A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago by Ben Hecht

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* * * * *

The pavements gleam like dark mirrors. The office window lights chatter in
the gloom. An umbrella pauses. The great financier is giving directions to
his chauffeur. The directions given, the great financier stands in the
rain for a moment. His eyes look up and down the street. What does he see?
Ripples, vague and vaguer ripples, that mark his passage from the
limousine into the club.

He is wet. A servant helps him remove his coat. Then he comes to the
window and sinks into a leather chair and stares at the rain and the
umbrellas outside. The great financier has been abroad. His highly
specialized mind has been, poking among columns of figures, columns of
reports. He desired to find out if possible what conditions abroad were.
For six months the great financier closeted himself daily with other great
financiers and talked and talked and discussed and talked.

But he says nothing. It is curious. The whole world and all its marvelous
distractions seem to have resolved themselves into the curt sentence, "It
rains." And somehow the great financier's faculty for the glib
manipulation of platitudes which has earned him a reputation as a powerful
economist seems for the moment to have abandoned him. His eyes remind one
of a boy standing on tiptoe and staring over a fence at a baseball game.

* * * * *

The conversation finally begins. It runs something like this. It is the
great financier talking. "Europe. Oh, yes. Quite a mess. Things will pick
up, however." A long pause. The umbrellas bob along. One, two, three,
four, five--the financier counts up to thirty. Then he rubs his hands
together as if he were taking charge of a situation freshly arisen at a
board of directors' meeting and says in a jovial voice: "Where were we?
Oh, yes. The European situation. Well, now, what do you want to know in
particular?"

Ah, this great financier has columns of figures, columns of reports and
columns of phrases in his head. Press a button and they will pop out.
"Have a cigar?" the financier asks. Cigars are lighted. "A rotten day," he
says. "Doesn't look as if it will clear up, either, does it?" Then he
says, "I guess this is an off day for me. No energy at all. I swear I
can't think of a thing to tell you about the European situation."

He sits smoking, his eyes fastened on the scene outside the window. His
eyes seem to be searching as if for meanings that withhold themselves. Yet
obviously there is no thought in his head. A mood has wormed its way
through the columns of figures, columns of reports, and taken possession
of him. This is bad for a financier. It is obvious that the umbrellas
outside are for the moment something other than ripples; that the great
play of life outside is something other than an inarticulate Greek chorus
mumbled as an obbligato for him alone.

The great financier is aware of something. Of what? He shakes his head, as
if to question himself. Of nothing he can tell. Of the fact that a great
financier is an atom like other atoms dancing in a chaos of atoms. Of the
fact that each of the umbrellas crawling past under his window is as
important as himself. The great financier's ego is taking a rest and
dreams naked of words crowd in to distract him.

"We have in Europe a peculiar situation," he says. "England and France,
although hitched to the same wagon, pull in different directions. England
must build up her trade. France must build up her morale. These involve
different efforts. To build up her trade England must re-establish
Germany. To build up her morale France must see that Germany is not
re-established and that it remains forever a beaten enemy."

The great financier looks at his watch suddenly. "By Jove!" he says. "By
Jove!" He has to go. He is sorry the interview was a failure. But a rotten
day for thinking. Back into his raincoat. A limousine has drawn up. A
servant helps him to dress. In a moment another umbrella has joined the
crawl of umbrellas over the pavement.

It rains. And a great financier is riding home to dinner.

PITZELA'S SON

"His name?" said Feodor Mishkin. "Hm! Always you want names. Is life a
matter of names and addresses or is it something else?"

"But the story would be better, Feodor, with names in it."

The rotund and omniscient journalist from the west side muttered to
himself in Russian.

"Better!" he repeated. "And why better? If I tell you his name is Yankel
or Berella or Chaim Duvit do you know any more than if I tell you his name
is Pitzela?"

"No. We will drop the matter. I will call him Chaim Yankel."

"You will call him Chaim Yankel! And what for? His name is Pitzela and not
Chaim Yankel."

"Thanks."

"You can go anywhere on Maxwell Street and ask anybody you meet do they
know Pitzela and they will say: 'Do we know Pitzela? We know Pitzela all
right.' So what is there to be gained by calling him Chaim Yankel?"

"Nothing, Feodor. It was a mistake even to think of it."

"It was. Well, as I was telling you before you began this interruption
about names, he is exactly 110 years old. Can you imagine a man 110 years
old? A man 110 years old is an unusual thing, isn't it?"

