Original subtitles

Make it fast.

Don't want the boss to get wise.

Jeez.

Ain't the old bastard a riot

when he starts that bull about "turnin' over a new leaf"?

"Not a damn drink on the house," he tells me.

"And all these bums

have gotta pay up their room rent beginning tomorrow," he says.

I'll be glad to pay up... tomorrow.

And I know my fellow inmates will promise the same.

They've all a touching credulity concerning tomorrow.

It'll be a great day for them tomorrow... Feast of all fools.

And their ships will come in loaded to the gunwales

with canceled regrets and promises fulfilled

and clean slates and new leases.

- Yeah, and a ton of hop. - Don't mock the faith.

Have you no respect for religion, you unregenerate wop?

What does it matter if the truth is

that their favoring breeze will have the stink of nickel whiskey on its breath,

and their sea will be a growler of lager and ale,

and their ships will long since be looted and scuttled

and sunk on the bottom?

To hell with the truth.

The history of the world proves the truth has no bearing on anything.

It's the lie of the pipe dream that gives life

to the whole misbegotten, mad lot of us, drunk or sober.

The old philosopher, like hickey calls ya.

I suppose you don't fall for no pipe dreams.

No, I don't.

Mine are dead and buried behind me.

What's before me is the fact that death is a fine, long sleep,

and I'm damn tired.

And it can't come too soon for me.

Yeah, just hangin' around, hopin' you croak, ain't ya?

Well, I'm bettin' you have a good, long wait.

Jeez, somebody'd have to take an ax to croak you.

Yeah, it's my bad luck to be cursed with an iron constitution

that even Harry's booze can't corrode.

The old anarchist wise guy that knows all the answers.

Forget the "anarchist" part of it.

I'm through with the movement long since.

I saw that if men wanted to be saved from themselves,

that would mean they'd have to give up greed.

They wouldn't pay that price for Liberty.

So I said to the world, god bless all here and may the best man win...

And die of gluttony.

I took a seat in the grandstand of philosophical detachment

to fall asleep observing the cannibals do their death dance.

Ain't I telling him the truth, comrade Hugo?

Oh, for chrissake, don't get that bughouse bum started.

Capitalist swine!

Bourgeois stool pigeon!

Have the slaves no right to sleep even?

Hello, little rocky, little monkey face.

Where are your little slave girls?

Don't be a fool. Loan me a dollar.

Damn bourgeois wop!

Buy me a drink.

He's out again.

He's lucky no one don't take his crack serious,

or he'd wake up every morning in a hospital.

Nobody takes him seriously. That's his epitaph.

If I've been through with the movement long since, it's been through with him,

and thanks to whiskey he's the only one who doesn't know it.

He's gonna pull that "slave girl" stuff on me once too often.

Hell, you'd think I was a pimp or somethin'.

A pimp don't hold a job.

I'm a bartender.

Them tarts, Margie and Pearl,

they're just a sideline to pick up some extra dough.

Strictly business,

like they were fighters and I was their manager, see.

I fix the cops for them so they can hustle without gettin' pinched.

And I don't beat 'em up like a pimp would.

They like me.

What if I... I take their money?

Tarts can't hang on to dough.

But I'm a bartender

and I work hard for my living in this dump.

Shrewd businessman who doesn't miss an opportunity

to get on in the world, huh?

Yeah, that's me.

Grab another ball, Larry.

You'd never think all these bums had a bed upstairs to go to.

Scared if they hit the hay they wouldn't be here when hickey showed up

and they'd miss a couple of drinks.

To me, it's not so much the hope of booze.

But I've got the blues,

and hickey's a great one to make a joke of everything and cheer you up.

Yeah, some kidder.

Remember how he works up that gag about his wife when he's cockeyed,

cryin' over her picture and then spilling it on you all of the sudden

that he left her in the hay with the iceman?

Yeah, I wonder what's happenin'?

He always got here a couple of days before Harry's birthday party.

And now he's only got till tonight to make it.

This dump.

It's like a morgue with all these bums passed out.

It's a liel

papa.

Papa.

Poor devil.

Ah, the hell with pity. Does no good. I'm through with it.

Dreamin' about his old man.

From what the old-timers say,

the old gent sure made a pile of dough in the bucket shop game

before the cops got him.

Jeez.

I've seen 'em bad before, but never this bad.

Look at that getup.

Sold his suit and shoes at solly's two days ago.

Solly give him two bucks and a bum outfit.

Yesterday he sells the bum one back to solly for four bits

and gets these rags to put on.

Now he's through.

That's solly's final edition he won't take back for nothin'.

Willie sure is on the bottom.

I ain't never seen no one so bad,

except hickey on the end of a couple of his bats.

It's a great game,

the pursuit of happiness.

Harry don't know what to do about him.

He called up his old lady's lawyer

like he always does when Willie gets licked.

You remember, they used to send down a private dick

to give him the rush to a cure.

But the lawyer tells Harry nix...

The old lady is off of Willie for keeps this time, and he can go to hell.

With the consolation he hasn't got far to go.

It's a goddamn liel

- nix. Nix! - Oh, papa!

- Nix! Cut out the noise! - Oh, Jesus, papa!

Je - shh! Sus!

Cut out the...

Who's that yellin'?

Willie, boss. The Brooklyn boys is after him.

Well, why don't you give the poor fella a drink and keep him quiet?

Jeez, can't I get a wink o' sleep in my own backroom?

Listen to the blind-eyed, deef old bastard, will ya.

He give me strict orders not to let Willie hang up no more drinks, no matter what.

What's that? I can't hear ya.

You're a cockeyed liar.

Never refused a drink to anyone needed it as bad in my life.

Told you to use your judgment.

Too busy thinkin' up ways to cheat me.

I ain't as blind as you think.

I can still see a cash register, b'jeez.

Oh, sure, boss. Swell chance of foolin' you.

I-I'm wise to you and your sidekick Chuck.

B'jeez, you're... you're burglars, not barkeeps.

You'd steal the pennies off your dead mothers' eyes.

I'll fire both of ya.

No one ever played Harry hope for a sucker.

No one but everybody.

Least you could do is keep things quiet.

Give me a drink, rocky. Harry said it was all right.

God, I need a drink.

Then grab it. It's right under your nose.

Thank you.

When.

When!

I didn't say take a bath!

Jeez, look. He's killed half a pint or more!

Leave him be, the poor devil.

Half-pint of that dynamite in one swig'll fix him for a while.

If it doesn't kill him.

All right by me. It ain't my booze.

Wh-wh-whose booze?

Gimme some!

Where's hickey?

- What time is it, rocky? - Getting near time to open up.

Time you begun to sweep up in the bar.

Never mind the time.

If hickey ain't come, it's time Joe went to sleep again.

Hey. I got an idea.

Say, Larry, what about that young guy parritt?

Come to look you up last night and rented a room.

He's upstairs, asleep.

No hope there, Joe. He's broke.

Me and rocky knows different.

Had a roll when he paid you his room rent, didn't he, rocky?

Yeah, he flashed it like he forgot and then tried to hide it quick.

- He did, did he? - Yeah. I figured he don't belong.

But he said he was a friend of yours.

He's a liar.

Ah, it's true his...

His mother and I were friends a few years ago on the coast.

You read in the papers about that bombing on the coast

where a few people were killed?

Well, the one woman they pinched, Rosa parritt,

is his mother.

They'll be coming up for trial soon. They haven't got a chance.

She'll get life.

I'm telling you all this so you'll know why if Don acts a bit queer

and not jump on him.

He's her only kid.

Why ain't he out there stickin' by her?

- Must be a good reason. - I get it.

Then what kind of a sap is he to hang on to his right name?

I'm telling you, I don't know.

And I don't wanna know!

To hell with the movement and everybody connected with it.

If there's one thing more than another I can't stand,

it's the sucker game you and Hugo calls the movement.

Reminds me of a damn fool argument

me and mose Porter had the other night.

He's drunk, and I'm drunker,

and he says,

"socialists and anarchists, we oughta shoot 'em dead."

I said, "hold on. Hold on now.

You talk as if the socialists and the anarchists

were the same thing.

The anarchist, he never works.

He drinks. He never buys.

And if he do ever get a nickel, he blows it on bombs

and wouldn't give you nothin'.

So you can go ahead and shoot him.

But, uh, the socialist,

sometimes he gets a job,

and if he gets ten bucks he's bound by his religion

to split it with ya 50-50.

So you don't shoot those socialists while I'm around.

Course, if they broke,

then they no-good bastards too."

B'god, Joe,

you've got all the beauty of human nature

and the practical wisdom of the world in that little parable.

Sure.

Larry ain't the only wise guy in this dump. Eh, Joe?

Here's your guy.

Hello, Larry.

Hello.

What's up? Thought you'd be asleep.

I couldn't make it.

I, uh, thought I might see if you were around.

Well... sit down and join the bums then.

The rules of the house are that drinks may be served at all hours.

Oh, I get ya. But, uh, hell, I'm just about broke.

Oh, I know. You guys saw...

You think I have a roll, don't you? Well, I'll show you you're wrong.

You see? They're all ones.

I gotta live on this till I get a job.

Oh, you think I made up a phony, don't you? Why the hell would I do that?

Where would I get a roll anyway?

You don't get rich doin' what I been doin'. Ask Larry.

You're lucky in the movement you get enough to eat.

What's this song and dance about?

We ain't said nothin'.

Oh, I was just tryin' to put you right.

I don't want you to think I'm a tightwad. I'll buy you a drink if you want one.

N if"?

Man, when I don't want a drink,

you call the morgue and you tell 'em come take Joe's body away

'cause he's sure enough dead.

Now gimme the bottle quick, rocky, before he changes his mind.

I'll take a cigar when I go in the bar.

- What'll you have? - Oh, uh, nothin'. I'm on the wagon.

- What's the damage? - Fifteen cents.

That must be some booze.

It's cyanide cut with carbolic acid

to give it a mellow flavor.

Here's luck.

I guess I'll get back in the bar and catch a couple of winks

before opening-up time.

One-drink guy.

No hope till Harry's birthday party.

'Less hickey shows up.

Hickey do come, Larry,

you wake me up if you have to bat me with a chair.

Who's hickey?

A hardware drummer.

He's an old friend of Harry hope's and all the gang.

He's a grand guy.

Comes here twice a year regularly

on a periodical drunk

and blows in all his dough.

Doesn't run into anyone he knows in his business here.

Yes, that's what I want too, Larry.

Like I told you last night,

I gotta stay undercover.

You did a lot of hinting. You didn't tell me anything.

Well, you can guess, can't ya?

- Say, what kind of joint is this anyway? - This?

This is no chance saloon.

Bedrock bar. The end of the line café.

The bottom of the sea rathskeller.

Didn't you notice the beautiful calm in the atmosphere?

That's because this is the last harbor.

No one here has to worry about where they're going next,

'cause they can go no further.

Although even here they keep up the appearance of life

with a few harmless pipe dreams about their yesterdays and tomorrows.

What's your pipe dream, Larry?

Oh, I'm the exception.

I haven't any left, thank god.

Don't complain about this place. You couldn't find a better for lying low.

Well, I'm glad of that.

I got knocked off base by a business on the coast.

Since then, it's been no fun dodging around the country,

thinking every guy I see might be a dick.

You're safe here. The cops ignore this dump.

They think it's as harmless as a graveyard,

and b'god, you know, they're right.

Yeah, it's been lonely as hell.

Christ, I'm glad I found you, Larry.

You know, I kept sayin' to myself, if I can just find Larry,

he's the one guy in the world who'd understand.

Understand what?

All I've been through.

Oh... oh, I know. You're thinkin', "this guy has a hell of a nerve.

I haven't seen him since he was a kid."

Well, I've never forgotten you, Larry.

You're the one friend of mother's who ever paid any attention to me.

I remember you used to ask me questions. You took what I said seriously.

I got the feeling in the years you lived with us

you'd sort of taken the place of my old man.

- I don't suppose you remember it. - I remember it very well.

You were a lonely, serious little shaver then.

Why didn't they pick you up when they got your mother and the rest?

Oh... oh, I, uh... I wasn't around.

And as soon as I heard the news I went undercover.

You've noticed my glad rags. I was staked to them as a disguise.

And then I, you know, hung around gambling joints and pool halls and hooker shops,

places where they wouldn't look for a wobblie,

pretending I was a...

A sport.

Anyway, they picked up everybody who was, you know, really important,

so I guess they didn't think about me till afterwards.

Papers say the cops got them.

The burns dicks knew every move beforehand.

Yeah, it hasn't come out who it was yet.

It may never come out.

I guess who it was

must have made a bargain with the burns men to keep him out of it.

B'god.

Hate to believe it of any of that crowd.

Oh, I know they were damn fools,

as stupidly greedy for power as any capitalist they attacked,

but I'd have sworn there wasn't a yellow stool pigeon among them.

Yeah, I'd have sworn that too, Larry.

I hope his soul rots in hell, whoever it is.

Yeah, so do I.

How did you locate me?

Oh, through mother.

I told her not to tell anyone.

Oh, no, she didn't tell me.

But she kept all your letters.

I found where she hid them and I sneaked up there after she was arrested.

Never would have thought she was a woman who kept letters.

No, I wouldn't either.

There's nothing soft or sentimental about mother.

I haven't written her for two years. Or anyone else.

You know, it's funny she kept in touch with you for so long.

When she's finished with someone, she's finished with them.

And you know how she feels about the movement.

Anyone who loses their faith in it is more than dead to her.

- Yet she seemed to forgive you. - She didn't.

She wrote to denounce me and bring the sinner to repentance.

Then what made you leave the movement? Was it on mother's account?

Who the hell put that idea in your head?

Why, nothin'. Except I remember that fight you had with her just before you left.

Well, if you do, I don't. That was 11 years ago.

You were only seven years old.

If we quarreled, it was because I told her I'd become convinced that the movement

was a beautiful pipe dream.

I don't remember it that way.

Well, blame it on your imagination and forget it.

You asked me why I quit the movement.

Had a lot of good reasons.

One was myself.

Another was my comrades.

And the last was that breed of swine

called men in general.

As for myself...

I'd become convinced, after 30 years devotion to the cause,

that I wasn't made for it.

I was born condemned to see both sides of a question.

And when you're damned that way... The questions multiply,

until in the end

they're all questions and no answers.

As history proves, to be a worldly success at anything,

especially revolution,

you've got to wear blinders like a horse and only see what's straight ahead of you.

As for my comrades in the great cause,

I felt about them as Horace walpole did about england

when he said he could love it if it wasn't for the people in it.

That's why I quit the cause. At any rate, it had nothing to do with your mother.

But mother always thought it was on her account.

You know her. To hear her go on sometimes, you'd think she was the movement.

That's a hell of a thing to say after what happened to her.

Oh, no, I wasn't sneering, Larry, no.

No, I've said the same thing to her lots of times, to kid her.

I know I shouldn't now, but, uh, I keep forgetting she's in jail.

Seems so unreal to me. She's always been so free.

I don't wanna even, uh, think about it.

So, what have you been doing all these years since you le...

You know, left the coast, Larry?

I've been a philosophical, drunken bum, and proud of it.

I hope you've deduced why I answer a lot of impertinent questions

from a total stranger.

For that's all you are to me.

I have a hunch you came to get something from me.

Well, I have no answers. No, not even for myself.

Unless you can call what heine wrote in his poem to morphine an answer.

"Lo, sleep is good,

better is death.

In sooth, the best of all were never to be born."

That's a hell of an answer.

Still, you never may know when it might come in handy.

I don't suppose you've had a chance

to get any news of your mother since she was in jail.

Oh, no, no chance. Anyway, I don't think she really wants to talk to me.

You see, we got in this fight just before that business happened.

She bawled me out because I was goin' around with tarts.

I told her, "you always acted the free woman.

You never let anything stop you."

Anyway, she told me that she didn't give a damn what I did

except she began to suspect that I was losing interest in the movement.

- And were you? - Sure I was.

I couldn't go on forever believing that gang was gonna change the world

by shooting off their loud traps on soap boxes,

sneaking around, trying to blow up a bridge or a lousy building.

Then I finally got wise that it was all a crazy pipe dream.

Then this... this business of someone sellin' out, that's what finished me off.

You can understand how I feel, can't ya, Larry?

"The days grow hot, o Babylon!

'Tis cool beneath thy Willow trees.”

Goddamned stool pigeon!

What? What do you mean? You can't call me that!

Hello, little Don.

I didn't recognize you.

You've grown. Big boy.

How's your mother?

Don't be a fool!

Loan me a dollar. Buy me a drink!

Sure. I'll buy you a drink, Hugo.

I'm sorry I got, uh... I got sore at you there.

Oughta have remembered that when you're soused

you call everyone "stool pigeon.”

It's just no damn joke right at this time.

Oh, gee. He passed out again.

What are you giving me the hard look for, Larry?

You thought I was gonna hit him?

What do you think I am?

I always stood up for him when everybody in the movement panned him

for an old, drunken has-been.

He had the guts to serve ten years in the can in his own country.

Got his eyes ruined in solitary. I'd like to see some of 'em here stick that.

Well, they're gonna get their chance now to...

Uh...

Hey, Larry, tell me more about this dump. Who are all these tanks in here?

Who's that guy over there tryin' to catch pneumonia?

That's captain Lewis,

one-time hero in the British army.

He strips to display that scar, which he got from a native spear,

whenever he's completely plastered.

The bewhiskered bloke next to him is general wetjoen,

who led a commando in the war.

They met up when they worked in the boer war spectacle in the St. Louis fair,

and they've been bosom friends ever since.

They dream away the hours in happy dispute

over the brave days in South Africa,

when they were trying to murder each other.

He was in it too.

Correspondent for some english paper.

His nickname here is Jimmy tomorrow.

- What do they do for a living? - As little as possible.

Once in a while one of them makes a successful touch somewhere.

And some of them get a few dollars a month from connections at home,

who pay it on the condition that they never come back.

The rest live on free lunch and their old friend Harry hope,

who doesn't give a damn what a man does or doesn't do,

as long as he likes him.

That must be a tough life.

Don't waste your pity.

They manage to stay drunk and keep their pipe dreams,

and that's all they ask out of life.

It isn't often that men attain the true goal of their heart's desire.

And that applies to Harry himself.

He's so satisfied with life that he hasn't set foot out of this place

since his wife died 20 years ago.

He has no need of the outside world.

Place does a fine trade from the market across the street and the dockworkers,

so in spite of Harry's thirst and his generous heart, he comes out even.

He never worries about hard times as long as there's friends from the old days,

when he was a jithey tammany politician,

and a friendly brewery to tide him over.

Pat mcgloin, his pal sitting beside him,

was a police lieutenant in the lush days of graft when everything went.

But he got too greedy,

and when the usual reform investigation came along

he was caught red-handed, thrown off the force.

Joe there ran a colored gambling house then.

Was a hell of a sport.

Well, that completes our family circle of inmates.

Except for the two barkeeps and their girls,

three ladies of the pavement that room on the third floor.

I never wanna see a whore again.

I mean, they always get you in Dutch.

Why omit me from your who's-who in dipsomania, Larry?

It's an unpardonable slight.

Yes, generous stranger...

I trust you're generous...

I was born in the purple.

The son, mmm, but unfortunately not the heir

of the late, world-famous bill oban,

king of the bucket shops.

A revolution deposed him. He was sent into exile.

In fact, not to mince matters...

They locked him in the can and threw away the key.

Alas, his was an adventurous spirit that pined in confinement.

And so he died.

That's tough luck.

Mmm. Mmm.

Even at Harvard I discovered my father was well-known by reputation.

Although that was some time before

the district attorney gave him so much unwelcome publicity.

Even as a freshman, I was notorious.

That, uh, Henry Wadsworth longfellow

would have shown a drunken negress dancing the cancan

at high noon on brattle street.

That was my father's idea.

But I did make myself a brilliant student!

