When the Sacred Ginmill Closes

Chapter 12

Diebold insisted on driving me home. When I offered to take the subway he told me not to be ridiculous, that it was midnight already and I was in no condition for public transportation.

"You'll pass out," he said, "and somebum'll steal the shoes off your feet."

He was probably right. As it was I nodded off during the ride back toManhattan, coming awake when he pulled up at the corner of Fifty-seventh and Ninth. I thanked him for the ride, asked him if he had time for a drink before he went back.

"Hey, enough's enough," he said. "I can't go all night like I used to."

"You know, I think I'll call it a night myself," I said.

But I didn't. I watched him pull away, started walking to my hotel, then turned and went around the corner to Armstrong's. The place was mostly empty. I went in, and Billie gave me a wave.

I went up to the bar. And she was there at the end of the bar, all alone, staring down into the glass on the bar in front of her. Carolyn Cheatham. I hadn't seen her since the night I'd gone home with her.

While I was trying to decide whether or not to say anything, she looked up and her eyes met mine. Her face was frozen with stubborn old pain. It took her a blink or two to recognize me, and when she did a muscle worked in her cheek and tears started to form in the corners of her eyes. She used the back of her hand to wipe them away. She'd been crying earlier; there was a tissue crumpled on the bar, black with mascara.

"My bourbon-drinking friend," she said. "Billie," she said, "this man is a gentleman. Will you please bring my gentleman friend a drink of good bourbon?"

Billie looked at me. I nodded. He brought a couple of ounces of bourbon and a mug of black coffee.

"I called you my gentleman friend," Carolyn Cheatham said, "but that has an unintentional connotation." She pronounced her words with a drunk's deliberate care. "You are a gentleman and a friend, but not a gentleman friend. My gentleman friend, on the other hand, is neither."

I drank some of the bourbon, poured some of it into the coffee.

"Billie," she said, "do you know how you can tell that Mr. Scudder is a gentleman?"

"He always removes his lady in the presence of a hat."

"He is a bourbon drinker," she said.

"That makes him a gentleman, huh, Carolyn?"

"It makes him a far cry removed from a hypocritical scotch-drinking son of a bitch."

She didn't speak in a loud voice, but there was enough edge to her words to shut down conversations across the room. There were only three or four tables occupied, and the people sitting at them all picked the same instant to stop talking. For a moment the taped music was startlingly audible. It was one of the few pieces I could identify, one of theBrandenburg concertos. They played it so often there that even I was now able to tell what it was.

Then Billie said, "Suppose a man drinks Irish whiskey, Carolyn. What does that make him?"

"An Irishman," she said.

"Makes sense."

"I'm drinking bourbon," she said, and shoved her glass forward a significant inch. "God damn it, I'm a lady."

He looked at her,then looked at me. I nodded, and he shrugged and poured for her.

"On me," I said.

"Thank you," she said. "Thank you, Matthew." And her eyes started to water, and she dug a fresh tissue from her bag.

She wanted to talk about Tommy. He was being nice to her, she said. Calling up, sending flowers. But it just wouldn't do if she made a scene around the office, and he just might have to testify how he spent the night his wife was killed, and he had to keep on the good side of her for the time being.

But he wouldn't see her because it wouldn't look right. Not for a new widower, not for a man who'd been virtually accused of complicity in his wife's death.

"He sends flowers with no card enclosed," she said. "He calls me from pay phones.The son of a bitch."

"Maybe the florist forgot to enclose a card."

"Oh, Matt.Don't make excuses for him."

"And he's in ahotel, of course he would use a pay phone."

"He could call from his room. He as much as said he didn't want the call to go through the hotel switchboard, in case the operator's listening in. There was no card with the flowers because he doesn't want anything in writing. He came to my apartment the other night, but he won't be seen with me, he won't go out with me, and- oh, the hypocrite.The scotch-drinking son of a bitch."

Billie called me aside. "I didn't want to put her out," he said, "a nice woman like that,shitfaced as she is. But I thought I wasgonna have to. You'll see she gets home?"

"Sure."

First I had to let her buy us another round. She insisted. Then I got her out of there and walked her around the corner to her building. There was rain coming, you could smell it in the air, and when we went from Armstrong's air conditioning into the sultry humidity that heralds a summer storm it took some of the spirit out of her. She held my arm as we walked, gripped it with something on the edge of desperation. In the elevator she sagged against the back panel and braced her feet.

"Oh, God," she said.

I took the keys from her and unlocked her door. I got her inside. She half sat, half sprawled on the couch. Her eyes were open but I don't know if she saw much through them. I had to use the bathroom, and when I came back her eyes were closed and she was snoring lightly.