"It is, Feodor. But I once knew a man 113 years old."

"Ha! And what kind of a man was he? Did he dance jigs? Did he crack nuts
with his teeth? Did he drink like a fish?"

"No, he was an old man and very sad."

"You see! He was sad. So what has he to do with Pitzela? Nothing. Pitzela
laughs all day long. And he dances jigs. And he cracks nuts with his
teeth. Mind you, a man 110 years old cracks nuts with his teeth! Can you
imagine such a thing?"

"No Feodor. It is amazing."

"Amazing? Why amazing? Everything that happens different from what you
know is amazing to you! You are very naive. You know what naive means? It
is French."

"I know what naive means, Feodor. Go on about Pitzela."

"Naive means to be childish late in life. In a way you are like Pitzela,
despite the difference in your ages. He is naive. You know what he wants?"

"What?"

"This Pitzela wants to show everybody how young he is. That's his central
ambition. He don't talk English much, but when you ask him, 'Pitzela, how
do you feel today?' he says to you right back, 'Oi, me? I'm full o' pep.'
Then if you ask him, 'How old are you, Pitzela?' he says: 'Old? What does
it matter how old I am? I am just beginning to enjoy myself. And when you
talk about my dying don't laugh too much. Because, you know, I will attend
all your funerals. When I am 300 years old I will be burying your
grandchildren.' And he will laugh. Do you like the story?"

"Yes, Feodor. But it isn't long enough. I will have to go out and see
Pitzela and describe him and that will make the story long enough."

"It isn't long enough? What do you mean? I just begun. The story ain't
about Pitzela at all. So why should you go see Pitzela?"

"But I thought it was about Pitzela."

"You thought! Hm! Well, you see what good it does you to think. For
according to your thinking the story is already finished. Whereas
according to me the story is only just beginning."

"But you said it was about Pitzela, Feodor. So I believed you."

"I said nothing of the sort. I merely asked you if you knew Pitzela. The
story is entirely about Pitzela's son."

"Aha! This Pitzela has a son. That's interesting."

"Of course it is. Pitzela's son is a man 87 years old. Ask anybody on
Maxwell street do they know Pitzela's son and they will tell you: 'Do we
know Pitzela's son? Hm! It's a scandal."

"The editor, Feodor, forbids me to write about scandals. So be careful."

"This scandal is one you can write about. This Pitzela's son is such a
poor old man that he can hardly walk. He has a long white beard and wears
a yamulka and he has no teeth and one foot is already deep in the grave.
If you saw Pitzela's son you would say: 'Why don't this dying man go home
and sit down instead of running around like this?'

"And why don't he?"

"Why don't he? Such a question! He don't because Pitzela don't let him.
Pitzela is his father and he has to mind his father. And Pitzela says:
'What! You want to hang around the house like you were an old man? You are
crazy. Look at me, I'm your father. And you a young man, my son, act like
you were my father. It's a scandal. Come, we will go to the banquet.'

"What banquet, Feodor?"

"Oh, any banquet. He drags him. He don't let him rest. And he says: 'You
must shave off your beard. For fifteen years you been letting it grow and
now it's altogether too long. How does it look for me to go around with a
son who not only can't walk, but has a beard that makes him look like
Father Abraham himself?'"

"And what does Pitzela's son say?"

"What can he say? Nothing. The doctor comes and tells him: 'You got to
stay in the house. You are going out too much. How old are you?' And
Pitzela's son shakes his tired head and says: 'Eighty-seven years old,
doctor.' And the doctor gives strict orders. But Pitzela comes in and
laughs. Imagine."

"Yes, it's a good story, Feodor."

"A good story! How do you know? I ain't come to the point yet. But never
mind, if you like it so much you don't need any point."

"The point, Feodor. Excuse me."

"Well, the point is that Pitzela and the way he treats his son is a
scandal. You know why? Because he uses his son as an advertisement.
Pitzela's son, mind you, is so weak and old that he can hardly walk and he
carries a heavy cane and his hands shake like leaves. And Pitzela drags
him around all over. To banquets. To political meetings. To the Yiddish
theater. All over. He holds him by the arm and brings him into the hall
and sits him down in a chair. And Pitzela's son sits so tired and almost
dead he can't move. And then Pitzela jumps up and gets excited and says:
'Look at him. A fine son, for you! Look, he's almost dead. Tell me if you
wouldn't think he was my father and I was his son? Instead of the other
way around? I ask you.'"

"And what does Pitzela's son say, Feodor?"

