Brush no longer regarded the farmhouse in Michigan as his home; he had no home, and for that reason when his itinerary brought him to a town or city where he had already made friends, he looked forward to the visit with a more than usual expectancy. Kansas City contained one of these substitute homes. Queenie’s—Miss Craven’s—boarding-house was a high, narrow, blackened edifice, standing amid the similarly blackened hulks of former mansions near where Eighth Street crosses Pennsylvania and Jefferson Avenues. Here a colony of rooming-houses barely maintains its existence, though near the center of the city, holding out, its broken windows patched with newspaper, its yards full of weeds and overturned bath-tubs, against the last invasion of negro gamblers, cats, and the night quartering of tramps. Queenie’s back windows overlooked a cliff strewn with bottles and automobile tires descending to a waste of railroad tracks and the sluggish soot-covered river.
Brush ran up the steps and rang the bell. Queenie came to the door with a mop in her hand.
“Hello, Queenie!”
“Why, Mr. Brush! I’m glad to see you.”
“Are any of the fellows home, Queenie?”
“Seems like I heard’m all go out. You can go up and see. Will you be staying here tonight?”
“Yes, Queenie, I’ll be here three nights.”
“Well, I’ll come right up and make your bed. Looks even worse’n usual up there, Mr. Brush, but you know how it is. They say they’ll kill me if I clean up any, beyond just making the beds. I wish you’d persuade’m to let me come up and clean around.”
“I’ll try. Is there any news?”
“Let me think. Mr. Morris got his pay cut over to the hospital; yes, and Mr. Callahan got reduced, too.”
Brush descended a few steps: “Has Herb been drinking bad, Queenie?”
“Well, you know I never know what goes on, but I think he’s been drinking some. I don’t know how it happened, Mr. Brush, but the whole banister come off the staircase the other day. And Mrs. Kubinsky—lives next door—said she saw somebody hanging by their finger nails to the gutter on the roof one night, only he was pulled back at the last minute. ’T’s a wonder they’re still alive after five years, Mr. Brush, if you ask me, because they’re at death’s door once a week; that’s no zaggeration.”
“I know,” said Brush, with concern. They looked at one another. Brush added: “We’ve just got to work on them slowly, Queenie. Never say die. How’s Father Pasziewski, Queenie?”
“He’s pretty good. He’s back on the job again. He takes the seven and nine.”
“The kidney trouble just blew over?”
“They think now it was gall stones. Mrs. Kramer gave him some water from the River Jordan and he put it in his tea every day and it melted’m down. I was over to the St. Veronica Guild, serving, and Mrs. Delehanty said that with him, if it wasn’t one thing it’d be another, she said. He’s not long for this world, she says.”
Brush climbed the stairs to the top floor, which his four friends had rented from Queenie in perpetuity. Most of the doors had long been smashed, and after lying about as boards had finally disappeared in smaller and smaller fragments. Several partitions between the rooms contained holes, opened up in some historic rough-house, and now offering the testimony of their splintering edges and crumbling plaster. A smell floated about, made up of foul clothes, antiseptic soap, gin, and lemon-peel. Brush sat down on one of the beds and looked sadly about him. Here lived Herb and Morrie, two newspaper men; Bat, a mechanic in sound pictures; and Louie, a hospital chemist who in hard times had been obliged to descend to the duties of an orderly.
Brush’s friendship with these tenants reposed upon a complicated treaty. On his part, Brush promised not to harangue them, unless invited, on religion, temperance, chastity, and tobacco; and they in turn promised to remain within reasonable limits of decency in conversation and in the invention of practical jokes. The cement of this precarious friendship lay in the fact that Brush carried a wonderful second tenor and that the practice of singing in parts constituted their chief pleasure. Brush could do things in the refrain of “Wasting in despair” that threw his companions into an ecstasy that was almost anguish. On the first note at the close of the refrain “If she be not fair to me-ee,” he would rise an octave in soft portamento and, holding the note, pass from a whispered falsetto to a golden fortissimo, then, as the three other singers, pale and shaken, moved on to the second note, he would stride majestically down the chord into the bass register. He could phrase “Far above Cayuga’s Waters” so that it seemed to allude to some infinitely sad leave-taking, years ago, probably in the depths of a forest, with discouraged horns blowing in the distance. It required all this proficiency, however, to hold the group together. The treaty was drawn up abruptly on the night of Brush’s first visit to the boarding-house. He had knelt down beside his bed to say his prayers.
“Either you drop that or you keep out of here forever,” they said.
“Well, if I don’t do it,” he replied, darkly, “remember it’s not because I’m a moral coward.”
“Oh, get out of here!” cried Louie. “Get out and stay out! Go to hell!”
