I went out, wondering how I'd kill an hour. I had seven thousand in my pocket, had been maneuvered out of my own house, and although it was a mild sunny day, I was too tired and sleepy to walk. I knew I wouldn't sleep that night either—I have a complex about other people using my bed.
I stood in front of the house for a few minutes, trying to decide whether to drop down and see Flo, take a walk, or try the peace and quiet of the church across the street. I decided against all three. I was not only irritated at having been thrown oat of my house, but the money in my pocket gave me a restless sense of power—even though it wasn't mine. I walked to the corner of Park Avenue, then turned and went back to the house, rang Henderson's bell. When he buzzed the door open, I went upstairs. He was waiting inside his door, wearing a neat silk robe, and slippers.
He said hello as we shook hands.
“Thought I'd drop in for a few minutes,” I said.
“Fine, fine. Having breakfast. Join me?”
I shook my head, took off my coat and hat. Francis was a health bug. While I sat and watched him he ate a bowl of red jello in which I could see sardines, chopped celery, and string beans suspended. He was a little gray-haired man, eccentric as hell, but full of life for a person well over 70.
“Try some, you'll like this,” he said, pointing to the mess.
“I doubt if I would.”
“Utter nonsense. Consider the contradiction: You'd eat a sardine sandwich, a salad, and take jello for dessert—and think nothing of it. But mix them all together, as they will become inside your stomach, and you turn it down.”-
“I certainly do!”
He ate a few spoonfuls of the stuff, chewing it thoroughly. “Now isn't that stupid, afraid to look at what's in your belly? You're hiding your head in your intestines, to paraphrase the ostrich and the sand business.”
I didn't answer and he finished his 'meal' in silence. I glanced about the room. He had heavy, old-fashioned furniture, with a big bronze statute of Man o' War on the ugly old mahogany sideboard.
Henderson washed his food down with a glass of carrot juice, took the dishes into the kitchen. I picked up his Times, read the front page. “Going to have Joe and some of the boys in for poker this week?” he called out.
I said I guess so and went into the kitchen. He was pouring heavy sour cream and bits of chocolate-covered graham crackers into an electrical mixer.
“Any night you wish,” he said, starting the mixer, which didn't make much noise. “Be sure Joe is there. That Joe, drawing to straights and flushes—a slow living.”
Through the door I could see the statue of Man o' War. Francis F. Henderson was a quiet, reserved old man who lived off an income. He had no visitors or family, and played a capable, if cautious, game of poker, always quitting when he lost over eight dollars. He paid his rent promptly, saw all the Broadway plays, dressed plainly, and seemed to live pretty close to the cuff. I had an idea his income was about a hundred and fifty a month—he counted his pennies and played poker to win, not for the game.
Our relation was much more than a landlord-tenant affair, but we were never really friends. I thought there was always a certain reserve, almost a cunning aloofness, about him. I knew very little about him, he picked his words when he talked, except that he had worked for many years in a bank. Once when I asked about the statue of the horse that dominated the living room, he said, “The Man—great money horse. Did a lot for me.”
And once when there was a story in the papers about some bank teller arrested for dipping in the till and losing the money on the horses, we had been making small talk about it when Henderson looked at me with a faint smile, asked, “Ever think of the number of tellers that—eh—borrow funds and aren't caught? Of course you'll never read 'bout them in the papers. In the movies and papers the teller always bets on the wrong horse. That's ridiculous—some of them must win. Same percentage for tellers as for anybody else....”
That was as much as I knew about him, but I had a fairly clear picture of a bank teller following Man o' War's career, perhaps from the very first time he raced, betting ten bucks, then a hundred, then a thousand... then retiring from the bank. If he had an income of $150 a month and was getting 5 percent on his money, that meant about $40,000 stacked away. I wondered why he had stopped at that, but when I once saw him throw in a full house because he was pretty sure I had four of a kind—which I had—I could easily picture him stopping with forty grand, careful not to push his luck too far. Which is the smart way to play anything.
I went back to the living room, not wanting to see what came out of the mixer. I picked up the sports section and, as I was reading it, he came in, sat down with a contented sigh, asked, “How you doing with the horses?”
“Still a little ahead, I guess.”
He shook his head. “Hunch player—craziest creature on God's earth. By the way, I'm glad your wife is back.”
“Ex-wife, and she's gone,” I said, annoyed. My affairs were really in the street.
“Too bad.” He put on his old gold-frame glasses, wet a pencil, and started working on the cross-word puzzle. I turned to the theatrical section. Jose Limon was dancing on Wednesday, and Pearl Primus was giving a recital the following Sunday at the 92nd Street Y. I made a note to see both, felt a little better. I reached over to put the paper back on the table and felt the stiff envelope in my inside pocket. I took up the sports page again. Big Esther, a favorite, was running on Monday. On form, she couldn't lose. Seven thousand on the nose would almost be a sure three or four thousand for me.
I quickly picked up the book section. It was a wild idea. Anyway, I didn't know where to place that kind of a bet. I usually bet a dollar or two; it gave me a reason to look forward to the end of the afternoon.
I glanced at my watch. It was only eleven-twenty.
The old man looked up. “What's the plural of a land measure in five letters?”
“Miles? Acres?” Cross-words bored me.
“No, second letter is an V—if 'to be mistaken' in five letters is 'wrong.' Joe still downstairs with the girl?”
“What do you do, live by that window?”
Henderson chuckled. “Why not? She has an interesting body—although I suppose any woman's body is interesting, in the proper background. When you get my age, one of your pastimes is trying to decide if you had been a fool to be faithful to one woman. All those years—and chances—gone forever. What do you think a man hopes to find in a new woman—we're always searching, even though we know it will never be any different? Or am I talking like an old fool?”
“Everybody is constantly searching for something different—in friends, women, food, books—anything.”
He nodded. “But when you reach my age, one can be so damn objective about it all. Sometimes I wish I were a writer like you and...”
“I'm some writer,” I said, remembering the different tone to the word when Flo said it.
“... and be able to put down some of my thoughts. But then I realize that's only an old man's vanity. Or maybe a form of sour grapes, or going senile. I was thinking today, when I saw that woman with Joe, that she looked passionate. Yet, consider the fetish we make over passion, which is really only an odd name for selfishness and extreme personal satisfaction. Tell you, George, the more I ponder humans, less I think of them.”