Ironweed (5 page)

          “Hear him, ye deaf; his praise, ye dumb, Your loosened tongues employ; Ye blind, behold your Savior come; and leap, ye lame, for joy.”

          The lame and the halt put their hymnals down joylessly, and Reverend Chester leaned over his lectern to look at tonight’s collection. Among them, as always, were good men and straight, men honestly without work, victims of a society ravaged by avarice, sloth, stupidity, and a God made wrathful by Babylonian excesses. Such men were merely the transients in the mission, and to them a preacher could only wish luck, send prayer, and provide a meal for the long road ahead. The true targets of the preacher were the others: the dipsos, the deadbeats, the wetbrains, and the loonies, who needed more than luck. What they needed was a structured way, a mentor and guide through the hells and purgatories of their days. Bringing the word, the light, was a great struggle today, for the decline of belief was rampant and the anti-Christ was on the rise. It was prophesied in Matthew and in Revelation that there would be less and less reverence for the Bible, greater lawlessness, depravity, and selfindulgence. The world, the light, the song, they would all die soon, for without doubt we were witnessing the advent of end times.

          “Lost,” said the preacher, and he waited for the word to resound in the sanctums of their damaged brains. “Oh lost, lost forever. Men and women lost, hopeless. Who will save you from your sloth? Who will give you a ride on the turnpike to salvation? Jesus will! Jesus delivers!”

          The preacher screamed the word
delivers
and woke up half the congregation. Rudy, on the nod, flared into wakefulness with a wild swing of the left arm that knocked the hymnal out of Francis’s grip. The book fell to the floor with a splat that brought Reverend Chester eye-to-eye with Francis. Francis nodded and the preacher gave him a firm and flinty smile in return.

          The preacher then took the beatitudes for his theme. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.

          “Oh yes, you men of skid row, brethren on the poor streets of the one eternal city we all dwell in, do not grieve that your spirit is low. Do not fear the world because you are of a meek and gentle nature. Do not feel that your mournful tears are in vain, for these things are the keys to the kingdom of God.”

          The men went swiftly back to sleep and Francis resolved he would wash the stink of the dead off his face and hands and hit Chester up for a new pair of socks. Chester was happiest when he was passing out socks to dried-out drunks. Feed the hungry, clothe the sober.

          “Are you ready for peace of mind and heart?” the preacher asked. “Is there a man here tonight who wants a different life? God says: Come unto me. Will you take him at his word? Will you stand up now? Come to the front, kneel, and we will talk. Do this now and be saved. Now. Now. Now!”

          No one moved.

          “Then amen, brothers,” said the preacher testily, and he left the lectern.

          “Hot goddamn,” Francis said to Rudy. “Now we get at that soup.”

          Then began the rush of men to table, the pouring of coffee, ladling of soup, cutting of bread by the mission’s zealous volunteers. Francis sought out Pee Wee, a good old soul who managed the mission for Chester, and he asked him for a cup of soup for Sandra.

          “She oughta be let in,” Francis said. “She’s gonna freeze out there.”

          “She was in before,” Pee Wee said. “He wouldn’t let her stay. She was really shot, and you know him on that. He won’t mind on the soup, but just for the hell of it, don’t say where it’s going.”

          “Secret soup,” Francis said.

          He took the soup out the back door, pulling Rudy along with him, and crossed the vacant lot to where Sandra lay as before. Rudy rolled her onto her back and sat her up, and Francis put the soup under her nose.

          “Soup,” he said.

          “Gazoop,” Sandra said.

          “Have it.” Francis put the cup to her lips and tipped the soup at her mouth. It dribbled down her chin. She swallowed none.

          “She don’t want it,” Rudy said.

          “She wants it,” Francis said. “She’s just pissed it ain’t wine.”

          He tried again and Sandra swallowed a little.

          “When I was sleepin’ inside just now,” Rudy said, “I remembered Sandra wanted to be a nurse. Or used to be a nurse. That right, Sandra?”

          “No,” Sandra said.

          “No, what? Wanted to be a nurse or was a nurse?”

          “Doctor,” Sandra said.