I got her shoes off, moved her to a chair,struggled with the couch until I managed to open it into a bed. I put her on it. I figured I ought to loosen her clothing, and while I was at it I undressed her completely. She remained unconscious throughout the operation, and I remembered what a mortician's assistant had told me once about the difficulty of dressing and undressing the dead. My gorge rose at the image and I thought I was going to be sick, but I sat down and my stomach settled itself.

I covered her with the top sheet, sat back down again. There was something else I'd wanted to do but I couldn't think what it was. I tried to think, and I guess I must have dozed off myself. I don't suppose I was out for more than a few minutes, just time enough to lose myself in a dream that fled from me the minute I opened my eyes and blinked it away.

I let myself out. Her door had a spring lock. There was a dead bolt you could engage with the key for extra security, but all I had to do was draw the door shut and it was locked, and reasonably secure. I took the elevator down and went outside.

The rain was holding off. At the corner ofNinth Avenue a jogger passed, running doggedly uptown against what little traffic there was. His T-shirt was gray with sweat and helook ready to drop. I thought of O'Bannon, Jack Diebold's old partner, getting physically fit before blowing his brains out.

And then I remembered what I'd wanted to do at Carolyn's apartment. I'd been planning on taking away the little gun Tommy had given her. If she was going to drink like that and get depressed like that, she didn't need to have a weapon in the bedside table.

But the door was locked. And she was out cold, she wasn't going to wake up and kill herself.

I crossed the street. The steel gate was drawn most of the way across the front of Armstrong's, and the white globe lights over the front were out, but light showed from within. I walked over to the door, saw that the chairs were on top of the tables, ready for the Dominican kid who came in first thing in the morning to sweep the place out. I didn't see Billie at first, and then I saw him at a stool at the far end of the bar. The door was locked, but he spotted me and came over and let me in.

He locked the door again after I was through it, walked me over to the bar and slipped behind it. Without my saying anything he poured me a glass of bourbon. I curled my hand around it but didn't pick it up from the top of the bar.

"The coffee's all gone," he said.

"That's all right. I didn't want any more."

"She all right?Carolyn?"

"Well, she might have a hangover tomorrow."

"Just about everybody I know might have a hangover tomorrow," he said. "I might have a hangover tomorrow. It'sgonna pour, I might as well sit in the house and eat aspirin all day."

Someone banged on the door. Billie shook his head at him, waved him away. The man knocked again. Billie ignored him.

"Can't they see the place is closed?" he complained. "Put your money away, Matt. We're closed, the register's locked up,it's private-party time." He held his glass to the light and looked at it. "Beautiful color," he said. "She's a pisser, old Carolyn. A bourbon drinker's a gentleman and a scotch drinker's- what did she say a scotch drinker was?"

"I think a hypocrite."

"So I gave her the straight line, didn't I? What's it make a man if he drinks Irish whiskey?An Irishman."

"Well, you asked."

"What else it makes him is drunk, but in a nice way. I only get drunk in the nicest possible way. Ah, Jesus, Matt, these are the best hours of the day. You can keep your Morrissey's. This is like having your own private after-hours, you know? The joint empty and dark, the music off, the chairs up, one or two people around for company, the rest of the world locked the hell out.Great, huh?"

"It's not bad."

"No, it's not."

He wasfreshening my drink. I didn't remember drinking it. I said, "You know, my trouble is I can't go home."

"That's what Thomas Wolfe said, 'You Can't Go Home Again.' That's everybody's trouble."

"No, I mean it. My feet keep taking me to a bar instead. I was out inBrooklyn, I got home late, I was tired, I was already half in the bag, I started to walk to my hotel and I turned around and came here instead. And just now I put her to sleep, Carolyn, and I had to drag myself out of there before I fell asleep in her chair, and instead of going home like a sane human being I came back here again like some dim homing pigeon."

"You're a swallow and this is Capistrano."

"Is that what I am? I don't know what the hell I am anymore."

"Oh, bullshit.You're a guy, a human being.Just another poor son of a bitch who doesn't want to be alone when the sacredginmill closes."

"The what?"I started to laugh. "Is that what this place is?The sacredginmill?"

"Don't you know the song?"

"What song?"

"The VanRonk song. 'And so we've had another night- ' " He broke off. "Hell, I can't sing, I can't even get the tune right.'Last Call,' Dave VanRonk. You don't know it?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Well, Christ," he said. "You have got to hear it. You have by Christ got to hear this song. It's what we've been talking about, and on top of that it's the fucking national anthem. Come on."

"Come on and what?"

"Just come on," he said. He put a Piedmont Airlines flight bag on top of the bar, rooted around under the back bar and came up with two unopened bottles, one of the twelve-year-old Jameson Irish he favored and one of Jack Daniel's. "This okay?" he asked me.

"Okay for what?"

"For pouring over your head to kill the cooties.Is it okay to drink is my question. You've been drinking Forester, but I can't find an unopened bottle, and there's a law against carrying an opened bottle on the street."