"Say? What can he say? He looks up and shakes his head some more. He can
hardly see. And when the banquet talking begins he falls asleep and
Pitzela has to hold him up from falling out of the chair. And when the
food is done and the dessert comes Pitzela leans over and says to his son:
'Listen. I got a treat for you. Here.' And he reaches into his pocket and
brings out a handful of hickory nuts. 'Crack them with your teeth,' he
says, 'like your father.' And when his son looks at him and strokes his
white beard and sighs, Pitzela jumps up and laughs so you can hear him all
over the banquet hall. But the point of the story is that two weeks ago
Pitzela went to his grandson's funeral. It was Pitzela's son's son and he
was a man almost 70 years old. And it was a scandal at the funeral. Why?
Because Pitzela laughed and coming back from the grave he said: 'Look at
me, my grandson dies and I go to his funeral and if he had a son I would
go to his, too, and I would dance jigs both times.'"

PANDORA'S BOX

A dark afternoon with summer thunder in the sky. The fan-shaped
skyscrapers spread a checkerboard of window lights through the gloom. It
rains. People seem to grow vaguely elate on the dark wet pavements. They
hurry along, their eyes saying to one another, "We have something in
common. We are all getting wet in the rain." The crowd is no longer quite
so enigmatic a stranger to itself. An errand boy from Market Street
advances with leaps through the downpour, a high chant on his lips, "It's
raining ... it's raining." The rain mutters and the pavements, like
darkened mirrors, grow alive with impressionistic cartoons of the city.

Inside the Washington Street book store of Covici-McGee the electric
lights gleam cozily. New books and old books--the high shelves stuffed
with books vanish in the ceiling shadows. On a rainy day the dusty army of
books peers coaxingly from the shelves. Old tales, old myths, old wars,
old dreams begin to chatter softly in the shadows--or it may be the
chatter of the rain on the pavement outside. The Great Philosophers
unbend, the Bearded Classics sigh, the Pontifical Critics of Life murmur
"ahem." Yes, even the forbidding works of Standard Authors grow lonely on
the high shelves on a rainy day. As for the rag-tag, ruffle-snuffle crowd
in motley--the bulged, spavined, sniffling crew of mountebanks,
troubadours, swashbucklers, bleary philosophers, phantasts and
adventurers--they set up a veritable witches' chorus. Or it may be the
rain again lashing against the streaming windows of the book store.

* * * * *

People come in out of the rain. A girl without an umbrella, her face wet.
Who? Perhaps a stenographer hunting a job and halted by the rain. And then
a matron with an old-fashioned knitted shopping bag. And a spinster with a
keen, kindly face. Others, too. They stand nervously idle, feeling that
they are taking up valuable space in an industrial establishment and
should perhaps make a purchase. So they permit their eyes to drift
politely toward the wares. And then the chatter of the books has them. Old
books, new books, live books, dead books--but they move carelessly away
and toward the bargain tables--"All Books 30 Cents." Broken down best
sellers here--pausing in their gavotte toward oblivion. The next step is
the junk man--$1 a hundred. Pembertons, Wrights, Farnols, Websters,
Johnstones, Porters, Wards and a hundred other names reminiscent more of a
page in the telephone book than a page out of a literary yesterday. The
little gavotte is an old dance in the second-hand book store. The
$2-shelf. The $1-rack. The 75-cent table. The 30-cent grab counter. And
finis. New scribblings crowd for place, old scribblings exeunt.

The girl without an umbrella studies titles. A love story, of course, and
only thirty cents. An opened page reads, "he took her in his arms...." Who
would not buy such a book on a rainy day?

* * * * *

It rains and other people come in. A middle-aged man in a curious coat, a
curious hat and a curious face. Slate-colored skin, slate-colored eyes
behind silver spectacles. A scholar in caricature, an Old Clothes Dealer
out of Alice in Wonderland. The rain runs from his stringy, slate-colored
hair. He approaches the high shelves, thrusts the silver spectacles
farther down on his nose. In front of him a curious row of literary
gargoyles--"The Astral Light," "What and Where Is God?", "Man" by Dohony
of Texas, "The Star of the Magi."

Thin slate-colored fingers fumble nervously over the title backs. A second
man, figure short, squat, red-faced, crowds the erratic scholar. A third.
The rain is bringing them in in numbers. These are the basement students
of the gargoyle philosophies, the gargoyle sciences, the gargoyle
religions. Perpetual motion machine inventors, alchemists with staring,
nervous-eyed medieval faces, fourth dimensionists, sun worshippers,
cabalistic researchers, voodoo authorities--the old-book store is suddenly
alive with them. They move about furtively with no word for one another,
lost in their grotesque dreamings.

