The Brass Bed

15

It was a big wooden building that looked like a barn, except that the roof wasn’t hipped as a barn’s usually is, and all around it was a gravel parking area with a lot of cars parked in it. We stopped our own among the others and got out and went inside, and the interior was divided almost equally by a partition into the front room, which was the bar, and the back room, which was what they called the tabernacle. The bar ran along the partition side of the front room, and apparently the pulpit in the back room was also right against the partition, and sometimes when the preacher was going good and loud, it was necessary to bellow at the bartender in order to make him understand what it was you wanted. The entrance to the tabernacle was at the right end of the bar as you faced it, and this arrangement was deliberately contrived so that those at the bar could catch a few words of exhortation if they cared to listen and slip easily around behind the partition to be personally threatened with hell’s fire if the spirit moved them.

There was a huge and gaudy juke box in the room, but it was disconnected at night when the tabernacle was open, because it interfered with the singing of hymns. The bartender was a massive black man with a completely naked scalp and a high shine and an incredible number of glittering gold teeth which were constantly in evidence, and it turned out that this bartender was no one but Prince Sam himself. The patrons were light and dark, about evenly divided, and they sat at the bar and at tables in a sea of sawdust. The sawdust was shaped to form a narrow path around the end of the bar and through the door into the tabernacle, and there was a big sign with a flaming arrow pointing toward the door, and printed in red block letters below the arrow were the words: THE SAWDUST TRAIL.

“This is obviously an interesting and busy establishment,” Jolly said, “and it is my opinion that it would greatly simplify matters if we were all to order the same thing to drink.”

“I agree, Jolly,” Fran said, “and I am also convinced that we had better keep the drink itself on the simple side, for I have a feeling that Prince Sam would be impatient with such things as martinis and manhattans and similar elaborate mixtures.”

“True,” Jolly said. “Prince Sam, in spite of his passion for gold teeth, is obviously a simple fellow, and I have an idea that he might take it as an insult if we were to order anything more complicated than a highball. I require a little sweetness with my whiskey, and I therefore suggest bourbon in ginger ale.”

“Is bourbon and ginger ale satisfactory to everyone?” Fran asked.

“Hell, no,” Harvey said. “There’s a very popular theory that people who put ginger ale into whiskey drinks ought to be shot. I want soda.”

I asked for soda too, and murmured that I subscribed to the shooting theory. Nobody seemed to hear me.

There were no waiters or waitresses, and it was clearly the custom for people at the tables to go to the bar for their own drinks, so we found a table and sat down, all of us except Sid, and Sid remained at the bar to deliver the order. The preacher behind the partition was exhorting loudly at the moment about the evils of hard liquor, and it was his position that it was the devil’s drink, which was not in my opinion a particularly original position among preachers, and every once in a while the exhortation would be punctuated by someone in the congregation shouting amen or hallelujah, and one penitent kept disturbing the sermon by shouting that he was nothing but a bum and had always been nothing but a bum from an early age but that he had now seen the light and was resolved to do better in the future, and this penitent made such a nuisance of himself that he was finally ejected forcibly from the tabernacle. He returned to the bar and started drinking again, and at that time Sid came over to our table with the five bourbons in ginger ale on a tin tray. He sat down and spread the glasses around, and Fran looked at him sternly.

“Sid,” she said, “you sneaky little bastard, you’re always talking about being a sociable drinker and turning up your snotty nose at honest folk who drink for sensible reasons, and all the time you knew all about this Hallelujah House and have obviously been coming here regularly, because you call Prince Sam by name and are clearly acquainted with him.”

“I come here now and then to study human nature,” Sid said.

“Did you hear that?” Fran appealed to the rest of us. “I have absolutely devoted years of my life to establishing a spirit of confidence and trust between me and this little sneak, and now I discover that he has the effrontery and ingratitude to lie to me in a perfectly brazen manner.” She turned and concentrated on Sid again. “What’s the matter with you, Sid? In what way have I failed you? Why is it that you can’t simply confess that you’ve been an underhanded alcoholic all this time you’ve been trying to act so virtuous and everything?”

“Damn it,” said Sid, “I am not an alcoholic. I come here to study human nature, and take an infrequent drink in the process out of deference to Prince Sam’s business. I am a very serious student of human nature, to tell the truth, and you have simply never understood me.”

“I certainly concede that,” Fran said. “I concede that I have not fully understood you, and I don’t mind admitting that I am positively stunned. I really can’t understand how you could have been a confirmed alcoholic all this time without my even suspecting it.”

Sid gulped some of his drink desperately, and Fran drank some of hers sadly, and the rest of us drank some of ours in our own ways for our own reasons. In the tabernacle, someone banged out a few chords on a piano, and the congregation began to bawl out the words of a hymn.

Jolly contacted me with a knee and said, “I find that quite appealing, Felix, I really do. Don’t you find it appealing?”

“It’s good and loud,” I said.

“The thing about it is,” she said, “it just shows what can be done in the matter of getting along with each other when people only try. I consider Prince Sam truly noble to permit the tabernacle to exist in his back room.”

