A Harlem Tragedy

Edition and rights: Complete original English text from Project Gutenberg ebook #3707. This edition is identified as public domain in the USA; the original author died in 1910, satisfying the ordinary Pakistan copyright term. This is the original work, not an AI retelling.

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A HARLEM TRAGEDY


Harlem.

Mrs. Fink had dropped into Mrs. Cassidy’s flat one flight below.

“Ain’t it a beaut?” said Mrs. Cassidy.

She turned her face proudly for her friend Mrs. Fink to see. One eye
was nearly closed, with a great, greenish-purple bruise around it. Her
lip was cut and bleeding a little and there were red finger-marks on
each side of her neck.

“My husband wouldn’t ever think of doing that to me,” said Mrs. Fink,
concealing her envy.

“I wouldn’t have a man,” declared Mrs. Cassidy, “that didn’t beat me up
at least once a week. Shows he thinks something of you. Say! but that
last dose Jack gave me wasn’t no homeopathic one. I can see stars yet.
But he’ll be the sweetest man in town for the rest of the week to make
up for it. This eye is good for theater tickets and a silk shirt waist
at the very least.”

“I should hope,” said Mrs. Fink, assuming complacency, “that Mr. Fink
is too much of a gentleman ever to raise his hand against me.”

“Oh, go on, Maggie!” said Mrs. Cassidy, laughing and applying witch
hazel, “you’re only jealous. Your old man is too frappéd and slow to
ever give you a punch. He just sits down and practises physical culture
with a newspaper when he comes home—now ain’t that the truth?”

“Mr. Fink certainly peruses of the papers when he comes home,”
acknowledged Mrs. Fink, with a toss of her head; “but he certainly
don’t ever make no Steve O’Donnell out of me just to amuse
himself—that’s a sure thing.”

Mrs. Cassidy laughed the contented laugh of the guarded and happy
matron. With the air of Cornelia exhibiting her jewels, she drew down
the collar of her kimono and revealed another treasured bruise,
maroon-colored, edged with olive and orange—a bruise now nearly well,
but still to memory dear.

Mrs. Fink capitulated. The formal light in her eye softened to envious
admiration. She and Mrs. Cassidy had been chums in the downtown
paper-box factory before they had married, one year before. Now she and
her man occupied the flat above Mame and her man. Therefore she could
not put on airs with Mame.

“Don’t it hurt when he soaks you?” asked Mrs. Fink, curiously.

“Hurt!”—Mrs. Cassidy gave a soprano scream of delight. “Well, say—did
you ever have a brick house fall on you?—well, that’s just the way it
feels—just like when they’re digging you out of the ruins. Jack’s got a
left that spells two matinees and a new pair of Oxfords—and his
right!—well, it takes a trip to Coney and six pairs of openwork, silk
lisle threads to make that good.”

“But what does he beat you for?” inquired Mrs. Fink, with wide-open
eyes.

“Silly!” said Mrs. Cassidy, indulgently. “Why, because he’s full. It’s
generally on Saturday nights.”

“But what cause do you give him?” persisted the seeker after knowledge.

“Why, didn’t I marry him? Jack comes in tanked up; and I’m here, ain’t
I? Who else has he got a right to beat? I’d just like to catch him once
beating anybody else! Sometimes it’s because supper ain’t ready; and
sometimes it’s because it is. Jack ain’t particular about causes. He
just lushes till he remembers he’s married, and then he makes for home
and does me up. Saturday nights I just move the furniture with sharp
corners out of the way, so I won’t cut my head when he gets his work
in. He’s got a left swing that jars you! Sometimes I take the count in
the first round; but when I feel like having a good time during the
week or want some new rags I come up again for more punishment. That’s
what I done last night. Jack knows I’ve been wanting a black silk waist
for a month, and I didn’t think just one black eye would bring it. Tell
you what, Mag, I’ll bet you the ice cream he brings it to-night.”

Mrs. Fink was thinking deeply.