* * * * *

On a rainy day the city gives them up and they come puttering excitedly
into the loop on a quest. The world is a garish unreality to them. The
streets and the crowds of automatic-faced men and women, the upward rush
of buildings and the horizontal rush of traffic are no more than vague
grimacings. Life is something of which the streets are oblivious. But here
on the gargoyle shelves, the high, shadowed shelves of the old book
store--truth stands in all its terrible reality, wrapped in its authentic
habiliments. Dr. Hickson of the psychopathic laboratory would give these
curious rainy day phantasts identities as weird as the volumes they
caress. But the old book store clerk is more kind. He lets them rummage.
Before the rain ends they will buy "The Cradle of the Giants," "The Key to
Satanism," Cornelius Agrippa's "Natural Magic," "The Astral Chord,"
"Occultism and Its Usages." They will buy books by Jacob Boehme, William
Law, Sadler, Hyslop, Ramachaska. And they will go hurrying home with their
treasures pressed close to them. Stuffy bedrooms lined with hints of
Sabbatical horror, strewn with bizarre refuse; musty smelling books out of
whose pages fantastic shapes rear themselves against the gaslights,
macabre worlds in which unreason rides like a headless D'Artagnan;
evenings in the park arguing suddenly with startled strangers on the
existence of the philosophers' stone or the astrological causes of
influenza--these form a background for the curious men whom the rain has
drifted into the old book store and who stand with their eyes haunting the
gargoyle titles.

The rain brings in another tribesman--a famed though somewhat ragged
bibliomaniac. His casual gestures hide the sudden fever old books kindle
in his thought. Old books--old books, a magical phrase to him. His eyes
travel like a lover's back and forth, up and down. He knows them all--the
sets, the first editions, the bargains, the riff-raff. A democratic lover
is here. But the clerk watches him. For this lover is an antagonist. Yes,
this somewhat ragged, gleaming-eyed gentleman with the casual manner is a
terrible person to have around in a second-hand book store on a rainy day.
Only six months ago one of his horrible tribe pounced upon Sander's
"Indian Wars," price 30 cents; value, alas, $150.00. Only two months ago
another of his kidney fell upon a copy of Jean Jacques Rosseau's "Emile"
with Jean's own dedication on the title page to "His Majesty, the King of
France." Price 75 cents; value, gadzooks, $200.

There will be nothing today, however. Merely an hour's caress of old
friends on the high shelves while the rain beats outside. Unless--unless
this Stevenson happens by any chance to be a "first." A furtive glance at
the title page. No. The clerk sighs with relief as the Stevenson goes back
on the shelf. It might have been something overlooked.

* * * * *

The rain ends. The old book store slowly empties. A troop of men and women
saunter out, pausing to say farewell to the gaudily ragged tomes in the
old book store. The sky has grown lighter. The buildings shake the last
drops of rain from their spatula tops. There is a different-looking,
well-linened gentleman thrusts his head into the old book store and
inquires, "Have you a copy of 'The Investors' Guide'?"

ILL-HUMORESQUE

The beggar in the street, sitting on the pavement against the building
with his pleading face raised and his arm outstretched--I don't like him.
I don't like the way he tucks his one good leg under him in order to
convey the impression that he is entirely legless. I don't like the way he
thrusts his arm stump at me, the way his eyes plead his weakness and
sorrow.

He is a presumptuous and calculating scoundrel, this beggar. He is a
diabolical psychologist. Why will people drop coins into his hat? Ah,
because when they look at him and his misfortunes, by a common mental ruse
they see themselves in his place, and they hurriedly fling a coin to this
fugitive image of themselves. And because in back of this beggar has grown
up an insidious propaganda that power is wrong, that strength is evil,
that riches are vile. A strong, rich and powerful man cannot get into
heaven. Thus this beggar becomes for an instant an intimidating symbol of
perfections. One feels that one should apologize for the fact that one has
two legs, money in one's pocket and hope in one's heart. One flings him a
coin, thus buying momentary absolution for not being an unfortunate--i.e.,
as noble and non-predatory--as the beggar.

* * * * *

I do not like the way this beggar pleads. And yet after I pass him and
remember his calculating expression, his mountebank tricks, I grow fond of
him--theoretically. My thought warms to him as a creature of intelligence,
of straightforward and amusing cynicisms.

