Tales of the Jazz Age Read online

  "Hm."

  "I got an old uncle up–state an' I reckin I kin go up there if ever I get sure enough pore. Nice farm, but not enough niggers around to work it. He's asked me to come up and help him, but I don't guess I'd take much to it. Too doggone lonesome—" He broke off suddenly. "Clark, I want to tell you I'm much obliged to you for askin' me out, but I'd be a lot happier if you'd just stop the car right here an' let me walk back into town."

  "Shucks!" Clark grunted. "Do you good to step out. You don't have to dance—just get out there on the floor and shake."

  "Hold on," exclaimed. Jim uneasily, "Don't you go leadin' me up to any girls and leavin' me there so I'll have to dance with 'em."

  Clark laughed.

  "'Cause," continued Jim desperately, "without you swear you won't do that I'm agoin' to get out right here an' my good legs goin' carry me back to Jackson street."

  They agreed after some argument that Jim, unmolested by females, was to view the spectacle from a secluded settee in the corner where Clark would join him whenever he wasn't dancing.

  So ten o'clock found the Jelly–bean with his legs crossed and his arms conservatively folded, trying to look casually at home and politely uninterested in the dancers. At heart he was torn between overwhelming self–consciousness and an intense curiosity as to all that went on around him. He saw the girls emerge one by one from the dressing–room, stretching and pluming themselves like bright birds, smiling over their powdered shoulders at the chaperones, casting a quick glance around to take in the room and, simultaneously, the room's reaction to their entrance—and then, again like birds, alighting and nestling in the sober arms of their waiting escorts. Sally Carrol Hopper, blonde and lazy–eyed, appeared clad in her favorite pink and blinking like an awakened rose. Marjorie Haight, Marylyn Wade, Harriet Cary, all the girls he had seen loitering down Jackson Street by noon, now, curled and brilliantined and delicately tinted for the overhead lights, were miraculously strange Dresden figures of pink and blue and red and gold, fresh from the shop and not yet fully dried.

  He had been there half an hour, totally uncheered by Clark's jovial visits which were each one accompanied by a "Hello, old boy, how you making out?" and a slap at his knee. A dozen males had spoken to him or stopped for a moment beside him, but he knew that they were each one surprised at finding him there and fancied that one or two were even slightly resentful. But at half past ten his embarrassment suddenly left him and a pull of breathless interest took him completely out of himself—Nancy Lamar had come out of the dressing–room.

  She was dressed in yellow organdie, a costume of a hundred cool corners, with three tiers of ruffles and a big bow in back until she shed black and yellow around her in a sort of phosphorescent lustre. The Jelly–bean's eyes opened wide and a lump arose in his throat. For she stood beside the door until her partner hurried up. Jim recognized him as the stranger who had been with her in Joe Ewing's car that afternoon. He saw her set her arms akimbo and say something in a low voice, and laugh. The man laughed too and Jim experienced the quick pang of a weird new kind of pain. Some ray had passed between the pair, a shaft of beauty from that sun that had warmed him a moment since. The Jelly–bean felt suddenly like a weed in a shadow.

  A minute later Clark approached him, bright–eyed and glowing.

  "Hi, old man" he cried with some lack of originality. "How you making out?"

  Jim replied that he was making out as well as could be expected.

  "You come along with me," commanded Clark. "I've got something that'll put an edge on the evening."

  Jim followed him awkwardly across the floor and up the stairs to the locker–room where Clark produced a flask of nameless yellow liquid.

  "Good old corn."

  Ginger ale arrived on a tray. Such potent nectar as "good old corn" needed some disguise beyond seltzer.

  "Say, boy," exclaimed Clark breathlessly, "doesn't Nancy Lamar look beautiful?"

  Jim nodded.

  "Mighty beautiful," he agreed.

  "She's all dolled up to a fare–you–well to–night," continued Clark. "Notice that fellow she's with?"

  "Big fella? White pants?"

  "Yeah. Well, that's Ogden Merritt from Savannah. Old man Merritt makes the Merritt safety razors. This fella's crazy about her. Been chasing, after her all year."

