An Extemporaneous Sob Story by Marcus Lollius, Proconsul of Gaul
Sheehan's Pool Room, which adorns one of the lesser alleys in the heart
of Chicago's stockyard district, is not a nice place. Its air, freighted
with a thousand odours such as Coleridge may have found at Cologne, too
seldom knows the purifying rays of the sun; but fights for space with the
acrid fumes of unnumbered cheap cigars and cigarettes which dangle from
the coarse lips of unnumbered human animals that haunt the place day and
night. But the popularity of Sheehan's remains unimpaired; and for this
there is a reason -- a reason obvious to anyone who will take the trouble
to analyse the mixed stenches prevailing there. Over and above the fumes
and sickening closeness rises an aroma once familiar throughout the land,
but now happily banished to the back streets of life by the edict of a
benevolent government -- the aroma of strong, wicked whiskey -- a precious
kind of forbidden fruit indeed in this year of grace 1950.
Sheehan's is the acknowledged centre to Chicago's subterranean traffic
in liquor and narcotics, and as such has a certain dignity which extends
even to the unkempt attaches of the place; but there was until lately one
who lay outside the pale of that dignity -- one who shared the squalor
and filth, but not the importance, of Sheehan's. He was called "Old Bugs",
and was the most disreputable object in a disreputable environment. What
he had once been, many tried to guess; for his language and mode of utterance
when intoxicated to a certain degree were such as to excite wonderment;
but what he was, presented less difficulty -- for "Old Bugs", in superlative
degree, epitomised the pathetic species known as the "bum" or the "down-and-outer".
Whence he had come, no one could tell. One night he had burst wildly into
Sheehan's, foaming at the mouth and screaming for whiskey and hasheesh;
and having been supplied in exchange for a promise to perform odd jobs,
had hung about ever since, mopping floors, cleaning cuspidors and glasses,
and attending to an hundred similar menial duties in exchange for the drink
and drugs which were necessary to keep him alive and sane.
He talked but little, and usually in the common jargon of the underworld;
but occasionally, when inflamed by an unusually generous dose of crude
whiskey, would burst forth into strings of incomprehensible polysyllables
and snatches of sonorous prose and verse which led certain habitués
to conjecture that he had seen better days. One steady patron -- a bank
defaulter under cover -- came to converse with him quite regularly, and
from the tone of his discourse ventured the opinion that he had been a
writer or professor in his day. But the only tangible clue to Old Bugs'
past was a faded photograph which he constantly carried about with him
-- the photograph of a young woman of noble and beautiful features. This
he would sometimes draw from his tattered pocket, carefully unwrap from
its covering of tissue paper, and gaze upon for hours with an expression
of ineffable sadness and tenderness. It was not the portrait of one whom
an underworld denizen would be likely to know, but of a lady of breeding
and quality, garbed in the quaint attire of thirty years before. Old Bugs
himself seemed also to belong to the past, for his nondescript clothing
bore every hallmark of antiquity. He was a man of immense height, probably
more than six feet, though his stooping shoulders sometimes belied this
fact. His hair, a dirty white and falling out in patches, was never combed;
and over his lean face grew a mangy stubble of coarse beard which seemed
always to remain at the bristling stage -- never shaven -- yet never long
enough to form a respectable set of whiskers. His features had perhaps
been noble once, but were now seamed with the ghastly effects of terrible
dissipation. At one time -- probably in middle life -- he had evidently
been grossly fat; but now he was horribly lean, the purple flesh hanging
in loose pouches under his bleary eyes and upon his cheeks. Altogether,
Old Bugs was not pleasing to look upon.
The disposition of Old Bugs was as odd as his aspect. Ordinarily he
was true to the derelict type -- ready to do anything for a nickel or a
dose of whiskey or hasheesh -- but at rare intervals he shewed the traits
which earned him his name. Then he would try to straighten up, and a certain
fire would creep into the sunken eyes. His demeanour would assume an unwonted
grace and even dignity; and the sodden creatures around him would sense
something of superiority -- something which made them less ready to give
the usual kicks and cuffs to the poor butt and drudge. At these times he
would shew a sardonic humour and make remarks which the folk of Sheehan's
deemed foolish and irrational. But the spells would soon pass, and once
more Old Bugs would resume his eternal floor-scrubbing and cuspidor-cleaning.
But for one thing Old Bugs would have been an ideal slave to the establishment
-- and that one thing was his conduct when young men were introduced for
their first drink. The old man would then rise from the floor in anger
and excitement, muttering threats and warnings, and seeking to dissuade
the novices from embarking upon their course of "seeing life as it is."
He would sputter and fume, exploding into sesquipedalian admonitions and
strange oaths, and animated by a frightful earnestness which brought a
shudder to more than one drug-racked mind in the crowded room. But after
a time his alcohol-enfeebled brain would wander from the subject, and with
a foolish grin he would turn once more to his mop or cleaning-rag.
