But there was nobody there any more and he could not tell whether he had really seen or merely imagined the clerk. It made no difference, he had to get up and phone Antek to come and get him. Antek would get here in no time at all to help him downstairs into the car so there wasn’t any use worrying, everything was as good as done, he’d just float on his back a minute to let all the little waves wash him clean. The sun hurt his eyes, he was getting too far out, he could hardly see the beach for the glare. He sat up shaking his head to clear it.
About the bulb a little rainbow-colored halo burned, the bulb swinging a bit in its colored shell as though someone had been in here and set it swinging again while he’d floated off. He mustn’t float off again that way, he had to hold on. Hold on hard and figure out how much time he had. What was it the fellow had asked: ‘How did you get hurt?’ He sat up with sweat ringing his throat, it slid like the beads of a rosary about his neck when he turned his head; and wished to Christ the bulb would stop its endless swinging. It hurt his eyes yet he had to follow its tiny arc. There was something about it he needed to understand and slowly he saw it: framed within that rainbow- colored halo Frantic McGantic looked down with gentle mockery in his eyes.
Sergeant McGantic had come to call and the sergeant brought his own small mercies. The sergeant wasn’t one to let a good junkie down. Frankie’s eyes went seeking about the room to see what the sergeant had brought him and found it at last. It didn’t make any real difference now that there was no hypo to this fix at all.
It was enough that the sergeant had tossed, across the bedpost and in a reach of a good junkie’s hand, one thin double strand of yellow newspaper twine.
Leaning upon one elbow, there on the bed soiled by sweat and blood, Frankie asked himself aloud, squinting at the brassy glint of the bedpost beneath that swinging bulb, ‘What am I waitin’ for?’ For the roll of the squadrol’s tires? For the ice in the blood to reach the heart? Or for the tread of heavy boots following a flashlight up the stairs?
‘I hope Molly-O stays clear of John after she does her time,’ he made a bit of a prayer for Molly – but there was even less time for praying than for hoping. He got off the bed, favoring the naked left foot, and supported himself against the brass of the bedpost: he felt the chill that years of flophouse nights had trapped in the metal like the chill trapped deep in his own bones. Who was it had told him, ‘That’s the other side of the wall – it’s worse there when it’s still’?
One flight below a Madison Street trolley charged past in a streamlined, cat-howling fury that left him strengthened by an odd excitement. Before the trolley’s scream had died he had the double strand in his hands and his fingers working on it as surely and steadily as if making paper jazzbows for Solly Saltskin out of yesterday’s
‘It’s all in the wrist ’n I got the touch,’ he told himself in a surge of ice-cold confidence and far, so far it told him he was still seconds ahead of them all, the siren’s first metallic cry fluttered the shade, whimpering faintly along the chicken wire and then a bit louder till it was a moaning telegraphic code shaking a wavering message across the waves of the brain – ‘Have a good dream you’re dancin’, Zosh’ – and the words were whirled like leaves in a dead- cold wind blowing up from the other side of the wall. Into one brief strangled whimpering.
To rustle away down the last dark wall of all.
Witness Sheet
STATE OF ILLINOIS)
COUNTY OF COOK)
BEFORE THE CORONER OF COOK COUNTY
INQUEST ON THE BODY)
OF) FIRST AND FINAL
FRANCIS MAJCINEK) HEARING
Transcript of the testimony taken and the proceedings had at an inquest held upon the body of the above- named deceased, before WILLIAM HACKETT, a DEPUTY CORONER OF COOK COUNTY, ILLINOIS, and a jury, duly impaneled and sworn, at 199 N. Ashland Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, April 1, 1948. At the hour of 3 P.M.
LORRAINE REPORTING SERVICE
R. Jackson, stenographer.
The first witness, having been duly sworn, was then examined by Deputy Coroner Hackett and testified as follows:
Q. What is your name and occupation?
A. Anthony Witwicki. Tavernkeeper.
Q. What was the full name of the deceased?
A. Frankie – that is Francis, I think – Majcinek the
Q. His address?
A. Same as mine only upstairs.
Q. His age?
A. Thirty, thirty-one, around there.
Q. Was he married or single?
A. He was married, his wife is invalid that happened one night he got drunk-
Q. Where was he born?
A. Why, right there on Division, he had a secondhand car that time, I forget the make-
Q. Where was his father born?
A. Poland same as mine. Both dead a long time now.
Q. And his mother?
A. That was a stepmother, he called it ‘foster mother’ – they got along all right. She is married again, went away, I don’t know where. He never spoke of this, that was forgotten.
Q. What kind of work did he do?
A. When he come to see me he had no work.
Q. Before that. Before he went and got into all this trouble with the police.
A. He was in jail a little now and then. Nothing serious.
Q. Before he was in jail, did he work for you?
A. No, no, he did one thing. Dealt cards. Made pretty good when he worked. Sometimes he couldn’t work every night though, how those things are.
Q. What other work did you know him to do in the past?
A. When he was a boy one summer he was a caddy, every day, the whole summer. We went together, I think they called the course Indian Hill, something like that. Once when he owed me for drinks he fixed the furnace. He could work good but not every day, he got restless then and start to drink. When he don’t work, then he don’t drink so much.
Q. Did he always drink, before all this trouble?
A. Sometimes he was a heavy drinker, then for a while he don’t drink at all, like he’s thinkin’ about somethin’. Then if he got drunk it would be awhile before he begin again. A week, maybe two weeks with hardly a drink. Just a beer or two.
Q. Does he owe you money now?
A. Nothing, nothing.
Q. When did you last see him?
A. Yesterday in the morning, I just opened up and there he was waiting, I didn’t know who it was one minute, he didn’t say. Just standing there saying nothing in the dark. I said, ‘Who’s there?’ and he says then, ‘You alone, Owner?’ When I go up to him I see. He looks like chicken with the soup out. He looks like just out of hospital.
Q. You knew the police had been looking for him. You knew it was your duty to call the police right then.
A. Nothing I knew. All I know is sometimes he is in jail a little, what for isn’t my business. I knew he was in some trouble but I don’t ask about such things, I don’t mix in politics. I just serve whisky and beer.
Q. Did he tell you he wished he were dead, that he wanted to die, that sort of thing?
A. No, no, no. That one never talked like that.