  "She's a wild baby," continued Clark, "but I like her. So does everybody. But she sure does do crazy stunts. She usually gets out alive, but she's got scars all over her reputation from one thing or another she's done."

  "That so?" Jim passed over his glass. "That's good corn."

  "Not so bad. Oh, she's a wild one. Shoot craps, say, boy! And she do like her high–balls. Promised I'd give her one later on."

  "She in love with this—Merritt?"

  "Damned if I know. Seems like all the best girls around here marry fellas and go off somewhere."

  He poured himself one more drink and carefully corked the bottle.

  "Listen, Jim, I got to go dance and I'd be much obliged if you just stick this corn right on your hip as long as you're not dancing. If a man notices I've had a drink he'll come up and ask me and before I know it it's all gone and somebody else is having my good time."

  So Nancy Lamar was going to marry. This toast of a town was to become the private property of an individual in white trousers—and all because white trousers' father had made a better razor than his neighbor. As they descended the stairs Jim found the idea inexplicably depressing. For the first time in his life he felt a vague and romantic yearning. A picture of her began to form in his imagination—Nancy walking boylike and debonnaire along the street, taking an orange as tithe from a worshipful fruit–dealer, charging a dope on a mythical account, at Soda Sam's, assembling a convoy of beaux and then driving off in triumphal state for an afternoon of splashing and singing.

  The Jelly–bean walked out on the porch to a deserted corner, dark between the moon on the lawn and the single lighted door of the ballroom. There he found a chair and, lighting a cigarette, drifted into the thoughtless reverie that was his usual mood. Yet now it was a reverie made sensuous by the night and by the hot smell of damp powder puffs, tucked in the fronts of low dresses and distilling a thousand rich scents, to float out through the open door. The music itself, blurred by a loud trombone, became hot and shadowy, a languorous overtone to the scraping of many shoes and slippers.

  Suddenly the square of yellow light that fell through the door was obscured by a dark figure. A girl had come out of the dressing–room and was standing on the porch not more than ten feet away. Jim heard a low–breathed "doggone" and then she turned and saw him. It was Nancy Lamar.

  Jim rose to his feet.

  "Howdy?"

  "Hello—" she paused, hesitated and then approached. "Oh, it's—Jim Powell."

  He bowed slightly, tried to think of a casual remark.

  "Do you suppose," she began quickly, "I mean—do you know anything about gum?"

  "What?""I've got gum on my shoe. Some utter ass left his or her gum on the floor and of course I stepped in it."

  Jim blushed, inappropriately.

  "Do you know how to get it off?" she demanded petulantly. "I've tried a knife. I've tried every damn thing in the dressing–room. I've tried soap and water—and even perfume and I've ruined my powder–puff trying to make it stick to that."

  Jim considered the question in some agitation.

  "Why—I think maybe gasolene—"

  The words had scarcely left his lips when she grasped his hand and pulled him at a run off the low veranda, over a flower bed and at a gallop toward a group of cars parked in the moonlight by the first hole of the golf course.

  "Turn on the gasolene," she commanded breathlessly.

  "What?"

  "For the gum of course. I've got to get it off. I can't dance with gum on."

  Obediently Jim turned to the cars and began inspecting them with a view to obtaining the desired solvent. Had she demanded a cylinder he would
have done his best to wrench one out.

  "Here," he said after a moment's search. "'Here's one that's easy. Got a handkerchief?"

  "It's up–stairs wet. I used it for the soap and water."

  Jim laboriously explored his pockets.

  "Don't believe I got one either."

  "Doggone it! Well, we can turn it on and let it run on the ground."

  He turned the spout; a dripping began.

  "More!"

  He turned it on fuller. The dripping became a flow and formed an oily pool that glistened brightly, reflecting a dozen tremulous moons on its quivering bosom.

  "Ah," she sighed contentedly, "let it all out. The only thing to do is to wade in it."

  In desperation he turned on the tap full and the pool suddenly widened sending tiny rivers and trickles in all directions.

  "That's fine. That's something like."

  Raising her skirts she stepped gracefully in.