For this beggar is aware of me and the innumerable lies to which I lamely
submit. I am the public to him--one of a herd of identical faces drifting
by. And this beggar has perfected a technique of attack. It is his duty to
sit on the pavement and lay for me and hit me with a slapstick labeled
platitude and soak me over the head with a bladder labeled in stern white
letters: "The Poor Shall Inherit the Kingdom of Heaven."

And this he does, the scoundrel, grinning to himself as the blows fall and
slyly concealing his enthusiasm as the coins jingle into his hat. I am one
of those who labor proudly at the immemorial task of idealizations. I am
the public who passes laws proclaiming things wrong, immoral, contrary to
my "best instincts." Thus I have after many centuries succeeded in
creating a beautiful conception--a marvelous person. This marvelous person
represents what I might be if I had neither ambition nor corpuscles,
prejudices nor ecstasties, greeds, lusts, illusions or curiosity. This
marvelous person is the beautiful image, the noble and flattering image of
itself that the public rapturously beholds when it stares into the mirror
of laws, conventions, adages, platitudes and constitutions that it has
created.

A charming image to contemplate. Learned men wax full of stern joy when
they gaze upon this image. Kind-hearted folk thrill with pride at the
thought that life is at last a carefully policed force which flows
politely and properly through the catalogued veins of this marvelous
person.

But my beggar in the street--ah, my beggar in the street knows better. My
beggar in the street, maimed and vicious, sits against the building and
wields his bladder and his slapstick on me. Whang! A platitude on the
rear. Bam! A bromide on the bean! And I shell out a dime and hurry on. I
do not like this beggar.

* * * * *

But I grow warm with fellowship toward him after I have left him behind.
There is something comradely about his amazing cynicism. People, thinks
this beggar, are ashamed of themselves for being strong, for having two
legs, for not being poor, brow-beaten, cheek-turning humble mendicants.
People, thinks this beggar, are secretly ashamed of themselves for being
part of success. And their shame is inspired by fear. When they see me
they suddenly feel uncertain about themselves. When they see me they think
that reverses and misfortunes and calamities might overtake them and
reduce them to my condition. Thinking this, they grow indignant for an
instant with a society that produces beggars. Not because it produced me.
But perhaps it might produce them--as beggars. And then remembering that
they are responsible for my plight--they being society--they beg my
pardon by giving me money and a pleading look. Oho! You should see the
pleading looks they give me. Men and women pass and plead with me not to
hit them too hard with my slapstick and bladder. They plead with me to
spare them, not to look at them. And when they give me a dime it is a
gesture intended to annihilate me. The dime obliterates my misfortunes. It
annihilates my poverty. For an instant, having annihilated poverty and
misfortune with a dime, the man or woman is happy. An instant of security
strengthens his wavering spirit.

* * * * *

Thus my beggar whom I have grown quite fond of as I write. I would write
more of him and of the marvelous person in me whom he is continually
belaboring with his slapstick and bladder. But I remember suddenly a man
in a wheel chair. A pale man with drawn features and paralyzed legs. It
was at night in North Clark Street. Lights streamed over the pavements.
People moved in and out of doorways.

And this man sat in his wheel chair, a board on his lap. The board was
laden with wares. Trinkets, pencils, shoestrings, candies, tacks,
neckties, socks. And from the front of the board hung a sign reading,
"Jim's Store--Stop and Shop."

I remember this creature with a sudden excitement. I passed by and bought
nothing. But after five days his face has caught up with me. A sallow,
drawn face, burning eyes, bloodless lips and skinny hands that fumbled
among the wares on his board. He was young. Heroic sentences come to me.
"Jim's Store--" Good hokum, effective advertising. And a strange pathos, a
pathos that my beggar with one leg and a pleading face never had.

I do not like cynics. I like Jim better. I like Jim and his burning eyes,
his skinny hands, his dying body--and his store. Fighting--with the lights
going out. Sitting in a wheel chair with death at his back and despair
crying from his eyes--"Come buy from me--a little while longer--I don't
give up ... another week ... another month ... but I don't give up. I'm
still on the turf.... Never mind my dying body ... business as usual ...
business as usual.... Come buy from me ... little while longer ... a...."

But I never gave a nickel to Jim. I passed up his store. I took him at his
word. He was selling wares and I didn't want any. But my beggar with the
one leg and the inward grin was selling absolutions.... And I patronized
him.

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