But the thought of “All through the night” intoned mezzo-voce returned to them; they swallowed their anger and the treaty was drawn up.
Brush now sat on the bed and sadly reviewed the problem presented by the room before him. Queenie entered with the linen.
“If I clean up now, will you protect me against them, Mr. Brush?” she asked, doubtfully.
“Can you do it tomorrow, Queenie? I don’t feel awfully well. I’m going to take a nap.”
“You don’t feel well? Where do you feel bad?”
“It’s not anything special. I’m just sick of hotels and trains. I’m sick of lots of things.”
Queenie respected dejection. She moved quickly about the bed-making. At last she said: “I’ve got a coffee-pot on the stove, Mr. Brush. It might peck you up a bit.”
“No, thanks,” he answered, gazing at the ceiling. He was suddenly surprised to hear himself saying, “Did you ever wish you were dead, Queenie?”
Queenie was immediately aroused. “Now don’t you say that! Why, I’m ashamed to hear you say things like that, Mr. Brush. I once said something like that in confession in Spokane, Washington, and Father Lyons almost bit my head off. It’s not like you, either.”
Brush smiled, abashed. “I was only joking, Queenie. It just jumped out.”
“A healthy young man like you, with a fine tenor voice.”
Queenie stood by with further reassurances until she noticed that Brush had fallen asleep. She took a step forward, looked at him narrowly a moment, and tiptoed downstairs. As she entered the front hall the door was noisily flung open and Louie rushed in.
“Hello, Queenie!” he cried. “Hitch up your pants, Queenie; the depression’s over. They’ve found a plan to make the ocean fresh water. You’ll love it.”
“Now don’t you go making any noise. Mr. Brush is up in your room, asleep. He’s kinda sick, he says.”
“What? Jesus sick? Well, well! Say no more. I know how to cure him.”
Louie dashed upstairs and had a look at the patient. Brush woke up.
“How the hell did you catch it?” asked Louie, drawing up a chair before him.
“Catch what?”
“You’ve got it. Fever B-17. Let me feel your pulse.”
“I’m all right.”
“There’s no doubt about it. B-17. Percipient influenza. Where could you have picked it up?”
“Oh, let me alone!”
“Take your choice, immediate recovery or two weeks in bed—and not in this house, either, by God!”
“Aw, just leave me alone, Louie! What’s the remedy like?”
“Get over on your own bed—polluting my pillow! You’re a stink-hole of germs. I ought to report you.”
“What’s the remedy like?”
“When did you begin to feel funny?”
“I don’t know. Today, yesterday.”
“Had any lunch?”
“No.”
“Lie down; lie down. I’m going back to the hospital to get the medicine. Queenie’ll bring you up a big lunch. Eat as much as possible. You’re not supposed to take this medicine on an empty stomach.”
“I don’t think I’ve got anything the matter with me.”
“What do you know about it? I don’t spend my life in hospitals for nothing. Here I am trying to do you a favor, and you go yipping around that you’re all right. You’re a sick man.”
Louis fell down the stairs to the telephone. He was very excited and began calling joyously in all directions. He shared his plans with Herb and Morrie and Bat, and then tore over to the hospital. The idea grew and flowered. By three o’clock several doctors in white coats had climbed Queenie’s stairs and held long conversations in German and Latin. A temperature chart had been hung on the wall. Sputum and urine had been put through precipitates. At half-past three the patient, awed and flushed, was sitting up in bed, eating T-bone steaks and creamed potatoes. From time to time he was told to hold his nose and take a swallow of the medicine which stood beside him in a large jar.
“You fellows are princes to go to all this trouble,” he said, grinning shyly; then catching sight of Queenie, who was peering anxiously into the room from the landing, he called out: “That’s all right, Queenie. I’m better already.”
“Now hold your nose again, and drink a lot,” commanded Louie. “Dr. Schnickenschnauzer, of Berlin, says you should drink it slow, but the Vienna fellas say you should drink it fast. How do you like it?”
“I guess it’s all right.”
“Now lie down a minute before you finish it.”
“Will I sweat much?”
“Sweat? Baby, your very toe nails’ll sweat. You’ll steam like a lake in the morning.”
“That’s good, because I think I’m full of poisons. Up to a month ago I never had a sick day in my life, but lately I haven’t been right. It’s doing me good already, Queenie.”
“I hope so, I’m sure, Mr. Brush.”
Queenie had been forbidden to enter the room, but she now managed to sidle in. She went to the medicine-jar and sniffed at it. She turned abruptly and cried out with indignation: “You boys ought to be ashamed of yourselves. I’m ashamed of you doing a thing like that. I suspected you was doing something all along.”