Dirty trick on my classmates,

inspired by revenge, I fear.

I wa... I w-was a brilliant student in law school too.

My father wanted a lawyer in the family.

Wanted a thorough knowledge of the law close at hand in the house

to help him find fresh ways to evade it.

But I discovered the loophole of whiskey

and so escaped his jurisdiction.

Speaking of whiskey, sir, reminds me...

And I hope reminds you...

That when greeting a prince

the customary salutation

is "what'll you have?"

Nix! All you guys think I'm made of dough.

Broke?

Why, you haven't the thirsty look of the impecunious.

I judge you to be a plutocrat,

your pockets stuffed with ill-gotten gains.

Two or three dollars, at least.

Don't think we'll question how you got it.

What do you mean, how I got it?

That's a laugh, isn't it, Larry?

Him thinking me a plutocrat when I've been in the movement all my life?

Oh, one of those, huh?

Why don't you go away and blow yourself up. That's a good lad.

Hugo...

Hugo is the only... Licensed preacher of that gospel here.

Oh, dangerous terrorist, Hugo.

He'd as soon blow the collar off a schooner of beer as look at you.

Let us ignore this useless youth, Larry.

Let us join in prayer

that hickey, the great salesman, will soon arrive,

bringing the blessed bourgeois long green.

Would that hickey or death would come, huh?

Meanwhile,

I will sing a song...

A beautiful, old new england folk ballad

which I picked up at Harvard amid the debris of education.

J; Oh, Jack, oh, Jack was a sailor lad I

j; And he went to a tavern for gin j

j; And he rapped and he rapped with a

j but j

I never a soul seemed in j

the origin of this beautiful ditty is veiled in mystery, Larry.

Th-there was a legend bruited about in Cambridge lavatories

that Waldo Emerson composed it,

while he was trying to write a sermon.

But my own view is that it goes back much further,

and Jonathan Edwards was the author of both words and music.

J; Oh, he rapped and rapped I

j; And he tapped and tapped

j; Enough to wake the dead

& till he heard a damsel j

js on a window right over his head j

rocky, b'jeez,

can't you keep that crazy bastard quiet?

And now the influence of a good woman enters our mariner's lifeline.

Well, perhaps "good" isn't the word, but very, very kind.

J "oh, come up,” she cried "my sailor lad j

j and you and I'll agree

j and I'll show you the prettiest j

j; That ever you ever did see" I

you see, Larry?

The lewd puritan touch, obviously,

and it grows more marked as we go on.

J oh, he put his arms around her waist &

j; And gazed in her bright blue eyes j

piano! Whaddaya think this dump is, a dump?

Give him the bum's rush upstairs. Lock him in his room.

- Come on. - No. No!

Please, rocky. Please.

I'll go crazy up in that room alone. It's haunted!

Please, Harry, please. Let me stay here. I'll be quiet.

What the hell you doin' to him, rocky? Leave him alone.

Long as he's quiet.

Thanks, Harry. You're a good scout.

Ehh. Can't trust nobody.

Leave it to that dago to keep order,

it's like bedlam in a cathouse,

singin' and everything.

And you big barfly,

you're a hell of a help to me.

There ain't gonna be no more drinks on the house till hell freezes over.

Good god.

Have I been drinking at the same table with a bloody kaffir?

Hello, captain!

You comin' up for air?

"Kaffir"?

Who's he?

"Kaffir," that's a nigger, Joe.

That's a joke on him, Joe.

He don't know you. He's still blind drunk.

A great mistake I missed him at the battle of modder river.

With mine rifle

I shoot damn fool limey officers by the dozen,

but him I miss!

Hey, wake up, Cecil.

You bloody fool.

Don't you know your old friend Joe?

He's white, Joe is.

Oh, profound apologies, Joseph, old chum.

Eyesight a trifle blurry, I'm afraid.

Whitest colored man I ever knew.

Proud to call you my friend.

Oh, I know it's a mistake, captain.

- You is regular. - Even if you is a limey!

But I don't stand for "nigger" from nobody.

In the old days, somebody calls me a nigger, they ends up in a hospital.

Me, in old days in transvaal,

I was so tough and strong,

I... I grab axle of ox wagon,

with full load,

and lift like feather.

As for you, my balmy boer that walks like a man,

I say it again.

It was a grave error in our foreign policy ever to set you free.

Come now, Cecil, piet.

We must forget the war.

Boer and briton,

each fought fairly and played the game until the better man won.

And then we shook hands.

We are all brothers within the empire,

united beneath the flag on which the sun never sets.

J; Ship me somewhere j

j» east of Suez j

& where the best j

j» is like the worst j

& where there ain't no j

s ten commandments &

> and a man j

» can raise a thirst j

j on the road to mandalay j

j; Where the flying fishes &

j; Play I

& and the dawn j

j; Comes up like thunder j

j» out of China j

j 'cross the bay j

b'god, you're there already, Jimmy.

Worst is best here. East is west.

And tomorrow's yesterday.

What more do you want?

Come now, Larry, old friend.

You pretend a bitter cynic philosophy,

but in your heart...

You are the kindest man among us.

The hell you say.

Tomorrow, yes.

High time I got myself straightened out.

I must have this suit cleaned and pressed.

I can't look like a tramp when I'm...

Yes, sir.

White folks always said I was white.

The days when I was flush,

Joe mott's the only colored man they allowed

in the white gambling houses.

"You're all right, Joe.

You're white," they tells me.

They wouldn't let me play craps though,

'cause they knew I could make them dice behave.

"Any other game, any limit you like, Joe,"

they says.

Man, the money I lost.

Yeah.

Look at the big chief in them days.

He knew I was white.

I'd saved my dough so I could start my own gambling house.

Folks in the know they tells me, see the man at the top.

Then you never has trouble.

You get Harry hope to give you a letter to the chief.

And he does.

Ain't that right, Harry?

Huh?

Why, sure, I gave you a letter.

I says you was white.

There. You see, captain?

I went to see the chief, shakin' in my boots,

and there he was, sittin' behind a big desk,

lookin' as big as a freight train.

He don't look up.

He keeps me waitin' and waitin'.

And after what seems like an hour to me,

he says, slow and quiet, like he didn't mean no harm,

"you want to open a gambling joint, does ya, Joe?"

But he don't give me no chance to answer.

He jumps up, lookin' as big as two freight trains,

and he pounds his fists like a ham on the desk and he shouts,

"you black son of a bitch!

Harry says you're white, and you'd better be white,

or there's a little iron room up the river waitin' for ya."

Then he sits down

and he says, quiet again,

"all right, you can open. Get the hell outta here."

So I opens.

And he finds out I's white sure enough,

'cause I run wide open for years

and I pays my sugar on the dot.

And me and the cops is friends.

Them old days!

Many's the night I used to come in here.

This used to be a first-class hangout for sports in them days.

Good whiskey. Fifteen cents, two for two bits.

I throws down a $50 bill like it was trash paper

and I says,

"drink it up, boys!

I don't want the change.”

Ain't that right, Harry?

Yes.

And, b'Jesus, if I ever seen you throw 50 cents on the bar now,

I'd know I had delirium tremens!

Oh, thanks, Harry, old chum.

I will have a drink, now you mention it.

Uh, seeing it's so near your birthday.

What's that? I can't hear ya.

No, I was afraid you wouldn't.

I don't have to hear ya, b'jeez.

Booze is the only thing you ever talk about.

True, true.

Yes, there was a time when my conversation was more comprehensive.

But as I became burdened with the years,

it seemed rather pointless to discuss my other subject.

You can't joke with me.

How much room rent you owe me? Tell me that.

I'm sorry.

Adding always baffled me.

Subtraction's my forte.

Think you're funny.

Captain, b'jeez.

Showin' off your wounds.

Put on your clothes, for chrissake. This ain't no turkish bath.

Lousy limey army.

Took 'em years to lick a gang of Dutch hayseeds.

That's right, Harry. Give him hell.

I give you my word of honor, as an officer and a gentleman,

you shall be paid tomorrow.

We swear it, Harry.

Tomorrow, without fail.

There ya are, Harry.

Sure. What could be fairer? A promise is a promise, as I've often discovered.

I mean you too.

Old graftin' flatfoot.

Fine company for me, b'jeez!

Been livin' in my flat since Christ knows when,

and you ain't even got the decency to get me upstairs where I got a good bed.

Kept me down here waitin' for hickey to show up,

hopin' I'd blow ya to more drinks.

I did my damnedest to get you up.

But you said you couldn't bear the flat because it was one of those nights

when memory brought poor old bessie back to ya.

Ah, yes.

I remember now.

I could almost see her in every room,

just as she used to be.

And it's 20 years since I...

Isn't a pipe dream of yesterday a touching thing?

- By all accounts... - Twenty years!

Bessie nagged the hell out of him.

And I've never set foot out of this house since the day I buried her.

Once she was gone, I didn't give a damn for anything.

The boys was gonna nominate me for alderman.

Mmm, bessie wanted it.

And she was so proud.

But when she was taken I... I told them,

"no, boys, I can't do it. I'm through.”

I've no doubt, while bessie would appreciate my grief,

she wouldn't want it to keep me cooped up in here all my life.

So I've made up my mind to go out soon,

take a walk around the ward, see all the friends I used to know,

get together with the boys.

My birthday. Tomorrow!

That'll be the right time to turn over a new leaf.

Sixty. That ain't too old.

The prime of life, Harry.

Mmm.

Time I took hold of myself.

Tomorrow I must get my things from the laundry.

Clean collar and shirt.

If I wash the ones I've got on anymore, they'll fall apart.

I must make a good appearance.

I've heard rumors the management were at their wits' end

and would be only too willing

to have me run the publicity department for them again.

All it have to do is get fixed up with a decent front tomorrow.

It's as good as done.

Poor Jimmy's off on his pipe dream again.

I'm sorry we had to postpone our trip again this April, piet.

I'd hoped the blasted old estate would be settled by then.

We'll make it next year,

even if we have to work and earn our passage money.

You'll stay with me at the old place

just as long as you like.

England in April. Hmm.

Oh, I want you to see that, piet.

I admit the veldt has its points, but it's not home.

Especially home in April.

J; We've been together now &

j for 40 years j

j and it don't seem a day too much j

j; There ain't a lady j

j living in the land

j as I'd swap j

& for me dear old Dutch j

j; There ain't a lady j

j living in the land

j as I'd swap j

& for me dear old Dutch j

ja, Cecil, I can see how beautiful it must be.

But I will enjoy

when I am home too.

The veldt. Ja!

You could put england on it

and it would look like a farmer's small garden.

By god,

there is space to be free.

The air...

Like wine is!

You don't need booze to be drunk.

I'll make my stake and...

Get my new gambling house open

before you boys leave.

You gotta come to the opening.

B'jeez, Jimmy's started 'em off smokin' the same hop.

This bughouse'll drive me stark, raving loony yet!

What? What'd ya say?

Nothing, Harry.

I had a crazy thought in my head.

"Crazy" is right.

You old wise guy.

Damned old fool anarchist-i-won't-worker.

You'll pay up tomorrow,

or I'll... I'll start a Harry hope revolution.

I'll tie a dispossess bomb to your tail

that'll blow you out in the street.

I'll... I'll make your movement move!

Well, sure'n it's hot, parchin' work,

sittin' here laughin' at your jokes so early in the morning...

On an empty stomach.

Who asked you to laugh anyway?

B'jeez, bessie'd never forgive me

if she knew I had you living in our flat,

throwin' ashes and cigar butts on our carpet.

You know her opinion of you, Mac.

"That pat mcgloin is the biggest drunken grafter

that ever disgraced the police force," she used to say.

"If I had my way, he'd get booted out in the gutter on his fat behind."

Some claim she didn't say "behind" either.

She didn't mean it.

She was angry at me because you used to get me drunk.

But Bess,

she had a heart of gold underneath her sharpness.

She knew I was innocent of all the charges.

One moment, please!

Lieutenant mcgloin...

Are you aware that you're under oath?

You know what the penalty for perjury is?

Come now, lieutenant.

Isn't it a fact that you're guilty as hell?

No, don't say "how 'bout your old man?” I'm asking the questions!

Gentlemen of the jury,

court will now recess

while the da sings out a little ditty that he learned at Harvard.

It was composed in a wanton moment

by the Dean of the divinity school

on a moonlight night in July, 1776,

while sobering up in a turkish bath.

J and you and I'll agree

j and I'll show you the prettiest j

- rocky! - & that"... &

no. Harry, please.

Please don't make rocky bounce me upstairs. I'll go crazy alone.

I-I apologize. I apologize, Mac.

Don't get sore. I was only kidding you.

You will let me... take your case,

won't you, Mac?

Yeah. Sure, Willie.

And it'll make your reputation.

Hey, Mac.

What the hell you think's happened to hickey?

I hope he turns up.

You remember that gag he always pulls

about his wife and the iceman?

Opening time, boss.

Why don't you go to bed, boss?

Hickey'd never turn up this time of the morning.

Someone's comin' now!

Oh, that's only my two pigs.

It's about time they showed.

You keep them dumb broads quiet.

I'm gonna catch a couple more winks here.

I don't want no damn fool laughin' and screechin'.

Hey.

Never thought I'd see the day when Harry hope's would have tarts slippin" in.

What would bessie think, hmm?

But I don't let 'em use my rooms for business. Pay their rent too.

- Nix! Piano! - Which is more than I can say for...

B'jeez, Mac.

I'll... t'll bet bessie's doin' somersaults in her grave.

Hello.

- Jeez, Pearl. - Hello.

This place is a morgue,

with all these stiffs on deck.

Hey, you old wise guy!

Ain't you died yet?

Not yet, Margie.

But I'm waiting impatiently for the end.

Yeah?

Hey, who's the new guy? Friend of yours?

Hey, kid!

You wanna have a good time? Huh?

Hey! Hell with him!

- You dumb broads! - Yeah. Tough.

Cut the loud talk.

Sit down before I knock ya down.

Oh!

What? What? What?

Well, how did you tramps do?

- Uh, pretty good. Huh, Pearl? - Sure.

We nailed a couple of all-night guys.

On sixth Avenue. Boobs from the sticks.

Stinko, the both of 'em.

We thinks we's in luck, so we steers 'em to a real hotel.

We figure they're too stinko to bother us much,

and we could cop a good night's sleep

in beds that ain't got cobblestones in the mattress like the ones in this dump.

- But we was out of luck. - Yeah.

They didn't bother us much that way, but they wouldn't go to sleep either, see.

Jeez, I never heard such Gabby guys.

So, here we are.

Yeah, I see you.

But I don't see no dough yet.

Right on the job, ain't he, Margie?

Yeah, our little businessman. That's him.

- Come on. Dig. - What, you scared we're holding out on ya?

The way he grabs, you'd think it was him done the work.

Here ya are, grafter.

I hope it chokes ya.

You dumb baby dolls give me a pain.

What would you do with money if I wasn't around? Give it all to some pimp.

Jeez, what's the difference?

Oh, I didn't mean that, rocky.

A lot of difference. Get me?

Sure. Don't get sore.

Gee, can't you take a little kiddin'?

Yeah, come on, rocky. Pearl was only kiddin'.

We know you don't live off us. You got a regular job.

That's why we like you.

You're a bartender.

Sure. I'm a bartender. And I treat you girls right, don't I?

- Yeah. - Sure.

Jeez, I'm wise you hold out on me.

But I know it ain't much, so what the hell. I let you get away with it.

Hey, you know you oughtn't to kid him about that stuff.

Serve you right if he beat you up.

I bet he'd give you an awful beatin' once he started.

Guineas got awful tempers.

Anyways, we wouldn't keep no pimp like we were regular old whores.

- We ain't that bad. - Oh, no.

- We're tarts, but that's all. - Right.

Hey, rocky.

Cora got back around three o'clock.

She woke up Chuck and dragged him out of the hay

to go to a chop suey joint.

Imagine him standin' for that stuff?

I bet they've been sittin' around,

kiddin' themselves with that old pipe dream about gettin' married

and settlin' down on a farm.

Jeez, when Chuck's on the wagon they never lay off that dope.

Yeah.

Of all the pipe dreams in this dump, they got the nuttiest.

They been dreamin' it for years,

every time Chuck goes on the wagon.

What would getting married get him?

But the farm stuff is the sappiest part,

when both of them have been dragged up in this ward

and they ain't never been nearer a farm than coney island.

Ehh.

They'd get d.T.'S if they ever heard a cricket chirp.

I heard crickets once.

On my cousin's place in Jersey.

I couldn't sleep a wink.

Jeez, can you picture a good barkeep like Chuck diggin' spuds?

And imagine a whore hustlin' the cows home.

Hey, rocky, you oughtn't to call Cora that.

- I mean, she may be a tart, but, uh... - Oh, sure, sure.

That's all I meant. A tart.

But he's right about the damn cows, Margie.

Jeez, I bet Cora don't know which end of the cow has the horns.

I'm gonna ask her!

- Come on. - Here's your chance.

Hello, bums!

Jeez!

The morgue on a rainy Sunday night.

Hello, wise guy. Ain't you croaked yet?

Not yet, Cora.

Damned tiring, just waiting for the end.

Oh, go on. You'll never die. You'll have to hire somebody to croak you with an ax.

You dumb hooker, cut the loud talk.

- This ain't a cathouse. - Aw!

Hey, Cora. How you doin'?

Hey, Chuck.

If I'd known this dump was a hooker hangout, I'd never have come here.

- You seem down on the ladies. - I hate every bitch that ever lived.

You can understand how I feel, can't you, when I was getting mixed up with that tart

that made me have that fight with mother.

What does it matter to you? You're in the grandstand. You're through with life.

I'm glad you remembered that.

Who's the guy with Larry?

A tightwad. The hell with him.

Say, Cora, wise me up.

Which end of the cow is the horns on?

Aw, don't bring that up.

Me and this overgrown tramp's been scrappin' about the farm.

He says Jersey's the best place,

and I said long island, on account of we'll be near coney.

And then I tells him, "how do I know you're off of periodicals for life?"

I tells her I'm off the stuff for life.

She beefs we won't be married a month

before I'll throw it in her face she was a tart.

I tells her, what the hell do you think I'm marryin'? A virgin?

Why should I care, as long as you lay off it

and don't do no cheatin' with the iceman or nobody.

That's on the level, baby.

Aw, you big tramp.

Can you tie it? I'll buy you a drink. I'll do anything.

No! This round's on me.

I run into luck. That's why I dragged Chuck out of bed... to celebrate.

It was a sailor. I rolled him.

Listen, it was a scream.

My dogs was givin' out when I seen this guy holdin' up a lamppost,

so I hurried to get him before a cop did.

I says, "hello, handsome. Wanna have a good time?"

Jeez, he was paralyzed!

One of them polite jags.

Tries to bow to me. Imagine.

And I had to prop him up or he'd fell on his nose.

"Lady," he says, "can ya kindly tell me

the nearest way to the museum of natural history?"

Can you imagine? At 2:00 A.M.!

As if I'd know where the dump was anyway.

But I says, uh, "sure thing, honey boy.

I'll be only too glad.”

So I steered him into a side street where it was dark,

propped him against the wall and I give him a frisk.

And what do you think he does?

Jeez, I ain't lyin'. He begins to laugh, the big sap.

"Quit ticklin' me," he says, while I was friskin' him for his roll!

Well, I near died!

Then I turned him around and give him a shove to start him.

"Just keep goin'," I told him.

"It's a big, white building on your right. You can't miss it."

Oh!

He must be swimmin' in the north river yet.

Ain't uncle Sam a sap to trust guys like that with dough.

Well, I picked 12 bucks off of him.

So come on, rocky. Set 'em up.

Oh, say, Chuck's kiddin' about the iceman a minute ago reminds me.

- Where the hell's hickey? - That's what we're all wonderin'.

Well, he oughta be here. Me and Chuck seen him.

