One On The House (10 page)

“Hurry back inside,” she cried. “I have an idea.” They were scarcely inside the door when the wail of a fire siren was heard. “Quick!” she cried, running behind the bar holding her lorgnette up in front of her. “We simply must not lose our heads…it is imperative that we know the young man’s name.” She peered at the dim liquor license fastened to the mirror back of the bar with Scotch tape. “Assuming this recumbent person to be the owner, his name is Timothy Rafferty!”

“One thing sure,” Mrs. Feeley rushed to the door as the firemen piled off the truck, “He ain’t no Greek!”

“Where’s the fire?” the firemen dashed through the door. Everyone’s tongue was paralyzed.

“It is an emergency! Not a fire!” Miss Tinkham said at last.

“Oh yeah? Who smashed the glass?”

“This is no time for Gestapo methods!” Miss Tinkham said haughtily. “This young man is dying and we demand that he be taken to the hospital at once.” She led the way behind the bar where Timothy Rafferty lay in something less than fighting trim.

“Jeez! He don’t look good!”

“That, my good man, is a masterpiece of understatement. Put him in your fire-wagon or call the ambulance at once!”

“Easy does it, sister!” The fireman grinned. “Whyn’t you call the police ambulance instead o’ gettin’ us out in the heat o’ the day?”

“Because we had no small change…and this is a pay telephone. We are taxpayers and entitled to service.” Two firemen placed Timothy on a stretcher while the first one called the ambulance. Mrs. Feeley and Mrs. Rasmussen had not unglued their lips…they gazed in awe at Miss Tinkham, as regal and aloof as an elevator starter.

“I’ll start takin’ down the vital statistics.” The fireman opened a little black book. Miss Tinkham began to squirm. Just then the interne from the ambulance came in, flicked a glance at Timothy, and said:

“Busted appendix. Gangrene.” The stretcher bearers started out the door with their load.

“One of you relatives will have to sign him in,” he said.

Mrs. Feeley started to open her mouth, then thought better of it.

Mrs. Rasmussen handed Miss Tinkham the fifty-cent piece.

“Miss Tinkham better go…she’s the one with the college.”

“Take a bearin’,” Mrs. Feeley whispered, “so’s you can find your way back!” Miss Tinkham nodded grimly and looked wildly around her as the interne hustled her towards the door.

“You’ll be here when I come back?”

“Where else?” Mrs. Feeley shrugged.

“W
HAT
DON’T HAPPEN IN TEN YEARS CAN HAPPEN IN
ten seconds.” Mrs. Rasmussen’s legs folded up under her and she sat down on the nearest chair.

“Don’t know how long we can bluff this through,” Mrs. Feeley said, “but it’s a roof over our heads for tonight. I’ll think for today an’ God’ll think for tomorrow! But it was Tinkham done the thinkin’…she sure can use that noggin.”

“Reckon she’ll find her way back?” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

“With that tongue in her head? She’s likely to be squired home with a police escort, sireens screamin’ an’ all! Let’s case the joint.”

Mrs. Feeley rose and began a methodical analysis of the situation. She walked behind the bar and pulled one of the beer taps, not without first placing a glass under it. To her delight a golden fluid flowed out, topped by creamy foam.

“I knew I hadn’t forgot how! Bring your glasses. I reckon this one’s on the house!” Old-Timer and Mrs. Rasmussen held out their glasses, goggle-eyed at the sight of Manna in the desert.

“Nothin’ ever tasted better in my whole life,” Mrs. Feeley said. “Let’s get to work.” She walked into the back room and glanced at the tumbled canvas cot. An army uniform with multi-colored shoulder patches hung on a hook behind the door alongside of a cheap pair of gabardine pants and an inexpensive tweed jacket. “Poor booger’s Sunday best,” she sighed. “Ain’t nobody touchin’ the lad’s cot.” She folded up the blankets and then the cot. Mrs. Rasmussen went over and lit the gas-ring.

