The Boy Grew Older.
by Heywood Broun.
Book I
CHAPTER I
"Your son was born ten minutes ago," said the voice at the other end of the wire.
"I"ll be up," replied Peter Neale, "right away."
But it wasn"t right away. First he had to go upstairs to the card room and settle his losses. Indeed he played one more pot for when he returned to the table his deal had come around again. He felt that it was not the thing to quit just then. The other men might think he had timed his departure in order to save the dollar ante. He dealt the cards and picked up four spades and a heart. Eventually, he paid five dollars to draw and again he had four spades and a heart. Nevertheless, he bet ten dollars but it was no go. His hands shook as he dropped the two blue chips in the centre of the table. The man with a pair of jacks noticed that and called. Peter threw his cards away.
"I"ve got nothing--a busted flush. I want to cash in now. I owe for two stacks. That"s right, isn"t it? I haven"t any chips left. If somebody"ll lend me a fountain pen I"ll make out a check. I guess I need a check too. Any kind"ll do. I can cross the name off."
"Why are you quitting so soon?" asked the banker as Peter waved the check back and forth to let it dry. "We"re all going to quit at seven o"clock."
"Two rounds and a consolation pot," corrected somebody across the table.
Peter was curiously torn between reticence and an impulse to tell. He felt a little as if he might begin to cry. When he spoke his voice was thick. "I"ve got to go up to see my son," he said. "He"s just been born."
He shoved the check over to the banker and was out of the room before anybody could say anything.
He thought that the banker said, "Congratulations," as he slammed the door behind him, but he could not be certain of it.
All the way up in the taxi he worried. The hospital was half a mile away. He wished that the nurse had said, "A fine boy," but he remembered it was just, "Your son was born ten minutes ago."
"If anything had been wrong," he thought, "she wouldn"t have said it over the telephone."
"Is everything all right?" was his first question when a nurse came to the door of the small private hospital and let him in. "My name"s Peter Neale," he explained. "My son"s just been born half an hour ago."
"Everything"s fine, Mr. Neale," she said and she smiled. "The baby weighs nine pounds. Mrs. Neale is fine too. You can see them both, but she"s asleep now. You can"t really see her today, but I think they"ll let you have a good look at your son. He"s a little darling."
Peter was rea.s.sured but irritated. Formula was all over the remark, "He"s a little darling." He thought she ought not to use it until she had learned to do it better. Some place or other he had read that babies were fearfully homely. Still it didn"t look so bad when he came into the room. Black was smudged all around the eyes which gave the child a rakish look.
"Miss Haine," said the nurse who brought him in, "this is Mr. Neale."
"Mr. Neale," she added, "meet your son." Then she went out.
"Is he all right, Miss Haine?" was Peter"s first question as soon as the door closed. After all, the other woman was just supposed to answer the bell. Miss Haine might know more about it.
"He"s a cherub," said Miss Haine.
"How did his eyes get blacked?" Peter wanted to know.
"Oh that"s just the silver nitrate. We always put that on a baby"s eyes to make sure--Look what a fine head he has."
Peter bent closer. The baby was not nearly so red as he had expected. As for the head he didn"t see why it was fine. He had no notion of just what made a head fine anyway. The child kept wrinkling up its face, but it was not crying. There was nothing about his son to which Peter could take specific exception, but somehow he was disappointed. When he had said down at the New York Newspaper Club, "I"ve got to go up and see my son," the phrase "my son" had thrilled him. But this wasn"t "my son." It was just a small baby. It seemed to him as distant as a second cousin.
"He is sweet," remarked Miss Haine.
"Yes," said Peter, but he felt that any extension of the discussion would merely promote hypocrisy on both sides. "Can I see my wife?" he asked.
"Come this way," said Miss Haine. "You can only stay a second. I"m pretty sure she"s asleep."
Maria was asleep and snoring hard. Miss Haine took up one arm which was flung outside the cover and found the pulse of the sleeping girl and as she felt it she smiled rea.s.suringly. "Yes," she said, "she"s doing fine."
"And now," she added, "I"m going to bundle you off. There really isn"t anything around here for a father to do. This isn"t your job, you know.
I"m going to let you come back in the morning, but not before ten."
Peter learned later that one of the strongest factors in Maria"s resentment against having a baby was that he was implicated in the affair so slightly. He tried to tell her that she ought to blame biology and not him, but she said there was nothing in the scheme of creation which arranged that fathers should be playing cards when their sons were born. It had an air of reckless indifference about it which maddened her. Peter knew that he could not explain to her that he had not been free in spirit during the afternoon. He simply could not bear to stay out of a single pot. Hour after hour he kept coming in on middle straights and three flushes. Never before had he done anything like that. But she knew so little about poker that there was no use in telling her any of this. Indeed he realized that he had made a mistake in venturing his one answer. Maria was in nowise pacified when he said, "But I lost fifty dollars."
