The Iceman Cometh (7 page)

PARRITT

Uncomfortably
.

Tough luck. No, I never heard of him.

WILLIE

Blinks at him incredulously
.

Never heard? I thought everyone in the world—Why, even at Harvard I discovered my father was well known by reputation, although that was some time before the District Attorney gave him so much unwelcome publicity. Yes, even as a freshman I was notorious. I was accepted socially with all the warm cordiality that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow would have shown a drunken Negress dancing the can can at high noon on Brattle Street. Harvard was my father’s idea. He was an ambitious man. Dictatorial, too. Always knowing what was best for me. But I did make myself a brilliant student. A dirty trick on my classmates, inspired by revenge, I fear.

He quotes
.

“Dear college days, with pleasure rife! The grandest gladdest days of life!” But, of course, that is a Yale hymn, and they’re given to rah-rah exaggeration at New Haven. I was a brilliant student at Law School, too. My father wanted a lawyer in the family. He was a calculating man. A thorough knowledge of the law close at hand in the house to help him find fresh ways to evade it. But I discovered the loophole of whiskey and escaped his jurisdiction.

Abruptly to
PARRITT
.

Speaking of whiskey, sir, reminds me—and, I hope, reminds you—that when meeting a Prince the customary salutation is “What’ll you have?”

PARRITT

With defensive resentment
.

Nix! All you guys seem to think I’m made of dough. Where would

I get the coin to blow everyone?

WILLIE

Sceptically
.

Broke? You haven’t the thirsty look of the impecunious. I’d judge you to be a plutocrat, your pockets stuffed with ill-gotten gains. Two or three dollars, at least. And don’t think we will question how you got it. As Vespasian remarked, the smell of all whiskey is sweet.

PARRITT

What do you mean, how I got it?

To
larry,
forcing a
la
ugh
.

It’s a laugh, calling me a plutocrat, isn’t it, Larry, when I’ve been in the Movement all my life.

LARRY
gives him an uneasy suspicious g
la
nce, then looks away, as if avoiding something he does not wish to see
.

WILLIE

Disgustedly
.

Ah, one of those, eh? I believe you now, all right! Go away and blow yourself up, that’s a good lad. Hugo is the only licensed preacher of that gospel here. A dangerous terrorist, Hugo! He would as soon blow the collar off a schooner of beer as look at you!

To
LARRY
.

Let us ignore this useless youth, Larry. Let us join in prayer that Hickey, the Great Salesman, will soon arrive bringing the blessed bourgeois long green! Would that Hickey or Death would come! Meanwhile, I will sing a song. A beautiful old New England folk ballad which I picked up at Harvard amid the debris of education.

He sings in a boisterous baritone, rapping on the tab
le
with his knuckles at the indicated spots in the song
.

Jack, oh, Jack, was a sailor lad

And he came to a tavern for gin.

He rapped and he rapped with a

Rap, rap, rap
.

But never a soul seemed in.

The drunks at the tables stir
. rocky
gets up from his chair in the bar and starts back for the entrance to the back room
. hope
cocks one irritable eye over his specs
. joe mott
opens both of his and grins
. willie
interposes some drunken whimsical exposition to
LARRY.

The origin of this beautiful ditty is veiled in mystery, Larry. There was a legend bruited about in Cambridge lavatories that Waldo Emerson composed it during his uninformative period as a minister, while he was trying to write a sermon. But my own opinion is, it goes back much further, and Jonathan Edwards was the author of both words and music.

He sings
.

He rapped and rapped, and tapped and tapped

Enough to wake the dead Till he heard a damsel

Rap, rap, rap
.

On a window right over his head.

The drunks are blinking their eyes now, grumbling and cursing
. rocky
appears from the bar at rear, right, yawning
.

HOPE

With fuming irritation
.

Rocky! Bejees, can’t you keep that crazy bastard quiet?

ROCKY
starts for
WILLIE
.

WILLIE

And now the influence of a good woman enters our mariner’s life. Well, perhaps “good” isn’t the word. But very, very kind.

He sings
.

“Oh, come up,” she cried, “my sailor lad,

and you and I’ll agree,

And I’ll show you the prettiest

Rap, rap, rap
.

That ever you did see.”

He speaks
.

You see, Larry? The lewd Puritan touch, obviously, and it grows more marked as we go on.

He sings
.

Oh, he put his arm around her waist,

He gazed in her bright blue eyes

And then he—

But here
rocky
shakes him roughly by the shoulder
.

ROCKY

Piano! What d’yuh tink dis dump is, a dump?

HOPE

Give him the bum’s rush upstairs! Lock him in his room!

ROCKY

Yanks
willie
by the arm
.

Come on, Bum.

WILLIE

Dissolves into pitiable terror
.

No! Please, Rocky! I’ll go crazy up in that room alone! It’s haunted!

I—

He calls
to
HOPE
.

Please, Harry! Let me stay here! I’ll be quiet!

HOPE

Immediately relents
—
indignantly
.

What the hell you doing to him, Rocky? I didn’t tell you to beat up the poor guy. Leave him alone, long as he’s quiet.

ROCKY
lets go
of
WILLIE
disgustedly and goes back to his chair in the bar
.

WILLIE

Huskily
.

Thanks, Harry. You’re a good scout.

He closes his eyes and sinks back in his chair exhaustedly, twitching and quivering again
.