“Good it ain’t shut off,” she said. She took a corn broom from behind the door and began to sweep the room.

“S’pose he has relatives, or help comin’ in later on? What do we do then?”

“Start worryin’ about that when the time comes,” Mrs. Feeley said. “Whatever happens, we gotta keep our mouths shut an’ let the other fellers do all the talkin’. We gotta hold the fort till Miss Tinkham gets back anyway.” She went back to the bar and began examining the taps.

“This door must go to the basement…I’m goin’ down an’ look!” In a few moments she came back upstairs. “You know what? They ain’t hardly no beer left!”

Mrs. Rasmussen took her broom and began on the barroom. “This kid is sure on short rations! There’s a reek o’ poverty around here you could cut with a knife. A kinda despairin’ smell…”

“It’s cause he’s all by himself…betcha! Here!” Mrs. Feeley shoved a mop-stick at Old-Timer. “Get up on the tables an’ sweep down that goddam Irish crape! Pull down them flypapers while you’re at it!” Old-Timer spread a pink newspaper on the table and attacked the cobwebs. Mrs. Feeley continued her inspection.

“Just beer an’ wine…not much of either! Guess he musta started up when he come back from the war. Wonder where he keeps the money? Don’t want none of it to be missin’ when he gets back…might think we took it.” On a shelf under the bar she found a cigar-box.

“Here it is!” She looked inside and found two greasy one-dollar bills, three quarters, four dimes, six nickels, and two pennies. “Got a pencil?” she asked Mrs. Rasmussen.

“Write this down: on hand, belongin’ to Timothy: three dollars an’ forty-seven cents. If we have a beer, we gotta charge it off against ourselfs. We’ll pay him back somehow. Gawd! I wish Miss Tinkham would come back.” She looked at the clock. “Ain’t but four twenty. Seems like she’s been gone a year.” She went into the back room and came out with a cleaning cloth and a cake of yellow soap:

“Won’t help none to have a sticky bar an’ tables. It’s the least we can do for him. Here!” She handed Old-Timer a bucket. “Fill this an’ heat it on the stove. These glasses ain’t nothin’ but clap-traps! Boil ’em!”

Mrs. Rasmussen had finished the floor and began arranging the tables and chairs neatly and squarely.

“Don’t just straight lines make a difference?” she said. The place did look different. Mrs. Feeley straightened up the meager row of bottles in front of the mirror. She pushed a box of toothpicks and a box of book matches out of sight. Mrs. Rasmussen opened the door of the toilet gingerly.

“No more corps!” she grinned. “Look!” She pointed to two large brass cuspidors.

“The gobboons!” Mrs. Feeley said. She grabbed them and set them in front of the bar. “Now the place begins to look kosher!”

Mrs. Rasmussen attacked the lavatory with a brush she found standing in a tin of creosote.

“Might’s well, long as we’ll be usin’ it ourselfs.”

“Don’t know why we’re workin’ so hard,” Mrs. Feeley said. “It’s clear he ain’t had a customer since Custer’s last stand.”

The words were scarcely uttered when the door banged open and two men in overalls and caps came in.

“Something new has been added to,” one of the men said. “Don’t Timmy know they don’t allow no barmaids in Jersey? Not even lookers like you, Grandma!”

Mrs. Feeley folded her arms and stared at the men.

They may be right, she thought, but if I don’t take no pay for drawin’ the beer, ’twon’t hurt till we get the lay of the land.

She continued to stare without moving.

“Beer, Grandma, beer!” the man said.

“That kinda simple-izes matters, don’t it?” she snapped. “’Specially since I ain’t unpacked my crystal ball yet.”

“Wha, wha, wha! Say! You’re all right!”

“Abuse won’t get you nothin’…pay for the beer.” The man grinned and paid down a quarter.

“Two more,” his friend said. Mrs. Rasmussen and Old-Timer watched silently as the two customers drank their beer.

“One for the road,” the first man said. “See you tomorrow.”

