XXI—Sympathy Wanted
815 Words
XXI—Sympathy WantedYes,” said the Old Soak, “I get plenty of hootch nowadays. My son is back into the revenoo business, and my son-in-lawr is with it, too. I gets plenty of whiskey. I've got some into me, and I've got some onto my hip, and I know where I'm going to get some more when that's gone.”
And he sighed.
“Why so gloomy, then?” we asked. “You should be radiating a Falstaffian joviality. You should be as merry as the merry, merry villagers in an opera on the Duke's birthday. But on the contrary, you shake from out your condor wings unutterable wo, as E. A. Poe has it. Wherefore?”
“I miss,” he said, “the next mornin' sympathy... the next mornin' ministration. Any one can get drunk under the auspices of Prohibition, but it takes the right kind of barkeep fur to get you sober agin and make you like it.
“Where is the next morning barkeep? He ain't. He was wise as a serpent and gentle as a dove like the Good Book says. He knowed right off what ailed you, at 11 o'clock on a cloudy morning, and what was good for it. A little of this, out of the long green bottle, and a little of that, and some ice tinklin' in it, and the white of an egg mebby, and... oh, you know! One of them, and there was salve onto the sore spot of your soul. Two of them and you began to forgive yourself. Three of them, and you could hear about breakfast; you could look an egg into the eye.
“And he never asked no question about your past, that barkeep didn't. He didn't need to. He knowed. He seen last night's history in this morning's footnote. He was kind. 'Feel a little better now, sir?' he'd ask. 'Two or three of them is enough, sir, if you ask me. Get your breakfast, now, sir, and you'll be quite O. K. Yes, sir, I learned to mix them in New Orleans...' You talked to him, and he let you. He was like a mother's knee to a three-year-old that's bumped his head, the old-fashioned barkeep was.
“But now, he ain't. Now, when you get up, Gloom stands on one side of you and Conscience on the other, and Remorse is feeding lines of both of 'em.
“'Well,' says Gloom, 'this is a fine, cheerful morning, this is! This is about as full of sunshine as the insides of the whale that drank Jonah.'
“'It is,' says Remorse, 'and then some. Conscience and me feels so bad about it that we're gonna jump off the dock together.'
“'I ain't, neither,' says Conscience. 'I'm gonna save myself for the worst. The worst is yet to come. And I want to be here when it comes.'
“'I ain't gonna be here when it comes,' says Gloom. 'I'm going over to the Aquarium and rent myself out for a fish.'
“Just then,” went on the Old Soak, “a strange party sticks his head in at the door and says, 'Never again!' “'Who be you?' says Gloom. 'I'm Repentance,' says the buttinski, 'and I calls on you guys to mend your ways!'
“And Gloom, he looks at the hard liquor left in the bottom of the bottle, and at the sky, and at the door of the closed-up barroom across the street, and he says, 'It can't be done without some uplift. I need soothing words, and an educated hand.'
“'We got what's coming to us,' says Remorse. 'And there's more of it coming,' says Conscience. 'Better quit!' says Repentance. 'I ain't gonna quit,' says Gloom, 'without the right kind of a drink to quit on. I ain't never yet quit without the right kind of a drink to quit on, and I'm not going to start any innovations on a rotten day like this.'
“Well,” went on the Old Soak, “you sits on the edge of your bed and you listen to these yere guys talking, and you think how right all of them is, and you wonder whether it's any use getting up, and you think of all the barkeeps you used to know, and after a while you suck an orange and think of one of them long silver fizzes with frost on the glass and charity and loving-kindness in its heart, like Ed used to shake up,—you think of it so hard you well-nigh taste it, and then the meerage fades away and you ain't nothin' but a camel in the desert again with a humpbacked taste in your mouth.
“Yes, sir,” said the Old Soak, “I can get all the booze I want, but I can't get sympathy. What a man needs in the morning is a kind heart for to comfort him, and a strong arm to lean on. Anybody can give me good advice, but it don't soothe me any; what I want is a quick friend in a white apron, wise as a bishop and gentle as a nurse.
“What I want is the Al's and Ed's I used to know. But they've went. Forever. I won't meet 'em in Hell, because they're too kind hearted to go there, and I won't meet 'em in Heaven, because I won't go there myself.
“I reckon,” concluded the Old Soak, “I'll have to go to England.”
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