“He is not only noble but also very shrewd, and I would bet dollars to dimes that this combination is one that results in a fat bank account.”

“Are you being cynical, Felix? I wish you wouldn’t be cynical.”

“I am not being cynical. I am only pointing out that those who have repented and received salvation are apt to have a drink in their rejoicing, and those who have been convinced of their damnation are apt to have several in their despair.”

“Well, I confess that it may be incidentally true, but I can’t accept it as Prince Sam’s calculated purpose. His brow is far too noble for it. I am tremendously impressed by his noble brow. Have you noticed it?”

“I am of the opinion that the nobility of his brow is exaggerated by the baldness of his head.”

“Felix, darling, you depress me. This is because I love you and am vulnerable where you are concerned, and it disturbs me to see the deterioration of your character. I have noticed this deterioration especially in our personal relationship.”

“Is that so? I was under the impression that my character had lately become irreproachable in our relationship.”

“That’s because you are chronically befuddled, Felix, and can’t tell the difference between nobility and simple pig-headedness.”

“Do you feel, perhaps, that I should take turns with Sid?”

“What?”

“Never mind. I concede that I’m a degenerate in order to end this discussion.”

We had by this time finished the first round of drinks, and Sid gathered the glasses and put them on the tin tray and returned to the bar for refills. Fran watched him go and made a tch-ing sound with her tongue against her teeth.

“I absolutely cannot comprehend the monstrous deception of that little devil,” she said. “It is terribly disconcerting to think that you know someone like the palm of your own hand and then to discover suddenly that you have been deceived all along.”

“Perhaps you haven’t been deceived after all,” Harvey said. “Maybe he was telling the truth about being a student of human nature and all that. Sometimes these small quiet guys turn out to be something you’re least likely to suspect.”

“I accept your final remark as being incontrovertible,” Fran said, “and what Sid has certainly turned out to be that I didn’t suspect is a barfly at best. This is evident from his confession that he has been frequenting Prince Sam’s Hallelujah House for some time, and anyone who has even an infrequent drink from the hands of Prince Sam must have a powerful taste for whiskey because, except for a couple of ice cubes, that’s practically all the drinks consist of. Have you noticed that?”

“I certainly have,” I said, “and I’m wondering how he can make any profit serving such drinks.”

“It’s because he doesn’t hire any waiters or waitresses,” Harvey said. “Except for the preacher, he doesn’t hire anyone at all, which amounts to a large saving in overhead, and he is able to share this saving with the customers in the form of whiskey.”

“Which is truly noble of him,” Jolly said. “If we are honest, we will all admit that Prince Sam is a noble man of color.”

Sid came back with the second round of drinks, and the service ended in the tabernacle, and the congregation came out going the wrong way on the sawdust trail and lined up two deep at the bar. One of the men came past our table, carrying his glass, and Jolly reached up and took him by the arm and stopped him. He stood looking down at her politely, his mouth stretching in a great smile, white within crimson within chocolate.

“Have you been to the service?” Jolly said.

“Yes,” he said. “It was a fine service. Brother Shark is in exceptionally fine form tonight.”

“I especially enjoyed the hymns. We could hear them quite clearly on this side of the partition.”

“Thank you very much.”

He was extremely polite, concentrating on it and making a great effort so that no one could possibly think that he had been in the least otherwise.

“Is anyone permitted to attend the services?” Jolly said.

“Oh, yes. It is not only permitted, it is expected. It is considered a courtesy to Brother Shark.”

“Brother Shark is the preacher?”

“Yes. Brother Shark is the preacher’s name.”

“When does the next service begin?”

“There is a thirty minute interval between services.”

“Thank you.”

She took her hand off his arm, and he nodded and stretched his smile a little wider and went away.

“He was quite charming, wasn’t he?” Jolly said. “Don’t you think he was charming, Fran?”

“Yes, I do,” Fran said. “He was charming and polite.”

“As for me,” Jolly said, “I am determined to attend the next service out of courtesy to Brother Shark. Will anyone attend the next service with me?”

“Not I,” Sid said. “I consider it sacrilegious to have services in the back room of a tavern, and I don’t intend to go.”

“The trouble with you, Sid,” Jolly said, “is that you have no imagination and no spirit of cooperation whatever.”

“Nevertheless,” Sid said, “I don’t intend to go.”

Jolly shrugged and turned to me. “How about you, Felix? Will you attend the next service with me?”

“I’m willing to go,” I said, “but I confess that it is more out of curiosity than out of courtesy to Brother Shark.”

“As a scientific teacher of mathematics,” Harvey said, “I am personally of the opinion that Brother Shark is an unmitigated rascal whose only interest is in the till.”

“Well, never mind, Jolly,” Fran said. “Felix and Harvey, as you know, are confirmed heathens and cannot be expected to behave in a Christian manner.”

“I suppose,” Sid said to Fran, “that you count yourself among the Christians?”

“Certainly,” Fran said. “I am not so religious as Jolly, who will not even tolerate a vulgar parody of a sacred hymn, but I am nevertheless a true Christian in my own way.”