“If we ain’t in jail,” Mrs. Feeley muttered, putting the sixty cents in the cashbox. Mrs. Rasmussen grabbed the empty glasses and washed them.

“I’m sure gettin’ nervous about Miss Tinkham,” she said. The door opened and three workmen lounged up to the bar swinging their dinner pails.

“Where’s Timmy?”

“Won’t I do?” Mrs. Feeley grinned.

“Three beers.” The men drank silently, looking at her over the rims of their glasses.

“You helpin’ out?” a heavy-set man spoke to Mrs. Feeley.

“In a manner o’ speakin’. Musta been hot workin’ this evenin’. Want some more beer?”

“Yeah, an’ not so much foam, Toots!”

Mrs. Feeley moved to the next spigot. The beer was almost gone and the pressure was producing a lot of thick foam and not much else. She managed to draw three decent glasses at last.

“Beer’s about out. Can’t get no more till tomorrow. Give you a little re-cap if you come in then.”

What beer there was left was needed: needed by Mrs. Feeley and her friends. Who knew what ghastly news Miss Tinkham might be bringing? The gruesome details of Timmy’s collapse could only be cushioned by quantities of beer…and there was only a little left.

“Don’t take no lip from that guy,” a stout man said.

“That, Buster, is somethin’ I ain’t in the habit o’ takin’ from nobody born o’ woman!” Mrs. Feeley folded her arms across her bosom.

“Damn if she don’t mean it,” the man said to his companions, “Good luck to you.”

“See you tomorrow,” one of the men smiled at her. “My old woman will be scourin’ the country for me if I don’t get home.” As they went out, the three men held open the door for Miss Tinkham. Mrs. Feeley and Mrs. Rasmussen came forward quickly and helped her to a chair. Mrs. Feeley closed the door and locked it:

“No use lettin’ any more in! Just have to do a lot of explainin’! The beer’s out.”

“Out?” Miss Tinkham prolonged the anguished sound.

“We saved some for you,” Mrs. Feeley said. “Ain’t enough to sell.” Mrs. Rasmussen came to the table with a large glass carefully drawn. They all pulled up chairs. “Now tell about Timmy.”

I sometimes wonder what the vintners buy

One-half so precious as the stuff they sell!

Miss Tinkham quoted.

“Skip the poetry! What happened?”

“He’s very grave,” she said slowly. “Chances about one in five hundred. The poison has spread all through his system. We are to telephone after nine…I have the number here.”

“Did they ask you questions?” Mrs. Feeley said.

Miss Tinkham nodded.

“They could see at once that I really had no information about him. But those people are very expert. They got his identification cards out of his wallet and took the facts from that. They don’t hold out much hope for him. He did look dreadful!”

Mrs. Feeley studied for a moment.

“Guess they’ll send for his people.”

“He has no next of kin,” Miss Tinkham said. “For emergencies, they had the name of a priest listed, although he is no relative. I told the secretary there was no use taking the good man away from his parish, since we were looking after things. They were very courteous to me and said we could come to see him…if he lives.”

“How’d you get back?” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

“One of the ambulance drivers brought me as far as the main intersection and showed me how to get the rest of the way.” She put the half-dollar on the table.

“We sold twelve beers,” Mrs. Feeley said. “Some guy’s gonna give us a hard time tomorra…the fellers warned me. The way I figger, it’s the guy from the brewery…maybe the beer ain’t even paid for! The kid’s had his back to the wall, starvin’ hisself to death, most likely.”

“Yeah.” Mrs. Rasmussen pushed her chair back and went behind the bar. “Ain’t no rats or mice here. They’d starve to death. Ain’t there no kind o’ cupboard or icebox connected with this thing…where he could o’ kept a bottle o’ milk?”

Mrs. Feeley came to help her look and they discovered the door of a small storage box over the coils. Whatever Timothy Rafferty’s sins were, gluttony was not one of them. The icebox contained half a loaf of sliced bread wrapped in wax-paper, a small package of cheese, half a bottle of milk, and three slices of luncheon meat.