“Queenie,” said Herb, “you get outa here or we’ll break every bone in your body.”
“Don’t you touch me! I’m ashamed of you all. I’ve a good mind to put you out of my house.”
Herb and Louie picked her up in a sitting position and began to carry her to the stairs. Brush gave a roar and jumped out of bed. He seized hold of her and began to pull her back. For a moment Queenie was being bandied about like the star of an acrobatic troupe. Brush was blazing with energy and vigor. He hurled Louie into a corner and restored Queenie to her feet.
“I’ll kill the first person that touches Queenie!” he cried. “Speak up, Queenie. What is it you want to say?”
“You don’t know it, Mr. Brush, but just for a joke those boys . . . those boys have gone and made you drunk.”
“What!”
“That’s not medicine; that’s just liquor. That’s rum.”
Brush let his breath out slowly in astonishment. He lowered his voice: “Am I drunk, Queenie?”
“You go put your head under the tap and it’ll pass, most likely.”
He sat down on the bed and tried to think. He glanced up somberly at his tormentors; “It’s lucky for you I’m a pacifist. If I were a different kind of person I’d break every bone in your body. So this is being drunk. . . . When am I going to begin to do queer things? . . . Herb, you stand out here and tell me about it.”
“Aw, George, it’s nothing. You’ll like it.”
“When am I going to see things double? When am I going to start breaking things—banisters and things?”
“You’re not going to break things, you poor fool! What d’ya mean? You’re not drunk.”
“Well, I’m something.”
He rose and began striding about the room, shaking his head sharply. He stopped and stood looking at himself in the mirror, frowning. Then turning, he declared, in a loud voice: “Anyway, I can’t just stand here and be drunk. Now it’s done it can’t be helped. I’m even glad it happened, so long as it was accidental like this, because now I’ll know what they’re talking about all the time. So now let’s go somewhere and do something.” Here for the fun of it he began lifting tables and chairs with one hand, exclaiming: “Look’t this. Look—Herb, come on and try and throw me. I feel like a rough-house. I won’t hurt you, any of you. I’m a pacifist, but I feel like a rough-house. I’m the strongest man ever tested in our gym back at college, and I can polish off any cigarette-smoker in ten minutes. Come on! Why don’t one of you call me cuckoo? Tell me I’m crazy.”
“Aw, dry up, dry up! Let’s get the hell out of here. This guy makes me sick,” said Bat.
“Let’s go out and go places,” said Brush. “Let’s do something.” Suddenly an idea struck him; he turned majestically to Queenie. “Queenie—Queenie Craven—here’s five dollars. We are going out. While we are out you get Mrs. Kubinsky who resides next door, and you two clean these rooms like they were—was—offices in a bank. This place is going to be clean for once. You fellows live like hogs and it’s gotta stop. You hear me? It’s gotta stop! You’re the most aimless, shiftless sons-a-bitches in the world. Drink, drink, drink, that’s all you do. No wonder you get your salaries cut. Now get out and leave these rooms for a cleaning, because tomorrow you bastards are going to begin your lives all over again.”
“Poops to you!” muttered Louie. “Herb, I’m clearing out.”
“Stick around. He’s only begun. . . . Queenie, if you do, I’ll kill you.”
Brush leaned forward and lifted Herb by the seat of his trousers. Herb fell on his face. Brush placed his heel on his shoulder blade and began turning it. “Take that back,” he ordered. “Go on! Go on! You give the order to Queenie yourself.”
Herb caught him by the ankle and threw him. The building shook. All five were in the whirlpool now, but Brush only blazed the more with strength and confidence. He worked his way to his feet and began tossing the tenants against one another, kneading the pile playfully.
Bat struck his funny bone against the floor and fainted. He was resuscitated in great pain. “Gee! I’m sorry,” said Brush. “Honest, I apologize. I apologize for all those things I said, too. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I guess I’m . . . drunk, you know, or I wouldn’t have. . . . Is it getting better?”
Bat lay down on the bed, holding his elbow.
“Let’s sing to him,” said Brush, and soon the quartet was leaning over the bed, their arms about one another’s shoulders, closing in on some diminished sevenths.
“No more harmony for me,” said Herb, “until I get some more of Dr. Schnickenschnauser’s in me.”
“Then hurry,” said Brush. “And I guess I’ll have a little more, too. This is the only time in my life that I’ll ever touch alcohol, so I’d better be sure I really touched it. I’m going to get it over with, once for all.”
They had already had a good deal, but now they fell to for good measure.
“We’d better go down to Queenie’s sitting-room, so as not to be in the way of the cleaning.” For Queenie and Mrs. Kubinsky had entered with a battery of mops and pails and had begun stacking the furniture. The men gave three cheers each to Queenie and Anna Kubinsky, “the belles of Eighth Street,” and went out.