I do not think that many of Sheehan's regular patrons will ever forget
the day that young Alfred Trever came. He was rather a "find" -- a rich
and high-spirited youth who would "go the limit" in anything he undertook
-- at least, that was the verdict of Pete Schultz, Sheehan's "runner",
who had come across the boy at Lawrence College, in the small town of Appleton,
Wisconsin. Trever was the son of prominent parents in Appleton. His father,
Karl Trever, was an attorney and citizen of distinction, whilst his mother
had made an enviable reputation as a poetess under her maiden name of Eleanor
Wing. Alfred was himself a scholar and poet of distinction, though cursed
with a certain childish irresponsibility which made him an ideal prey for
Sheehan's runner. He was blond, handsome, and spoiled; vivacious and eager
to taste the several forms of dissipation about which he had read and heard.
At Lawrence he had been prominent in the mock-fraternity of "Tappa Tappa
Keg", where he was the wildest and merriest of the wild and merry young
roysterers; but this immature, collegiate frivolity did not satisfy him.
He knew deeper vices through books, and he now longed to know them at first
hand. Perhaps this tendency toward wildness had been stimulated somewhat
by the repression to which he had been subjected at home; for Mrs. Trever
had particular reason for training her only child with rigid severity.
She had, in her own youth, been deeply and permanently impressed with the
horror of dissipation by the case of one to whom she had for a time been
engaged.
Young Galpin, the fiancé in question, had been one of Appleton's
most remarkable sons. Attaining distinction as a boy through his wonderful
mentality, he won vast fame at the University of Wisconsin, and at the
age of twenty-three returned to Appleton to take up a professorship at
Lawrence and to slip a diamond upon the finger of Appleton's fairest and
most brilliant daughter. For a season all went happily, till without warning
the storm burst. Evil habits, dating from a first drink taken years before
in woodland seclusion, made themselves manifest in the young professor;
and only by a hurried resignation did he escape a nasty prosecution for
injury to the habits and morals of the pupils under his charge. His engagement
broken, Galpin moved east to begin life anew; but before long, Appletonians
heard of his dismissal in disgrace from New York University, where he had
obtained an instructorship in English. Galpin now devoted his time to the
library and lecture platform, preparing volumes and speeches on various
subjects connected with belles lettres, and always shewing a genius
so remarkable that it seemed as if the public must sometime pardon him
for his past mistakes. His impassioned lectures in defence of Villon, Poe,
Verlaine, and Oscar Wilde were applied to himself as well, and in the short
Indian summer of his glory there was talk of a renewed engagement at a
certain cultured home on Park Avenue. But then the blow fell. A final disgrace,
compared to which the others had been as nothing, shattered the illusions
of those who had come to believe in Galpin's reform; and the young man
abandoned his name and disappeared from public view. Rumour now and then
associated him with a certain "Consul Hasting" whose work for the stage
and for motionpicture companies attracted a certain degree of attention
because of its scholarly breadth and depth; but Hasting soon disappeared
from the public eye, and Galpin became only a name for parents to quote
in warning accents. Eleanor Wing soon celebrated her marriage to Karl Trever,
a rising young lawyer, and of her former admirer retained only enough memory
to dictate the naming of her only son, and the moral guidance of that handsome
and headstrong youth. Now, in spite of all that guidance, Alfred Trever
was at Sheehan's and about to take his first drink.
"Boss," cried Schultz, as he entered the vile-smelling room with his
young victim, "meet my friend Al Trever, bes' li'1' sport up at Lawrence
-- thas"n Appleton, Wis., y' know. Some swell guy, too -- 's father's a
big corp'ration lawyer up in his burg, 'n' 's mother's some fiery genius.
He wants to see life as she is -- wants to know what the real lightnin'
juice tastes like -- so jus'remember he's me friend an' treat 'im right."
As the names Trever, Lawrence, and Appleton fell on the air, the loafers
seemed to sense something unusual. Perhaps it was only some sound connected
with the clicking balls of the pool tables or the rattling glasses that
were brought from the cryptic regions in the rear -- perhaps only that,
plus some strange rustling of the dirty draperies at the one dingy window-but
many thought that someone in the room had gritted his teeth and drawn a
very sharp breath.
"Glad to know you, Sheehan," said Trever in a quiet, well-bred tone.
"This is my first experience in a place like this, but I am a student
of life, and don't want to miss any experience. There's poetry in this
sort of thing, you know -- or perhaps you don't know, but it's all the
same.
"Young feller," responded the proprietor, "ya come tuh th' right place
tuh see life. We got all kinds here -- reel life an' a good time. The damn'
government can try tuh make folks good of it wants tuh, but it can't stop
a feller from hittin"er up when he feels like it. Whaddya want, feller
-- booze, coke, or some other sorta dope? Yuh can't ask for nothin' we
ain't got."
Habitués say that it was at this point they noticed a cessation
in the regular, monotonous strokes of the mop.
"I want whiskey -- good old-fashioned rye!" exclaimed Trever enthusiastically.
"I'll tell you, I'm good and tired of water after reading of the merry
bouts fellows used to have in the old days. I can't read an Anacreontic
without watering at the mouth -- and it's something a lot stronger than
water that my mouth waters for!"