HOPE

Addressing
MCGLOIN
and
MOSHER
,
who are sleepily awake
—
accusingly
.

Always the way. Can’t trust nobody. Leave it to that Dago to keep order and it’s like bedlam in a cathouse, singing and everything. And you two big barflies are a hell of a help to me, ain’t you? Eat and sleep and get drunk! All you’re good for, bejees! Well, you can take that “I’ll-have-the-same” look off your maps! There ain’t going to be no more drinks on the house till hell freezes over!

Neither of the two is impressed either by his insults or his threats. They grin hangover grins of tolerant affection at him and wink at each other
.
HARRY
fumes
.

Yeah, grin! Wink, bejees! Fine pair of sons of bitches to have glued on me for life!

But he can’t get a rise out of them and he subsides into a fuming mumble
.

Meanwhile, at the middle table
,
CAPTAIN LEWIS
and
GENERAL WETJOEN
are as wide awake as heavy hangovers permit
.
JIMMY
TOMORROW
nods, his eyes blinking
.
LEWIS
is gazing across the table at
JOE MOTT
,
who is still chuckling to himself over
WILLIE’s
song. The expression on
LEWIS
’
s
face is that of one who can’t believe his eyes.

LEWIS

Aloud to himself, with a muzzy wonder
.

Good God! Have I been drinking at the same table with a bloody Kaffir?

JOE

Grinning
.

Hello, Captain. You comin’ up for air? Kaffir? Who’s he?

WETJOEN

Blurrily
.

Kaffir, dot’s a nigger, Joe.

JOE
stiffens and his eyes narrow
.
WETJOENGOES
on
with heavy jocosity
. Dot’s joke on him, Joe. He don’t know you. He’s still plind drunk, the ploody Limey chentleman! A great mistake I missed him at the pattle of Modder River. Vit mine rifle I shoot damn fool Limey officers py the dozen, but him I miss. De pity of it!

He chuckles and slaps
LEWIS
on his bare shoulder
.

Hey, wake up, Cecil, you ploody fool! Don’t you know your old friend, Joe? He’s no damned Kaffir! He’s white, Joe is!

LEWIS

Light dawning
—
contritely
.

My profound apologies, Joseph, old chum. Eyesight a trifle blurry, I’m afraid. Whitest colored man I ever knew. Proud to call you my friend. No hard feelings, what?

He holds out his hand
.

JOE

At once grins good-naturedly and shakes his hand
.

No, Captain, I know it’s mistake. Youse regular, if you is a Limey.

Then his face hardening
.

But I don’t stand for “nigger” from nobody. Never did. In de old days, people calls me “nigger” wakes up in de hospital. I was de leader ob de Dirty Half-Dozen Gang. All six of us colored boys, we was tough and I was de toughest.

WETJOEN

Inspired to boastful reminiscence
.

Me, in old days in Transvaal, I vas so tough and strong I grab axle of ox wagon mit full load and lift like feather.

LEWIS

Smiling amiably
.

As for you, my balmy Boer that walks like a man, I say again it was a grave error in our foreign policy ever to set you free, once we nabbed you and your commando with Cronje. We should have taken you to the London zoo and incarcerated you in the baboons’ cage. With a sign: “Spectators may distinguish the true baboon by his blue behind.”

WETJOEN

Grins
.

Gott! To dink, ten better Limey officers, at least, I shoot clean in the mittle of forehead at Spion Kopje, and you I miss! I neffer forgive myself!

JIMMY TOMORROW
blinks benignantly from one to the other with a gentle drunken smile
.

JIMMY

Sentimentally
.

Now, come, Cecil, Piet! We must forget the War. Boer and Briton, each fought fairly and played the game till the better man won and then we shook hands. We are all brothers within the Empire united beneath the flag on which the sun never sets.

Tears come to his eyes. He quotes with great sentiment, if with slight application
.

“Ship me somewhere east of Suez—”

LARRY

Breaks in sardonically
.

Be God, you’re there already, Jimmy. Worst is best here, and East is West, and tomorrow is yesterday. What more do you want?

JIMMY

With bleery benevolence, shaking his head in mild rebuke
.

No, Larry, old friend, you can’t deceive me. You pretend a bitter, cynic philosophy, but in your heart you are the kindest man among us.

LARRY

Disconcerted
—
irritably
. The hell you say!

PARRITT

Leans toward him
—
confidentially
. What a bunch of cuckoos!

JIMMY

As if reminded of something
—
with a pathetic attempt at a brisk, no-more-nonsense air
.

Tomorrow, yes. It’s high time I straightened out and got down to business again.

He brushes his sleeve fastidiously
.

I must have this suit cleaned and pressed. I can’t look like a tramp when I—

JOE

Who has been brooding
—
interrupts
.

Yes, suh, white folks always said I was white. In de days when I

was flush, Joe Mott’s de only colored man dey allows in de white gamblin’ houses. “You’re all right, Joe, you’re white,” dey says.

He chuckles
.

Wouldn’t let me play craps, dough. Dey know I could make dem dice behave. “Any odder game and any limit you like, Joe,” dey says.

Man, de money I lost!

He chuckles
—
then with an underlying defensiveness
.

Look at de Big Chief in dem days. He knew I was white. I’d saved my dough so I could start my own gamblin’ house. Folks in de know tells me, see de man at de top, den you never has trouble. You git Harry Hope give you a letter to de Chief. And Harry does. Don’t