"What happened to your hand?" someone inquired.
Lennox lifted both hands. The left was encrusted with blood. "My pitching hand!" he wailed. "My bread'n'butter hand. Don't anybody rec'nize me? Lefty Jordan, the Big Train?"
Nobody recognized him. He left the Hofbrau in a state of high dudgeon and staggered down Third Avenue until he reached the Irish bars in the sixties. He entered The Poplin crying: "Hoch Der Kaiser!" The clients of The Poplin were equally exuberant and traded drinks with Lennox generously.
"Lissen," he kept repeating. "Lissen. Lissen. Lissen."
Nobody listened and he was content. Somebody asked him his name.
"Lefty," he said. "Jus' call me Lefty. Om inna shoe business. Make shoes f'left foot only."
He vacated The Poplin and continued down Third Avenue until he reached the fag bars in the fifties. He entered The Fantasy and elbowed his way through the buzzing and the hissing and the sibilation to the bar where he fell into easy conversation with the languid boys around him. He informed them that he was Leftwich, a wealthy shoe manufacturer from Brockton, Mass. They were not impressed. They went on gossiping and name-dropping and Lennox fancied he heard something familiar.
"Anybody here jus' mention 'Who He?'" he asked.
"Oh that thing," a voice drawled. "The original Rigor Mortis, from the picture of the same name."
"You're so right so right so right," Lennox agreed. "I watch it up in Brockton. Come'ome fr'm hard day inna factry. See nothin' but puke. That show's vomit. That show's.... Alla fault of a lousy stinkin' louse who writes it. Lousy phoney. Name of Lennox. Anybody here know'm?"