Twelve Men

TWELVE MEN

looking, in short, to see what I would do As usual he was most smartly and comfortably dressed.

“Where you going, Thee?” he called cheerfully.

“Oh, no place in particular,” I replied rather suavely, I presume. “Just going up the street.”

“Now, see here, sport,” he began – a favorite expression of his, “sport” – with his face abeam, “what’s the use you and me quarreling? It’s Christmas Eve, ain’t it? It’s a shame! Come on, let’s have a drink and then go out to dinner.”

“Well,” I said, rather uncompromisingly, for at times his seemingly extreme success and well-being irritated me, “I’ll have a drink, but as for dinner I have another engagement.”

“Aw, don’t say that. What’s the use being sore? You know I always feel the same even if we do quarrel at times. Cut it out. Come on. You know I’m your brother, and you’re mine. It’s all right with me, Thee. Let’s make it up, will you? Put ‘er there! Come on, now. We’ll go and have a drink, see, something hot – it’s Christmas Eve, sport. The old home stuff.”

He smiled winsomely, coaxingly, really tenderly, as only he could smile. I “gave in.” But now as we entered the nearest shining bar, a Christmas crowd buzzing within and without (it was the old Fifth Avenue Hotel), a new thought seemed to strike him.

“Seen E – lately?” he inquired, mentioning the name of the troubled sister who was having a very hard time indeed. Her husband had left her and she was struggling over the care of two children.

“No,” I replied, rather shamefacedly, “not in a week or two – maybe more.”

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He clicked his tongue. He himself had not been near her in a month or more. His face fell, and he looked very depressed.

“It’s too bad – a shame really. We oughtn’t to do this way, you know, sport. It ain’t right. What do you say to our going around there,” it was in the upper thirties, “and see how she’s making out? – take her a few things, eh? Whaddya say?”

I hadn’t a spare dollar myself, but I knew well enough what he meant by “take a few things” and who would pay for them.

“Well, we’ll have to hurry if we want to get anything now,” I urged, falling in with the idea since it promised peace, plenty and good will all around, and we rushed the drink and departed. Near at hand was a branch of one of the greatest grocery companies of the city, and near it, too, his then favorite hotel, the Continental. En route we meditated on the impossibility of delivery, the fact that we would have to carry the things ourselves, but he at last solved that by declaring that he could commandeer negro porters or bootblacks from the Continental. We entered, and by sheer smiles on his part and some blarney heaped upon a floor-manager, secured a turkey, sweet potatoes, peas, beans, a salad, a strip of bacon, a ham, plum pudding, a basket of luscious fruit and I know not what else – provender, I am sure, for a dozen meals. While it was being wrapped and packed in borrowed baskets, soon to be returned, he went across the way to the hotel and came back with three grinning darkies who for the tip they knew they would receive preceded us up Broadway, the nearest path to our destination. On the way a few additional things were picked up: holly wreaths, toys, candy, nuts – and then, really not knowing whether our plan might not mis-carry, we made our way through the side street and to the particular apart-

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ment, or, rather, flat-house, door, a most amusing Christmas procession, I fancy, wondering and worrying now whether she would be there.

But the door clicked in answer to our ring, and up we marched, the three darkies first, instructed to inquire for her and then insist on leaving the goods, while we lagged behind to see how she would take it.

The stage arrangement worked as planned. My sister opened the door and from the steps below we could hear her protesting that she had ordered nothing, but the door being open the negroes walked in and a moment or two afterwards ourselves. The packages were being piled on table and floor, while my sister, unable quite to grasp this sudden visitation and change of heart, stared.

“Just thought we’d come around and have supper with you, E – , and maybe dinner tomorrow if you’ll let us,” my brother chortled. “Merry Christmas, you know. Christmas Eve. The good old home stuff – see? Old sport here and I thought we couldn’t stay away – tonight, anyhow.”

He beamed on her in his most affectionate way, but she, suffering regret over the recent estrangement as well as the difficulties of life itself and the joy of this reunion, burst into tears, while the two little ones danced about, and he and I put our arms about her.

“There, there! It’s all over now,” he declared, tears welling in his eyes. “It’s all off. We’ll can this scrapping stuff. Thee and I are a couple of bums and we know it, but you can forgive us, can’t you? We ought to be ashamed of ourselves, all of us, and that’s the truth. We’ve been quarreling, too, haven’t spoken for a week. Ain’t that so, sport? But it’s all right now, eh?”

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There were tears in my eyes, too. One couldn’t resist him. He had the power of achieving the tenderest results in the simplest ways. We then had supper, and breakfast the next morning, all staying and helping, even to the washing and drying of the dishes, and thereafter for I don’t know how long we were all on the most affectionate terms, and he eventually died in this sister’s home, ministered to with absolutely restless devotion by her for weeks before the end finally came.