- You've seen hickey? - Yeah.

Hey, boss! Boss, boss, come to!

Cora's seen hickey.

- Where did you see him, Cora? - Right on the next corner.

He was standin' there.

We said, "welcome to our city.

The gang's expectin' you with their tongues hangin' out a yard long."

And I kidded him, "how's the iceman, hickey? How's he doin' at your house?"

And he laughs and says, "fine."

And then he says, "tell the gang I'll be along in a minute.

I'm just finishin' figurin' out the best way

to save 'em and bring 'em peace.”

B'jeez, he's thought up a new gag.

It's a wonder he didn't borrow a salvation army uniform

and show up in that!

Go out and get him, rocky. Tell him we're waitin' to be saved.

Yeah, Harry, he was only kiddin', but he was funny too somehow.

He was different or somethin'.

Well, he was sober, baby. That's what made him different.

Sure. Gee, ain't I dumb?

Dumbest broad I ever seen.

Hmm. Sober.

That's funny.

He's always lapped up a good starter on his way here.

Well, b'jeez, he won't be sober long.

He'll be good and ripe for my birthday party tonight at 12:00.

Listen, he's fixed some new gag to pull on us.

We'll pretend to let him kid us, see,

and we'll kid the pants off of him!

Here's the old son of a bitch!

Hello, gang!

J oh, we're old pals we're jolly old pals &

j in all kinds of weather we always stick together &

j and we're always game j

> and ever the same j

j; So give me your friendship j

j my jolly old pals &

& and another little drink j

j; Won't do us any harm

do your duty, brother rocky.

Bring on the rat poison.

- How goes it, governor? - B'jeez, hickey, you old bastard.

It's good to see you.

- Hello, Mac. - Welcome, boyo!

- Willie! - Hickey!

Hi, old scout!

- Hello, Joe. - All right, hickey. How you doin'?

- Well, hickey, old Tom. - Hup! Captain Lewis!

General wetjoen.

- Aha! - T saw it!

Hello, Hugo. How goes it?

Whoa!

Too much lying beneath the Willow trees, huh?

Hello, Jimmy.

- It's grand to see you. - How's the old scout?

- You look great. - Sit down, hickey. Sit down.

Well, I, uh... Jimmy!

B'jeez, hickey, it seems natural to see your ugly, grinnin' map.

This dumb broad was tryin' to tell us you'd changed.

But you ain't a damn bit. Tell us about yourself.

Jeez, hickey, you look like a million dollars.

Here's your key, hickey. Same old room.

Oh, thanks, rocky.

I'll be going up in a little while and grab a snooze.

I haven't been able to sleep lately. Tired as hell.

Couple hours good kip'll fix me.

First time I ever heard you worry about sleep.

B'jeez, you never would go to bed.

Get a couple of slugs under your belt, you'll forget sleepin'.

Here's mud in your eye, hickey.

All right, drink hearty, boys and girls.

B'jeez, is that a new stunt, drinkin' your chaser first?

Uh, no. I forgot to tell rocky.

You'll have to excuse me, boys and girls, but I'm off the stuff for keeps.

What the hell?

Sure, sure.

Joined the salvation army, ain't ya?

Been elected President of the wctu.

Take the bottle away from him, rocky.

We don't wanna tempt him into sin.

Well, I know it's hard to believe, but Cora was right, Harry.

I have changed. I mean, about the booze.

I don't need it anymore.

B'jeez, Cora said you was comin' here to save us.

Well, go on. Get this joke off your chest. Start the service.

Sing a goddamned hymn if you like. We'll all join in the chorus.

& no drunk will come in to this beautiful home

you don't think I'd come around peddling any brand of temperance bunk, do ya?

Just 'cause I quit the stuff don't mean I'm going prohibition.

I'm not that ungrateful. It's given me too many good times.

So if anybody wants to get drunk,

why the hell shouldn't they?

Hell, I know that game from soup to nuts. I wrote the book.

The only reason I quit is,

I finally had the guts to face myself

and throw overboard that damned lying pipe dream that was making me miserable

and do what I had to do for the happiness of all concerned.

Then all at once I was at peace with myself

and I didn't need the booze anymore.

But what the hell. Don't let me be a wet blanket.

Set 'em up again, rocky.

Here. Keep the balls comin' till that's killed. Then ask for more.

Jeez. A roll that'd choke a hippopotamus.

Fill up, youse guys!

That sounds more like you, hickey.

That water-wagon bull.

Quit the act and have a drink, for chrissake.

It's no act, governor.

But that don't mean I'm a teetotal grouch and can't be in the party.

Why else do you think I'm here except to have a party, like I've always done,

and help celebrate your birthday tonight?

You've all been good pals to me.

Best friends I've ever had.

And I been thinking about you ever since I left the house,

all the time I was walking here.

Walkin'? B'jeez! You mean to say you walked?

I sure as hell did.

All the way from the wilds of darkest astoria.

I seemed to get here before I knew it.

And that oughta encourage you, governor.

Show you a little walk around the ward is nothing to be scared about.

It was going on 12:00

when I went into the bedroom to tell Evelyn I was leaving.

Six hours, say. No, less than that.

'Cause I'd been standing on the street corner some time

before Chuck and Cora came along,

thinking about all of you.

Course I was only kidding, Cora, with that stuff about saving you.

But no, I wasn't either.

But I didn't mean booze.

I meant save you from pipe dreams.

Because I know now, from my experience,

that they're the things that can really poison and ruin a guy's life

and keep him from finding any peace.

If you knew how free and contented I feel now... why, I'm like a new man.

And the cure for them is so damn simple, once you got the nerve.

Just stop lying to yourself and kidding yourself about tomorrows.

Hell, this begins to sound like a damn sermon on the way to lead the good life.

It's in my blood, I guess.

My old man used to whale salvation into my heinie with a birch rod.

He was a preacher in the sticks of Indiana, like I've told you.

Got my knack of sales gab from him too.

He was the boy that could sell those hoosier hayseeds

building lots along the golden street.

Don't look at me like that, boys and girls.

I'm not trying to sell you a goldbrick. Nothing up my sleeves. Honest.

Take you, governor.

That walk around the ward you never take.

- What about it? - You know as well as I do, Harry.

Everything about it.

- Well, b'Jesus, I'm going to take it. - Of course you are.

Because I'm gonna help you.

I know it's the thing you've gotta do before you know what real peace means.

Same thing with you, Jimmy.

Gonna have to try and get your old job back, and no tomorrows about it.

- I-i-1i... - No, no, don't tell me.

I know all about tomorrows. I wrote the book.

I-I don't understand you, hickey.

I admit I've foolishly delayed,

but as it happens, well, I just made up my mind

that as soon as I can get straightened out...

Fine, fine. That's the spirit.

And I'm gonna help you, Jimmy, because you've always been damn kind to me,

and I wanna prove how grateful I am to you.

When it's all over and you don't have to nag yourself anymore,

you'll be grateful to me too.

And all the rest of you... Ladies included...

Are in the same boat, one way or another.

B'god, you've hit the nail on the head, hickey.

This dump is the palace of pipe dreams.

Well, well.

The old grandstand philosopher speaks, huh?

And you think you're the big exception, eh?

Life doesn't mean a damn to you anymore.

You're retired from the circus.

You're impatiently waiting for the end and the good old, long sleep.

Well, I think a lot of you, Larry, you old bastard,

and I'll try to make an honest man out of you too.

What the devil are you hinting at?

Well, you don't have to ask me, do ya? Wise old guy like you.

Just ask yourself. I'll bet you know.

He's got your number, all right, Larry. That's the stuff, hickey.

He's got no right to sneak out of everything.

Well, hello.

A stranger in our midst.

I didn't notice you before, brother.

My name's, uh, parritt. I'm an old friend of Larry's.

- What are you staring at? - Oh, no offense, brother.

I was just trying to figure.

Haven't we met before someplace?

No. This is the first time I've been east.

No, you're right. I know that's not it.

In my game, to be a shark at it, you teach yourself never to forget a name or a face.

But still, I know damn well there's...

Something I recognize about you.

We're members of the same lodge,

in some way.

What are you talking about?

You're nuts.

Don't kid me, little boy. I'm a good salesman.

So damn good, the firm was glad to take me back after every drunk.

And what made me good was, I could size up anyone.

But still, I don't...

Well, never mind. I can tell you're having trouble with yourself.

And I'll be glad to do anything I can to help a friend of Larry's.

Mind your own business, hickey. He's nothing to you.

Or to me.

You're keeping us all in suspense.

Tell us more about how you're going to save us.

Well, hell, don't get sore, Larry.

We're old pals. I've always liked you a lot. You know that.

Forget it, hickey.

Fine, fine.

That's the spirit.

What's the matter, everybody? Come on. Drink up. A little action.

Have another. Hell, this is a celebration.

Oh, forget it if anything I said sounded too serious.

You think I'm talking out of turn, just tell me to go chase myself.

No, boys and girls, I'm not trying to put anything over on you.

It's just that I know now, from experience,

what a lying pipe dream can do to you

and how damned relieved and contented with yourself you'll feel

when you're rid of it.

God.

Sleepy all of a sudden.

That long walk must be getting to me.

I better go upstairs.

Hell of a trick to go dead on you like this.

But no, boys and girls, I've...

Never known what real peace was until now.

It's a grand feeling.

Like when you're sick and suffering like hell...

And the doc gives you a shot in the arm.

The pain goes...

And you drift off.

You can let yourself go at last.

You sink down to the bottom of the sea.

Rest in peace.

There's no further you have to go.

Not one single...

Hope or dream left to nag you.

But you'll all know what I mean when you...

Excuse me. I'll just... forty winks and...

Drink up, everybody.

On me.

Don't let me be a wet blanket.

All I want is to see you happy.

Well, how's that, kid?

What the hell do I know about flowers?

You can see they're pretty, can't you? You big dummy.

Well, yeah, baby, sure. If you like 'em, they're all right with me.

Oh, jeez, Pearl.

Look at that cake, huh? Come here. Look.

Six candles, each for ten years.

Aw, when do we light the candles, rocky?

Oh, ask that bughouse hickey.

"Just before Harry comes down," he says.

"Then Harry blows 'em out with one breath, for luck."

Hickey was gonna have 60 candles,

but I says, "if the old guy took that big a breath, he'd croak himself."

- Anyways, it's a nice cake, ain't it? - Sure, it's all right by me.

But what is Harry gonna do with a cake?

If he ever ate a hunk, it'd croak him.

- Jeez, you're a dope. Ain't he, Margie? - Yeah.

- Dope is right. - You broads better watch your step, or...

- Or what? - Yeah! What? What?

Say, what the hell's got into youse?

It'll be 12 o'clock and Harry's birthday before long.

I ain't lookin' for no trouble.

Aw, we ain't neither, rocky.

A guy what can't see flowers is pretty must be some dumbbell.

Yeah, well, if I was as dumb as you...

Jeez, you got your scrappin' pants on, ain't ya?

Well, hell, baby. What's eatin' you?

What could Harry do with flowers?

He don't know a cauliflower from a geranium.

Jeez.

Ever since hickey's woke up, you can't hold him.

He's taking on the party like it was his birthday.

Well, he's paying for everything, ain't he?

Oh, I don't mind the birthday stuff so much.

What gets my goat is the way he's buttin' in all over the place,

telling everybody where to get off.

- He just keeps hintin' around. - Yeah.

- He was hintin' to me and Margie. - Yeah, the lousy drummer.

He just gives you an earful of that line of bull

about you gotta be honest with yourself and not kid yourself,

and you gotta have the guts to be what you are.

I told him, that's all right for the bums in this dump,

but it don't go with me, see.

I don't kid myself with no pipe dreams.

- What are you grinnin' at? - Nothin'.

- Nothin'. - It better be nothin'.

And don't let hickey put no ideas in your nuts if you wanna stay healthy.

He's ridin' someone every minute.

He's got Harry and Jimmy tomorrow run ragged,

and the rest are hidin' in their rooms so they won't have to listen to him.

They're all acting cagey with the booze too,

like they was scared if they get too drunk they might spill their guts.

And everybody's getting a prize grouch on.

Yeah.

He's been hintin' around to me and Chuck too.

You'd think he suspected me and Chuck had no real intention of gettin' married.

You'd think he suspected Chuck wasn't gonna lay off of periodicals,

or maybe didn't even want to.

I told him, I'm on the wagon for keeps, and Cora knows it.

And I told him, sure, I know it.

And Chuck ain't never gonna throw it in my face I was a tart neither.

And if you think we're just kiddin' ourselves, we'll show ya.

We're gettin' married tomorrow.

- Ain't we, honey? - You bet, baby.

Christ, Chuck!

Are you lettin' that bughouse louse hickey kid you into marryin'...

Nobody's kiddin' him into it. Nor me neither.

Hickey's right.

If this tramp's gonna marry me,

he oughta do it and not just shoot off his bazoo about it.

You can't be that dumb, Chuck.

You keep out of this. You hear?

And don't start beefin' about the crickets on the farm driving us nuts.

Christ, you'd think they was elephants!

Ah, rocky, don't notice that broad.

You heard what she said, right? Tomorrow. Tomorrow.

The same old crap.

- Is that so? - Mmm.

Imagine Cora a bride. That's the hot one.

Jeez, Cora, if all the guys you've stayed with was side by side,

you could walk on 'em from here to Texas.

You can't talk to me like that, you skinny dago hooker.

I may be a tart, but I ain't a cheap old whore like you!

I'll show ya who's a whore!

- Get her, Pearl! Get her! Get her! - Dago whore!

Let me go!

All right, cool off.

Aw, bury it! What are you, a virgin?

You mean you think I'm a whore too.

- Yeah! And me too? - Now, don't start nothin'.

I suppose it'd tickle you if me and Margie did what that hickey was hintin'

and come right out and admit we was whores!

All right, what of it? It's the truth, ain't it?

Jeez, rocky.

That's a fine thing to say to two girls

who's been as good to you as Pearl and Margie.

Oh... oh, look, I didn't mean to call you that, Pearl.

No hard feelings, Cora.

There. That fixes everything, don't it?

Okay, rocky. We're whores.

- You know what that makes you, don't ya? - Look out, now.

A lousy little pimp, that's what.

- I'll learn you! - You dirty little Guinea!

- And that'll learn you! - Bastard.

Yeah, he's proving it to us, Pearl.

Sure.

Hickey's converted him. He's give up his pipe dream.

- Lay off of me, or I'll... - Oh, lay off them!

Harry's party ain't no time to beat up your stable.

Whose stable? Who do you think you're talkin' to?

I ain't never beat 'em up. What do you think I am?

I just give 'em a slap like any guy would his wife if she got too Gabby.

I'm not lookin' for no trouble on Harry's birthday party!

You lousy little Guinea!

I'll lay off ya until the party's over if Pearl will.

Sure, I will.

For Harry's sake, not yours, you little wop!

Hey, listen, youse. Don't get no wrong...

What the hell are you laughin' at, you half-dead old stew bum?

At himself, he oughta be.

Jeez, hickey sure got his number.

Wake up, comrade.

There's a revolution starting all around you,

and you're sleeping through it.

B'god, it's not to bakunin's ghost you ought to be praying in your dreams,

but the great nihilist hickey!

He's started a movement that'll blow up the world.

You, Larry. Renegade. Traitor!

I'll have you shot!

Don't be a fool. Buy me a drink.

Mmm!

Mmm!

Bourgeois swine! Hickey!

He laughs like good fellow.

He makes jokes.

He dares to hint to me...

So I see what he dares to think.

He thinks I am finish, it is too late,

so I do not wish the day to come,

because it will not be my day!

Huh?

I see what he thinks.

He thinks lies.

Even worse, that I...

I'll have him hanged the first one of all, to the first lamppost!

Why you so serious, you little monkey faces?

It's all great joke, no?

So we get drunk and we laugh like hell,

and then we die,

and the pipe dream vanish.

So be of good cheer, little stupid peoples.

"The days grow hot, o Babylon!"

Soon, little proletarians,

we will have free picnic in the cool shade,

and we will eat hot dogs

and drink free wine beneath the Willow trees.

Like hogs! Yes?

Like beautiful little hogs!

Goddamn liar, hickey.

It's he who makes me sheer.

I want to sleep.

Hickey ain't overlookin' no bets.

It's only the old wise guy Larry

who's still pretending he's the one exception who don't do no pipe dreamin'.

I...

All right.

Take it out on me if it makes you more content.

Sure, I love every hair of your heads,

my great, big, beautiful baby dolls,

and there's nothing I wouldn't do for you.

The old Irish bunk, huh?

We ain't big, and we ain't your baby dolls.

But we admit we're beautiful.

- Huh, Margie? - Yeah, sure thing.

But what would he do with beautiful dolls, even if he had the price, the old goat?

Eh.

Larry, you're okay, even though you are full of bull.

Sure. You're aces with us.

We're nervous, that's all.

It's hickey, that lousy drummer. Why can't he be like he's always been?

I ain't never seen a guy change so.

- What do you think happened to him, Larry? - I don't know.

With all his gab, I notice he's kept that to himself so far.

Maybe he's saving the great revelation for Harry's party.

Let him mind his own business, and I'll mind mine.

Yeah, that's what I say.

Say, Larry, where's that young friend of yours disappeared to?

I don't care where he is, except I wish he was a thousand miles away.

He's a pest.

I told him, I'll take a lot from you, hickey, like everyone else in this dump,

'cause you always been a grand guy.

But there's things I don't take from you nor nobody, see.

Remember that, or you'll wake up in a hospital,

or maybe worse,

with your wife and the iceman walkin' slow behind you.

Oh, you oughtn't to make that iceman crack, rocky.

I notice he ain't pulled that old gag this time.

Do you suppose he did catch his wife cheatin', huh?

Oh, that's the bunk.

He ain't pulled that gag or showed her photo around because he ain't drunk.

And if he's caught her cheating he'd be drunk, wouldn't he?

He'd have beat her up and then gone on the worst drunk he'd ever staged.

Sure. Rocky's got the right dope, baby.

I's stood tellin' people this dump is closed for the night all I'm gonna.

Let Harry hire a doorman, pay him wages, if he wants one.

Yeah? Harry's pretty damn good to ya.

Sure, he is. I don't mean that.

Anyways, it's all right.

I told Schwartz the cop we closed for the party.

He'll keep folks away.

I wants me a big drink, that's what.

Who's stoppin' ya? You can have all you want on hickey.

All right, I earned all the drinks on him I could drink in a year

for listening to his crazy bull.

Here's hopin' he gets the lockjaw.

I drinks on him, but I don't drink with him.

No, sir. Never no more.

Aw, bull. Hickey's all right. What's he done to you?

That's my business.

Sure, you think he's all right.

He's a white man, ain't he?

Now, listen to me, you white boys!

Don't you get it in your head that I's pretendin' to be what I ain't,

or that I ain't proud to be what I am.

You gettin' me?

Or you and me's gonna have trouble.

The nerve.

Just because she acts nice to him, he gets a swelled nut.

If that ain't like a coon all over.

He talkin' fight talk, huh? I'll murder the nigger.

Li-listen, boys. I... i-I'm sorry.

You been good friends to me.

It's that hickey.

He gets my head all mixed up with craziness.

Aw, that's all right, Joe.

The boys wasn't taking you serious.

Jeez, what'd I say, hickey ain't overlookin' no bets?

And you gotta admit he's got the right dope.

I mean, on some of the bums here.

He's certainly got one guy I know sized up right.

- Ain't he, Pearl? - Certainly has.

Cut it out, I told ya!

It's nothing to me, what happened to him.

But I have a feeling he's dying to tell us inside him,

and yet he's afraid.

Like that damn kid.

Strange, the queer way he seemed to recognize him.

If he's afraid, that explains why he's off booze.

Afraid if he got drunk he might tell us...

Well, well, well! Here I am in the Nick of timel

well, come on. Somebody give me a hand with these packages.

