The Iceman Cometh

Make it fast.

Don't want the boss to get wise.

Jeez.

Ain't the old bastard a riot

when he starts that bull about "turnin' over a new leaf"?

"Not a damn drink on the house," he tells me.

"And all these bums

have gotta pay up their room rent beginning tomorrow," he says.

I'll be glad to pay up... tomorrow.

And I know my fellow inmates will promise the same.

They've all a touching credulity concerning tomorrow.

It'll be a great day for them tomorrow... Feast of all fools.

And their ships will come in loaded to the gunwales

with canceled regrets and promises fulfilled

and clean slates and new leases.

- Yeah, and a ton of hop. - Don't mock the faith.

Have you no respect for religion, you unregenerate wop?

What does it matter if the truth is

that their favoring breeze will have the stink of nickel whiskey on its breath,

and their sea will be a growler of lager and ale,

and their ships will long since be looted and scuttled

and sunk on the bottom?

To hell with the truth.

The history of the world proves the truth has no bearing on anything.

It's the lie of the pipe dream that gives life

to the whole misbegotten, mad lot of us, drunk or sober.

The old philosopher, like hickey calls ya.

I suppose you don't fall for no pipe dreams.

No, I don't.

Mine are dead and buried behind me.

What's before me is the fact that death is a fine, long sleep,

and I'm damn tired.

And it can't come too soon for me.

Yeah, just hangin' around, hopin' you croak, ain't ya?

Well, I'm bettin' you have a good, long wait.

Jeez, somebody'd have to take an ax to croak you.

Yeah, it's my bad luck to be cursed with an iron constitution

that even Harry's booze can't corrode.

The old anarchist wise guy that knows all the answers.

Forget the "anarchist" part of it.

I'm through with the movement long since.

I saw that if men wanted to be saved from themselves,

that would mean they'd have to give up greed.

They wouldn't pay that price for Liberty.

So I said to the world, god bless all here and may the best man win...

And die of gluttony.

I took a seat in the grandstand of philosophical detachment

to fall asleep observing the cannibals do their death dance.

Ain't I telling him the truth, comrade Hugo?

Oh, for Christ sake, don't get that bughouse bum started.

Capitalist swine!

Bourgeois stool pigeon!

Have the slaves no right to sleep even?

Hello, little rocky, little monkey face.

Where are your little slave girls?

Don't be a fool. Loan me a dollar.

Damn bourgeois wop!

Buy me a drink.

He's out again.

He's lucky no one don't take his crack serious,

or he'd wake up every morning in a hospital.

Nobody takes him seriously. That's his epitaph.

If I've been through with the movement long since, it's been through with him,

and thanks to whiskey he's the only one who doesn't know it.

He's gonna pull that "slave girl" stuff on me once too often.

Hell, you'd think I was a pimp or somethin'.

A pimp don't hold a job.

I'm a bartender.

Them tarts, Margie and Pearl,

they're just a sideline to pick up some extra dough.

Strictly business,

like they were fighters and I was their manager, see.

I fix the cops for them so they can hustle without gettin' pinched.

And I don't beat 'em up like a pimp would.

They like me.

What if I... I take their money?

Tarts can't hang on to dough.

But I'm a bartender

and I work hard for my living in this dump.

Shrewd businessman who doesn't miss an opportunity

to get on in the world, huh?

Yeah, that's me.

Grab another ball, Larry.

You'd never think all these bums had a bed upstairs to go to.

Scared if they hit the hay they wouldn't be here when hickey showed up

and they'd miss a couple of drinks.

To me, it's not so much the hope of booze.

But I've got the blues,

and hickey's a great one to make a joke of everything and cheer you up.

Yeah, some kidder.

Remember how he works up that gag about his wife when he's cockeyed,

cryin' over her picture and then spilling it on you all of the sudden

that he left her in the hay with the iceman?

Yeah, I wonder what's happenin'?