But, as I have said, I always prefer to think of him at this, the very apex or tower window of his life. For most of this period he was gay and carefree. The music company of which he was a third owner was at the very top of its success. Its songs, as well as his, were everywhere. He had in turn at this time a suite at the Gilsey House, the Marlborough, the Normandie – always on Broadway, you see. The limelight district was his home. He rose in the morning to the clang of the cars and the honk of the automobiles outside; he retired at night as a gang of repair men under flaring torches might be repairing a track, or the milk trucks were rumbling to and from the ferries. He was in his way a public restaurant and hotel favorite, a shining light in the theater managers’ offices, hotel bars and lobbies and wherever those flies of the Tenderloin, those passing lords and celebrities of the sporting, theatrical, newspaper and other worlds, are wont to gather. One of his intimates, as I now recall, was “Bat” Masterson, the Western and now retired (to Broadway!) bad man; Muldoon, the famous wrestler; Tod Sloan, the jockey; “Battling” Nelson; James J. Corbett; Kid McCoy; Terry McGovern – prize-fighters all. Such Tammany district leaders as James Murphy, “The” McManus, Chrystie and Timothy Sullivan, Richard Carroll, and even Richard Croker,

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the then reigning Tammany boss, were all on his visiting list. He went to their meetings, rallies and district doings generally to sing and play, and they came to his “office” occasionally. Various high and mighties of the Roman Church, “fathers” with fine parishes and good wine cellars, and judges of various municipal courts, were also of his peculiar world. He was always running to one or the other “to get somebody out,” or they to him to get him to contribute something to something, or to sing and play or act, and betimes they were meeting each other in hotel grills or elsewhere and having a drink and telling “funny stories.”

Apropos of this sense of humor of his, this love of horseplay almost, I remember that once he had a new story to tell – a vulgar one of course – and with it he had been making me and a dozen others laugh until the tears coursed down our cheeks. It seemed new to everybody and, true to his rather fantastic moods, he was determined to be the first to tell it along Broadway. For some reason he was anxious to have me go along with him, possibly because he found me at that time an unvarying fountain of approval and laughter, possibly because he liked to show me off as his rising brother, as he insisted that I was. At between six and seven of a spring or summer evening, therefore, we issued from his suite at the Gilsey House, whither he had returned to dress, and invading the bar below were at once centered among a group who knew him. A whiskey, a cigar, the story told to one, two, three, five, ten to roars of laughter, and we were off, over the way to Weber & Fields (the Musical Burlesque House Supreme of those days) in the same block, where to the ticket seller and house manager, both of whom he knew, it was told. More laughter, a cigar perhaps. Then we

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were off again, this time to the ticket seller of Palmer’s Theater at Thirtieth Street, thence to the bar of the Grand Hotel at Thirty-first, the Imperial at Thirty-second, the Martinique at Thirty-third, a famous drug-store at the southwest corner of Thirty-fourth and Broadway, now gone of course, the manager of which was a friend of his. It was a warm, moony night, and he took a glass of vichy “for looks’ sake,” as he said.

Then to the quondam Hotel Aulic at Thirty-fifth and Broadway – the center and home of the then much-berated “Hotel Aulic or Actors’ School of Philosophy,” and a most impressive actors’ rendezvous where might have been seen in the course of an evening all the “second leads” and “light comedians” and “heavies” of this, that and the other road company, all blazing with startling clothes and all explaining how they “knocked ‘em” here and there: in Peoria, Pasadena, WallaWalla and where not. My brother shone like a star when only one is in the sky.

Over the way then to the Herald Building, its owls’ eyes glowing in the night, its presses thundering, the elevated thundering beside it. Here was a business manager whom he knew. Then to the Herald Square Theater on the opposite side of the street, ablaze with a small electric sign – among the newest in the city. In this, as in the business office of the Herald was another manager, and he knew them all. Thence to the Marlborough bar and lobby at Thirty-sixth, the manager’s office of the Knickerbocker Theater at Thirty-eighth, stopping at the bar and lobby of the Normandie, where some blazing professional beauty of the stage waylaid him and exchanged theatrical witticisms with him – and what else? Thence to the manager’s office of the Casino at Thirty-ninth, some bar which was

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across the street, another in Thirty-ninth west of Broadway, an Italian restaurant on the ground floor of the Metropolitan at Fortieth and Broadway, and at last but by no means least and by such slow stages to the very door of the then Mecca of Meccas of all theaterand sportdom, the sanctum sanctorum of all those sportively au fait, “wise,” the “real thing” – the Hotel Metropole at Broadway and Forty-second Street, the then extreme northern limit of the white-light district. And what a realm! Rounders and what not were here ensconced at round tables, their backs against the leather-cushioned wall seats, the adjoining windows open to all Broadway and the then all but somber Forty-second Street.

