The doctor stopped Rosalind from drinking beer. But Jerco slipped it in to her when Ma Lawton was not around. He said he couldn’t refuse it to her when beer was the only thing she cared for. He had an expensive sweater. He pawned it. He also pawned their large suitcase. It was real leather and worth a bit of money.
One afternoon Jerco sat alone in the back room of the saloon and began to cry.
“I’d do anything. There ain’t anything too low I wouldn’t do to raise a little money,” he said.
“Why don’t you hock Rosalind’s fur coat?” I suggested. “That’ll give you enough money for a while.”
“Gawd, no! I wouldn’t touch none o’ Rosalind’s clothes. I jest kain’t,” he said. “She’ll need them as soon as she’s better.”
“Well, you might try and find some sort of a job, then,” I said.
“Me find a job? What kain I do? I ain’t no good foh no job. I kain’t work. I don’t know how to ask for no job. I wouldn’t know how. I wish I was a woman.”
“Good God! Jerco,” I said, “I don’t see any way out for you but some sort of a job.”
“What kain I do? What kain I do?” he whined. “I kain’t do nothing. That’s why I don’t wanta hock Rosalind’s fur coat. She’ll need it soon as she’s better. Rosalind’s so wise about picking up good money. Just like that!” He snapped his fingers.
I left Jerco sitting there and went into the saloon to serve a customer a plate of corned beef and cabbage.
After lunch I thought I’d go up to see how Rosalind was making out. The door was slightly open, so I slipped in without knocking. I saw Jerco kneeling down by the open wardrobe and kissing the toe of one of her brown shoes. He started as he saw me, and looked queer kneeling there. It was a high old-fashioned wardrobe that Ma Lawton must have picked up at some sale. Rosalind’s coat was hanging there, and it gave me a spooky feeling, for it looked so much more like the real Rosalind than the woman that was dozing there on the bed.
Her other clothes were hanging there, too. There were three gowns—a black silk, a glossy green satin, and a flimsy chiffon-like yellow thing. In a corner of the lowest shelf was a bundle of soiled champagne-colored silk stockings and in the other four pairs of shoes—one black velvet, one white kid, and another gold-finished. Jerco regarded the lot with doglike affection.
“I wouldn’t touch not one of her things until she’s better,” he said. “I’d sooner hock the shirt off mah back.”
Which he was preparing to do. He had three expensive striped silk shirts, presents from Rosalind. He had just taken two out of the wardrobe and the other off his back, and made a parcel of them for old Greenbaum. … Rosalind woke up and murmured that she wanted some beer. …
A little later Jerco came to the saloon with the pail. He was shivering. His coat collar was turned up and fastened with a safety pin, for he only had an undershirt on.
“I don’t know what I’d do if anything happens to Rosalind,” he said. “I kain’t live without her.”
“Oh yes, you can,” I said in a not very sympathetic tone. Jerco gave me such a reproachful pathetic look that I was sorry I said it.
The tall big fellow had turned into a scared, trembling baby. “You ought to buck up and hold yourself together,” I told him. “Why, you ought to be game if you like Rosalind, and don’t let her know you’re down in the dumps.”
“I’ll try,” he said. “She don’t know how miserable I am. When I hooks up with a woman I treat her right, but I never let her know everything about me. Rosalind is an awful good woman. The straightest woman I ever had, honest.”
I gave him a big glass of strong whisky.
Ma Lawton came in the saloon about nine o’clock that evening and said that Rosalind was dead. “I told Jerco we’d have to sell that theah coat to give the poah woman a decent fun’ral, an’ he jest brokes down crying like a baby.”
That night Ma Lawton slept in the kitchen and put Jerco in her little hall bedroom. He was all broken up. I took him up a pint of whisky.
“I’ll nevah find another one like Rosalind,” he said, “nevah!” He sat on an old black-framed chair in which a new yellow-varnished bottom had just been put. I put my hand on his shoulder and tried to cheer him up: “Buck up, old man. Never mind, you’ll find somebody else.” He shook his head. “Perhaps you didn’t like the way me and Rosalind was living. But she was one naturally good woman, all good inside her.”
I felt foolish and uncomfortable. “I always liked Rosalind, Jerco,” I said, “and you, too. You were both awfully good scouts to me. I have nothing against her. I am nothing myself.”
Jerco held my hand and whimpered: “Thank you, old top. Youse all right. Youse always been a regular fellar.”
It was late, after two a.m. I went to bed. And, as usual, I slept soundly.
Ma Lawton was an early riser. She made excellent coffee and she gave the two elevator runners and another lodger, a porter who worked on Ellis Island, coffee and hot homemade biscuits every morning. The next morning she shook me abruptly out of my sleep.
“Ahm scared to death. Thar’s moah tur’ble trouble. I kain’t git in the barfroom and the hallway’s all messy.”
I jumped up, hauled on my pants, and went to the bathroom. A sickening purplish liquid coming from under the door had trickled down the hall toward the kitchen. I took Ma Lawton’s rolling-pin and broke through the door.
Jerco had cut his throat and was lying against the bowl of the water-closet. Some empty coke papers were on the floor. And he sprawled