Jeez, hickey, you scared me out of a year's growth,

sneaking in like that.

Sneakin'?

You were all so busy drinking in words of wisdom from old wise guy here

you couldn't hear anything else.

And from what I heard, you're not so good when you start playing Sherlock Holmes.

You've got me all wrong. I'm not afraid of anything now.

Not even myself.

You'd better stick to the part of old cemetery,

the barker for the big sleep.

That is, if you can still let yourself get away with it.

Old cemetery! That's him, hickey. We'll have to call him that.

You're getting to do a lot of puzzling about me. Aren't you, Larry?

But that won't help you.

You've gotta think of yourself.

I couldn't give you my peace.

You've gotta find your own.

All it can do is to help you, and the rest of the gang,

by showing you the way to find it.

Oh, hire a church.

All right, boys and girls. Don't get sore.

I guess that did sound too much like a lousy preacher.

Well, let's forget it and get on with the party.

Is those bundles grub? You brought enough already to feed an army.

I want this to be the biggest birthday Harry's ever had.

You and rocky go out in the hall and bring in the big surprise.

My arms are busted lugging it.

- You got us het up! What is it, hickey? - Just wait and see.

I thought to myself,

I'll bet this is what would please those whores more than anything.

Then I said, I don't care how much money it costs. They're worth it.

They're the best little scouts in the world,

and they've always been damn kind to me when I was down and out.

And I meant every word of that.

- Well, what's the matter? - Mmm.

What... oh, I see.

I didn't say that to offend you, so don't be silly.

- All right, all right. Let it slide. - Oh, look! Here it comes!

Hickey, what'd you get him?

Unveil it, boys!

- Oh! - It's champagne!

Oh, jeez, hickey, if you ain't a sport!

I never been soused on champagne! Let's get stinko!

You betcha my life! All of us!

You sure is hittin' the high spots, hickey.

When I runs my gambling house,

I drink that old bubbly water in steins.

I'm gonna drink that way again too, soon as I make my stake.

And that ain't no pipe dream neither.

What do we drink it out of, hickey? There ain't no wine glasses.

Joe's got the right idea. Steins.

That's the spirit for Harry's party.

We will drink wine beneath the Willow trees!

That's the spirit, brother.

And let the lousy slaves drink vinegar.

Goddamn liar.

Leave Hugo be.

He rotted ten years in prison for his faith.

He earned his dream.

Have you no decency or pity?

Hello. What's this?

I thought you were in the grandstand.

Listen, Larry, you're gettin' me all wrong.

You oughta know me better.

Of course I have pity, but now that I've seen the light,

it's not my old kind of pity, the kind yours is,

the kind that lets itself off easy by encouraging some poor guy

to go on kidding himself with a lie,

the kind that leaves the poor slob worse off

because he feels guiltier than ever,

the kind that makes his lying hopes nag at him

and reproach him until he's a rotten skunk in his own eyes.

No, sir, the kind of pity I feel now

is after final results that'll really save the poor guy,

make him contented with what he is and quit battling himself

so he can find peace for the rest of his life.

Oh, I know you resent the way I have to show you up to yourself,

but you'll be grateful to me when you're able to admit, without feeling ashamed,

that all the grandstand philosopher bunk

and the waiting for the big sleep stuff is a pipe dream.

You'll be able to say to yourself,

I'm just an old man who's scared of life,

but even more scared of dying.

So I'm keepin' drunk and hangin' on to life at any price, and what of it?

B'god, if I'm not beginning to think you've gone mad.

You're a liar.

That's no way to talk to an old pal who's trying to help you.

Hell, if you really wanted to die, you'd just take a hop off the fire escape.

And if you really were in the grandstand, you wouldn't be pitying everyone.

As for my bein' bughouse, well, you can't crawl out of it that way.

I'm too damn sane.

I can size up guys and turn 'em inside out better than I ever could,

even when they're strangers, like that parritt kid.

He's licked, Larry.

I think there's only one possible way out you can help him take.

That is, if you have the right kind of pity for him.

What do you mean?

I'm not advising him, except to leave me out of his troubles.

- He's nothing to me. - You'll find he won't agree to that.

He'll keep after you until he makes you help him,

because he's gotta be punished so he can forgive himself.

He hasn't got the guts.

He can't manage it alone.

And you're the only one he can turn to.

For the love of god, mind your own business.

A lot you know about him.

He's hardly spoken to you.

No, that's right, but I do know a lot about him just the same.

I've had hell inside of me, and I can spot it in others.

Maybe that's what gives me the feeling there's something familiar about him,

something between us.

No, it's more than that.

Tell me about him. For example, I don't imagine he's married, is he?

- No. - Hasn't been mixed up with someone?

Oh, I don't mean trollops.

I mean the old "real love" stuff that crucifies you.

Maybe you're right.

I wouldn't be surprised.

I see.

You think I'm on the wrong track, and you're glad I am,

because then I won't suspect whatever it is he did about the great cause.

That's another lie you keep telling yourself, Larry...

That the good old cause means nothing to you anymore.

- What the hell are you... - But you're wrong about parritt.

That's not what's got him stopped. It's what's behind that.

And it's a woman. I recognize the symptoms.

You're the boy who's never wrong.

His trouble is, he was brought up a devout believer in the movement,

and now he's lost his faith.

It's a shock.

But he's young and he'll soon find another dream just as good.

Or as bad.

All right. T'll let it go at that, Larry.

He's nothing to me. Except that I'm glad he's here.

Because he'll help me make you wake up to yourself.

I don't even like the guy, or the feeling that there's anything between us.

But you'll find out that I'm right just the same

when you get to the final showdown with him.

There'll be no showdown. I don't give a tinker's...

Sticking to the grandstand, eh?

I always knew that you'd be the toughest of all the gang to convince, Larry.

And along with Harry and Jimmy tomorrow...

It was you I wanted to help the most.

I've always liked you a lot, you old bastard.

Hey, not much time before 12:00.

Come on, gang. Let's get goin'.

Come on, boys and girls. Let's get busy.

The cake all set? Fine. And my gift? And yours, girls.

Tie, tie, and a handkerchief.

Chuck and rocky. Hmm?

Harry certainly will be very touched by your thoughts of him.

Margie and Pearl, get back in the bar and get ready to bring the grub right in.

There'll be some drinking first and some toasts.

My idea was to use the wine for that, so get that all set.

I'll go upstairs and root everybody out, and Harry the last.

When you hear us coming, somebody light the candles on the cake

and start playing his favorite tune on the piano.

Come on, Cora, everybody. Let's hustle. We want this to come off in style.

Jeez, I gotta practice. I ain't laid my mitts on a box in god knows when.

Hey, Joe!

Jeez, I've forgotten this has-been tune.

Come on, Joe. Hum it so's I can follow.

B'god! It's a second feast of belshazzar!

With hickey to do the writing on the wall!

Oh, shut up, old cemetery.

Well, if it ain't prince Willie.

Gee, kid, you look sick. Get a couple of shots in ya.

No, thanks. Not now. I-I'm tapering o-off.

It's been hell up in that damn room, Larry.

The... the things I've imagined.

But, uh...

I-I've got it beat now.

By... by tomorrow morning, I'll... t'll be on the wagon.

And I'll, uh...

I-t'll get b-back my clothes first thing.

H-hickey's loaning me the money.

A-and I'm gonna do what I always said.

I'm g-g-gonna go to the da's office.

Because he knows that I... I really w-was a brilliant student.

I know I could make good.

I-I owe a lot to hickey. He's... made me wake up to myself and see what a fool...

W-wasn't nice to face, but...

It's not what he says.

It's what you feel behind what he hints.

Christ, you think all I really wanted to do with my life

was sit here and stay drunk?

I'll show him.

If you want my advice...

You'll put your mouth on this bottle and keep it there

until you don't give a damn about hickey.

That's fine advice.

I thought you were my friend.

Gee, I'm glad you're here, Larry.

That damn fool hickey knocked on my door.

I thought it must be you.

He came bustin' in, he made me come downstairs here.

I don't know what for. I don't belong at this birthday celebration.

I don't know this gang, and I don't wanna be mixed up with 'em.

- All I came here for was to find you. - I warned you, I...

Can't you make hickey mind his own business?

Just now he pats me on the shoulder like he's sympathizing with me.

He says, "I know how it is, but you can't hide from yourself,

not even here on the bottom of the sea.

You've gotta face the truth and do what must be done

for your own peace and for the happiness of all concerned."

- What'd he mean by that, Larry? - How the hell would I know?

Then he grins and says, "Larry's getting wise to himself.

I don't think you can rely on his help.

He's gonna have to choose between living and dying, and he'll never choose to die

while there's a breath left in the old bastard."

Then he laughs like it's a joke on you.

- Well, what do you say to that, Larry? - I have nothing to say.

Except you're a bigger fool than he is to listen to him.

Oh, is that so? Well, he's no fool where you're concerned.

He's got your number, all right.

You know I don't mean that.

What I want most is to be friends with you.

I haven't a single friend left in the world. I hope...

I'd hoped you'd...

And you could too, without it hurting you.

You ought to, for mother's sake. She really loved you.

You loved her too, didn't you?

Leave what's dead in its grave.

I suppose because I was only a kid, you don't think I was wise about you and her.

Well, I been wise ever since I can remember to all the guys she's had.

She used to try to kid me along it wasn't so.

That's a silly stunt for a free anarchist woman, to be ashamed of being free.

Shut your damn trap.

Yes, I know I shouldn't say that now.

I keep forgetting she isn't free anymore.

You know, Larry, you're the one of them all she cared most about.

Anybody else who left the movement would've been more than dead to her,

but she couldn't forget you.

She used to make excuses for you.

I used to try to get her goat about you.

I'd say, "Larry's got brains,

and yet he thinks the movement's a crazy pipe dream."

She blamed it on the booze getting you.

She'd kid herself that you'd give up the booze

and come back to the movement tomorrow.

She used to say, "Larry can't kill in himself a faith he's given his life to.

Not without killing himself."

How 'bout that, Larry? Was she right?

I suppose what she meant by that was to come back to her.

She was always getting the movement mixed up with herself.

But I'm sure she really must have loved you, Larry,

as much as she could've loved anyone beside herself.

No, she wasn't even faithful to you, was she?

That's why you walked out on her, isn't it?

I remember that last fight you had with her. I was listening.

I was on your side, even if she was my mother, because I liked you so much.

I remember she was putting on her high-and-mighty "free woman" stuff,

telling you you were still a slave to bourgeois morality and jealousy...

And that you thought the woman you loved

was a piece of private property you owned.

I remember you got mad and told her, "I don't like living with a whore!"

You lie! I never called her that!

That's why she still respects you... 'Cause you walked out on her.

She got sick of the others.

She had to keep on having lovers to prove to herself how free she was.

Made home a lousy place.

I felt like you did. It was like living in a whorehouse.

Only worse, because she didn't have to make her living at it.

Bastard.

She's your mother.

Have you no shame?

No.

She brought me up to believe that family respect stuff

is all bourgeois, property-owning crap.

- Why should I be ashamed? - I've had enough!

No! Larry, please don't leave me.

Larry, I promise, I only mentioned her name to make you understand better.

Why didn't you come up to my room like I asked you to? I kept waiting.

- We can talk over everything up there. - There's nothing to talk about.

But I gotta talk to you or I'm gonna talk to hickey.

I feel he knows anyway and I'm sure he'd understand, but I hate his guts.

I'm scared of him. Honest.

There's something not human behind his damn grinning and kidding.

You feel that too, do you?

But I can't go on like this. I gotta tell you, Larry.

- I won't listen. - Okay, I won't, Larry.

Ah, who do you think you're kidding?

I know damn well you've guessed.

- I've guessed nothing. - But I want you to guess now.

I'm glad you have.

I know now, since hickey's been after me,

that I meant you to guess right from the start... that's why I came to you.

I want you to understand the reason.

You see, I... I began to study American history,

and I got admiring Washington and Jefferson and Jackson and Lincoln,

and I began to feel patriotic and love this country.

Saw it was the best government in the world,

where everybody was equal, everybody had a chance.

And I saw the ideas behind the movement,

they came from a lot of Russians like bakunin and kropotkin.

They were all meant for Europe.

See, we didn't need 'em here in a democracy, where we were free already.

I didn't want this country to be destroyed for a damn foreign pipe dream!

I began to feel like I was a traitor

for helping a lot of cranks and bums and free women

plot to overthrow our government.

And I saw it was my... My duty to my country.

You stinking, rotten liar.

You think you can fool me with such hypocrite cant?

I don't give a damn what you did.

That's on your own, whatever it was. I don't know, and I don't wanna know.

But I never thought mother would be caught. Please believe that.

I never wou...

All t know is that I am sick of living.

I'm through.

I'm drowned and contented on the bottom of a bottle.

Honor or dishonor, faith or treachery,

they're nothing to me but opposites of the same stupidity

which is the king and ruler of life, and in the end...

They'll both rot into dust in the same grave.

All things are meaningless to me...

Because they grin at me from the one skull of death.

So go away.

I've forgotten your mother.

You old philosopher, huh?

You lousy old faker!

For the love of god, leave me in peace, the little time that's left to me.

Don't pull that pitiful old man junk on me.

You'll never die when there's a drink of whiskey left.

You be careful how you taunt me back into life. I warn you.

Because I might remember there's a thing called justice there

and the punishment for...

You're as mad as hickey...

And just as big a liar.

Wait'll hickey gets through with you.

Well, hello, tightwad kid.

You come to join the... What? Ooh, boy. Don't he act bashful!

Don't touch me!

Hey, rocky! Fight in the hall!

- Believe me, I'll break your neck! - By god...

What the hell!

- Don't touch me! - Can ya beat it?

I heard youse two call each other every name you can think of,

but I never seen...

A swell time to stage your first bout... On Harry's birthday party!

- What started the scrap? - Nothing, old chap.

Our business, you know.

But that bloody ass hickey made some insinuation about me,

and the boorish boer had the impertinence to agree with him.

That's a lie!

Hickey made joke about me, and this limey said, "yes, it was true!"

- Yes! - Now sit down, the both of youse!

Cut out this rough stuff!

Jeez, would you look at those bums? Like a couple of kids.

For god's sake, would you kiss and make up, huh?

Yeah!

Harry's party begins in a minute,

and we don't want no soreheads around here!

Oh, very well then.

In deference to the occasion, I apologize,

general wetjoen,

provided you do also.

I apologize, captain Lewis,

because Harry is my good friend.

Oh, hell, if you can't do better than that...

Here's the star boarder.

It's serious this time.

I'm tellin' all of you,

that bastard hickey's got Harry on the hip.

And it ain't gonna do us no good if he gets Harry to take that walk tomorrow.

He's sure to call on bessie's relations

and have a little cry over poor old bessie.

And you know what that bitch and all her family thought of me.

Once bessie's relations get their hooks into him,

it'll be as tough for us as if she wasn't even gone.

Everything all set?

Ah, fine. Half a minute to go.

Harry's starting down with Jimmy now.

I had a hard time getting him to move.

Harry don't even want to remember it's his birthday now.

Oh, here they come! Come on, everybody! Light the candles!

Cora, get ready to play. Stand up, everybody.

Chuck. Rocky. The wine.

Let's see. Twelve o'clock on the dot.

Come on, everybody, with a "happy birthday, Harry!"

Happy birthday, Harry!

Hey!

Cut out the glad hand, hickey!

You think I'm a sucker?

B'Jesus, I know you, you sneakin', lyin' drummer.

And all you bums! What the hell you tryin' to do?

Yellin' and raisin' the roof.

You want the cops to close the joint and take my license away?

Hey, ya dumb tart. Quit bangin' that box.

Jeez, Harry, I...

B'jeez, the least you could do is learn a tune.

And you two hookers,

screamin' at the top of your lungs.

What do you think this is, a dollar cathouse?

B'jeez, that's where you belong.

Oh... Harry.

Jeez, Harry, I never thought you'd say it like you meant it.

Harry, don't get sore at the gang just 'cause you're upset with yourself.

I promised you'd come through all right, haven't I?

So quit worryin'.

You don't wanna bawl out the old gang

just when they're congratulating you on your birthday, do ya?

B'jeez, they ain't as dumb as you.

They know I was only kiddin" 'em.

They know I appreciate their congratulations. Don't you, fellas?

Yeah, sure, Harry!

B'jeez, I like you broads.

You know I was only kiddin'.

- Sure. We know, Harry. - Sure.

Sure. Harry's the greatest kidder in this dump, and that's sayin' something.

Look how he's kidded himself for 20 years.

But unless I'm wrong, governor, and I'm bettin' I'm not, we'll soon know, eh?

Tomorrow morning.

No, by god. It's this morning now.

This... th-th-this morning?

Yes, it's the day at last, Jimmy.

But don't be scared. I'll help you. I promised that.

I-I-i don't understand you.

Kindly remember I'm fully capable of settling my own affairs.

Well, isn't that exactly what I want you to do?

Only watch out on the booze.

You've had a lot to drink already, and you don't wanna let yourself duck out of it

by being too drunk to move, not this time.

B'jeez, Margie, you know I didn't mean it.

It's that lousy drummer ridin' me that's got my goat.

I know, Harry, I know.

Hey, come on. Look at your cake.

You haven't even noticed it yet, huh? Ain't it grand? Look.

Yeah. Say, that's pretty.

I ain't ever had a cake since bessie...

- Six candles, eh? - Mm-hmm.

- Each for ten years, huh? - Hickey got it.

Well, it was thoughtful of him. He means well, I guess.

- Aw, the hell with this cake! - Oh, wait, Harry!

You ain't seen the presents from me and Margie and Cora and Chuck and rocky.

And there's a watch all engraved with your name and the date from hickey.

Well, the hell with... B'jeez, he can keep it!

Hey.

He ain't even gonna look at the presents.

Hey... hey, come on, everybody. This is all wrong!

If somebody don't put some life in this party, I'm gonna go nuts!

Hey, Cora, why don't you bang on that box!

Uh, uh, play somethin' for Harry, huh?

You don't have to stop just 'cause he kidded ya.

No, you was playin' it fine, Cora.

It was bessie's favorite tune.

She was always singin' it.

I-it brings her back. I wish...

Yes, we've all heard you tell us that you thought the world of her, governor.

So I did, b'jeez.

Everyone knows I did. And, b'jeez, if you say I didn't...

Now, governor, I didn't say anything.

You're the only one that knows the truth about that.

Marjorie's favorite song was "loch lomond."

Oh, she was beautiful.

She had a beautiful voice and she played the piano beautifully.

You were lucky, Harry, bessie died.

But there are more bitter sorrows

than losing the woman one loves by the hand of death.

You needn't go on, Jimmy.

We've all heard the story about how you came back to Cape Town

and found her in the hay with a staff officer.

We know you'd like to believe that's what started you on booze and ruined your life.

I-I'm talking to Harry.

Will you kindly keep out of my...

My life is not ruined!

But I'll bet when you admit the truth to yourself,

you'll confess that you were pretty sick of her hating you for getting drunk.

I'll bet you were really damned relieved when she gave you such a good excuse.

- I know how it is, Jimmy. See, I... - Ha!

So that's what happened, is it?

Your iceman joke finally came home to roost, did it?

Maybe you should have remembered there's truth

in the old superstition that you'd better look out what you call,

because in the end it comes to you.

Oh, is that a fact, Larry?

Well, well.

Then you'd better be careful how you keep callin' for the old big sleep.

This one?

Well, what are we waiting for, boys and girls? Let's get this party rolling.

Chuck! Rocky! Bring on the big surprise!

Governor, you sit over here at the head of the table. Come on.

Well, sit down, girls. Sit down.

And I'll sit here at the foot.

Real champagne, bums! Cheer up!

What is this, a funeral?

Mixing champagne with Harry's red-eye'll knock you paralyzed.

Ain't you never satisfied?