"There is?"

"There ought to be. I never steal opened bottles. Will you please answer a simple question? Is Jack Black all right?"

"Of course it's all right, but where the hell are we going?"

"My place," he said. "You've got to hear this record."

"BARTENDERS drink free," he said. "Even at home. It's a fringe benefit. Other people get pension plans and dental care. We get all the booze we can steal. You'regonna love this song, Matt."

We were in his apartment, an L-shaped studio with a parquet floor and a fireplace. He was on the twenty-second floor and his window looked south. He had a good view of theEmpireStateBuilding and, farther down on the right, theWorldTradeCenter.

The place was sparsely furnished. There was a white mica platform bed and dresser in the sleeping alcove, a couch and a sling chair in the middle of the room. Books and records overflowed a bookcase and stood around in stacks on the floor. Stereo components were placed here and there- a turntable on an upended milk crate, speakers resting on the floor.

"Where did I put the thing?" Billie wondered.

I walked over to the window, looked out at the city. I was wearing a watch but I purposely didn't look at it because I didn't want to know what time it was. I suppose it must have been somewhere around four o'clock. It still wasn't raining.

"Here," he said, holding up an album. "Dave VanRonk. You know him?"

"Never heard of him."

"Got a Dutch name, looks like amick and I swear on the blues numbers he sounds just like a nigger. He's also onebitchin ' guitar player but he doesn't play anything on this cut.'Last Call.' He sings it al fresco."

"Okay."

"Not al fresco. I forget the expression. How do you say it when you sing without accompaniment?"

"What difference does it make?"

"How can I forget something like that? I got a mind like a fucking sieve. You'regonna love this song."

"That's if I ever get to hear it."

"A cappella.That's what it is, a cappella. As soon as I stopped actively trying to think of it, it popped right into my head.The Zen of Remembering. Where did I put the Irish?"

"Right behind you."

"Thanks.You all right with the Daniel's? Oh, you got the bottle right there. Okay, listen to this.Ooops, wrong groove. It's the last one on the album. Naturally, you couldn't have anything come after this one. Listen."

And so we've had another night

Of poetry and poses

And each man knows he'll be alone

When the sacredginmill closes.

The melody sounded like an Irish folk air. The singer did indeed sing without accompaniment, his voice rough but curiously gentle.

"Now listen to this," Billie said.

And so we'll drink the final glass

Each to his joy and sorrow

And hope the numbing drunk will last

Till opening tomorrow

"Jesus," Billie said.

And when we stumble back again

Like paralytic dancers

Each knows the question he must ask

And each man knows the answer

I had a bottle in one hand, a glass in the other. I poured from the bottle into the glass. "Catch this next part," Billie was saying.

And so we'll drink the final drink

That cuts the brain in sections

Where answers do not signify

And there aren't any questions

Billie was saying something but the words weren't registering. There was only the song.

I broke my heart the other day.

It will mend again tomorrow.

If I'd been drunk when I was born

I'd be ignorant of sorrow

"Play that again," I said.

"Wait. There's more."

And so we'll drink the final toast

That never can be spoken:

Here's to the heart that is wise enough

To know when it's better off broken

He said, "Well?"

"I'd like to hear it again."

" 'Playit again, Sam. You played it forher, you can play it for me. I can take it if she can.' Isn't it great?"

"Play it again, will you?"

We listened to it a couple of times through. Finally he took it off and returned it to its jacket and asked me if I understood why he had to drag me up there and play it for me. I just nodded.

"Listen," he said, "you're welcome to crash here if you want. That couch is more comfortable than it looks."

"I can make it home."

"I don't know. Is it raining yet?" He looked out the window. "No, but it could start any minute."

"I'll chance it. I want to be at my place when I wake up."

"I got to respect a man who can plan that far in the future. You okay to go out on the street? Sure, you're okay. Here, I'll get you a paperbag, you can take the JD home with you. Or here, take the flight bag, they'll think you're a pilot."

"No, keep it, Billie."

"What do I want with it? I don't drink bourbon."

"Well, I've had enough."

"You might want a nightcap. You might want something in the morning. It's a doggie bag, for Christ's sake. When'd you get so fancy you can't take a doggie bag home with you?"

"Somebody told me it's illegal to carry an opened bottle on the street."

"Don't worry. It's a firstoffense, you're odds-on to get probation.Hey, Matt? Thanks for coming by."

I walked home with the song's phrases echoing in my mind, coming back at me in fragments. "If I'd been drunk when I was born I'd be ignorant of sorrow." Jesus.

I got back to my hotel, went straight upstairs without checking the desk for messages. I got out of my clothes, threw them on the chair, took one short pull straight from the bottle and got into bed.

Just as I was drifting off the rain started.