          “She wanted to be a doctor,” Francis said, tipping in more soup.

          “No,” Sandra said, pushing the soup away. Francis put the cup down and slipped her ratty shoe onto her left foot. He lifted her, a feather, carried her to the wall of the mission, and propped her into a sitting position, her back against the building, somewhat out of the wind. With his bare hand he wiped the masking dust from her face. He raised the soup and gave her another swallow.

          “Doctor wanted me to be a nursie,” she said.

          “But you didn’t want it,” Francis said.

          “Did. But he died.”

          “Ah,” said Francis. “Love?”

          “Love,” said Sandra.

          Inside the mission, Francis handed the cup back to Pee Wee, who emptied it into the sink.

          “She all right?” Pee Wee asked.

          “Terrific,” Francis said.

          “The ambulance won’t even pick her up anymore,” Pee Wee said. “Not unless she’s bleedin’ to death.”

          Francis nodded and went to the bathroom, where he washed Sandra’s dust and his own stink off his hands. Then he washed his face and his neck and his ears; and when he was finished he washed them all again. He sloshed water around in his mouth and brushed his teeth with his left index finger. He wet his hair and combed it with nine fingers and dried himself with a damp towel that was tied to the wall. Some men were already leaving by the time he picked up his soup and bread and sat down beside Helen.

          “Where you been hidin’?” he asked her.

          “A fat lot you care where anybody is or isn’t. I could be dead in the street three times over and you wouldn’t know a thing about it.”

          “How the hell could I when you walk off like a crazy woman, yellin’ and stompin’.”

          “Who wouldn’t be crazy around you, spending every penny we get. You go out of your mind, Francis.”

          “I got some money.”

          “How much?”

          “Six bucks.”

          “Where’d you get it?”

          “I worked all the damn day in the cemetery, fillin’ up graves. Worked hard.”

          “Francis, you did?”

          “I mean all day.”

          “That’s wonderful. And you’re sober. And you’re eating.”

          “Ain’t drinkin’ no wine either. I ain’t even smokin’.”

          “Oh that’s so lovely. I’m very proud of my good boy.”

          Francis scarfed up the soup, and Helen smiled and sipped the last of her coffee. More than half the men were gone from table now, Rudy still eating with a partial mind across from Francis. Pee Wee and his plangently compassionate volunteers picked up dishes and carried them to the kitchen. The preacher finished his coffee and strode over to Francis.

          “Glad to see you staying straight,” the preacher said.

          “Okay,” said Francis.

          “And how are you, little lady?” he asked Helen.

          “I’m perfectly delightful,” Helen said.

          “I believe I’ve got a job for you if you want it, Francis,” the preacher said.

          “I worked today up at the cemetery.”

          “Splendid.”

          “Shovelin’ dirt ain’t my idea of that much of a job.”

          “Maybe this one is better. Old Rosskam the ragman came here today looking for a helper. I’ve sent him men from time to time and I thought of you. If you’re serious about quitting the hooch you might put a decent penny together.”

          “Ragman,” Francis said. “Doin’ what, exactly?”

          “Going house to house on the wagon. Rosskam himself buys the rags and bottles, old metal, junk, papers, no garbage. Carts it himself too, but he’s getting on and needs another strong back.”

          “Where’s he at?”

          “Green Street, below the bridge.”

          “I’ll go see him and I ‘preciate it. Tell you what else I’d ‘preciate’s a pair of socks, if you can spare ‘em. Ones I got are all rotted out.”

          “What size?”

          “Tens. But I’ll take nines, or twelves.”

          “I’ll get you some tens. And keep up the good work, Franny. Nice to see you’re doing well too, little lady.”

          “I’m doing very well,” Helen said. “Very exceptionally well.” When he walked away she said: “He says it’s nice I’m doing well. I’m doing just fine, and I don’t need him to tell me I’m doing well.”

          “Don’t fight him,” Francis said. “He’s givin’ me some socks.”

          “We gonna get them jugs?” Rudy asked Francis. “Go somewheres and get a flop?”

          “Jugs?” said Helen.

          “That’s what I said this mornin’,” Francis said. “No, no jugs.”