Order! Order!

Ladies and gents...

Yes, I am gonna drink with you this time, Larry,

to prove that I'm not teetotal

because the booze'll make me spill my secrets, as you think.

I don't need the booze anymore, or anything else.

I just wanna be sociable

and propose a toast in honor of our old friend Harry,

and drink it with you.

Wake up our demon bomb-tosser, rocky.

We don't want any corpses at this feast.

Hey, Hugo. Come up for air.

Don't you see the champagne?

We will eat birthday cake

and drink champagne beneath the Willow trees!

This wine is unfit to drink!

It has not properly been iced.

Always the high-toned swell at heart, eh, Hugo?

Well, god help us poor bums if you ever got to telling us where to get off.

You'd have been drinking our blood beneath those Willow trees.

Here's the toast, ladies and gents.

Here's to Harry hope,

who's been a friend in need to every one of us.

And here's to the old governor,

the best sport and the kindest, biggest-hearted guy in the world.

Come on, everybody. To Harry.

Bottoms up.

- To Harry! - To Harry!

- To you, boss. - Happy birthday.

Thanks, all of you.

Hickey, you old son of a bitch.

That's white of ya.

- I know you meant it too. - Of course I meant it, Harry, old friend.

And I mean it when I say that I hope this will be the biggest day in your life

and in the lives of everyone here,

and the beginning of a new life of peace and contentment.

And here's to that, Harry.

Oh, forget the bughouse line of bull for a minute, can't ya?

You're right, rocky. I am talking too much. It's Harry we want to hear from.

Speech! Speech! Speech!

B'Jesus, I'm... I'm no good on speeches.

All I can say is, thanks to everybody again

for remembering me on my birthday.

Only don't think because I'm 60

I'll be a bigger damned fool easy Mark than ever.

Like hickey says, it's gonna be a new day.

This dump has got to be run like other dumps

so I can make some money and not just split even.

I'm sick of bein' played for a sucker.

I know you're all laughin' at me now behind my back,

thinkin' to yourselves, why, the...

Why, the old lyin', pipe-dreamin' faker.

We've heard his bull about takin' a walk around the ward for years.

He'll never make it.

He's scared. He's yellow.

He ain't got the guts.

He's scared he'll find out...

But I'll show you, b'jeez.

And I'll show you too, you son of a bitch of a fryin' pan-peddlin' bastard.

That's the stuff, Harry!

Of course you'll try to show me. That's what I want you to do.

Well, Jesus,

all of you, forgive me.

I lost my temper.

I ain't feelin' well.

I got a hell of a grouch on.

You're as welcome as the flowers in may.

Oh, sure, boss.

You're always aces with us, see.

Uh, listen, everybody.

I know you're sick of my gabbin', but, uh, I think I owe it to you

to do a little explaining and apologize

for some of the rough stuff I've had to pull on you.

I had to make you help each other with me.

I saw that I couldn't do what I had to do alone, not in the time at my disposal.

I knew when I came here I wouldn't be able to stay long.

I'm slated to leave on a trip.

Now, I know every one of you, inside and out, by heart.

I may have been drunk when I been here before,

but old hickey could never be so drunk

that he couldn't have to see through everybody.

Everybody, that is, except himself.

And finally he had to see through himself too.

I swear I would've never acted this way

if I didn't absolutely believe it'd be worthwhile to you in the end.

When you're rid of the guilt that makes you lie to yourselves

that you're something you're not

and the remorse that nags at you and makes you hide behind lousy pipe dreams,

you won't give a damn what you are anymore.

I wouldn't say this unless I knew.

Brothers and sisters, this peace is real. It is a fact.

I know because I've got it here and now, right in front of you.

Well, you can see the difference in me. You remember how I used to be.

Even when I had two quarts of rotgut under my belt

and joked and sang "sweet Adeline,”

I still felt like a guilty skunk.

But you can see that I don't give a damn about anything anymore.

And I promise you by the time this day is over,

I'll have every one of you feeling the same way.

I guess that's about all from me for the present, boys and girls.

So let's get on with the party.

Wait.

I think it would help us poor, pipe-dreaming sinners

along the sawdust trail of salvation...

If you told us now what it was happened

that converted you to this great peace you've found.

I notice you didn't say anything when I asked you about the iceman.

Did this great revelation of the evil habit of dreaming about tomorrow

come to you after you found out your wife was sick of you?

B'jeez, you've... you've hit it, Larry.

I've noticed he hasn't shown her picture around this time.

He hasn't got it. The iceman took it away from him!

Look at him. Can you blame her?

She must be hard up to fall for an iceman.

Imagine a sap like that advising me and Chuck to get married.

Yeah, he done so good with it.

At least I can say that Marjorie chose an officer and a gentleman.

Come to look at you, hickey, old chum,

you're sprouting horns like a bloody antelope.

Bigger, by god. Like a water buffalo.

& "oh, come up," she cried j

j my iceman lad and you and I'll agree j

; And I'll show you the prettiest... &

j; That ever you did ever see j

well, I'm glad to see you getting in good spirits for Harry's party,

even if the joke is on me.

I admit I always asked for it in the old days

by pulling the iceman gag, so, uh, laugh all you like.

Well, I guess this forces my hand,

you bringing up the subject of Evelyn.

I had wanted to wait till the party was over,

but, uh, you're getting the wrong idea about poor Evelyn,

and I've gotta stop that.

I'm sorry to tell you that my dearly beloved wife is dead.

B'god.

I felt he had the touch of death on him.

Oh, forgive me, hickey.

I'd like to cut my dirty tongue out.

- Sorry. - Sorry. Apologies.

Oh, now, look, everybody.

You mustn't let this be a wet blanket on Harry's birthday party.

You're still getting me all wrong. There's no reason.

You see, I don't feel any grief.

I've gotta feel glad, for her sake,

because she's at peace.

She's rid of me at last.

You can imagine what it's like being married

to a no-good, drunken cheater like me.

And there was no way out of it for her

because she loved me.

Should I feel sad?

She wouldn't want me to feel sad.

Why, all that Evelyn ever wanted out of life was to make me happy.

Ah, nothin' now till the noon rush from the market.

If I ain't a sap to let Chuck kid me into workin' his time

so's he can take the morning off.

But I got sick of arguin'.

I says, "all right, get married. What's it to me?"

Some party last night, huh?

It was jinxed from the start,

but his telling about his wife croakin' put the ko on it.

Yes, the birthday feast turned out to be a wake.

Him promising he'd cut out that bughouse bull about peace,

and then he went on talkin' and talkin' like he couldn't stop.

And the gang sneakin' upstairs,

leaving free booze and eats like they was poison.

He's been hoppin' from room to room all night.

He's got his reform wave going strong this morning.

Did you notice him drag Jimmy out the first thing

to get his laundry and his clothes pressed

so he wouldn't have no excuse?

And he give Willie the dough to buy his stuff back from solly's.

And all the rest have been brushin' and shavin' themselves with the shakes.

He didn't come to my room.

Afraid I might ask him a few questions.

Yeah, I'd say you were scared of him.

- You'd lie then. - Don't let him kid you, rocky.

He had his door locked. I couldn't get in either.

Yeah. Who do you think you're kidding, Larry?

Like he says, if you was so anxious to croak,

why wouldn't you hop off your fire escape long ago?

Because it'd be a coward's quitting, that's why.

He's all quitter, rocky.

He's a yellow old faker.

You lying punk.

Yeah, keep out of this, you.

Shall I give him the bum's rush, Larry?

You don't want him around, nobody else don't.

Aw, let him stay. I don't mind. He's nothing to me.

You're right.

I have nowhere I can go now.

You're the only one in the world I can turn to.

Aw, you're a soft old sap, Larry.

He's a no-good louse like hickey.

He don't belong.

Yeah, I'm all in. Not a wink of sleep.

Larry, I'm sorry for riding you,

but you get my goat when you act as if you didn't care a damn what happened to me.

And you keep your door locked so I can't talk to you.

But that was to keep hickey out, wasn't it?

I don't blame you. I'm getting more and more to hate him.

More and more scared of him.

Especially since he told us about his wife being dead.

It's that queer feeling he gives me that I'm mixed up with him in some way.

I don't know why, but it started me thinking about mother.

As if she was dead.

I suppose she might as well be.

It must kill her when she thinks of me.

I know she doesn't want to, but she can't help it.

After all, I'm her only kid.

She used to spoil me and made a pet of me.

Every once in a great while...

When she remembered me...

As if she was trying to make up for something,

as if she was... feeling guilty.

So I guess she must have loved me a little.

Even if she never let it interfere with her freedom.

You know, Larry...

I once had a sneaking suspicion that if the truth were known,

you were my father.

Damn fool.

Who put that insane idea in your head?

Anyone in the coast crowd could tell

I never laid eyes on your mother till after you were born.

Well, now, I'd hardly ask them, would I?

I know you're right though, 'cause I asked her.

She brought me up to be frank and ask her anything.

I was talking about how she must feel now about me.

My getting through with the movement, she'll never forgive me for that.

It must be the final knockout

if she knows that I was the one who sold out the movement.

Shut up, damn you. Shut up. It'll kill her.

But, Larry...

I never thought that they would have caught her.

You've gotta believe what the only reason was.

I'll admit, what I told you last night, that was a lie.

All that bunk about feeling patriotic and my duty to my country.

But here's the true reason, the only reason, Larry.

See, I got stuck on this whore, and I wanted dough.

That's the only reason. That's all I did it for. Just the money, honest!

Shut up! What the hell is it to me?

- What's comin' off here? - Nothing.

This young punk is talking my ear off. He's a worse pest than hickey.

Oh, yeah. Hickey.

Say, listen.

What questions? What questions?

Well, you notice he didn't tell us what his wife died of.

Oh, lay off of that. The poor guy.

What are you getting at anyway?

- You don't think it's just a gag of his? - No. No, I don't.

Damn sure he brought death here with him.

I can smell the cold touch of it upon him.

Aw, bunk.

You got croakin' on the brain, old cemetery.

Say, do you mean you think she committed suicide

on account of his cheatin' or somethin'?

It wouldn't surprise me.

But that's crazy.

Jeez, if she'd done that, he wouldn't tell us he was glad about it, would he?

You know her better than that, Larry. You know she'd never commit suicide.

- She's like you. She'll hang onto life... - What about you?

B'god, if you had any guts or decency...

I'd take that hop off the fire escape you're too yellow to take.

- No. I'm done judging. - Yeah, I suppose you'd like that.

What the hell's all this about?

What do you know about hickey's wife?

- How do you know she didn't... - He doesn't.

Hickey's addled the little brains he's got.

Shove him back to his table, rocky. I'm sick of him.

You heard Larry, so move, quick.

Gee, Larry,

that's a hell of a way to treat me after I've trusted you,

when I need your help.

Jeez.

If she committed suicide,

you gotta feel sorry for hickey, huh?

You can understand how he'd go bughouse

and not be responsible for all the crazy stunts he's stagin' here.

But how can you be sorry for him when he says he's glad she croaked?

Aw, nuts!

You don't get nowhere trying to figure his game.

But I know this.

He better lay off of me and my stable.

Oh, jeez, Larry.

What a night them two pigs give me.

When the party went dead,

they pinched a couple of bottles and brung it up to their room.

I don't get a wink of sleep, see?

Just as I'd dropped off on that chair there,

they come down looking for trouble.

Or else they raise hell upstairs, laughin' and singin',

so that I get scared they'd get the joint pinched

and go up to tell 'em to can the noise.

And every time they crawl my frame with the same old argument.

They'd say, "so you agree with hickey, do you, you dirty little Guinea?

So we're whores, are we?

Well, we agree with hickey about you, see.

You're nothin' but a lousy pimp!"

Then I'd slap them.

But it don't do no good.

They keep at it over and over.

Jeez, I get the earache just thinkin' of it.

"Listen," they'd say,

"if we're whores, we got a right to have a regular pimp

and not stand for no punk imitation.

We're sick of wearing out our dogs

poundin' the sidewalks for a double-crossin' bartender,

when all the thanks we get is he looks down on us.

Don't expect us to work tonight 'cause we won't, see,

not if the streets were blocked with sailors.

We're goin' on strike."

Whores goin' on strike. Can you tie that?

They'd say, "we're takin' a holiday.

We're gonna beat it to coney island and shoot the chutes,

and maybe we'll come back and maybe we won't.

And you can go to hell."

So they put on their lids and beat it.

The both of them stinko.

Hey, rocky. Cora wants a Sherry flip for her nerves.

Sherry flip! Christ, she don't need nothin' for her nerve.

What's she think this is, the Waldorf?

Yeah, I told her, what would we use for Sherry?

And there wasn't no egg unless she laid one.

She says, "is there a law you can't go out and buy the makings, you big tramp?"

Aw, the hell with her. She'll drink booze or nothin'.

Oh, jeez.

A guy oughta give his bride anything she wants on her wedding day, I should think.

Ha! Pipe the bridegroom, Larry.

- All dolled up for the killin'. - Shut up.

Ah, one week on that farm in Jersey.

That's what I'll give ya.

Then you'll come running here some night yelling for a shot of booze

because the crickets is after you.

Oh, jeez, Chuck.

That louse hickey certainly made a prize couple of suckers outta youse.

I'd like to give him one sock in the puss.

Just one.

Can that. What's he got to do with it?

Anyway, we said we was gonna, so we're gonna, see.

Don't give me no argument.

If only Cora'd cut out the beefin'.

She don't give me a minute's rest all night.

It's the same old stuff over and over.

Do I really wanna marry her?

I said, "sure, baby. Why not?"

"Yeah," she says, "but after a week, you'll be thinkin' what a sap you was.

You'll make that an excuse to go off on a periodical,

and I'll be tied for life to a no-good soak,

and the first thing I know, you'll have me out hustlin' again.

Your own wifel"

and she bust out cryin', and I'd get sore.

"You're a liar," I tells her.

"I ain't never taken your dough except when I was drunk and not workin'."

"Yeah?" she says, "and how long will you stay sober now?

Don't think you can kid me with that water-wagon bull.

I've heard it too often."

That'd make me sore and I'd say, "don't call me a liar.

But I wish I was drunk right now

because if I was, you wouldn't be keeping me awake all night, beefin'.

You open your yap, I'd knock the stuffings out of you!"

Then she'd yell, "that's a sweet way to talk to the girl you're gonna marry."

Jeez, she's got me hanging on the ropes.

Jeez, would I like to get a quart of that redeye under my belt.

Well, why the hell don't you?

Sure, you'd like that, wouldn't you?

I'm wise to you.

You don't want to see me get married and settle down like a regular guy.

You'd like me to stay paralyzed all the time, so's I'd be like you, a lousy pimp!

Listen, I don't take that even from you, see!

Yeah? You wanna make something of it? Don't make me laugh!

I could lick ten of youse with one mitt!

Not with lead in your belly, you won't!

Hey, rocky and Chuck! Cut it out!

Don't let that hickey make you crazy.

- Keep outta our business! - Stay where you belong, you dirty nigger!

You white sons of bitches! I'll rip your guts out!

That's it! Murder each other, you damned loons, with hickey's blessing!

Didn't I tell you he'd brought death with him?

All right, you. Let go of that shiv.

And I'll put this gat away.

Hello, little people!

Never mind!

Soon you will eat hot dogs

beneath the Willow trees

and drink free wine.

The champagne was not properly iced.

Goddamned liar hickey!

Does that prove I want to be aristocrat?

I love only the proletariat.

I will lead them.

I will be like a god to them!

They will be my slaves!

I'm very drunk, no, Larry?

I talk foolishness.

I'm so drunk, Larry, old friend, am I not? I don't know what I say.

I've never seen you so paralyzed.

Lay your head on the table and sleep it off.

Yeah.

I should sleep.

I'm too crazy drunk.

You're right, Larry.

Bad luck come in the door the day hickey come.

I'm an old gambling man,

and I knows bad luck when I feels it.

But it's white man's bad luck.

He can't jinx me.

The bread's cut, and I done finished my job.

Now do I get the drink I earned?

Here's the key to my room.

I ain't coming back!

I'm going to my own folks where I belong.

I'm sick and tired of messing around with white men.

What the hell!

I'm only saving you the trouble, white boy!

Now you don't have to break it soon as my back's turned,

so's no white man can kick about drinkin' from the same glass.

I'm tired of loafin' around with a lot of bums.

I'm a gambling man.

I'm gonna get in a big crap game and win me a big bankroll.

Then I gets the okay to open up my own gambling house for colored men.

And then maybe I comes back here sometimes

to see the bums.

And maybe I'll throws a $20 bill down on the bar

and says, "drink it up”

and listen when they all pat me on the back

and say, "Joe, you sure is white."

But I'll say, "no, I'm black, and my dough is black man's dough,

and you's proud to drink with me or you don't get no drink!"

Or maybe I just says, "you can all go to hell.

I don't lower myself drinkin' with no white trash."

And that ain't no pipe dream.

I'll get the money for my stake today, somewhere, somehow.

If I have to borrow a gun and stick up some white man, I gets it!

You wait and see.

Can you beat the nerve of that dinge?

Jeez, if I wasn't dressed up, I'd go out and mop up the street with him.

Oh, let him go. The poor old dope.

Him and his gambling house.

He'll be back tonight, asking Harry for his room

and bummin' me for a ball.

Then I'll be the one to smash the glass.

I'll learn him his place.

Another guy all dolled up.

Got your clothes from solly's, huh, Willie?

Now you can sell it back to him again tomorrow.

No, I-I'm through with that stuff.

You look sick, Willie. Here. Take a ball. Pick you up.

No, thanks.

The only way to stop is to stop.

I'd have no chance if I went to the da's office smelling of booze.

You're really going there?

I said I was, didn't I?

I just came back here to rest for a few minutes.

I'll show that cheap drummer.

I don't need to have any Dutch courage.

Well, he's, uh... He's been very kind and generous,

staking me.

You know, my... my legs are a bit shaky.

I'd better sit down a while.

Here's another one.

Hey, good morning, gentlemen, all.

And a jolly good morning it is too.

An eye-opener? I think not, rocky, old chum.

Uh, not required, you know.

Feel extremely fit, as a matter of fact.

Can't say that I slept much though, thanks to that interfering ass hickey

and that stupid bounder of a boer.

I-I've had about all I can take from that fellow.

Oh, well. It's my own fault, I suppose,

for allowing a brute of a Dutch farmer to become familiar.

Well, it's come to a parting of the ways.

And jolly good riddance.

Oh, that reminds me.

Here's my key.

I shan't be coming back.

Sorry to be leaving good old Harry and the rest of you, of course,

but I-I simply cannot continue to live under the same roof with that fellow.

So hickey's kidded the pants off of you too?

You think you're leaving here, huh?

Ja.

That's what he kids himself.

Yes, I'm leaving, rocky.

Not that that ass hickey has anything to do with it.

B-been thinking things over, you know.

Time I turned over a new leaf.

He's gonna get a job. That's what he says.

What at, for chrissake?

Oh, anything. Not manual labor, of course.

Uh, anything that calls for a bit of brains and education.

I'll see a pal of mine at the consulate.

He promised me whenever I felt an energetic fit,

he'd get me a post with the cunard.

Uh, clerk in the office or something of that kind.

Ja, at limey consulate, they promise anything to get rid of him,

when he comes there drunk.

They're scared to call the police and have him pinched

because it would scandal in the papers make

about limey officer and gentleman.

I only need the post temporarily, rocky.

Means to an end, you know.

Save enough for a passage... Uh, first-class passage home.

That's the bright idea.

Ha! He's sailing back to home sweet home.

That's biggest pipe dream of all.

What little brain the poor limey has left that isn't in whiskey pickled,

hickey has made crazy.

Hickey ain't made no sucker out of you, huh?

You're too foxy, huh?

But I bet you think you're goin' out and landing a job too.

I am, ja!

For me it is easy because I put on no airs of gentleman.