Some sort of great journey took place that night. Rain came on and then the evening, but the party tramped up and down the hills of Kansas City, ran through the parks, and fell rattling over the cliffs. They climbed monuments. They entered newspaper offices and rebuked the press. They swept like crusaders through the lobbies of motion-picture houses. They defiled the City Hall.
The next morning Brush woke up and lay for a long time staring at the ceiling. He felt wonderfully well.
“Louis,” he said to his roommate, “did I break anything yesterday?”
“No. Why?”
“Did I insult any passers-by—any women?”
“Not that I know of. Why?”
“I just wanted to know.”
He got up and began to shave. It was his custom while shaving to prop up before him a ten-cent copy of King Lear for memorization. His teacher at college had once remarked that King Lear was the greatest work in English literature, and the Encyclopædia Britannica seemed to be of the same opinion. Brush had read the play ten times without discovering a trace of talent in it, and was greatly worried about the matter. He persevered, however, and was engaged in committing the whole work to memory. Now while shaving he boomed away at it.
Herb came in.
“What’s the matter, big boy?”
“Herb, was I really tight last night?”
“You certainly were.”
“Was I all those things? Was I stewed and boiled and pie-eyed?”
“Yeah. Why?”
Brush examined himself in the mirror, rubbing in the lather. “I’ve heard about them so much. I just wanted to know.”
“Well, what did you think of it?”
Brush leaned against the wash basin and examined the floor. “I don’t quite know yet,” he said. “All I can say is, no wonder they made prohibition. I didn’t know liquor was like that. You know, I felt I was the greatest preacher in the world and the greatest thinker in the world. It made me feel as though I was ready to be the greatest President of the United States. I forgot I had any faults in my character.”
“Sure, that’s the idea. Baby, you’ve only just begun. You’ll have lots more yet.”
“Mmm!”
“Well, listen, big boy. I’ve got a date for you. Yeah, just the kind of date you like.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re always looking for a fine girl, aren’t you? You know, to be the mother of your children?”
“You’re just wasting your time, Herb. It doesn’t get you anywhere to make fun of such things with me. Save your breath, Herb.”
“I’m not kiddin’ ya. I’m not kiddin’ ya. What the hell are you so damned sensitive about?”
“I don’t trust you when you try to be serious, Herb. Save your breath.”
“Oh, all right, then. Here I come with a perfectly good invitation to go out to Sunday dinner in a nice home with a lot of beautiful girls in the house and you poop all over me. They’ve got money, too. The nicest girls in Kansas City.”
“How’d you meet’m, Herb?”
“Insult me, will ya? Insult me.”
“I didn’t mean that as an insult. I just asked you.”
“You don’t know me, George. I’ve reformed. I’m a serious fella. In fact, if you must know, I’m courting one of these girls. I want to marry and settle down.”
Brush kept his eyes on Herb’s reflection in the mirror and went on shaving. “Where do they live?”
“MacKenzie Boulevard. Swell mansion. They’ve got money. Louie and Bat and I got asked to Sunday dinner today, and I told’m about you and they said bring’m along. It’s Sunday dinner, big boy, and there’ll be lots of eats . . . Well, make up your mind. It’s twelve o’clock now and I gotta phone Mrs. Crofut how many’s coming.”
Brush watched him in the mirror. “Herb, do you promise before God that there’s no catch in this?”
“Oh, you give me a pain. Stay home; stay home! Go and eat at the wagon. I hope it chokes ya. I told Mrs. Crofut we’d sing for them. Stay home and spoil the quartet if you like.”
“I’ll come,” said Brush and returned to his Lear. “When thou clovest thy crown i’ the middle, and gavest away both parts,” he cried, “thou borest thine ass on thy own back o’er the dirt.”
“What?” asked Herb. “What’s that?”
“I wasn’t talking to you. Thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown when thou gavest thy golden one away.”
A few minutes later Herb returned. “Well, since you made me promise, George, perhaps I ought to tell you there’s a little catch in this . . . just a harmless joker, see? . . . I told’m you were a famous singer, see? They’re all excited about it. They think you’re a famous singer, like on the radio. A concert singer, and famous.”
Brush’s answer was composure itself. “That’s not a lie,” he said. “There must be five thousand people in this country who’ve been thrilled by my singing at one time or other. That’s not a lie.” Herb fled from the room, but Brush followed him to the door, razor in hand, and shouted after him: “Why, just the other night at Camp Morgan they were spellbound. I didn’t know the human hand could clap so long. I don’t say that because I’m conceited, because a fine voice is just a gift. Tell Mrs. Crofut I’ll be glad to come.”