§ 2
Berel’s thoughts surged wildly as he raced through the streets.
“Why am I damned and despised by them all? What is my crime? That I can’t compromise? That I fight with the last breath to do my work—the work for which I was born?”
Instinctively his feet led him to the public library, his one sanctuary of escape from the sordidness of the world. But now there seemed no peace for him even here.
“Money—money!” kept pounding and hammering in his ears. “Get money or be blotted out!”
A tap on his shoulder. Berel turned and looked into a genial face, sleeked and barbered into the latest mould of fashion.
“Jake Shapiro!” cried the poet.
Five years ago these two had met on the ship bound for America. What dreams they had dreamed together on that voyage—Berel Pinsky, the poet, and Shapiro, the musician!
“What are you doing for a living? Still writing poetry?” asked Shapiro, as he glanced appraisingly at the haggard-eyed youth. In one swift look he took in the shabby garments that covered the thin body, the pride and the eagerness of the pale, hungry face. “I guess,” added the musician, “your poetry ain’t a very paying proposition!”
Incensed at the unconscious gibe, Berel turned with a supercilious curl of his lips.
“What’s a sport like you doing here in the library?”
Shapiro pointed to a big pile of books from the copyright office.
“Chasing song titles,” he said. “I’m a melody writer. I got some wonderful tunes, and I thought I’d get a suggestion for a theme from these catalogues.”
“Oi weh, if for ideas you have to go to copyright catalogues!”
“Man, you should see the bunch of lyric plumbers I have to work with. They give me jingles and rhymes, but nothing with a real heart thrill.” He turned on Berel with sudden interest. “Show us some of your soul stuff.”
Berel handed several pages to the composer. One after another, Shapiro read.
“Highbrow—over the heads of the crowd,” was his invariable comment.
Suddenly he stopped.
“By heck, there’s a good idea for a sob song! What a title—‘Aching Hearts’!” He grasped Berel’s hand with genuine friendliness. “Your lines have the swing I’ve been looking for. Only a little more zip, a change here and there, and——”
“Change this?” Berel snatched the verses and put them back in his pocket. “There’s my heart’s blood in every letter of it!”
“Yes, it’s heart stuff all right,” placated the composer, realizing a good thing, and impatient as a hound on the scent. “Come along!” He took Berel by the arm. “I want to read your sob stuff to a little friend.”
Flattered, but vaguely apprehensive, Berel followed Shapiro to the delectable locality known as Tin Pan Alley, and into the inner shrine of one of the many song houses to be found there.
“Maizie!” cried Shapiro to a vaudeville star who had been waiting none too patiently for his return. “I’ve found an honest-to-God poet!”
He introduced Berel, who blushed like a shy young girl.
“So you’re a poet?” said Maizie.
Her eyes were pools of dancing lights as she laughed, aware of her effect on the transfixed youth. Berel stared in dazzled wonder at the sudden apparition of loveliness, of joy, of life. Soft, feminine perfume enveloped his senses. Like a narcotic, it stole over him. It was the first time he had ever been touched by the seductive lure of woman.
Shapiro sat down at a piano, and his hands brought from the tortured instrument a smashing medley of syncopated tunes.
“This needs lyric stuff with a heartbeat in it,” he flung over his shoulder; “and you have just the dope.”
His eyes met Maizie’s significantly, and then veered almost imperceptibly in the direction of Berel.
“Go ahead, kid—vamp him! We’ve got to have him,” was the message they conveyed to her.
Maizie put her hand prettily on the youth’s arm.
“With an air like that, and the right lines—oh, boy, I’d flood Broadway with tears!”
Berel stood bewildered under the spell of her showy beauty. Unconsciously his hand went to his pocket, where lay his precious verses.
“I—I can’t change my lines for the mob,” he stammered.
But Maizie’s little hand crept down his arm until it, too, reached his pocket, while her face was raised alluringly to his.
“Let’s see it, Mr. Poet—do, please!”
Suddenly, with a triumphant ripple of laughter, she snatched the pages and glanced rapidly through the song. Then, with her highly manicured fingers, she grasped the lapels of Berel’s coat, her eyes dancing with a coquettish little twinkle.
“It’s wonderful!” she flattered. “Just give me the chance to put it over, and all the skirts from here to Denver will be singing it!”
Shapiro placed himself in front of Berel and said with businesslike directness:
“I’ll advance you two hundred bucks on this song, if you’ll put a kick in it.”
Two hundred dollars! The suddenness of the overwhelming offer left Berel stunned and speechless.
“Money—ach, money! To get a breath of release from want!” he thought. “Just a few weeks away from Hanneh Breineh’s cursing and swearing! A chance to be quiet and alone—a place where I can have a little beauty!”
Shapiro, through narrowed lids, watched the struggle that was going on in the boy. He called for his secretary.
“Write out a contract,” he ordered. “Words by Berel Pinsky—my melody.”
Then he turned to the poet, who stood nervously biting his lips.
“If this song goes over, it’ll mean a big piece of change for you. You get a cent and a half on every copy. A hit sometimes goes a million copies. Figure it out for yourself. I’m not counting the mechanical end of it—phonograph records—pianola rolls—hurdy-gurdies.”
At the word “hurdy-gurdy” an aching fear shot through the poet’s heart. His pale face grew paler as he met the smooth smile of the composer.
“Only to get a start,” he told himself, strengthening his resolve to sell his poem with an equal resolve never to do so again.
“Well?” chuckled Shapiro.
He drew out a thick wallet from his pocket, and began counting out the fresh, green bills.
“I’ll do it this once,” said Berel, in a scarcely audible voice, as he pocketed the money.
“Gassed with gold!” exulted Shapiro to Maizie after Berel left. “He’s ours body and soul—bought and paid for!”