I'm not ashamed to work with my hands.

I was a farmer before the war

when bloody limey thieves steal my country.

Anyone I ask for job can see with one look

I have the great strength to do work of ten ordinary mens.

Yes, you remember, Chuck, he gave us a demonstration

of his extraordinary muscles last night

when he helped to move the piano.

You couldn't even hold up your corner.

It was your fault the damn box almost fell over.

My hands were sweaty.

Could I help that my hands slip?

I could the whole weight of it lift.

In old days in transvaal, I lift loaded oxcart by the axle.

So, why shouldn't I get job?

That longshoreman boss, Dan,

he tell me anytime I like,

he take me on.

And Benny from the market, he promise me same.

You remember, rocky, it was one of those rare occasions

when the boor that walks like a man...

Spelled with a double-o, by the way...

Was buying drinks when Dan and Ben were stony.

They'd have promised him the bloody moon.

Yeah, you big boob. Them birds was only kidding you.

That's lie! You will see. This morning I get job.

I'll show that bloody limey gentleman

and that liar hickey.

And I need work only little while

to save money for my passage home.

I need not much money because I am not ashamed to travel steerage.

I don't put on first-cabin airs!

Und I can go home to my country!

When I get there, they will let me come in!

There was a rumor in South Africa

that a certain boer officer...

If you can call the leaders of a rabble of Dutch farmers officers...

He kept advising cronjé to retreat

and not stand and fight.

And I was right. I was right.

He got surrounded at paardeberg.

He had to surrender.

Good strategy, no doubt.

But a suspicion grew afterwards

into a conviction among the boers

that the officer's caution was prompted

by a desire for his personal escape.

His countrymen were extremely savage about it.

And his family disowned him.

So I imagine there won't be any welcoming committee waiting on the dock,

n-nor any delighted relatives making the veldt ring

with their happy cries of "welcome home, general!"

All lies, you goddamned limey!

I also have heard rumors of a limey officer

who, after the war, lost all his money gambling

when he was drunk.

But they found out it was regiment money too he lost!

- Why, you bloody Dutch so... - Cut it out!

Let him come!

I saw them come before

at modder river, magersfontein,

spion kopje,

waving their silly swords,

so afraid they couldn't show how brave they was!

And I killed them with mein rifle so easy!

Listen to me, you Cecil!

Often when I'm drunk and kidding you,

I say I'm sorry I missed you.

But now, by god, I am sober,

and I don't joke, and I say...

You can't say hickey hasn't got the miraculous touch to raise the dead

when he can start the boer war raging again!

Yes, well, I-it's time I was on my merry way.

Early bird catches the job, what!

Uh, good... good-bye and good luck, rocky.

And the rest of you.

By god.

If that limey can go,

I can go.

Well, why don't you beat it?

Uh... uh... _eh?

Oh, just... just been thinking.

Hardly the decent thing to push off without saying good-bye to old Harry.

One of the best, old Harry. And good old Jimmy.

Th-they ought to be down very soon.

Oh, I'm... I'm sorry.

I seem to be blocking your way out.

No, I-I will wait

to say good-bye to Harry too.

Jeez, can you beat them simps?

Hell, I forgot Cora. She'll be throwin' a fit!

That's right. Wait on her and spoil her, you poor sap!

Look here, parritt. I'd like to have a talk with you.

- About what? - About the trouble you're in.

I know, I know. You don't admit it, and you're quite right.

That's my advice. Deny everything.

Say, what the hell are you accusing me of?

Make no statements whatever without consulting your attorney.

Keep your mouth shut. Look, you can trust me. I'm a lawyer.

And it's occurred to me that you and I ought to cooperate.

Of course, I'm going to see the da this morning about a job on his staff.

But, uh, that may take time.

There may not be an immediate opening.

And meanwhile, it, um, would be a good idea

for me to take a case or two on my own,

just to prove that my brilliant record in law school

was no flash in the pan.

So, why not retain me as your attorney?

You're crazy. What do I want with a lawyer?

Yeah, that's right. Don't admit anything.

But you can trust me, so let's not beat about the bush.

You got in trouble out on the coast, huh?

Now, you're in hiding. Any fool can spot that.

Y-you feel safe here, and maybe you are, for a while.

But remember, they get you in the end.

I know, from my father's experience.

Nobody could have felt safer than he did.

When anybody mentioned the law to him, he nearly died laughing.

- But... - You crazy mutt.

You hear that, Larry?

This damn fool thinks the cops are after me.

I wish to god they were.

And so should you, if you had the honor of a louse.

You're the guy who kids himself he's through with the movement.

You're still in love with it.

You're not in trouble, parritt? I was hoping... never mind.

No... no offense meant, parritt.

That's all right, Willie.

I'm not sore at you. It's that damned yellow faker that gets my goat.

I think I understand, Larry. It's really mother you still love.

Isn't it?

In spite of that dirty deal she gave you.

What the hell did you expect?

She was never true to anyone but herself and the movement.

But, Larry, I can understand how you still can't help feeling...

See, because I still love her too.

So, you see, I couldn't have expected they'd catch her, Larry.

You gotta believe me that I only sold 'em out

to get a few lousy dollars to blow on a whore.

There's no other reason, honest.

For the love of Christ, will you leave me in peace!

If you don't keep still,

you'll be saying something soon that'll make you vomit your own soul

like a drink of nickel rotgut that won't stay down!

- Larry, don't go! You gotta help me! - Set 'em up, rocky.

I swore I'd have no more drinks on hickey if I died of drought,

but I changed my mind.

B'god, he owed it to me.

I'd be blind to the world now

if it was the iceman of death himself treating.

What made me say that, I wonder.

Well, b'god, it fits,

for death was the iceman that hickey called to his home.

Oh, forget the iceman gag.

The poor dame is dead.

Go on and get paralyzed.

I'll be glad to see one bum in this dump act natural.

Come and sit here, Mac.

You're just the man I want to see.

If I'm to take your case, we ought to have a talk before we leave.

There'll be no talk. You damned fool.

Do you think I'd have your father's son for my lawyer?

- Mmm. - They'd take one look at you

and bounce us both out on our necks.

I don't need a lawyer anyway.

Hell with the law.

All I've got to do is see the right ones,

get them to pass the word.

They will too.

They know I was framed.

And once the word is passed,

it's as good as done, law or no law!

Here's my key, rocky.

I'd rather sleep in the gutter

than spend another night under the same roof as that drummer.

- Son of a drummer. - All you birds give me a pain.

It'd serve you right if I wouldn't give the keys back to you tonight.

Hello, everybody!

Here we go!

Oh.

Well, h-hickey just told us, ain't it time we beat it,

if we was really going.

So we're showing the bastard, ain't we, honey?

He's coming right down with Harry and Jimmy.

Jeez.

Them two look like they was going to the electric chair.

Whoa. Well, let's get going, honey, before he comes down.

- Sure. Anything you say, baby. - Yeah?

Well, I say we stop at the first regular dump,

and you gotta blow me to a Sherry flip... Or four or five, if I want 'em.

- Or all bets is off. - You got a fine bun on now.

Oh, cheapskate.

Here, use my money then if you're so stingy.

You'll grab it all anyways right after the ceremony.

I know you.

Here, you big tramp.

Keep your lousy dough,

and don't show your legs off to these bums when you're gonna be married,

if you don't want a sock in the puss!

All right, honey.

Say, why don't all you barflies come to the weddin'?

Well, we're going, guys.

Say, rocky, are you going deef?

I said me and Chuck was goin' now.

Well, good-bye. Give my love to Jersey.

Well, ain't you even gonna wish us happiness, you dirty little Guinea?

Sure.

Here's hopin' you don't murder each other before next week.

Baby, what do we care for that pimp?

- I think he's lying, Jimmy. - Here's hickey coming.

Let's get out of here.

Grab his arm, Jimmy.

Well, here we are.

We got this far at least.

Good work, Jimmy.

I told you you weren't half as sick as you pretended to be.

No excuse whatsoever for postponing, now.

Will you kindly keep your hands to yourself?

I merely mentioned I would feel more fit tomorrow.

But...

It might as well be today, I suppose.

Finish it now so it'll be dead forever and you'll be free.

Now, cheer up, Harry.

You notice your rheumatism didn't bother you coming down the stairs, did you?

You're the damnedest one for alibis, governor.

I can't hear you.

You're a liar! I've had rheumatism on and off for 20 years.

Ever since bessie died.

We all know it's the kind of rheumatism you turn on and off.

We're on to you, you old faker.

B'jeez! What are all you bums hanging around, staring at me for?

Why don't you get the hell out of here and tend to your own business,

like hickey's told you!

Yes, Harry, I certainly thought they would have had the guts

to have been gone by this time.

Or maybe I did have my doubts.

'Cause I know exactly what you're up against, boys.

I know you turn into such a coward,

that you'll grab at any lousy excuse not to kill your pipe dreams.

And yet, as I've said over and over again,

it's exactly those damned lying tomorrow dreams

that keep you from making peace with yourself.

So you've gotta kill them, like I did mine.

Well, come on, boys. Get moving.

Well, who's gonna start the ball rolling?

Well, you, captain, and you, general. You're nearest the door.

And besides, you're old war heroes. You ought to lead this forlorn hope.

Show us a little of that old battle of modder river spirit

we've heard so much about.

You can't hang around here all day

looking like you were scared the street outside would bite you.

Right you are, Mr. nosy bloody Parker.

Time I pushed off.

I was only waiting to say good-bye to you, Harry, old chum.

Good-bye, captain. Hope you have luck.

Oh, I'm bound to, old chap, and the same to you.

By god, if that limey can, I can.

Well, next?

Come on, Mac.

It's a fine summer's day.

That's the stuff, Mac.

Good-bye, Harry. Thanks for all your kindness.

That's the way, Willie.

Oh, the da's a busy man, Willie.

You can't keep him waiting all day, you know.

Good luck, Willie.

Now it's your turn, Jimmy, old pal.

Jimmy.

You can't do that to yourself, Jimmy, old pal.

One drink on top of your hangover on an empty stomach, you'll be orey-eyed.

Tomorrow. I'll be in good shape tomorrow.

All right. I'm going.

Take your hands off me!

Dirty swine!

All set for an alcohol rub now.

Ah.

No hard feelings.

I know how he feels.

I wrote the book.

I've seen the day, if anybody forced me to face the truth about my pipe dreams,

I'd have shot 'em dead.

Well, governor.

Jimmy made the grade. Now it's your turn.

Leave Harry alone. Damn you.

I'd make up my mind about myself, if I were you, Larry,

and not bother over Harry.

He doesn't need anyone's bum pity. Do you, governor?

No, b'jeez.

Keep your nose out of this, Larry.

I've always been going to take this walk, ain't I?

You bums want to keep me locked up in here as if I was in jail.

Well, I've stood it long enough.

I'll do as I damned please, b'jeez.

You keep your nose out too, hickey.

B'jeez, you'd think you was the boss of this dump, and not me.

What the hell's to be scared of?

Sure, I'm all right.

Just taking a stroll around my own ward.

What's the weather like outside, rocky?

Fine day, boss.

What's that? I can't hear you.

Don't look fine to me.

Looks as if it'd pour down cats and dogs any minute.

My rheumatis... oh! Must be my eyes.

Half blind, b'jeez.

Makes things look black. I see now it's a fine day.

Too damned hot for a walk though, if you ask me, yeah.

Well, do me good to sweat the booze out of me.

But I'll have to watch out for the damned automobiles.

Wasn't none of them around the last time.

From what I've seen through the window,

they'd run over you as soon as look at you.

Well, so long.

Well, b'jeez, where are you, hickey? It's time we got started.

No, no, Harry. Can't be done. You gotta keep a date with yourself alone.

Hell of a guy you are.

Thought you'd be willing to help me across the street, seeing I'm half blind.

Half deef too. I can't hear those damned automobiles.

Oh, the hell with you!

I've never needed no one's help and I don't now.

I'll take a good long walk now I've started.

See all my old friends. B'jeez, they must have given me up for dead.

They know it was grief over bessie's death that made me...

Well, sooner I get started...

You know, hickey, that's what gets me.

I can't help thinking that the last time I went out

was to bessie's funeral.

After she'd gone, I didn't feel life was worth living.

I can't feel it's right for me to go, even now, hickey.

It's like I was doing wrong to her memory.

Now, governor, you can't let yourself get away with that one anymore.

What's that? I can't hear you.

B'jeez, I remember as clear as day

the last time before she...

It was a fine Sunday morning.

We went out to church together.

It's a great act, governor, but I know better, and so do you.

You never did want to go to church or any place else with her.

She was always on your neck, wanting you to have ambition and go out and do things,

when all you wanted to do was to get drunk in peace.

Can't hear a word you're saying.

You're a goddamned liar anyway!

B'jeez, you son of a bitch.

If there was a mad dog out there,

I'd go and shake hands with it rather than stay here with you.

Jesus! He made it!

I'd have give you 50-to-1 he'd never...

Oh-ho. He's stopped.

I'll bet you he's comin' back.

Of course he's coming back.

By tonight they'll all be here again, you dumbbell. That's the whole point.

No, he ain't neither! He's gone to the curb.

He's lookin' up and down. Scared stiff of automobiles.

There ain't more than two an hour comes down this street, the old boob!

B'jeez, give me a drink, quick.

Scared me out of a year's growth.

B'jeez, that guy oughta be pinched!

B'jeez, it ain't safe to walk in the streets. Give me that bottle.

- You seen it, didn't you, rocky? - Seen what?

That automobile, you dumb wop!

Fella driving it must be drunk or crazy.

He'd have run right over me if I hadn't have jumped.

Larry, have a drink. Come on. Everybody have a drink.

Have a cigar, rocky. I know you hardly touch it.

This is one time I do touch it!

I'm gonna get stinko, see!

Well, jeez, Harry!

I thought you had some guts!

I was bettin' you'd make it and show that four-flusher up.

Automobile, hell! Who do you think you're kiddin'?

There was no automobile! You just quit cold.

I guess I ought to know. B'jeez, it almost killed me.

Now, now, governor, don't be foolish.

You've faced the test and you've come through.

You're rid of that nagging dream stuff now.

You know you can't believe it anymore.

You saw it, didn't you, Larry?

Have a drink. Have another. Have all you want.

We'll go on a grand old souse together.

You saw that automobile, didn't you?

Sure, I saw it, Harry. You had a narrow escape.

B'god, I thought you were a goner.

What the hell are you doing, Larry?

Remember what I told you about the wrong kind of pity. Now leave him alone.

You'd think I was trying to harm him, the fool way you act.

Why, there isn't anything I wouldn't do for Harry, and he knows it.

All I wanted was to fix it so he'd finally be at peace with himself.

If you'll just wait till the final returns are in,

that's exactly what I've accomplished.

Come on, governor.

What's the use of being stubborn now that it's over and dead?

- Give up that ghost automobile. - Yeah.

What's the use now?

It's all a lie.

No automobile.

B'jeez, something ran over me.

Must have been myself, I guess.

Guess I'll sit down.

Feel all in.

Like a corpse, b'jeez.

Hello, Hugo.

Coming up for air?

Oh, stay passed out. That's the right dope.

There ain't any cool Willow trees,

except you grow your own in a bottle.

Hello, Harry.

Stupid proletarian monkey face.

I will drink champagne

beneath the wil...

But the slaves must ice it properly!

Goddamned hickey!

Peddler pimp for nouveau riche capitalism!

When I lead the jackass mob to the sack of Babylon,

I will make them hang him to the first lamppost!

Good work.

I'll help pull the rope.

Have a drink, Hugo.

Uh, no, thank you.

I'm too crazy drunk.

I hear myself say crazy things.

Do not listen, please.

Larry will tell you, I have never been so crazy drunk.

I must sleep it off.

What's the matter, Harry? You look funny.

You look dead!

What's happened? I don't know you.

Listen,

I feel I'm dying too

because I'm so crazy drunk.

I can't sleep here with you. You look dead!

Another one who's begun to enjoy your peace.

Oh, I know it's rough on him right now. Same as it is on Harry.

But that's just the first shock.

I promise you they'll both be all right.

And you believe that?

I see you do, you mad fool.

Of course, I believe it.

I know from my own experience.

And now it's my turn, I suppose.

What is it I'm to do to achieve this blessed peace of yours?

Well, we've discussed all of that, Larry.

Just stop lying to yourself.

You think when I say I'm finished with life

and tired of watching the stupid greed of the human circus

and I'll welcome closing my eyes in the long sleep of death,

you think that's a coward"s lie?

Well, what do you think?

I'm afraid to live, am I?

And even more afraid to diel

so I sit here, with my pride drowned on the bottom of a bottle,

keeping drunk so I won't see myself shaking in my britches with fright,

or hear myself whining and praying,

beloved Christ, let me live a little longer at any price.

If it's only for a few days more, or a few hours even,

have mercy, almighty god,

and let me still clutch greedily to my yellow heart

this sweet treasure, this Jewel beyond price,

this dirty, stinking bit of withered old flesh

which is my beautiful little life.

You think you'll make me admit that to myself?

But you just did admit it, didn't you?

That's the stuff, hickey.

Show that old yellow faker up. He can't play dead on me like this.

Yes, you're gonna have to settle with him, Larry.

I'm leaving you entirely in his hands.

And he'll do as good a job as I could

at making you give up the old grandstand bluff.

Close that big clam of yours, hickey.

B'jeez, you're a worse gabber than that nagging bitch bessie was.

Jeez! Did you hear that?

What's wrong with this booze?

There's no kick in it.

Jeez, Larry. Hugo had it right.

He does look like he croaked.

Don't be a damned fool. He's all right.

It's just the first shock.

You are all right, aren't you, Harry?

I... I want to pass out like Hugo.

It's the peace of death you've brought him.

That's a lie.

Well, well, you did manage to get a rise out of me that time, didn't you?

That's just plain damned foolishness.

Look at me. I've been through it. Do I look dead?

Just leave Harry alone. Give him time.

It's the first shock. He'll be all right.

He'll be a new man, like I am.

How's it coming, governor?

Beginning to feel free, aren't you?

Relieved and not guilty anymore?

Mmm, b'jeez.

You must have been monkeying with the booze too,

you interfering bastard.

There's no life in it now.

I want to get drunk and pass out.

I'll admit I didn't think it'd hit him so hard.

He's always been such a happy-go-lucky slob, like I was.

Well, it hit me hard too, but only for a minute.

But then I felt as if a ton of guilt had been lifted off my mind.

And I saw what had happened was the only possible way

for the peace of all concerned.

What was it happened?

Tell us that.

And don't try to get out of it. I want a straight answer!

I-I think it's something you drove someone else to do.

Someone else?

What did your wife die of?

You've kept that a deep secret.

That's not very considerate of you, Larry,

but if you insist on knowing now, there's no reason you shouldn't.

It was a bullet through the head that killed poor Evelyn.

Who... who the hell cares?

To hell with her and that nagging old hag bessie.

Christ. You had the right dope, Larry.

You drove your poor wife to suicide?

I knew it.

B'god, I don't blame her. I'd almost do the same thing myself to get rid of you.

It's what you'd like to drive us all to...

I'm sorry, hickey. I'm sorry.

I'm a rotten louse to throw that in your face.

Oh, that's all right, Larry.

But don't jump to conclusions.

I didn't say poor Evelyn committed suicide.

That's the last thing she'd have done,

while I was still alive so she could take care of me and forgive me.

No, if you'd known her at all, you'd never have such a crazy suspicion.

No, I'm sorry to tell you my poor wife was killed.

She was murdered?

You're a liar, Larry!

You must be crazy to say that to me. You know damn well she's still alive.

Murdered? Who done it?

Shut up, you dumb wop. It's none of our damn business. Leave him alone.

Still the old grandstand bluff?

Or just some more bum pity?

The police don't know who killed her yet, rocky,

but I expect they will before very long.