It was wonderful, the loud clothes, the bright straw hats, the canes, the diamonds, the “hot” socks, the air of security and well-being, so easily assumed by those who gain an all too brief hour in this pretty, petty world of make-believe and pleasure and pseudo-fame. Among them my dearest brother was at his best. It was “Paul” here and “Paul” there – “Why, hello, Dresser, you’re just in time! Come on in. What’ll you have? Let me tell you something, Paul, a good one – “. More drinks, cigars, tales – magnificent tales of successes made, “great shows” given, fights, deaths, marvelous winnings at cards, trickeries in racing, prize-fighting; the “dogs” that some people were, the magnificent, magnanimous “God’s own salt” that others were. The oaths, stories of women, what low, vice-besmeared, crimesoaked ghoulas certain reigning beauties of the town or stage were – and so on and so on ad infinitum.

But his story? – ah, yes. I had all but forgotten. It was told in every place, not once but seven, eight, nine, ten times. We did not eat until we reached the Metropole, and it was ten-thirty

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when we reached it! The handshakes, the road stories – “This is my brother Theodore. He writes; he’s a newspaper man.” The roars of laughter, the drinks! “Ah, my boy, that’s good, but let me tell you one – one that I heard out in Louisville the other day.” A seedy, shabby ne’er-do-well of a song-writer maybe stopping the successful author in the midst of a tale to borrow a dollar. Another actor, shabby and distrait, reciting the sad tale of a year’s misfortunes. Everywhere my dear brother was called to, slapped on the back, chuckled with. He was successful. One of his best songs was the rage, he had an interest in a going musical concern, he could confer benefits, favors.

Ah, me! Ah, me! That one could be so great, and that it should not last for ever and for ever!

Another of his outstanding characteristics was his love of women, a really amusing and at times ridiculous quality. He was always sighing over the beauty, innocence, sweetness, this and that, of young maidenhood in his songs, but in real life he seemed to desire and attract quite a different type – the young and beautiful, it is true, but also the old, the homely and the somewhat savage – a catholicity of taste I could never quite stomach. It was “Paul dearest” here and “Paul dearest” there, especially in his work in connection with the music-house and the stage. In the former, popular ballad singers of both sexes, some of the women most attractive and willful, were most numerous, coming in daily from all parts of the world apparently to find songs which they could sing on the American or even the English stage. And it was a part of his duty, as a member of the firm and the one who principally “handled” the so-called professional inquirers, to meet them and see that they were

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shown what the catalogue contained. Occasionally there was an aspiring female song-writer, often mere women visitors.

Regardless, however, of whether they were young, old, attractive or repulsive, male or female, I never knew any one whose manner was more uniformly winsome or who seemed so easily to disarm or relax an indifferent or irritated mood. He was positive sunshine, the same in quality as that of a bright spring morning. His blue eyes focused mellowly, his lips were tendrilled with smiles. He had a brisk, quick manner, always somehow suggestive of my mother, who was never brisk.

And how he fascinated them, the women! Their quite shameless daring where he was concerned! Positively, in the face of it I used to wonder what had become of all the vaunted and so-called “stabilizing morality” of the world. None of it seemed to be in the possession of these women, especially the young and beautiful. They were distant and freezing enough to all who did not interest them, but let a personality such as his come into view and they were all wiles, bending and alluring graces. It was so obvious, this fascination he had for them and they for him, that at times it took on a comic look.

“Get onto the hit he’s making,” one would nudge another and remark.

“Say, some tenderness, that!” This in reference to a smile or a melting glance on the part of a female.

“Nothing like a way with the ladies. Some baby, eh, boys?” – this following the flick of a skirt and a backward-tossed glance perhaps, as some noticeable beauty passed out.

“No wonder he’s cheerful,” a sour and yet philosophic vaudevillian, who was mostly out of a job and hung about the place for what free meals he could obtain, once remarked to me

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in a heavy and morose undertone. “If I had that many women crazy about me I’d be too.”

And the results of these encounters with beauty! Always he had something most important to attend to, morning, noon or night, and whenever I encountered him after some such statement “the important thing” was, of course, a woman. As time went on and he began to look upon me as something more than a thin, spindling, dyspeptic and disgruntled youth, he began to wish to introduce me to some of his marvelous followers, and then I could see how completely dependent upon beauty in the flesh he was, how it made his life and world.

One day as we were all sitting in the office, a large group of vaudevillians, song-writers, singers, a chance remark gave rise to a subsequent practical joke at Paul’s expense. “I’ll bet,” observed some one, “that if a strange man were to rush in here with a revolver and say, ‘Where’s the man that seduced my wife?’ Paul would be the first to duck. He wouldn’t wait to find out whether he was the one meant or not.”

Much laughter followed, and some thought. The subject of this banter was, of course, not present at the time. There was one actor who hung about there who was decidedly skillful in make-up. On more than one occasion he had disguised himself there in the office for our benefit. Coöperating with us, he disguised himself now as a very severe and even savage-looking person of about thirty-five – side-burns, mustachios and goatee. Then, with our aid, timing his arrival to an hour when Paul was certain to be at his desk, he entered briskly and vigorously and, looking about with a savage air, demanded, “Where is Paul Dresser?”

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