"Anacreontic -- what'n hell's that?" several hangers-on looked up as
the young man went slightly beyond their depth. But the bank defaulter
under cover explained to them that Anacreon was a gay old dog who lived
many years ago and wrote about the fun he had when all the world was just
like Sheehan's.
"Let me see, Trever," continued the defaulter, "didn't Schultz say your
mother is a literary person, too?"
"Yes, damn it," replied Trever, "but nothing like the old Teian! She's
one of those dull, eternal moralisers that try to take all the joy out
of life. Namby-pamby sort -- ever heard of her? She writes under her maiden
name of Eleanor Wing."
Here it was that Old Bugs dropped his mop.
"Well, here's yer stuff," announced Sheehan jovially as a tray of bottles
and glasses was wheeled into the room. "Good old rye, an' as fiery as ya
kin find anyw'eres in Chi."
The youth's eyes glistened and his nostrils curled at the fumes of the
brownish fluid which an attendant was pouring out for him. It repelled
him horribly, and revolted all his inherited delicacy; but his determination
to taste life to the full remained with him, and he maintained a bold front.
But before his resolution was put to the test, the unexpected intervened.
Old Bugs, springing up from the crouching position in which he had hitherto
been, leaped at the youth and dashed from his hands the uplifted glass,
almost simultaneously attacking the tray of bottles and glasses with his
mop, and scattering the contents upon the floor in a confusion of odoriferous
fluid and broken bottles and tumblers. Numbers of men, or things which
had been men, dropped to the floor and began lapping at the puddles of
spilled liquor, but most remained immovable, watching the unprecedented
actions of the barroom drudge and derelict. Old Bugs straightened up before
the astonished Trever, and in a mild and cultivated voice said, "Do not
do this thing. I was like you once, and I did it. Now I am like -- this."
"What do you mean, you damned old fool?" shouted Trever. "What do you
mean by interfering with a gentleman in his pleasures?" Sheehan, now recovering
from his astonishment, advanced and laid a heavy hand on the old waif's
shoulder.
"This is the last time far you, old bird!" he exclaimed furiously. "When
a gen'l'man wants tuh take a drink here, by God, he shall, without you
interferin'. Now get th' hell outa here afore I kick hell outa ya."
But Sheehan had reckoned without scientific knowledge of abnormal psychology
and the effects of nervous stimulus. Old Bugs, obtaining a firmer hold
on his mop, began to wield it like the javelin of a Macedonian hoplite,
and soon cleared a considerable space around himself, meanwhile shouting
various disconnected bits of quotation, among which was prominently repeated,
" . . . the sons of Belial, blown with insolence and wine."
The room became pandemonium, and men screamed and howled in fright at
the sinister being they had aroused. Trever seemed dazed in the confusion,
and shrank to the wall as the strife thickened. "He shall not drink! He
shall not drink!" Thus roared Old Bugs as he seemed to run out of -- or
rise above -- quotations. Policemen appeared at the door, attracted by
the noise, but for a time they made no move to intervene. Trever, now thoroughly
terrified and cured forever of his desire to see life via the vice route,
edged closer to the blue-coated newcomers. Could he but escape and catch
a train for Appleton, he reflected, he would consider his education in
dissipation quite complete.
Then suddenly Old Bugs ceased to wield his javelin and stopped still
-- drawing himself up more erectly than any denizen of the place had ever
seen him before. "Ave, Caesar, moriturus te saluto!" he shouted,
and dropped to the whiskey-reeking floor, never to rise again.
Subsequent impressions will never leave the mind of young Trever. The
picture is blurred, but ineradicable. Policemen ploughed a way through
the crowd, questioning everyone closely both about the incident and about
the dead figure on the floor. Sheehan especially did they ply with inquiries,
yet without eliciting any information of value concerning Old Bugs. Then
the bank defaulter remembered the picture, and suggested that it be viewed
and filed for identification at police headquarters. An officer bent reluctantly
over the loathsome glassyeyed form and found the tissue-wrapped cardboard,
which he passed around among the others.
"Some chicken!" leered a drunken man as he viewed the beautiful face,
but those who were sober did not leer, looking with respect and abashment
at the delicate and spiritual features. No one seemed able to place the
subject, and all wondered that the drug-degraded derelict should have such
a portrait in his possession -- that is, all but the bank defaulter, who
was meanwhile eyeing the intruding bluecoats rather uneasily. He had seen
a little deeper beneath Old Bugs' mask of utter degradation.
Then the picture was passed to Trever, and a change came over the youth.
After the first start, he replaced the tissue wrapping around the portrait,
as if to shield it from the sordidness of the place. Then he gazed long
and searchingly at the figure on the floor, noting its great height, and
the aristocratic cast of features which seemed to appear now that the wretched
flame of life had flickered out. No, he said hastily, as the question was
put to him, he did not know the subject of the picture. It was so old,
he added, that no one now could be expected to recognise it.
But Alfred Trever did not speak the truth, as many guessed when he offered
to take charge of the body and secure its interment in Appleton. Over the
library mantel in his home hung the exact replica of that picture, and
all his life he had known and loved its original.
For the gentle and noble features were those of his own mother.