How's it coming, governor?

Getting over the first shock?

Beginning to feel free of guilt and lying hopes

and at peace with yourself?

Somebody croaked your Evelyn, eh?

B'jeez, my bets are on the iceman.

But who the hell cares?

Let's get drunk and pass out.

B'jeez, what did you do to the booze, hickey?

There's no damned life left in it.

Larry, don't look like that.

You gotta believe what I'm telling you!

It had nothing to do with her! It was just for a few lousy dollars! Honest!

Don't be a fool. Buy me a drink!

But no more wine!

It is not properly iced!

You goddamned stupid proletarian slaves!

Buy me a drink or I'll have you shot!

Please, for god's sake!

I'm not drunk enough!

I cannot sleep!

Life is a crazy monkey face!

Always there's blood beneath the Willow trees!

I hate it!

I'm afraid.

Oh, please. Please. Please.

I'm too crazy drunk.

I say crazy things.

Oh, for god's sake,

do not listen to Mel

do not listen to me!

I'm afraid.

You're beginning to worry me, governor.

Something's holding you up somewhere, but I don't see why.

You've faced the truth about yourself.

You've done what you had to do to kill your nagging pipe dreams.

Oh, I know it knocks you cold.

But only for a minute.

Then you'll see it was the only possible way to peace.

Then you'll feel happy, like I did.

That's what worries me about you, governor.

It's time you began to feel happy.

Come on, you damn nigger.

Beat it in the backroom. It's after hours.

Aw, to hell with it. Let the dump get pinched.

I'm through with this lousy job anyway.

Huh. Been scrappin', huh?

Started off on your periodical, ain't you?

- Yeah. Ain't you glad? - I'm out on my feet holdin' down your job.

You said if I'd take your day, you'd relieve me at 6:00.

And here it's half past 1:00 A.M.

Well, you're takin' over now, get me?

- No matter how plastered you are! - Ah, plastered.

Hell, I wish I was. I lapped up a gallon, but it don't hit me right.

And to hell with the job. I'm gonna tell Harry I'm quittin'.

Well, I'm quittin' too.

I've played sucker for that crummy blonde long enough,

lettin' her kid me into workin'.

- From now on I take it easy. - I'm glad you're gettin' some sense.

I hope you're gettin' some.

What a prize sap you been,

tendin' bar when you got two good hustlers in your stable.

Yeah, but I ain't no sap now.

I'll learn 'em when they get back from coney.

Jeez, that Cora sure played you for a dope,

feedin' you that marriage-on-a-farm hop.

Yeah, hickey got it right. A lousy pipe dream.

It was her pulling Sherry flips on me woke me up.

Walkin' to the ferry, every gin mill we come to, she'd drag me in to blow her.

I got thinkin', what won't she want

when she gets that ring on her finger and I'm hooked?

So I tells her at the ferry,

"kiddo, you can go to Jersey or to hell, but count me out."

She said it was her told you to go to hell

because you'd start hittin' the booze.

I got thinkin' too, jeez, won't I look sweet

with a wife that if you put all the guys she's stayed with side by side,

they'd reach to Chicago.

That kind of dame, you can't trust 'em.

The minute your back is turned, they're cheatin' with the iceman or someone.

Hickey done me a favor, makin' me wake up.

Only it was fun, kinda, me and Cora kiddin' ourselves.

Say, where is that son of a bitch, hickey?

I want one good sock at the guy... just one...

And the next buttin' in he'll do will be in the morgue.

- I'll take a chance on goin' to the chair! - Sit down!

Keep away from him, Chuck! He ain't here now anyway.

He went out to phone, he said. I got a hunch he beat it.

But if he does come back, you don't know him, if anyone asks you, get me?

The chair... maybe that's where he's goin'.

I don't know nothin', see, but it looks like he croaked his wife.

You mean she really was cheatin' on him? Then I don't blame the guy.

- Who's blamin' him? - Is any of the gang wise?

Larry is. And the boss oughta be.

I tried to wise the rest of them to stay clear of him,

but they're all so licked, I don't know if they got it.

Oh, I don't give a damn what he done to his wife,

but if he gets the hot seat, I won't go into no mournin'.

Me neither.

Not after his throwin' it in my face I'm a pimp.

What if I am? And what's he done to Harry?

Jeez, the poor old slob is so licked, he can't even get drunk.

And all the gang.

I couldn't help feelin' sorry for the poor bums

when they showed up tonight, one by one,

lookin' like pooches with their tails between their legs

that everyone'd been kickin' till they were too punch-drunk to feel it no more.

Jimmy tomorrow was the last.

Schwartz, the copper, brung him in.

Seen him sittin' on the dock on west street,

lookin' at the water and cryin'.

Schwartz thought he was drunk, and I let him think it.

But he was cold sober.

He was tryin' to jump in and didn't have the nerve, I figured it.

Jeez, there ain't enough guts left in the whole gang to battle a mosquito.

Aw, to hell with them. Who cares? Give me a drink.

I see you been hittin' the red-eye too.

Yeah. But it don't do no good. I can't get drunk right.

This dirty dinge was able to get his snootful and pass out.

Jeez, even hickey can't faze a nigger.

You'd think he was fazed if you'd seen him come in.

Stinko, and he pulled a gat and said he'd plug hickey for insultin' him.

Then he dropped it and began to cry

and said he wasn't a gamblin' man or a tough guy no more.

He got drunk panhandlin' drinks in nigger joints, I suppose.

I guess they felt sorry for him.

He ain't got no business in a bar after hours. Why don't you Chuck him out?

Aw, to hell with it. Who cares?

Yeah, I don't.

Excuse me, white boys.

I don't want to be where I'm not wanted.

My pig's in the backroom, ain't she?

I wanna collect the dough I wouldn't take this mornin', like a sucker,

before she blows it.

I'm comin' too.

I'm waitin', baby. Dig.

Yeah. I been expectin' you. I got it all ready. Here.

Jeez, imagine me kiddin' myself I wanted to marry a drunken pimp.

That's nothin', baby.

Imagine what a sap I'd have been

when I can get your dough just as easy without it.

Hello, old cemetery.

Hello, tightwad.

You still around?

Ask Larry.

He knows I'm here, all right, although he's pretending not to.

He'd like to forget I'm alive.

He's trying to kid himself with that grandstand philosopher stuff.

But he knows he can't get away with that now.

He kept himself locked up in his room until a while ago,

alone with a bottle of booze.

He couldn't make it work. He couldn't even get drunk.

So he had to come out.

There must have been something up there he was even more scared to face

than he is me and hickey.

I guess he got looking at the fire escape...

Thinking how handy it was if he was really sick of life

and only had the nerve to die.

And he's been thinking about me too, rocky.

He's gotta figure a way to get out of helping me.

He loved her too, so he thinks I oughta take a hop off the fire escape.

For god's sake, can't you say something?

Larry.

Larry?

Thinking of what hickey must have done

has got me so I don't know anymore what I did or why.

I can't go on like this.

I gotta know what I gotta do.

Goddamn you! Are you trying to make me your executioner?

Executioner.

- Then you think I... - I don't think anything.

I... I suppose you think I ought to die, huh?

Because I sold out a lot of loudmouthed fakers?

Hal

don't make me laugh. I oughta get a medal.

Oh, you old sap!

You must still believe in the movement.

Hickey's right about him, isn't he, rocky?

An old, no-good drunken tramp, as dumb as he is,

oughta take a hop off the fire escape.

Sure. Why don't he?

Or you? Or me?

Oh, what the hell's the difference? Who cares?

What am I doin' here with youse two?

I remember I had something on my mind to tell you. What?

Oh, I got it now.

I was thinking how you was both regular guys.

I'm thinking, ain't two guys like them saps

to be hangin' around like a couple of stew bums and wastin' themselves?

What do you think, parritt?

You ain't a bad-looking guy.

You could easy make some gal who's a good hustler and start a stable.

I'd help you and wise you up to the inside dope on the game.

Well, what about it?

What if they do call you a pimp?

I don't want anything to do with whores. I wish they were all in jail or dead.

All right. Stay a bum.

How 'bout you, Larry?

You ain't dumb. Sure, you're old.

But that don't matter. All the girls think you're aces.

They fall for you like you were their uncle or old man or somethin'.

They like takin' care of you.

And the cops around here, they like you too.

You wouldn't have to worry where the next drink's comin' from or wear dirty clothes.

Well? Don't it look good to you?

No, it doesn't look good, rocky.

I mean, the peace hickey's brought you.

It isn't contented enough, if you have to make a pimp of everyone else.

I'm a sap to waste time on you.

A stew bum is a stew bum.

Oh, like I was sayin' to Chuck,

if anyone asks you, you don't know nothin' about hickey, get me?

You never even heard he had a wife.

Oh, jeez.

We all oughta get drunk and stage a celebration

when that bastard goes to the chair.

B'god, I'll celebrate with you and drink to his long, long life in hell.

That poor devil.

Ah, that's pity. The wrong kind.

He'll welcome the chair.

Yes. What are you so damned scared about death for?

I don't want your lousy pity.

I hope he don't come back, Larry.

We don't know nothin' now.

We're only guessin', see?

But if that bastard keeps on talking...

He'll come back, and he'll keep on talking.

He's lost his confidence that the peace he's sold us is the real McCoy,

and it's made him uneasy about his own.

- He'll have to prove... - That's a damned lie, Larry.

I haven't lost confidence.

When I made up my mind to sell someone something I thought they oughta want,

I've sold 'em.

I mean, I don't think it's very kind of you to make that kind of a crack

when I've been doing my best to help.

Keep away from me, will ya.

I don't know nothin' about you, see?

Well, how's it coming, everybody?

I'm sorry I had to leave you for a while,

but there was something I had to get finally settled.

It's all fixed now.

When are you gonna do something about this booze, hickey?

We can't pass out, and you promised us peace.

For god's sake, Harry, are you still harping on that damned nonsense?

You kept it up all afternoon and night!

And you got everybody else singing the same crazy tune!

I've had about all I can stand. That's why I phoned.

Excuse me, boys and girls. I don't mean that.

It's just that I worry about you when you play dead on me like this.

I was hoping by the time I got back, you'd be like you ought to be.

I thought you were deliberately holding back on me before, when I was here,

because you didn't wanna give me the satisfaction

of showin' me that I had the right dope.

And I did have. I know from my own experience.

But I've explained that a million times.

And you've all done what you needed to do.

By rights, you should be contented with yourself

and free from lying hopes and nagging dreams that torment you.

But here you are, sitting around like a lot of stiffs cheating the undertaker!

I can't figure it.

Unless it's just your damned stubborn pigheadedness.

Ah, hell.

Don't act like this with me, gang.

You're my old pals, the only friends I've got.

You know, the one thing I want is to see you happy before I go.

There's damned little time left now.

I made a date for two o'clock.

So we've gotta get busy right away and find out what's wrong.

Can't you appreciate what you've got, for god's sake?

Don't you see you're free to be yourselves now

without feeling remorse or guilt,

or having to lie to yourselves about reforming tomorrow?

Don't you see there is no tomorrow now?

You're rid of it forever. You've killed it.

You don't have to care a damn about anything anymore.

You've finally got the game of life licked. Don't you see that?

Then why the hell don't you get drunk and sing "sweet Adeline"?

Why don't you laugh and celebrate and get pie-eyed?

Ah.

The only reason I can think of is you're putting on this rotten half-dead act

just to get back at me, 'cause you hate my guts.

God, don't do that, gang.

It makes me feel like hell to think that you hate me.

It makes me feel that you suspected that I hated you.

But that is a lie!

I used to hate everybody in the world that wasn't as rotten a bastard as I was.

But that was when I was still living in hell,

before I faced the truth...

And saw the one possible way to free poor Evelyn

and give her the peace that she'd always dreamed about.

Aw, put a bag over it!

To hell with Evelyn. What if she was cheatin'?

And who cares what you did to her? That's your funeral.

We don't give a damn, see?

All we want outta you is keep the hell away from us and give us a rest!

The one possible way to make up to her for all I'd made her go through,

and get her rid of me so I couldn't make her suffer anymore,

and she wouldn't have to forgive me again.

I saw I couldn't do it by killing myself, like I'd wanted to for a long time.

That would have been the last straw for her.

She'd have died of a broken heart to think that I could do that to her.

She'd have blamed herself too.

Or I just couldn't run away from her.

She'd have died of grief and humiliation if I'd done that to her.

She'd have thought I'd stopped loving her.

You see,

Evelyn loved me, and I loved her.

That was the trouble.

It would have been easy to find a way out if she hadn't have loved me so much.

Or if I hadn't have loved her.

But as it was, there was only one possible way.

I had to kill her.

Mad fool, can't you keep your mouth shut?

We may hate you for what you've done this time,

but we remember the old times

when you brought laughter and kindness here instead of death.

We don't wanna know things that will make us help send you to the chair!

Shut up! You yellow faker! Can't you face anything?

Wouldn't I deserve the chair too, if I'd...

It's worse if you kill someone and they have to go on living.

I'd be glad of the chair.

It'd wipe it out. It'd square me with myself.

I wish you'd get rid of that bastard, Larry.

I can't have him pretending there's something in common between him and me.

It's what's in your heart that counts.

There was love in my heart, not hate.

You're the liar!

I don't hate her. I couldn't!

And anyway, it had nothing to do with her. You ask Larry.

Goddamn you, stop shoving your rotten soul in my lap!

Don't worry about the chair, Larry.

I know you're still terrified by death,

but when you've made peace with yourself, like I have...

You won't give a damn.

Listen, everybody. I've made up my mind.

The only way I can clear this up for you so you'll realize

how contented and carefree you ought to feel,

now that I've made you get rid of your pipe dreams,

is to show you what a pipe dream did to me and Evelyn.

I'm certain if I tell you about it from the beginning,

you'll appreciate what I've done for you and why I did it

and how damned grateful you ought to be,

instead of hating me.

You see, even as kids, Evelyn and me...

All we want is to pass out and get drunk

and a little peace!

All right, if that's the way you feel.

I don't want to cram it down your throats.

I don't need to tell anyone.

I don't feel guilty. I'm only worried about you.

What did you do to this booze?

That's what we'd like to hear.

Ain't that right, Jimmy?

Yes.

Quite right.

It was all a stupid lie... My nonsense about tomorrow.

Naturally, they would never give me my position back.

And I would never dream of asking them.

I didn't resign. I was fired for drunkenness.

And it was absurd of me to excuse my drunkenness

by pretending it was my wife's adultery that ruined my life.

As hickey guessed,

I was a drunkard before that.

I discovered early in life that living frightened me when I was sober.

I've even forgotten why I married Marjorie.

I had some idea of wanting a home, perhaps.

But, of course, I much preferred the nearest pub.

Why Marjorie married me, god knows.

She soon found out that I much preferred drinking all night with my pals

to being at home in bed with her.

So, naturally, she was unfaithful.

And I was glad to be free,

even grateful to her, I think,

for giving me such a good, tragic excuse.

In the backroom if you want a drink.

Guy named hickman in the backroom?

- Think I know the names... - Listen, you. This is murder.

It was hickman himself phoned in and said we'd find him here around 2:00.

So that's who he phoned to.

Yeah, he's in there.

And if you want a confession, all you gotta do is listen.

You can't stop the bastard talkin'.

I've gotta tell you, your being this way now gets my goat.

And it's all wrong.

It puts things in my mind.

It makes me think that if I got balled up about you,

then how do I know I wasn't balled up about myself?

And that is just plain damned foolishness.

But when you know the story of me and Evelyn,

you'll see it was the only possible way out, for her sake.

Only I've gotta start way back at the beginning.

Otherwise, you won't understand.

You see, even as a kid, I was always restless.

I had to keep on the go.

You've heard the old saying that ministers' sons are sons of guns?

Well, that was me and then some.

Home was like a jail.

Listening to my old man whooping up hellfire

and scaring those hoosier suckers into shelling out their dough

only handed me a laugh,

although I gotta hand it to him,

the way he sold them nothing for something,

I guess I take after him,

and that's what made me a good salesman.

Well, like I said, home was like jail, and so was school,

and so was that damned hick town.

The only places I liked were the pool halls,

where I could smoke sweet caporals and mop up a couple of beers, huh?

Thinking I was a hell-on-wheels sport.

We had one hooker shop in town.

Of course, I liked that too. Not that I hardly ever had the entrance money.

My old man was a tight old bastard.

But I liked to sit around in the parlor and joke with the girls,

and they liked me too 'cause I'd kid 'em along and make 'em laugh.

Well, you know how a small town is.

Everybody got wise to me.

They said I was a no-good tramp. But I didn't give a damn what they said.

I hated everybody in the place.

That is, except Evelyn.

And I loved Evelyn, even as a kid.

And Evelyn loved me.

Larry, I loved mother, no matter what she did. I still do.

Yes, sir, as far back as I can remember,

Evelyn and I loved each other.

She always stood up for me.

She wouldn't believe the gossip, or she pretended she wouldn't.

No one could convince her that I was no good.

Evelyn was stubborn as hell once she'd made up her mind.

Even when I'd admit things and ask her forgiveness,

she'd make excuses for me and defend me against myself.

And she'd kiss me

and she'd say she knew that I wouldn't do it again.

I said that I wouldn't, and I'd promise...

I'd have to promise.

She was so damn sweet and good.

Yet I knew darned well...

No, sir, you couldn't stop Evelyn!

Nothing on earth could shake her faith in me. Even I couldn't.

She was a sucker for a pipe dream.

Well, naturally, her family forbid her seeing me.

They were one of the town's best, rich for that hick burg.

They owned the trolley line and the lumber company.

Strict methodists too.

Oh, did they hate my guts.

Even they couldn't stop Evelyn.

She'd sneak notes to me, and we'd meet on the side.

But I was getting more restless,

and the town was getting more like a jail.

I made up my mind to beat it.

I knew exactly what I wanted to be by that time.

I'd met a lot of drummers around the hotel, and I liked them.

They were always telling jokes, huh?

They were sports. Always on the move. I liked their life.

And I knew I could kid people and sell things.

The hitch was how to get the railroad fare to the big town.

Well, I told Mollie Arlington my trouble.

She was the madam of the cathouse.

She liked me.

She laughed and she said, "hell, I'll stake you, kid. I'll bet on you.

With that grin of yours and that line of bull,

you oughta be able to sell skunks for good ratters."

Yeah, Mollie was all right.

She made me feel confident in myself.

Well, I paid her back too... First money I earned.

I remember sending her a kidding letter saying that I was peddling baby carriages,

and she and the girls had better get in on our bargain offer.

Ho-ho-ho-ho!

That's getting ahead of my story.

That last night before I left town...

I had a date with Evelyn.

I got all worked up.

She was so pretty and sweet and good.

I told her straight.

I said, "you better forget me, Evelyn, for your own sake.

I'm no good, and I never will be."

And I broke down and cried.

And she just said, looking white and scared,

"why, Teddy, don't you still love me?"

And I said, "love you?

God, Evelyn, I love you more than anything in the world, and I always will."

And she said,

"then nothing matters, Teddy.

Because nothing but death can stop my loving you.

So when you're ready, you send for me, and we'll be married.

And I know I can make you happy, Teddy, and when you're happy,

you won't want to do any of those bad things you've done anymore."

And I said, "of course I won't, Evelyn."

And I meant it.

I believed it.

I loved her so much, she could make me believe anything.

You married her, you caught her cheating with the iceman,

and you croaked her.

All we want is to pass out in peace, b'jeez!

So I beat it to the big town.

I got a job easy. It was a cinch for me to make good.

I had the knack. It was like a game, sizing people up quick,

spotting what their pet pipe dreams were,

and then kidding them along that line,

pretending you believed what they wanted to believe about themselves.

Then they liked you, they trusted you,

they wanted to buy something to show their gratitude.

It was fun.

But still, all the while, I felt guilty,

as though I shouldn't be having such a good time away from Evelyn.

