Complete Stories (40 page)

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Authors: Dorothy Parker,Colleen Bresse,Regina Barreca

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Still if we were back at the table, I’d probably have to talk to him. Look at him—what could you say to a thing like that! Did you go to the circus this year, what’s your favorite kind of ice cream, how do you spell cat? I guess I’m as well off here. As well off as if I were in a cement mixer in full action.
I’m past all feeling now. The only way I can tell when he steps on me is that I can hear the splintering of bones. And all the events of my life are passing before my eyes. There was the time I was in a hurricane in the West Indies, there was the day I got my head cut open in the taxi smash, there was the night the drunken lady threw a bronze ash-tray at her own true love and got me instead, there was that summer that the sailboat kept capsizing. Ah, what an easy, peaceful time was mine, until I fell in with Swifty, here. I didn’t know what trouble was, before I got drawn into this
danse macabre.
I think my mind is beginning to wander. It almost seems to me as if the orchestra were stopping. It couldn’t be, of course; it could never, never be. And yet in my ears there is a silence like the sound of angel voices. . . .
Oh, they’ve stopped, the mean things. They’re not going to play any more. Oh, darn. Oh, do you think they would? Do you really think so, if you gave them fifty dollars? Oh, that would be lovely. And look, do tell them to play this same thing. I’d simply adore to go on waltzing.
 
The New Yorker,
September 2, 1933
The Road Home
 
The girl in the deep right-hand corner of the taxicab seat looked steadily at the young man reclining against the left-hand wall of the cab. It was a fine dramatic glare that she was executing, but it went wasted. The rhythmic streaks of light from the street lamps showed only the young man’s profile turned toward her; a large and handsome profile, the lips of which moved freely. Music, in an elemental form, issued from them and presently words came along with the gay and simple tune, and filled the dark spaces of the taxi.
“Oh, Lord Jeffrey Amherst was a soldier of the king.
And he came from acraw-woss the sea;
To the Frenchmen and the Indians he didn’t do a thing
In the
wilds
of this
wild
coun-tree,
In the WILDS of this WILD—”
 