CHAPTER II
Peter saw Maria only once after that and then for a few minutes. Most of the time she wept. "She"s getting along splendidly," said Dr. Clay. "Her nervous condition isn"t good," he added as an afterthought. "Somehow or other she doesn"t take much interest in the baby. You would almost think she didn"t like it. She"ll get over that. The maternal urge is bound to have its effect in time."
Of course Peter could not know that this urge, of which the bearded doctor spoke so confidently, might be tardy. That was something which he was to learn later for two days after the baby was born he went to Goldfield for the big fight. He had made the stipulation with the managing editor that somebody else should cover the story in case his son was not yet born. The consent had been somewhat grudging and so he had no inclination to call for another respite now that the baby had actually arrived. It would have embarra.s.sed him to say to the managing editor, "I don"t want to go away now because Maria--that"s my wife--doesn"t like the baby." Anyhow Dr. Clay had said she was getting along splendidly except for her nerves and the maternal urge would attend to that.
And so Peter went to Goldfield and when he came back two weeks later they told him at the hospital that Maria had gone leaving the baby behind her. They were slightly apologetic. Miss Haine had been a little careless. Twelve days after Peter started for the fight Maria had dressed and walked out. n.o.body around the hospital knew anything more than that about it. She had left a note and Dr. Clay had taken the extreme liberty of reading it. Medically speaking, he could not say that it indicated anything more than a highly neurotic condition. The woman was rational. He could not see his way clear to sending out a general alarm. After all he did not suppose that there was any legal way of making the young woman come back. She said she was going to sail for Paris and he supposed she had. Dr. Clay offered sympathy and some observations gleaned in twenty years of practice about the Latin temperament.
Peter said nothing in reply. He did not want to discuss it. He felt lost and gone but not altogether startled. Now that it had happened he realized that he should have known that Maria might do something just like that. It was an altogether silly arrangement that she should have had a baby.
"The youngster"s fine," said Dr. Clay. "It must be a comfort to you to know that you"ve still got him. I believe he"s having his bath now.
Wouldn"t you like to come up and see him. It"s quite an exciting event I can a.s.sure you."
Peter didn"t want to be excited and it didn"t appeal to him as a sporting event anyhow. Would Dr. Clay allow him to lie down on his couch for a little while. Later he"d come up and talk about what to do with the baby. He supposed the hospital didn"t want it very much longer anyway. After Clay had gone he cried a little. That didn"t necessarily mean much. Only the Thursday before he had cried at the ringside in Goldfield when Battling Nelson knocked out Joe Gans. Then it had been partly rage because thousands around him had shouted "Knock his block off. Kill the n.i.g.g.e.r." And he had seen someone very beautiful slowly crumple up before a slab-sided, bristling, little man who had no quality of skill or grace. Nelson had just kept coming in and in. He never stepped back. Often he took a blow in the face rather than bother to stop for an instant from swinging his own short arms at the brown belly in front of him. The victory had seemed altogether mechanical. Gans had not been knocked out so much as clawed to pieces by a threshing machine.
And it was Gans Peter had thought of two years ago when he first saw Maria Algarez dance. She had that same amazing suddenness of movement.
When he first saw her she was standing still in the middle of the huge stage. And then everything about her had come to life. There was never any feeling that she was thinking about what to do. No roll call was carried on in her mind before she kicked or leaped, or flung an arm above her head. The left jab of Joe Gans was like that too.
Peter went to the stage door and thought he had made up his mind to stop her and speak to her. He found that he hadn"t. She came out slowly and when he stared at her she looked straight at him and almost smiled. He could not be quite sure of it because that was the very moment something inside rapidly wheeled him about and sent him all but running out of the alley. Later he was more enterprising. The dramatic critic at his request introduced him to the press agent of "Adios" and the press agent introduced him to Maria Algarez. She had just finished her dance.
Peter was standing in the wings and people were telling him not to.
"Perhaps Mlle. Algarez will take us up to her dressing-room," said the press agent.
"It is not mine," said Maria, "I am not a star. The eight Bandana Sisters dress with me. But never mind. Here they come. It is now their turn on the stage. You will have to climb two flights of stairs, Mr.
Neale. You do not mind? Yes?"
"I do," said the press agent. "But that scores for you. You"re the one he wants to see."
And so Peter found himself alone in one corner of the long dressing-room of Maria Algarez and the eight Bandana Sisters. All sorts of clothes were scattered over the room. Maria sat down on a chair and stretched out her feet. There was another chair nearby but somebody"s stockings were on it. Peter stood up. Maria looked at him and smiled with no particular merriment. She was tired. Peter shifted from one foot to another through a long pause.
"Are they really sisters?" he asked.