P.S. Read Free Page B

out of it. I hadn’t the heart to ask whether he thought, in retrospect, he had done the right thing. Harry grew in the presidency, it is said. The impertinent question is hardly asked: Didn’t we, in a generation, diminish to his size? At eighty, Wheeler was booming out indignation. As I listened, transfixed, I was back at Ashland Auditorium. And only one block away from Dreamland.

    In 1912, the year I was born, the Titanic sank. I have never, until now, attached any significance to it. Why is it that one of man’s most astounding achievements, the ship that will not sink, did in fact do just that while arrogantly ramming an iceberg? And why is it that I, who have made it a point never to drive a car, depend so much on technology, that is, the arrogant Uher (tape recorder). Will I, one day, encounter my own iceberg?

    I am twelve years old. The dance is over. My brother will soon be coming out. I am hanging around for two reasons. My brother, if alone, might treat me to a chocolate malted at Liggett’s, and slip me one of those song sheets they pass out at Dreamland: “Yearning,” “I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now,” “Louise,” “All Alone.” I delight as he sings them to me in his light baritone, while I’m sipping a malted through a straw. On Friday evening, he’ll take me to the Palace, where the headliners, Van and Schenck, the Pennant Winning Team of Songland, will do wonders with these tunes. Nobody in the world can sing “All Alone” the way Joe Schenck does, in his high tenor, as he sits on the apron close to the audience.
    As for the other reason: I am much taken with the music I hear. I had never heard such exciting sounds before. So this is jazz. I am hooked, now and forever.
    I see him. He is not alone. There goes my chocolate malted. Oh, well. She’s a very pretty girl. Flashy. The others he’d come out with were pretty, too, each in her own fashion, but mousy. This one is quite mature, about twenty. He’s probably told her he’s twenty-one. He does that often, with girls he takes to one of the vacant rooms of Dixieland. (My mother’s rooming house had no such name, but I’ve since read Look Homeward, Angel .) My brother’s name is Ben.
    I make it a point never to crab his act. He is, in fact, pleased to see me. We have an understanding. He calls on me to see that the coast is clear, that our mother is asleep, that the key to the vacant room is still on the hallway ring and not around her waist.
    On several such occasions, after he and his companion have been at it, and she, suddenly guilt possessed, is anxious to get home at once, he gently raps on my door. He’s taking her home; she lives to hell and gone; you know the crazy schedule
of streetcars at this hour; the bed is badly rumpled. If, in the meantime, our mother were to awaken before his return and make the rounds, as she often does, there would be hell to pay. Will I be a good kid and do the usual? I shut the pages of The Three Musketeers at the moment Planchet is spitting into the Seine.
    The usual: hurried bare feet to the linen closet; clean sheets, clean pillowcases, a clean Turkish towel; and I’m on my way to Canaan Land. On reaching Canaan Land, it’s off with the old and on with the new. The vacant room is now free from signs of sin and ready for a paying guest, God-fearing or not.
    A thought occurs to me. Had my luck been better, I might have become a first-rate pimp. Or a candidate for public office. Or even an adviser to presidents.
    Ben and his friend reach the curb. Uh-oh. There are three guys on the corner. They approach. The girl appears alarmed and touches Ben’s arm. One calls out to her. She doesn’t move. Neither does Ben. The guy is really angry. He calls out again. She walks toward him, uncertainly, as though her high heels are giving her trouble. He slaps her hard. Her hand goes to her cheek. She whimpers. He grabs her by the arm and pulls her away. Ben moves toward them. The other two block his way.