“But what I want to tell you is this: That when I begun to come to again, as you might say, the first thing I wondered about was the wife and the kids. I couldn’t get ’em out of my mind, nohow. What did I ever have ’em for? I asked myself. Why in hell did I ever get married? Nobody never druv me into it. I did it of my own accord. I went hangin’ after the girl, who had a good place in the kitchen department of a big store, and I never let her have no peace till she said she’d marry me, and did it. Why had I been such a crazy fool? There was days and days, sittin’ right in there in that back room, when I asked myself that; and at last I got the answer. I’m goin’ to tell it to you now, because there’s a lot of you shysters that’s only been a few weeks in the club that’s askin’ yourselves that very same thing. You’ve got wives and kids, the Lord knows where—scattered to the four winds of heaven, for anything you know—and you wish you hadn’t. But, say, don’t you go on wishin’ no such thing; for I’m goin’ to tell you what God A’mighty said to me right there in that back settin’-room.”
He squared himself now, planting his Egyptian monoliths with a force which in itself was a kind of eloquence. His hands were thrust deep into his trousers pockets and his big chest expanded.
“‘Beady,’ God A’mighty says to me, and it was just as if I’d heard His voice, ‘if a man don’t have no one to think about but hisself he becomes the selfishest of all things under the sun. I’m God,’ says He, ‘with nothin’ to do but enj’y myself; and yet if I didn’t have you and the other things I make to care for and think about I wouldn’t have nothin’. I’ve just got to have ’em, for if I didn’t I’d go crazy. So I make beautiful worlds, and grand men, and noble women, and pretty kids, and strong animals, and sweet birds to sing, and nice flowers to bloom, and everything like that. I don’t make nothin’ ugly nor nothin’ bad, nor no sickness nor sufferin’ nor poverty. You guys does all that for yourselves, and I don’t take no rest day nor night tryin’ to show you how not to. Listen to me, Beady,’ says He. ‘Stop thinkin’ about yourself and that awful hulk of a body, and what it wants to eat and especially to drink. Don’t pay no more attention to it than you can help. Say, you’re my son, and you’re just like me. What you want is not the booze; it’s somethin’ outside yourself to think about. I’ve given you a wife and three fine youngsters. Now get out and get after them. Cut out livin’ for yourself and live for them. You must lose your life to find it; and the quickest way to lose your life is not to think about your beastly cravings at all.’
“Well, by gum! boys, if I didn’t take God A’mighty at His word. I says to myself, I’ll prove this thing or bust—and if I was to bust there’d be some explosion. When you fellows had kept me here long enough to let me be pretty nigh sure of myself I went and looked up the wife, and—well, there! I needn’t say no more. Some of you dubs has been up to my little place and you know that Whatever spoke to me that day in that back room is in my little tenement in the Bronx if He ever was anywhere—and that brings me at last to my p’int.
“I’m speakin’ to you blue-star men because you’ve showed pretty well by this time the stuff you’re made of. As long as you was in danger of slippin’ back I wouldn’t say this to you at all. But, say, you’ve weathered the worst of it, so it’s time for me to speak.
“Has any of you a wife? Then go back to her. Have you kids? Then go back to ’em. Have you a father or a mother? Then for God’s sake let them know that you’re doin’ well. Go to ’em—write to ’em—call ’em up on the ’phone—send ’em a telegraph—but don’t let ’em be without the peace o’ mind that’ll come from knowin’ that you’re on your two feet. One of the most mysterious things in this awful mysterious life is the way somebody is always lovin’ somebody. Here in these two rooms is a hundred and sixty-three by actual count of the seediest and most gol-darned boobs that the country can turn out. As we look at each other we can’t help askin’ if any one in their tarnation senses could care for the likes of us. And yet for every bloomin’ one of us you can foot up to eight or ten that’ll have us in their hearts as if we was gold-headed cherubs.
“Say, boys, I’ll tell you somethin’ confidential like, and don’t think I’m braggin’. The furniture-movin’ business is the grandest one there is. For a man that’s mastered it there don’t seem anything in the world left for him to learn. He’s ready to command a army or to run a ocean liner. But there’s one thing I’ll be hanged if even a furniture-mover knows anything about—and that’s love. I’ve thought about it and thought about it—and it gets me every time. I don’t know what it is, or where it comes from, or how they brew the durned thing in hearts like yours and mine. All I know is that it’s there—and that this old world goes round in it. I’m buttin’ into it all the time, and it kind o’ turns me shy like. My own little home is so full of it that sometimes it makes me choke. If I try to get away from it and come down here—well, I’m blest if some bloke don’t begin ladlin’ it out to me when he don’t hardly know what he’s doin’. The furniture-movin’ business is that shiny with it when you know how to see it— But I’ll not say no more. You’d laff. You’re laffin’ at me now, and I don’t blame you. All I’ve wanted to do is to put some of you boys wise. If there’s a blue-star man who knows any one in the world that’s fond of him—then for Christ’s sake get after ’em! And do it not later than to-night.”
And so I did it. Before going to bed I wrote a long letter to my father, giving him such details of my history during the past three years as I thought he would like to know. I hinted that if he or my mother would care for a visit from me I could go home for a few days.
Then I waited.