It was not until a few nights later, when he showed up with a pair of black eyes, that we learned that Duffy had waited for him outside and given him a good beating. Oddly enough, Arthur Raymond appeared to be happy over the trouncing he had received. It turned out that after the fracas Duffy and he had become good friends. With his usual false modesty he added that he had been somewhat at a disadvantage, always was when it came to fisticuffs, because he couldn’t afford to ruin his hands. Anyway, it was the first time in his life that he had taken a beating. It had given him a thrill. With a touch of malice he concluded: Everybody seems to by happy about it. Maybe I deserved it.
Maybe it will teach you to mind your own business, said Mona.
Arthur Raymond made no reply.
And when are you going to pay your bill? she added.
To everyone’s astonishment, Arthur Raymond replied: How much is it? Fishing into his pocket he brought up a roll of bills and peeled off the amount due.
Didn’t expect that, did you? he said, looking around like a bantam cock. He got up, went to the kitchen, and crossed his name off the list.
And now I’ve got another surprise for you, he said, requesting that drinks be served all around. A month from today I’m giving a concert. Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Ravel, Prokofieff and Stravinsky. You’re all invited to come—it’s on me. My last appearance, so to say. After that I’m going to work for the Communist party. And I don’t care what happens to my hands. I’m through with this sort of life. I’m going to do something constructive. Yes sir! and he banged his fist on the table. From now on I disown you all.
As he sailed out he turned round to deliver this: Don’t forget the concert! I’ll send you seats up front.
From the time that Arthur Raymond delivered himself of this declaration things took a definite turn for the worse. All our creditors seemed to descend on us at once, and not only the creditors but the police and the lawyer whom Maude had engaged to collect the back alimony. It would begin, in the early morning with the iceman pounding furiously on our door and we pretending to be sound asleep or out. Afternoons, it would be the grocer, the delicatessen man or one of the bootleggers rapping on the front window. In the evening, trying to pass himself off as a client, would come a process server or a plain clothes man. Finally the landlord began to dun us for the rent, threatening to hail us to court if we didn’t pay up. It was enough to give one the jitters. Sometimes we felt so done up that we would close the joint and go to a movie.
One night the old trio—Osiecki, O’Shaughnessy and Andrews—arrived with three girls from the Follies. This was towards midnight and they were already lit up like ocean liners. It was one of those nights when just our intimate friends-were on hand. The Follies girls, beautiful, brittle, and extraordinarily vulgar, insisted on putting the tables together so that they could dance on the table tops, do the split, and that sort of thing. Osiecki, imagining himself to be a Cossack, kept spinning like a top, to our utter amazement. Hadn’t improved a whit in the interim, of course. But he was jollier than usual, and for some queer reason fancied himself to be an acrobat. After a few chairs had been broken and some crockery smashed, it was suddenly decided that we all go to Harlem. Mona, Osiecki and I got into a cab with Spud Jason and his Alameda who was carrying on her lap a mangy little dog called Fifi. By the time we reached Harlem it had peed over everyone. Finally Alameda peed in her pants from excitement. At Small’s, which was then the rage, we drank champagne, danced with the colored folk and ate huge steaks smothered with onions. Dr. Kronski was in the party and seemed to be enjoying himself hugely. Who was paying for it all I had no idea. Probably Osiecki. Anyway, we got home toward dawn and tumbled into bed exhausted. Just as we were falling asleep Alan Cromwell rapped at the window, begging to be allowed in. We paid no attention to him. It’s me, Alan, let me in! he kept shouting. He raised his voice until it sounded as if he were screaming. Obviously he was soused to the gills and in a bad way. Finally a cop came along and dragged him away, giving him a few love taps with his night stick as he did so. Kronski and O’Mara, who were sleeping on the tables, thought it a hell of a good joke. Mona was worried. However, we soon fell back into a dead slumber.
The next evening Ned, O’Mara and myself hatched an idea. We had taken to sitting in the kitchen with a ukelele, humming and talking softly while Mona took care of the customers. It was the time of the Florida boom. O’Mara, always restless, always itching to strike it rich, got the idea that the three of us ought to light out for Miami. It was his belief that we could make enough in a few weeks to send for Mona and lead a new life. Since none of us had money to invest in real estate we would have to get it from those who had made it. We would offer our services as waiters or bell hops. We were even willing to shine shoes. Anything for a start. The weather was still good, and it would get better the farther south we travelled.
O’Mara always knew how to make the bait attractive.
Naturally Mona wasn’t very keen about our project. I had to promise that I would telephone her every night, no matter where we might be. All I needed was a nickel to drop in the slot; the charges could be reversed. By the time the telephone bill arrived the speakeasy would be closed and she would be with us.
Everything was set to decamp in a few days. Unfortunately, two days before starting the landlord served us with a summons. In desperation I tried to raise at least part of the money we owed him. On an impulse I looked up the son of one of my father’s bosom friends. He was quite a young man but making good in the steamship business. I don’t know what on earth possessed me to tackle him—it was like grasping at a straw. The moment I mentioned money he turned me down cold. He even had the cheek to ask me why I had singled him out. He had never asked me for any favors, had he? (Already a hard-boiled business man. In a few years he would be a success.) I swallowed my pride and bored in. Finally after being thoroughly humiliated, I succeeded in extracting a ten spot from him. I offered to write out a promissory note but he spurned this derisively. When I got back to the joint I felt so wretched, so beaten, that I almost set fire to the place. However…
It was a Saturday afternoon when O’Mara and I set forth for Miami. It was high time. The air was thick with wet, heavy snow-flakes—the first snow-fall of the season. Our plan was to get on the highway outside Elizabeth, there to catch a car as far as Washington where we were to meet Ned. For some reason of his own Ned was going to Washington by train. He was taking the ukelele along—for morale.
It was almost dark when we bundled into a car outside Elizabeth. There were five darkies in the car and they were all liquored up. We wondered why in hell they were driving so fast. Before long we found out—the car was full of dope and the Federal men were on their tail. Why they had stopped to pick us up we couldn’t figure out. We felt vastly relieved when a little this side of Philadelphia they slowed down and dumped us out.
The snow was falling heavily now and a stiff gale was blowing, an icy gale. Moreover, it was pitch dark. We walked a couple of miles, our teeth chattering, until we struck a gas station. It was hours before we got another lift, and then only as far as Wilmington. We decided to spend the night in that God-forsaken hole.
Mindful of my promise I called Mona. She held me on the phone for almost fifteen minutes, the operator butting in every so often to remind us that the toll was rising. Things were pretty black at her end: she was to appear in court the following day.
When I hung up I had such a fit of remorse that I was of a mind to turn-back in the morning.
Come on, said O’Mara, don’t let it get you down. You know Mona, she’ll find a way out.
I knew that myself but it didn’t make me feel any better.
Let’s get started bright and early tomorrow, I said. We can be in Miami in three days, if we try.
The next day, around noon, we walked in on Ned who had installed himself in a broken-down hotel for a dollar a night. His room was like a
