was to find you.

LARRY

Tensely
.

I’ve warned you—

PARRITT

Goes on as if he hadn’t heard
.

Can’t you make Hickey mind his own business? I don’t like that guy, Larry. The way he acts, you’d think he had something on me. Why, just now he pats me on the shoulder, like he was sympathizing with me, and says, “I know how it is, Son, but you can’t hide from yourself, not even here on the bottom of the sea. You’ve got to face the truth and then do what must be done for your own peace and the happiness of all concerned.” What did he mean by that, Larry?

LARRY

How the hell would I know?

PARRITT

Then he grins and says, “Never mind, Larry’s getting wise to himself. I think you can rely on his help in the end. He’ll have to choose between living and dying, and he’ll never choose to die while there is a breath left in the old bastard!” And then he laughs like it was a joke on you.

He pauses
.
LARRY
is rigid on his chair, staring before him
.
PARRITT
asks him with a sudden taunt in his voice
.

Well, what do you say to that, Larry?

LARRY

I’ve nothing to say. Except you’re a bigger fool than he is to listen to him.

PARRITT

With a sneer
.

Is that so? He’s no fool where you’re concerned. He’s got your number, all right!

LARRY’S
face tightens but he keeps silent
.
PARRITT
changes to a contrite, appealing air
.

I don’t mean that. But you keep acting as if you were sore at me, and that gets my goat. You know what I want most is to be friends with you, Larry. I haven’t a single friend left in the world. I hoped you—
Bitterly
.

And you could be, too, without it hurting you. You ought to, for Mother’s sake. She really loved you. You loved her, too, didn’t you?

LARRY

Tensely
.

Leave what’s dead in its grave.

PARRITT

I suppose, because I was only a kid, you didn’t think I was wise about you and her. Well, I was. I’ve been wise, ever since I can remember, to all the guys she’s had, although she’d tried to kid me along it wasn’t so. That was a silly stunt for a free Anarchist woman, wasn’t it, being ashamed of being free?

LARRY

Shut your damned trap!

PARRITT

Guiltily but with a strange undertone of satisfaction
.

Yes, I know I shouldn’t say that now. I keep forgetting she isn’t free any more.

He pauses
.

Do you know, Larry, you’re the one of them all she cared most about? Anyone else who left the Movement would have been dead to her, but she couldn’t forget you. She’d always make excuses for you. I used to try and get her goat about you. I’d say, “Larry’s got brains and yet he thinks the Movement is just a crazy pipe dream.” She’d blame it on booze getting you. She’d kid herself that you’d give up booze and come back to the Movement—tomorrow! She’d say, “Larry can’t kill in himself a faith he’s given his life to, not without killing himself.”

He grins sneeringly
.

How about it, Larry? Was she right?

LARRY
remains silent. He goes on insistently
.

I suppose what she really meant was, come back to her. She was always getting the Movement mixed up with herself. But I’m sure she really must have loved you, Larry. As much as she could love anyone besides herself. But she wasn’t faithful to you, even at that, was she? That’s why you finally walked out on her, isn’t it? I remember that last fight you had with her. I was listening. I was on your side, even if she was my mother, because I liked you so much; you’d been so good to me—like a father. I remember her putting on her high-and-mighty free-woman stuff, saying you were still a slave to bourgeois morality and jealousy and you thought a woman you loved was a piece of private property you owned. I remember that you got mad and you told her, “I don’t like living with a whore, if that’s what you mean!”