  "I know this'll take it off," she murmured.

  Jim smiled.

  "There's lots more cars."

  She stepped daintily out of the gasolene and began scraping her slippers, side and bottom, on the running–board of the automobile. The jelly–bean contained himself no longer. He bent double with explosive laughter and after a second she joined in.

  "You're here with Clark Darrow, aren't you?" she asked as they walked back toward the veranda.

  "Yes."

  "You know where he is now?"

  "Out dancin', I reckin."

  "The deuce. He promised me a highball."

  "Well," said Jim, "I guess that'll be all right. I got his bottle right here in my pocket."

  She smiled at him radiantly.

  "I guess maybe you'll need ginger ale though," he added.

  "Not me. Just the bottle."

  "Sure enough?"

  She laughed scornfully.

  "Try me. I can drink anything any man can. Let's sit down."

  She perched herself on the side of a table and he dropped into one of the wicker chairs beside her. Taking out the cork she held the flask to her lips and took a long drink. He watched her fascinated.

  "Like it?"

  She shook her head breathlessly.

  "No, but I like the way it makes me feel. I think most people are that way."

  Jim agreed.

  "My daddy liked it too well. It got him."

  "American men," said Nancy gravely, "don't know how to drink."

  "What?" Jim was startled.

  "In fact," she went on carelessly, "they don't know how to do anything very well. The one thing I regret in my life is that I wasn't born in England."

  "In England?"

  "Yes. It's the one regret of my life that I wasn't."

  "Do you like it over there?""Yes. Immensely. I've never been there in person, but I've met a lot of Englishmen who were over here in the army, Oxford and Cambridge men—you know, that's like Sewanee and University of Georgia are here—and of course I've read a lot of English novels."

  Jim was interested, amazed.

  "D' you ever hear of Lady Diana Manner?" she asked earnestly.

  No, Jim had not.

  "Well, she's what I'd like to be. Dark, you know, like me, and wild as sin. She's the girl who rode her horse up the steps of some cathedral or church or something and all the novelists made their heroines do it afterwards."

  Jim nodded politely. He was out of his depths.

  "Pass the bottle," suggested Nancy. "I'm going to take another little one. A little drink wouldn't hurt a baby."

  "You see," she continued, again breathless after a draught. "People over there have style, Nobody has style here. I mean the boys here aren't really worth dressing up for or doing sensational things for. Don't you know?"

  "I suppose so—I mean I suppose not," murmured Jim.

  "And I'd like to do 'em an' all. I'm really the only girl in town that has style."

  She stretched, out her arms and yawned pleasantly.

  "Pretty evening."

  "Sure is," agreed Jim.

  "Like to have boat" she suggested dreamily. "Like to sail out on a silver lake, say the Thames, for instance. Have champagne and caviare sandwiches along. Have about eight people. And one of the men would jump overboard to amuse the party, and get drowned like a man did with Lady Diana Manners once."

  "Did he do it to please her?""Didn't mean drown himself to please her. He just meant to jump overboard and make everybody laugh,"

  "I reckin they just died laughin' when he drowned."

  "Oh, I suppose they laughed a little," she admitted. "I imagine she did, anyway. She's pretty hard, I guess—like I am."

  "You hard?"

  "Like nails." She yawned again and added, "Give me a little more from that bottle."

  Jim hesitated but she held out her hand defiantly, "Don't treat me like a girl;" she warned him. "I'm not like any girl you ever saw," She considered. "Still, perhaps you're right. You got—you got old head on young shoulders."

  She jumped to her feet and moved toward the door. The Jelly–bean rose also.

  "Good–bye," she said politely, "good–bye. Thanks, Jelly–bean."

  Then she stepped inside and left him wide–eyed upon the porch.

  III

  At twelve o'clock a procession of cloaks issued single file from the women's dressing–room and, each one pairing with a coated beau like dancers meeting in a cotillion figure, drifted through the door with sleepy happy laughter—through the door into the dark where autos backed and snorted and parties called to one another and gathered around the water–cooler.