The girl spoke. Her voice was low, but it struck across the song and stopped it there where it was.
“If I have to hear that again,” she said, “if I have to hear that song just one more time, I’m going right smack out of my mind.”
“What’s the matter with that song?” the young man said. “That’s a good song. That’s the best song in the world, that’s all that is. Shows how much you care about music. What’s the matter with that song? What’s the matter with you? What?”
“The matter with me?” she said. “Oh, there’s nothing the matter with me, I assure you. Let me assure you of that. Not with
me.
”
“Then what’s the matter with you?” he said.
“Nothing whatever,” she said. “What should be? Everything’s been perfectly splendid, hasn’t it? You had a wonderful time, didn’t you?”
“When?” he said.
“Oh, ‘when’!” she said. “ ‘When’! Why, tonight, of course. When did you think? Listen. I hate to ask you to strain yourself, but you might be so good as to recall that you took me to a party this evening. Can you remember that?”
“Certainly I can,” he said. “What’s the matter with it?”
“I’m so glad,” she said, “that you
are
able to recollect that it was me you brought with you. That it was I you brought with you. It more or less seemed, all during the evening, as if that little matter had more or less slipped your memory.”
“What little matter?” he said. “What’s the matter with what?”
“But of course,” she said, “as long as you were enjoying yourself, I’m sure nobody has any right to say anything. Just as long as you’re having a good time, everything’s perfectly all right. Naturally.”
“Didn’t you have a good time?” he said.
“Oh, perfect,” she said. “Ideal. What girl wouldn’t have, in my place? Naturally, it’s my idea of a marvelous evening to sit in a corner all by myself, while a lot of loud-mouthed drunks go into a huddle and sing for four solid hours. Why, I had the time of my life. Logically.”
“Who’s a lot of loud-mouthed drunks?” he said.
“Oh, several people I could name,” she said. “If I cared to.”
“You didn’t have to go sit in any corner,” he said. “Why didn’t you come over and sing?”
“Well, since you’re so anxious to know,” she said, “it was because nobody asked me to.”
“My God, do you have to be asked to come on over and sing with a crowd of people?” he said.
“I most certainly do,” she said. “And what do you think of that?”
“Nobody
asked
anybody,” he said. “What’s the matter with you, anyway, Marjorie?”
“Oh, nobody asked anybody?” she said. “Really? Well, you gave an awfully realistic imitation of begging that little Cronin girl to come over and join the singing. If you could call what she does ‘singing,’ and not be struck dead.”
“She hasn’t got a bad voice,” he said. “Knows all the words, too.”
“She certainly does,” she said. “And of course, you had to stand close to her to hear them, because it would be terrible if you missed a syllable of ‘Lord Jeffrey Amherst’ or ‘The Caissons Go Rolling Along.’ Naturally, you had to put your arm around her so you could hear better. Of course.”
“Oh, so that’s what’s the matter,” he said. “Oh, God.”
“I’m sure,” she said, “that it doesn’t make any difference to me who you put your arm around. Whom you put your arm around. Let me assure you of that. If you prefer someone like that hard, cheap, common little Cronin girl to someone that has a certain amount of depths and sensitiveness and has occasionally read a book, why, that’s what you prefer. That’s all.”
“Oh, God,” he said. “Oh, God.”
“The only thing that hurts me,” she said, “is absolute neglect. Doubtless that would seem strange to you and the little Cronin girl, but it just so happens that it absolutely kills me to be absolutely neglected. I just happen to be that sort of person, that’s all. And there I sat, all evening, without anyone saying one word to me. Charming manners some people have, I must say. Why, when I wanted a drink, I had to go way into the other room and get it for myself.”
“You seem to have made the trip quite a few times,” he said.
“Well, I had to do something, didn’t I?” she said. “Just sitting there, alone in a corner. While you sang. The only bit of attention you paid me the entire evening was when you spilled your entire drink all over my dress. I don’t mean that I minded that. Of course, it’s the first new dress I’ve had in ages, and there isn’t the least sense in sending it to the cleaner’s, because the kind of liquor those people have never comes out. I’ll just have to go on wearing it the way it is, that’s all. Miss Marjorie Reeves was in white satin trimmed with bathtub gin. Yes. But I certainly don’t care anything about that.”
“Ah, I’m sorry about that, Marjie,” he said. “I feel like the devil about spoiling your dress.”
“Oh, please don’t think of it,” she said. “
That
isn’t what troubles me. What hurts me is to have you take me to a party, and then never give another darn about me all evening. And that’s what happens, night after night—I sit, while you sing. Well, I can spare myself any such humiliation in future, thank heaven. I’m sorry, but this is the last time I’ll ever go out with
you,
my dear!”
“You haven’t said that since Tuesday,” he said.
“Yes, and I had every right to say it Tuesday!” she said. “It was exactly the same thing Tuesday night. Me sitting in a corner alone, and you singing ‘Lord Jeffrey Amherst’ with your arm around people.”
“And it was exactly the same thing coming home in the taxi Tuesday night,” he said. “My God, can’t we ever have a regular evening, like anybody else? We go to a party, and I keep looking forward to it all day, and then we go, and I think we’re having a swell time, and you know damn well I’d rather be out with you than anybody in the world, and then there’s always something I’ve done or something I haven’t done, and then there’s always this stuff on the way home. Good God!”
“Well, you’ll be spared it in future, my dear,” she said. “You don’t ever have to see
me
again. That’s what you want, isn’t it? I’ll keep out of your way—you don’t have to trouble about that. Of course, there are people that might think of all the time I’d given them, when I’d never even
looked
at anyone else, but don’t think about that. Everything is perfectly fine for you now. You can go right ahead and have a glorious time with the little Cronin girl, every night. Go singing with her, or whatever else you want to do. If that’s what you want.”
“Oh, shut your face!” he said.
“Listen to me, you big louse!” she said. “Please remember who you’re talking to. Whom. You’re not with the little Cronin girl now, you know. It just so happens that you’re with somebody who happens to have a little sensitiveness, God help her, and a little breeding and a few depths, instead of a hard, ordinary little rat that you’d much rather be out singing with than—”
“Oh, nuts!” he said.
The girl swung her left arm back and struck him across the mouth with the back of her hand. As if by a reflex, his right hand sprang up, and its palm slapped her face, hard.
There was silence. After a while, there was a little shuffling sound, as the young man left his wall and edged along the seat toward the girl. Slowly and timidly he put his arms around her, and she could feel them tremble. If she had been looking, the streaks of light from the street lamps would have shown her the concern in his large and handsome face.
“Ah, I’m so sorry, Marjie,” he said. “I’m so sorry. Gee, I—I never did a thing like that before in my life.”
“I didn’t, either,” she said, and her voice was broken. “I—it wasn’t very nice. I won’t ever do a thing like that again.”
“I won’t, either,” he said. “I—I can be different, Marjie. Honestly I can. If—well, if you’d ever see me again, maybe I could show you.”
“I can be different, too,” she said. “I guess.”
After a minute she raised her face from his shoulder.
“But you see,” she said, “it really was awful for me tonight. And Tuesday night. And all the nights. All you want to do is sing. But—well, you see, I wanted to sing, too. And you never asked me.”
“But, baby, it never occurred to me,” he said. “I thought you’d know that whatever I was doing, I’d want you there, too. And I never knew you liked to sing.”
“I love it,” she said.
“I love it, too,” he said.
“I know all the words, too,” she said.
“Why, of course you do,” he said.
“You see,” she said, “I don’t mind you singing. Or even who you sing with. Whom you sing with. It’s just the feeling of being left out of things. Anybody hates that. You would, too. I guess that’s what’s made me this way on the way home, every time.”
“But I never knew you liked to sing,” he said.
“Well, you know now,” she said. “And maybe some time we could work up some other songs. I counted tonight, on account of not having anything else to do, and ‘Lord Jeffrey Amherst’ was thirteen times, and ‘The Caissons Go Rolling Along’ was eight.”
“It must have been great for you!” he said.
“And she didn’t have the words of ‘The Caissons’ right, either,” she said. “She had them all bugged up.”
“Really?” he said. “Why, that’s terrible. Why, that’s awful. Why, the dumb little cluck. And what a good song, too. That’s one of the best songs in the world, that’s what that is.
“Da da da, da da da.
Da da dum de da da da,
The caissons go rolling along—”
 