In each of my letters, I'd tell her how I missed her, but I'd warn her too.

I'd tell her about my faults,

how I liked my booze every now and then and so on.

But you couldn't shake Evelyn's belief in me

or her dreams about the future.

And then after each one of her letters,

I'd be as full of faith as she was.

So when I got enough saved to start us off, I sent for her, and we got married.

Christ, wasn't I happy for a while!

And wasn't she happy.

I don't care what anybody says.

I'll bet there were never two people who loved each other more than me and Evelyn.

Not only then, but ever afterwards.

In spite of everything I did.

Well, it's all there, at the start...

Everything that happened afterwards.

I never could learn to handle temptation.

I'd want to reform and mean it.

I'd promise her, and I'd promise myself, and I'd believe it.

I'd even tell her, "it's the last time, Evelyn."

And she'd say, "I know it's the last time, Teddy. You'll never do it again."

And that's what made it so hard.

That's what made me feel like such a rotten skunk...

Her always forgiving me.

My playing around with women, for instance.

It was just a harmless good time to me. It didn't mean anything.

But I'd know what it meant to her.

So I'd swear to myself, never again.

But you know how it is, traveling around. Those damn hotel rooms.

You'd get to seeing things in the wallpaper.

I'd get so damned bored, so lonely and homesick.

But at the same time, sick of home.

I'd feel free. I'd want to celebrate a little.

Well, I never drank on the job, so it had to be dames. Any tart.

What I'd want was some tramp that I could be myself with without being ashamed,

someone I could tell a dirty joke to, and she'd laugh.

Jeez!

All the lousy jokes I've had to listen to and pretend was funny.

Sometimes I'd try a joke that I thought was a real corker on Evelyn.

She'd always make herself laugh.

But I could tell she thought it was dirty and not funny.

She always knew about the tarts that I'd been with when I came home from a trip.

She'd kiss me and look in my eyes, and she'd know.

And I could see in her eyes her not wanting to know.

And telling herself, even if it is true, he can't help it.

They tempt him. He's lonely. He hasn't got me.

It's only his body. He doesn't love them. I'm the only one he loves.

And she was right too!

Couldn't if I wanted to.

She forgave me even when it all had to come out in the open.

You know how it is when you keep taking chances.

You may be lucky for a long time, but you get nicked in the end.

I picked up a nail from some tart in altoona.

Yeah, and she picked it up from some guy.

It's all in the game.

I had to do a lot of lying and stalling when I got home,

but it didn't do any good.

The quack I went to got all my dough.

And he told me I was cured, and I believed him.

But I wasn't.

And poor Evelyn.

But she did her best to make me believe that she fell for my lie

about how traveling men get things

from drinking cups... on trains.

Anyway, she forgave me,

the same way she forgave me every time I'd show up after a periodical drunk!

And you all know what I look like after one of those. You saw me.

Like something lying in the gutter that no alley cat would lower himself to drag in,

something they threw out of the dt ward at bellevue along with the garbage,

something that should be dead...

But isn't.

Evelyn wouldn't have heard from me in a month or more.

She'd been waiting there alone...

With the neighbors feeling sorry for her out loud and shaking their heads.

That was until she got me to move to the outskirts...

Where there weren't any next-door neighbors.

Then the door would open.

In I'd stumble...

Looking like what I just said...

Into her home, which she always kept so spotless and clean.

And I'd sworn it would never happen again!

And now I'd have to start swearing again that this was the last time!

I could see disgust having a battle in her eyes with love.

But love always won.

She'd make herself kiss me...

As though nothing had happened...

As though I'd just come home from a business trip.

She'd never complain or bawl me out.

Christ, can you imagine what a guilty skunk she made me feel!

If only once she admitted that her pipe dream about tomorrow

and my behaving myself would never be any good,

but she wouldn't!

She was stubborn as hell.

Once she'd set her mind on anything,

you couldn't shake her faith that it had to come through tomorrow!

Well, it was the same old story

over and over, for years and years.

It kept piling up, inside her and inside me.

God, can you picture what I made her suffer,

and all the guilt that she made me feel,

and how I hated myself?

If she only hadn't been so damned good,

if she'd have been the same kind of wife that I was a husband.

God, sometimes I used to pray that she'd...

I'd even say to her, "go on, why don't you, Evelyn?

It'd serve me right. I wouldn't mind. I'd forgive you."

Of course, I'd pretend I was kidding,

the same way I used to joke here about her being in the hay with the iceman.

She'd have felt so hurt if I said it seriously.

She'd have thought I stopped loving her.

Ah! I suppose you think I'm a liar,

that no woman could have stood all she stood and still loved me so much,

that it isn't human for a woman to be so pitying and forgiving.

Well, I am not lying,

and if you'd ever seen her, you'd realize that I wasn't.

It was written all over her face...

Sweetness, love, pity, forgiveness.

Wait. I'll show you. I always carry her picture.

No, I'm forgetting.

I tore it up afterwards.

I didn't need it anymore.

Jeez, hickey, jeez!

I burnt up mother's picture, Larry.

Her eyes kept following me around all the time.

They seemed to be wishing I was dead.

It kept piling up, like I said.

I got so I thought about it all the time.

And I hated myself more and more, thinking of all the wrong I'd done

to the sweetest woman in the world that loved me so much.

It even got so I'd curse myself for a lousy bastard

every time I saw myself in the mirror.

I felt such pity for her, it drove me crazy.

You'd never believe it, would you, Larry?

A guy like me, that's knocked around so much, could feel such pity.

It got so every night I'd... wind up hiding my face in her lap,

bawling and begging for forgiveness.

Of course, she'd always comfort me and say,

"never mind, Teddy.

I know you won't ever again.”

Christ, I loved her so.

But I began to hate that pipe dream!

I was beginning to think I was going bughouse,

because sometimes I couldn't forgive her for forgiving me!

I even caught myself hating her for making me hate myself so much!

There's a limit to the guilt you can feel and the forgiveness and pity you can take!

You have to begin blaming somebody else too!

It got so sometimes when she'd kiss me...

It was like she was doing it on purpose

to humiliate me,

as if she'd spit in my face!

Well, I saw how crazy and rotten that was of me,

and I just hated myself more and more!

You'd never believe that I could hate so much.

Huh, Larry?

A good-natured, happy-go-lucky slob like me.

As the time got nearer when I was due to come here for my drunk

around Harry's birthday,

I got nearly crazy.

I kept swearing to her every night that this time I really wouldn't,

until I'd made it a real final test to myself and to her.

She kept encouraging me and saying,

"I can see you really mean it now, Teddy.

I know you'll conquer it this time, and we'll be so happy."

And when she'd say that and kiss me...

I'd believe it too.

Then she'd go to bed,

and I'd stay up 'cause I couldn't sleep

and I didn't want to disturb her, rolling and twisting around.

I'd get so damned lonely.

I'd get to thinking how peaceful it was here,

sittin' around with the old gang, gettin' drunk,

and forgetting about love.

Laughing and singing and joking, swapping lies.

And finally I knew I had to come.

And I knew if I came this time, it would be the finish!

'Cause I'd never have the guts to go back and be forgiven again,

and that would break Evelyn's heart

because to her that would mean

I didn't love her anymore.

That last night I'd driven myself crazy trying to figure a way out for her.

I went into the bedroom.

I was going to tell her it was the end.

But I couldn't do that to her.

She was sound asleep.

And I thought, god, if only she'd never wake up, she'd never know.

And then it came to me...

The one possible way out, for her sake.

I remembered I'd given her a gun for protection while I was away.

It was in the bureau drawer.

She'd never feel any pain.

She'd never wake up from her dream.

So I...

So I killed her.

I may as well confess, Larry.

There's no use lying anymore.

You know anyway.

I didn't give a damn about the money.

It was because I hated her.

And then I saw that I'd always known that was the only possible way

to give her peace and free her from the misery of loving me.

I saw it meant peace for me, too, knowing she was at peace.

I felt as though a ton of guilt was lifted off my mind.

I remember I stood by the bed and suddenly I had to laugh.

I couldn't help it.

And I knew Evelyn would forgive me.

I remember I'd heard myself speaking to her,

as though it was something I'd always wanted to say.

"Well, you know what you can do with your pipe dream now,

you damned bitch!"

- No. I never... - Yes. Yes, that's it!

Her and that damned movement pipe dream! Huh, Larry?

No, that's a lie! Good god, I could have never said that!

If I had, I'd have gone insane!

Why, I loved Evelyn better than anything in life!

Boys, you're my old pals! You've known old hickey for years.

You know that I could never...

Harry!

Harry, you've known me longer than anybody else.

You know that I must have been insane, don't you, governor?

Who the hell cares?

Insane? You mean, you went really insane?

Yes! Or I couldn't have laughed!

I couldn't have said that to her!

That's enough, hickman. You know who we are. You're under arrest.

Come along and spill your guts where we can get it on...

You owe me a break!

I phoned and made it easy for you, didn't I? Just a few minutes!

Harry, you know I couldn't have said that to Evelyn, don't you? Unless...

And you've been crazy ever since?

Everything you've said and done here...

Now, governor, up to your old tricks, eh?

I see what you're driving at, but I c...

Yes, of course, Harry.

I've been out of my mind ever since. Ever since I've been here.

You saw I was insane, didn't you?

Can it! I've had enough of your act. Save it for the jury.

Now, listen, you guys. Don't fall for his lies.

He's starting to get foxy now and thinks he'll plead insanity.

But he can't get away with that.

B'jeez, you dumb dick.

We've known him for years,

and every one of us noticed he was nutty the minute he showed up here.

If you'd seen the damned fool things he made us do.

We only did them because we...

Because we hoped he'd come out of it if we kidded him along and humored him.

Ain't that right, fellas?

A fine bunch of rats!

Covering up for a dirty, cold-blooded murderer.

Is that so?

B'jeez, you know the old story.

When Saint Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland,

they swam to New York and joined the police force.

You stand up for your rights, b'jeez, hickey.

I've still got friends at the hall.

I'll have this guy back in uniform, pounding a beat

where the only graft he'll get will be stealing tin cans from the goats.

Listen, you cockeyed old bum, for a plugged nickel, I'd...

- Come on, you... - Oh, I want to go, officer.

I can hardly wait now. I should've phoned you from the house right afterwards.

It was a waste of time coming here.

I've gotta explain to Evelyn, but I know she's forgiven me.

She knows I was insane. You've got me all wrong, officer.

I want to go to the chair.

Crap!

God, you're a dumb dick.

Do you suppose I give a damn about life now?

Why, you bonehead.

I haven't got a single damned lying hope or pipe dream left.

Don't worry, hickey!

They can't give you the chair!

We'll testify you was crazy! Won't we, fellas?

Jesus, he's gone.

Poor crazy son of a bitch.

Well, b'jeez, I need a drink.

Maybe it'll have the old kick now he's gone.

Yeah, boss.

Maybe we can get drunk now.

May the chair bring him peace at last,

the poor tortured bastard.

Yes, but he isn't the only one who needs peace, Larry.

I can't feel sorry for him.

He's lucky.

He's through now. It's all decided for him.

I wish it was decided for me.

I've never been any good at deciding things,

even about selling out.

It was the tart that the detective agency got after me that put it in my mind.

You remember what mother's like, Larry.

She always decided what I must do. She made all the decisions for me.

She doesn't like anyone but herself to be free.

I suppose you think I ought to have made those dicks take me away with hickey.

How could I prove it, Larry? Huh?

They'd think I was nutty 'cause she's still alive.

You're the only one who can understand how guilty I am,

'cause you know her and what I've done to her.

You're the only one who can understand that I'm much guiltier than he is.

That what I did is much worse than murder because she's dead,

and yet she has to live.

For a little while.

She can't live long in jail.

She loves her freedom too much.

I can't kid myself like hickey...

That she's at peace.

As long as she lives,

she'll never be able to forget what I've done to her, not even in her sleep.

She'll never have a second's peace.

Jesus, Larry, say something.

I'm not bluffing either,

that I was crazy afterwards

when I laughed and thought to myself,

"you know what you can do with your freedom pipe dream now,

don't you, you damn old bitch?"

Gol

get the hell out of life, goddamn you,

before I choke it out of you!

Go on! Go up.

Thanks, Larry.

I can see now that it's the only possible way I can ever get free from her.

I guess I've known that all my life.

Oh.

It ought to give mother a little comfort too.

She'll finally be able to play the incorruptible mother of the revolution,

whose only child's a proletariat.

She'll be able to say, "justice is done, so may all traitors die!"

She'll be able to say...

"I'm glad he's dead!

Long live the revolution.”

You know her, Larry. She was always a ham.

Go, for the love of Christ, you mad, tortured bastard, for your own sake.

Thanks, Larry.

That's kind.

I knew you were the only one who could understand my side of it.

Hello, little Don, little monkey face.

Don't be a fool. Buy me a drink.

Sure, I will, Hugo.

Tomorrow, beneath the Willow trees.

Stupid fool.

Hickey make you crazy too.

I'm glad, Larry, they take that crazy hickey away to asylum.

He makes me have bad dreams.

He makes me tell lies about myself.

He makes me want to spit on all I've ever dreamed.

Yes, I'm glad they take him to asylum!

I don't feel I'm dying now.

He was selling death to me, that crazy salesman.

I think I have a drink now, Larry.

B'jeez, fellas. I'm feeling the old kick, or I'm a liar.

It's putting life back in me.

It was hickey that kept it from...

B'jeez, I know that sounds crazy, but he was crazy,

and he'd got all of us as bughouse as he was.

Dangerous too.

Look at me pretending to start for a walk just to keep him quiet.

I knew damned well it wasn't the right day for it.

The sun was broiling and the streets full of automobiles.

Aye, I could feel myself getting sunstroke,

and an automobile damn near ran over me.

Didn't it, rocky? He was watching. Ask rocky. Didn't it?

The automobile, boss? Sure, I seen it.

Just missed you.

I thought you was a goner.

On the word of an honest bartender.

You're a bartender, all right.

No one can say different.

But, b'jeez, don't pull that honest junk.

You and Chuck ought to have cards in the burglars' union.

B'jeez, it's good to hear someone laugh again.

All the time that bas... That poor old hickey was here,

I didn't have the heart.

B'jeez, I'm getting drunk and glad of it.

Come on, fellas. It's on the house.

Cheers.

Ah. Poor old hickey.

We mustn't hold him responsible for anything he's done.

Yeah. Nah.

We'll remember him the way we've always known him before...

The kindest, biggest-hearted guy that ever wore shoe leather.

- Yeah. - Yeah.

- The best. - Fine chap. Fine chap.

Good luck to him in matteawan! Come on. Bottoms up.

Christ.

Why don't he...

Why don't he what?

Ah, don't be a fool. Hickey's gone.

He was crazy.

Have a drink.

What's the matter with you, Larry?

You look funny.

What you listen for out in backyard?

Well, I thank god now that me and Chuck did all we could to humor the poor nut.

Imagine us goin' off like we really meant to get married,

when we ain't even picked out the farm yet.

Sure thing, baby. We kidded him we was serious.

I may as well say now I detected his condition almost at once.

Yeah?

All that talk of his about tomorrow, for example.

He had the fixed idea of the insane.

It only makes them worse to cross them.

Same with me, Jimmy. Only I spent the day in the park.

I wasn't such a damned fool as to...

Picture my predicament if I had gone to the consulate.

The pal of mine there is a bit of a humorous blighter.

He'd have gotten me a job out of pure spite.

So I strolled about and finally came to roost in the park.

And lo and behold, who should be on the neighboring bench

but my battlefield companion,

the boer that walks like a man.

Who, if the British government had taken my advice,

would have been removed from his fetid kraal in the veldt

straight to the baboon's cage in the London zoo.

And little children would now be asking their nurses,

"tell me, Nana, is that the boer general,

the one with the blue behind?"

No offense meant, piet, old chap.

No offense taken,

you damned limey.

About the job. I felt the same as you, Cecil.

What's the matter, Larry?

You look scared.

What are you listening for out there?

No, sir.

I wasn't fool enough to get in no crap game,

not while hickey's around.

Them crazy people put a jinx on you.

It wasn't no good for me trying to explain to a crazy guy

but it ain't the right time.

Hey!

You know how getting reinstated is.

B'jeez, I'm cockeyed.

B'jeez, you're all cockeyed.

And b'jeez, we're all all right!

Let's have another.

What's the matter, Larry?

Why you keep eyes shut?

You look dead!

What you listen for in backyard?

You crazy fool! You give me bad dreams too!

Hello there, Hugo!

Welcome to the party!

Yes, b'jeez, Hugo. Sit down.

Have a drink! Have ten drinks, b'jeez!

Hello, little Harry!

Hello, nice, funny, little monkey faces.

Goddamned stupid bourgeois!

Soon comes the day of judgment!

Give me ten drinks, Harry. Don't be a fool!

Gangway for two good whores.

Yeah. And we want a drink, quick.

Yeah, yeah. Shake the lead outta your pants, you pimp!

We want a little service, huh?

Well, look who's here.

Hello there, sweethearts.

Jeez, I was beginning to worry about you, honest.

Yeah? What kind of gag is this?

Come on and join the party, you broads.

B'jeez, I'm glad to see you.

- Hey, what's... what's come off here? - Where's that louse hickey?

Ah, the cops got 'im.

He's gone crazy and croaked his wife.

Jeez.

So forget about that whore stuff.

I'll knock the block off anyone calls you whores.

- Ha-ha-ha! - You're tarts, and what the hell of it?

You're as good as anyone.

So forget it, see.

That's our little bartender, ain't he, Pearl?

Yeah, and a cute little Guinea at that.

And is he stinkol!

Stinko is right.

- But he ain't got nothin' on us. - No!

Jeez, rocky, did we have a good time at coney.

B'jeez, sit down, you dumb whores!

Welcome home. Have a drink. Have ten drinks, b'jeez.

B'jeez, this is all right.

We'll make this my birthday party and forget the other.

But who's missing? Where's the old wise guy? Where's Larry?

Oh, over by the window, boss.

He's got his eyes shut. The old bastard's asleep.

Aw, to hell with him. Let's have a drink.

It's the only way out for him.

For the peace of all concerned, as hickey said.

Goddamn his yellow soul.

If he doesn't soon, I'll go up and throw him off.

Like a dog with its guts ripped out that you'd put out of his misery.

What the hell was that? What the hell was that?

Something fell off the fire escape.

A mattress, I'll bet.

Some of these bums have been sleepin' on the fire escapes.

They... they've got to cut it out.

B'jeez, this... This ain't no fresh air cure.

Mattresses cost money.

Poor devil.

God rest his soul in peace.

I'll never be a success in the grandstand or anywhere else.

Life is too much for me.

I'll be a weak fool looking with pity at the two sides of everything

till the day I die,

and may that day come soon.

I'm the only real convert to death that hickey made here.

From the bottom of my coward's heart, I mean that now.

Hey there, Larry!

Come on over and get paralyzed.

What the hell you doing, sittin' here?

B'jeez, let's sing. Let's celebrate!

B'jeez, it's my birthday party.

B'jeez, I'm orey-eyed!

I want to sing.

J; Every Sunday

js down to her home we go j

j all the boys and all the girls &

j; They love her so j

j; Always jolly 7b

j heart that is true, I know j

j she is the sunshine of paradise alley &

j by yon Bonnie banks and by yon Bonnie braes &

j; Where the sun shines bright on loch lomond j

j; Where me and my true love will never meet again &

j on the Bonnie, Bonnie banks of loch lomond

j; You'll take the high road and I'll take the low road &

j» and I'll be in Scotland afore ye j

j; But me and my true love will never meet again &

j on the Bonnie, Bonnie banks of loch lomond

j; Dansons le carmagnole vive le son, vive le son &

j; Dansons la carmagnole vive le son des canons j

the days grow hot, o Babylon!

Cool beneath thy Willow trees!