  Jim, sitting in his corner, rose to look for Clark. They had met at eleven; then Clark had gone in to dance. So, seeking him, Jim wandered into the soft–drink stand that had once been a bar. The room was deserted except for a sleepy negro dozing behind the counter and two boys lazily fingering a pair of dice at one of the tables. Jim was about to leave when he saw Clark coming in. At the same moment Clark looked up.

  "Hi, Jim" he commanded. "C'mon over and help us with this bottle. I guess there's not much left, but there's one all around."

  Nancy, the man from Savannah, Marylyn Wade, and Joe Ewing were lolling and laughing in the doorway. Nancy caught Jim's eye and winked at him humorously.

  They drifted over to a table and arranging themselves around it waited for the waiter to bring ginger ale. Jim, faintly ill at ease, turned his eyes on Nancy, who had drifted into a nickel crap game with the two boys at the next table.

  "Bring them over here," suggested Clark.

  Joe looked around.

  "We don't want to draw a crowd. It's against club rules."

  "Nobody's around," insisted Clark, "except Mr. Taylor. He's walking up and down, like a wild–man trying find out who let all the gasolene out of his car."

  There was a general laugh.

  "I bet a million Nancy got something on her shoe again. You can't park when she's around."

  "O Nancy, Mr. Taylor's looking for you!"

  Nancy's cheeks were glowing with excitement over the game. "I haven't seen his silly little flivver in two weeks."

  Jim felt a sudden silence. He turned and saw an individual of uncertain age standing in the doorway.

  Clark's voice punctuated the embarrassment.

  "Won't you join us Mr. Taylor?"

  "Thanks."

  Mr. Taylor spread his unwelcome presence over a chair. "Have to, I guess. I'm waiting till they dig me up some gasolene. Somebody got funny with my car."

  His eyes narrowed and he looked quickly from one to the other. Jim wondered what he had heard from the doorway—tried to remember what had been said.

  "I'm right to–night," Nancy sang out, "and my four bits is in the ring."

  "Faded!" snapped Taylor suddenly.

  "Why, Mr. Taylor, I didn't know you shot craps!" Nancy was overjoyed to find that he had seated himself and instantly covered her bet. They had openly disliked each other since the night she had definitely discourag
ed a series of rather pointed advances.

  "All right, babies, do it for your mamma. Just one little seven." Nancy was cooing to the dice. She rattled them with a brave underhand flourish, and rolled them out on the table.

  "Ah–h! I suspected it. And now again with the dollar up."

  Five passes to her credit found Taylor a bad loser. She was making it personal, and after each success Jim watched triumph flutter across her face. She was doubling with each throw—such luck could scarcely last. "Better go easy," he cautioned her timidly.

  "Ah, but watch this one," she whispered. It was eight on the dice and she called her number.

  "Little Ada, this time we're going South."

  Ada from Decatur rolled over the table. Nancy was flushed and half–hysterical, but her luck was holding.

  She drove the pot up and up, refusing to drag. Taylor was drumming with his fingers on the table but he was in to stay.

  Then Nancy tried for a ten and lost the dice. Taylor seized them avidly. He shot in silence, and in the hush of excitement the clatter of one pass after another on the table was the only sound.

  Now Nancy had the dice again, but her luck had broken. An hour passed. Back and forth it went. Taylor had been at it again—and again and again. They were even at last—Nancy lost her ultimate five dollars.

  "Will you take my check," she said quickly, "for fifty, and we'll shoot it all?" Her voice was a little unsteady and her hand shook as she reached to the money.

  Clark exchanged an uncertain but alarmed glance with Joe Ewing. Taylor shot again. He had Nancy's check.

  "How 'bout another?" she said wildly. "Jes' any bank'll do—money everywhere as a matter of fact."

  Jim understood—the "good old corn" he had given her—the "good old corn" she had taken since. He wished he dared interfere—a girl of that age and position would hardly have two bank accounts. When the clock struck two he contained himself no longer.

  "May I—can't you let me roll 'em for you?" he suggested, his low, lazy voice a little strained.

  Suddenly sleepy and listless, Nancy flung the dice down before him.