“No, listen,” she said. “I know all the words. Listen.
“Over hill, over dale,
All along the dusty trail,
The caissons go rolling along.
In and out, round about,
Hear them something, hear them shout,
And the caissons go rolling along.”
 
“Oh, yes, sure,” he said. “That’s the right way. Ah, Marjie, you’ve got a good voice.” And he added his music to hers.
“Then it’s hi, hi, hee, the field ar-till-er-ee,
Lift up your voices loud and strong,
Where’er you go, you will always know
That the caissons are rolling along—
Keep ’em rolling—
The caissons are—”
 
There was harmony in the taxicab.
 
The New Yorker,
September 16, 1933
Glory in the Daytime
 
Mr. Murdock was one who carried no enthusiasm whatever for plays and their players, and that was too bad, for they meant so much to little Mrs. Murdock. Always she had been in a state of devout excitement over the luminous, free, passionate elect who serve the theater. And always she had done her wistful worshiping, along with the mul titudes, at the great public altars. It is true that once, when she was a particularly little girl, love had impelled her to write Miss Maude Adams a letter beginning “Dearest Peter,” and she had received from Miss Adams a miniature thimble inscribed “A kiss from Peter Pan.” (That was a day!) And once, when her mother had taken her holiday shopping, a limousine door was held open and there had passed her, as close as
that,
a wonder of sable and violets and round red curls that seemed to tinkle on the air; so, forever after, she was as good as certain that she had been not a foot away from Miss Billie Burke. But until some three years after her marriage, these had remained her only personal experiences with the people of the lights and the glory.

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