“My Mart,” she said, “never hit me a lick in his life. It’s just like
you said, Mame; he comes in grouchy and ain’t got a word to say. He
never takes me out anywhere. He’s a chair-warmer at home for fair. He
buys me things, but he looks so glum about it that I never appreciate
’em.”

Mrs. Cassidy slipped an arm around her chum. “You poor thing!” she
said. “But everybody can’t have a husband like Jack. Marriage wouldn’t
be no failure if they was all like him. These discontented wives you
hear about—what they need is a man to come home and kick their slats in
once a week, and then make it up in kisses, and chocolate creams.
That’d give ’em some interest in life. What I want is a masterful man
that slugs you when he’s jagged and hugs you when he ain’t jagged.
Preserve me from the man that ain’t got the sand to do neither!”

Mrs. Fink sighed.

The hallways were suddenly filled with sound. The door flew open at the
kick of Mr. Cassidy. His arms were occupied with bundles. Mame flew and
hung about his neck. Her sound eye sparkled with the love light that
shines in the eye of the Maori maid when she recovers consciousness in
the hut of the wooer who has stunned and dragged her there.

“Hello, old girl!” shouted Mr. Cassidy. He shed his bundles and lifted
her off her feet in a mighty hug. “I got tickets for Barnum & Bailey’s,
and if you’ll bust the string of one of them bundles I guess you’ll
find that silk waist—why, good evening, Mrs. Fink—I didn’t see you at
first. How’s old Mart coming along?”

“He’s very well, Mr. Cassidy—thanks,” said Mrs. Fink. “I must be going
along up now. Mart’ll be home for supper soon. I’ll bring you down that
pattern you wanted to-morrow, Mame.”

Mrs. Fink went up to her flat and had a little cry. It was a
meaningless cry, the kind of cry that only a woman knows about, a cry
from no particular cause, altogether an absurd cry; the most transient
and the most hopeless cry in the repertory of grief. Why had Martin
never thrashed her? He was as big and strong as Jack Cassidy. Did he
not care for her at all? He never quarrelled; he came home and lounged
about, silent, glum, idle. He was a fairly good provider, but he
ignored the spices of life.

Mrs. Fink’s ship of dreams was becalmed. Her captain ranged between
plum duff and his hammock. If only he would shiver his timbers or stamp
his foot on the quarter-deck now and then! And she had thought to sail
so merrily, touching at ports in the Delectable Isles! But now, to vary
the figure, she was ready to throw up the sponge, tired out, without a
scratch to show for all those tame rounds with her sparring partner.
For one moment she almost hated Mame—Mame, with her cuts and bruises,
her salve of presents and kisses; her stormy voyage with her fighting,
brutal, loving mate.

Mr. Fink came home at 7. He was permeated with the curse of
domesticity. Beyond the portals of his cozy home he cared not to roam,
to roam. He was the man who had caught the street car, the anaconda
that had swallowed its prey, the tree that lay as it had fallen.

“Like the supper, Mart?” asked Mrs. Fink, who had striven over it.

“M-m-m-yep,” grunted Mr. Fink.

After supper he gathered his newspapers to read. He sat in his stocking
feet.

Arise, some new Dante, and sing me the befitting corner of perdition
for the man who sitteth in the house in his stockinged feet. Sisters of
Patience who by reason of ties or duty have endured it in silk, yarn,
cotton, lisle thread or woollen—does not the new canto belong?

The next day was Labor Day. The occupations of Mr. Cassidy and Mr. Fink
ceased for one passage of the sun. Labor, triumphant, would parade and
otherwise disport itself.

Mrs. Fink took Mrs. Cassidy’s pattern down early. Mame had on her new
silk waist. Even her damaged eye managed to emit a holiday gleam. Jack
was fruitfully penitent, and there was a hilarious scheme for the day
afoot, with parks and picnics and Pilsener in it.

A rising, indignant jealousy seized Mrs. Fink as she returned to her
flat above. Oh, happy Mame, with her bruises and her quick-following
balm! But was Mame to have a monopoly of happiness? Surely Martin Fink
was as good a man as Jack Cassidy. Was his wife to go always
unbelabored and uncaressed? A sudden, brilliant, breathless idea came
to Mrs. Fink. She would show Mame that there were husbands as able to
use their fists and perhaps to be as tender afterward as any Jack.