Sid said a dirty word and drained his glass. The strong drinks of Prince Sam on top of the medium drinks of Sylvester were making him exceptionally independent. They also seemed to be making him rather sleepy. His eyes looked foggy and the lids hung down over them about half way. He sat slumped in his chair with his arms stretched out straight in front of him and the empty glass in his hand and his eyes focused on the glass.

“I suggest that we all have another drink,” Harvey said.

Sid roused himself and gathered the glasses and carried them off to the bar. Because of his previous contacts with Prince Sam, he had assumed the right to act as waiter and would not relinquish the job to anyone else. After a while he came back with the third round, and we started working on it, and we finished it in good time and somehow got started on another, and about that time someone started playing the piano in the tabernacle again, and it was time for the service that Jolly and I were going to.

We decided that it would be a good idea to take a fresh drink to service with us, since it would probably be quite a while before we would have an opportunity to buy another, so we stopped at the bar and got the drinks and carried them down the sawdust trail into the tabernacle and sat down on a hard bench. There was a small pulpit standing near the partition, and Brother Shark was standing behind the pulpit, and about six or eight people came to the service besides Jolly and me, but Jolly was the only woman. Brother Shark was very tall and thin and had enormous ears and a conspicuous and active thyroid cartilage, and at first I thought it was only because I was drunk and inclined to see things in a grandiose way, but Jolly said afterward that she was of the same impression, and I am prepared to swear that Brother Shark was in fact seven feet tall if an inch.

This was really rather alarming under the circumstances because he kept weaving back and forth and was prevented from falling only by the presence of the pulpit, and it was pretty obvious all in all that he had taken advantage of the intermission between services to bend his elbow several times. It was my opinion, in fact, that he was as drunk as a lord, and I recall that I expressed this opinion in good faith and was called a heathen by Jolly, who expressed the belief that Brother Shark was merely exhausted from his labors, and I wish I could recall the sermon, what was said and all, but the truth is, all I can remember clearly is finishing my drink immediately after the invocation and putting a dollar in the collection plate when it came past just before the benediction. Jolly told me that I shook hands with Brother Shark at the end and introduced myself as a scout for the Harlem Globe Trotters, but I consider this unlikely, though I can’t actually deny it.

We went back into the tavern and found a couple of empty stools at the bar and spent some time on them, and it was actually quite a bit of time, I think, which encompassed the consumption of several of Prince Sam’s good strong drinks, and then we went on back to the table and found Fran examining Harvey’s cheek to see if the whiskers were yet discernible and Sid sitting slumped over with his head on his arms on the tabletop. Every once in a while, he would shudder and make a strange bubbling sound, something like a death rattle, and it was pretty terrible to hear but did not seem to be in the least disconcerting to Fran and Harvey.

“What’s the matter with old Sid?” I said.

“He sounds as if he might be dying,” Jolly said.

Fran looked up at us and patted Sid’s head without shifting the direction of her gaze.

“Nothing of the sort. He has simply passed out, and I am quite relieved about it, to tell the truth, because now it is certain that I accused him unjustly of being an alcoholic.”

“I agree that it’s unlikely that an alcoholic would have passed out so quickly,” Jolly said.

“Yes,” Fran said, “that must be accepted. As he tried to tell us, he is actually no more than a simple sociable drinker and student of human nature. I did him a grave injustice, and no one will ever know how terrible I feel about it.”

Tears began running down her cheeks, and Harvey said, “Don’t cry, Fran, don’t cry,” so she quit and began rubbing a hand over his cheek.

“I think I feel something,” she said.

“What I think,” I said, “is that we had all better go home.”

“I’m willing to go home,” Fran said, “but I insist upon going with Harvey.”

“I insist upon that too,” Harvey said.

“As for me,” Jolly said, “I am responsible for Sid’s being here, and now that he has made a nuisance of himself and passed out, I will assume the responsibility for getting him home.”

“Perhaps I had better go along with you to help,” I said.

“No.” Jolly shook her head. “Sid lives quite near me, and it will not be much if any out of the way, and if you came along I would have to make a long drive to your place, and I am in no condition for it.”

She seemed quite determined about it for some reason or other, that I shouldn’t go, and so I didn’t press it, but I couldn’t understand it.

“Perhaps you and Fran wouldn’t mind dropping me off,” I said to Harvey.

“Not at all, old boy,” Harvey said. “We will be happy to drop you off, won’t we, Fran?”

“Yes,” Fran said. “You can depend upon it, Felix, that we will be happy to drop you off as quickly as possible.”

“In that case,” I said, “I’ll just get Sid into Jolly’s Caddy.”

He didn’t weigh much, and Harvey helped, and we got him out and into the car. Jolly got in under the wheel beside him.

“Are you certain you are capable of driving, Jolly?” Fran said.

“Certainly,” Jolly said. “I am perfectly capable.”

She backed the Caddy and turned it and drove out of the parking area, and she seemed to do everything efficiently in spite of Prince Sam’s strong highballs. Fran and Harvey were already in Harvey’s crate, and I got in with them, and they took me home.