He always got here a couple of days before Harry's birthday party.

And now he's only got till tonight to make it.

This dump.

It's like a morgue with all these bums passed out.

It's a liel

papa.

Papa.

Poor devil.

Ah, the hell with pity. Does no good. I'm through with it.

Dreamin' about his old man.

From what the old-timers say,

the old gent sure made a pile of dough in the bucket shop game

before the cops got him.

Jeez.

I've seen 'em bad before, but never this bad.

Look at that getup.

Sold his suit and shoes at solly's two days ago.

Solly give him two bucks and a bum outfit.

Yesterday he sells the bum one back to solly for four bits

and gets these rags to put on.

Now he's through.

That's solly's final edition he won't take back for nothin'.

Willie sure is on the bottom.

I ain't never seen no one so bad,

except hickey on the end of a couple of his bats.

It's a great game,

the pursuit of happiness.

Harry don't know what to do about him.

He called up his old lady's lawyer

like he always does when Willie gets licked.

You remember, they used to send down a private dick

to give him the rush to a cure.

But the lawyer tells Harry nix...

The old lady is off of Willie for keeps this time, and he can go to hell.

With the consolation he hasn't got far to go.

It's a goddamn liel

- nix. Nix! - Oh, papa!

- Nix! Cut out the noise! - Oh, Jesus, papa!

Je - shh! Sus!

Cut out the...

Who's that yellin'?

Willie, boss. The Brooklyn boys is after him.

Well, why don't you give the poor fella a drink and keep him quiet?

Jeez, can't I get a wink o' sleep in my own backroom?

Listen to the blind-eyed, deef old bastard, will ya.

He give me strict orders not to let Willie hang up no more drinks, no matter what.

What's that? I can't hear ya.

You're a cockeyed liar.

Never refused a drink to anyone needed it as bad in my life.

Told you to use your judgment.

Too busy thinkin' up ways to cheat me.

I ain't as blind as you think.

I can still see a cash register, b'jeez.

Oh, sure, boss. Swell chance of foolin' you.

I-I'm wise to you and your sidekick Chuck.

B'jeez, you're... you're burglars, not barkeeps.

You'd steal the pennies off your dead mothers' eyes.

I'll fire both of ya.

No one ever played Harry hope for a sucker.

No one but everybody.

Least you could do is keep things quiet.

Give me a drink, rocky. Harry said it was all right.

God, I need a drink.

Then grab it. It's right under your nose.

Thank you.

When.

When!

I didn't say take a bath!

Jeez, look. He's killed half a pint or more!

Leave him be, the poor devil.

Half-pint of that dynamite in one swig'll fix him for a while.

If it doesn't kill him.

All right by me. It ain't my booze.

Wh-wh-whose booze?

Gimme some!

Where's hickey?

- What time is it, rocky? - Getting near time to open up.

Time you begun to sweep up in the bar.

Never mind the time.

If hickey ain't come, it's time Joe went to sleep again.

Hey. I got an idea.

Say, Larry, what about that young guy parritt?

Come to look you up last night and rented a room.

He's upstairs, asleep.

No hope there, Joe. He's broke.

Me and rocky knows different.

Had a roll when he paid you his room rent, didn't he, rocky?

Yeah, he flashed it like he forgot and then tried to hide it quick.

- He did, did he? - Yeah. I figured he don't belong.

But he said he was a friend of yours.

He's a liar.

Ah, it's true his...

His mother and I were friends a few years ago on the coast.

You read in the papers about that bombing on the coast

where a few people were killed?

Well, the one woman they pinched, Rosa parritt,

is his mother.

They'll be coming up for trial soon. They haven't got a chance.

She'll get life.

I'm telling you all this so you'll know why if Don acts a bit queer

and not jump on him.

He's her only kid.

Why ain't he out there stickin' by her?

- Must be a good reason. - I get it.

Then what kind of a sap is he to hang on to his right name?

I'm telling you, I don't know.