The holiday promised to be a nominal one with the Finks. Mrs. Fink had
the stationary washtubs in the kitchen filled with a two weeks’ wash
that had been soaking overnight. Mr. Fink sat in his stockinged feet
reading a newspaper. Thus Labor Day presaged to speed.

Jealousy surged high in Mrs. Fink’s heart, and higher still surged an
audacious resolve. If her man would not strike her—if he would not so
far prove his manhood, his prerogative and his interest in conjugal
affairs, he must be prompted to his duty.

Mr. Fink lit his pipe and peacefully rubbed an ankle with a stockinged
toe. He reposed in the state of matrimony like a lump of unblended suet
in a pudding. This was his level Elysium—to sit at ease vicariously
girdling the world in print amid the wifely splashing of suds and the
agreeable smells of breakfast dishes departed and dinner ones to come.
Many ideas were far from his mind; but the furthest one was the thought
of beating his wife.

Mrs. Fink turned on the hot water and set the washboards in the suds.
Up from the flat below came the gay laugh of Mrs. Cassidy. It sounded
like a taunt, a flaunting of her own happiness in the face of the
unslugged bride above. Now was Mrs. Fink’s time.

Suddenly she turned like a fury upon the man reading.

“You lazy loafer!” she cried, “must I work my arms off washing and
toiling for the ugly likes of you? Are you a man or are you a kitchen
hound?”

Mr. Fink dropped his paper, motionless from surprise. She feared that
he would not strike—that the provocation had been insufficient. She
leaped at him and struck him fiercely in the face with her clenched
hand. In that instant she felt a thrill of love for him such as she had
not felt for many a day. Rise up, Martin Fink, and come into your
kingdom! Oh, she must feel the weight of his hand now—just to show that
he cared—just to show that he cared!

Mr. Fink sprang to his feet—Maggie caught him again on the jaw with a
wide swing of her other hand. She closed her eyes in that fearful,
blissful moment before his blow should come—she whispered his name to
herself—she leaned to the expected shock, hungry for it.

In the flat below Mr. Cassidy, with a shamed and contrite face was
powdering Mame’s eye in preparation for their junket. From the flat
above came the sound of a woman’s voice, high-raised, a bumping, a
stumbling and a shuffling, a chair overturned—unmistakable sounds of
domestic conflict.

“Mart and Mag scrapping?” postulated Mr. Cassidy. “Didn’t know they
ever indulged. Shall I trot up and see if they need a sponge holder?”

One of Mrs. Cassidy’s eyes sparkled like a diamond. The other twinkled
at least like paste.

“Oh, oh,” she said, softly and without apparent meaning, in the
feminine ejaculatory manner. “I wonder if—wonder if! Wait, Jack, till I
go up and see.”

Up the stairs she sped. As her foot struck the hallway above out from
the kitchen door of her flat wildly flounced Mrs. Fink.

“Oh, Maggie,” cried Mrs. Cassidy, in a delighted whisper; “did he? Oh,
did he?”

Mrs. Fink ran and laid her face upon her chum’s shoulder and sobbed
hopelessly.

Mrs. Cassidy took Maggie’s face between her hands and lifted it gently.
Tear-stained it was, flushing and paling, but its velvety,
pink-and-white, becomingly freckled surface was unscratched, unbruised,
unmarred by the recreant fist of Mr. Fink.

“Tell me, Maggie,” pleaded Mame, “or I’ll go in there and find out.
What was it? Did he hurt you—what did he do?”

Mrs. Fink’s face went down again despairingly on the bosom of her
friend.

“For God’s sake don’t open that door, Mame,” she sobbed. “And don’t
ever tell nobody—keep it under your hat. He—he never touched me,
and—he’s—oh, Gawd—he’s washin’ the clothes—he’s washin’ the clothes!”