          “With six dollars we could get a room and get our suitcase back,” Helen said.

          “I can’t spend all six,” Francis said. “I gotta give some to the lawyer. I figure I’ll give him a deuce. After all, he got me the job and I owe him fifty.”

          “Where do you plan to sleep?” Helen asked.

          “Where’d you sleep last night?”

          “I found a place.”

          “Finny’s car?”

          “No, not Finny’s car. I won’t stay there anymore, you know that. I will absolutely not stay in that car another night.”

          “Then where’d you go?”

          “Where did
you
sleep?”

          “I slept in the weeds,” Francis said.

          “Well I found a bed.”

          “Where, goddamn it, where?”

          “Up at Jack’s.”

          “I thought you didn’t like Jack anymore, or Clara either.”

          “They’re not my favorite people, but they gave me a bed when I needed one.”

          “Somethin’ to be said for that,” Francis said.

          Pee Wee came over with a second cup of coffee and sat across from Helen. Pee Wee was bald and fat and chewed cigars all day long without lighting them. He had cut hair in his younger days, but when his wife cleaned out their bank account, poisoned Pee Wee’s dog, and ran away with the barber whom Pee Wee, by dint of hard work and superior tonsorial talent, had put of of business, Pee Wee started drinking and wound up on the bum. Yet he carried his comb and scissors everywhere to prove his talent was not just a bum’s fantasy, and gave haircuts to other bums for fifteen cents, sometimes a nickel. He still gave haircuts, free now, at the mission.

          When Francis came back to Albany in 1935, he met Pee Wee for the first time and they stayed drunk together for a month. When Francis turned up in Albany only weeks back to register for the Democrats at five dollars a shot, he met Pee Wee again. Francis registered to vote twenty-one times before the state troopers caught up with him and made him an Albany political celebrity. The pols had paid him fifty by then and still owed him fifty-five more that he’d probably never see. Pee Wee was off the juice when Francis met him the second time, and was full of energy, running the mission for Chester. Pee Wee was peaceful now, no longer the singing gin-drinker he used to be. Francis still felt good things about him, but now thought of him as an emotional cripple, dry, yeah, but at what cost?

          “You see who’s playin’ over at The Gilded Cage?” Pee Wee asked Francis.

          “I don’t read the papers.”

          “Oscar Reo.”

          “You mean our Oscar?”

          “The same.”

          “What’s he doin’?”

          “Singin’ bartender. How’s that for a comedown?”

          “Oscar Reo who used to be on the radio?” Helen asked.

          “That’s the fella,” said Pee Wee. “He blew the big time on booze, but he dried out and tends bar now. At least he’s livin’, even if it ain’t what it was.”

          “Pee Wee and me pitched a drunk with him in New York. Two, three days, wasn’t it, Pee?”

          “Mighta been a week,” Pee Wee said. “None of us was up to keepin’ track. But he sang a million tunes and played piano everyplace they had one. Most musical drunk I ever see.”

          “I used to sing his songs,” Helen said. “‘Hindustan Lover’ and ‘Georgie Is My Apple Pie’ and another one, a grand ballad, ‘Under the Peach Trees with You.’ He wrote wonderful, happy songs and I sang them all when I was singing.”

          “I didn’t know you sang,” Pee Wee said.

          “Well I most certainly sang, and played piano very well too. I was getting a classical education in music until my father died. I was at Vassar.”

          “Albert Einstein went to Vassar,” Rudy said.

          “You goofy bastard,” said Francis.

          “Went there to make a speech. I read it in the papers.”

          “He could have,” Helen said. “Everybody speaks at Vassar. It just happens to be one of the three best schools in the world.”

          “We oughta go over and see old Oscar,” Francis said.

          “Not me,” said Pee Wee.

          “No,” said Helen.

          “What no?” Francis said. “You afraid we’d all get drunked up if we stopped in to say hello?”

          “I’m not afraid of that.”

          “Then let’s go see him. He’s all right, Oscar.”

          “Think he’ll remember you?” Pee Wee said.

          “Maybe. I remember him.”

          “So do I.”

          “Then let’s go.”