Twelve Men. Theodore Dreiser

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      But in between was this other, this ultra-human side, which ran to such commonplaces as bowling, tennis-playing, golf, billiards, cards and gambling with the dice—a thing which always struck me as having an odd turn to it in connection with Peter, since he could be interested in so many other things, and yet he pursued these commonplaces with as much gusto at times as one possessed of a mania. At others he seemed not to miss or think of them. Indeed, you could be sure of him and all his interests, whatever they were, feeling that he had himself well in hand, knew exactly how far he was going, and that when the time came he could and would stop. Yet during the process of his momentary relaxation or satiation, in whatever field it might be, he would give you a sense of abandon, even ungovernable appetite, which to one who had not known him long might have indicated a mania.

      Thus I remember once running over to Philadelphia to spend a Saturday and Sunday with him, visits of this kind, in either direction, being of the commonest occurrence. At that time he was living in some quiet-looking boarding-house in South Fourth Street, but in which dwelt or visited the group above-mentioned, and whenever I came there, at least, there was always an atmosphere of intense gaming or playing in some form, which conveyed to me nothing so much as a glorious sense of life and pleasure. A dozen or more men might be seated at or standing about a poker or dice table, in summer (often in winter) with their coats off, their sleeves rolled up, Peter always conspicuous among them. On the table or to one side would be money, a pitcher or a tin pail of beer, boxes of cigarettes or cigars, and there would be Peter among the players, flushed with excitement, his collar off, his hair awry, his little figure stirring about here and there or gesticulating or lighting a cigar or pouring down a glass of beer, shouting at the top of his voice, his eyes aglow, "That's mine!" "I say it's not!" "Two on the sixes!" "Three!" "Four!" "Ah, roll the bones! Roll the bones!" "Get off! Get off! Come on now, Spikes—cough up! You've got the money now. Pay back. No more loans if you don't." "Once on the fours—the fives—the aces!" "Roll the bones! Roll the bones! Come on!" Or, if he saw me, softening and saying, "Gee, Dreiser, I'm ahead twenty-eight so far!" or "I've lost thirty all told. I'll stick this out, though, to win or lose five more, and then I'll quit. I give notice, you fellows, five more, one way or the other, and then I'm through. See? Say, these damned sharks are always trying to turn a trick. And when they lose they don't want to pay. I'm offa this for life unless I get a better deal."

      In the room there might be three or four girls—sisters, sweethearts, pals of one or other of the players—some dancing, some playing the piano or singing, and in addition the landlord and his wife, a slattern pair usually, about whose past and present lives Peter seemed always to know much. He had seduced them all apparently into a kind of rakish camaraderie which was literally amazing to behold. It thrilled, fascinated, at times frightened me, so thin and inadequate and inefficient seemed my own point of view and appetite for life. He was vigorous, charitable, pagan, gay, full of health and strength. He would play at something, anything, indoors or out as occasion offered, until he was fairly perspiring, when, throwing down whatever implement he had in hand—be it cards, a tennis-racket, a golf club—would declare, "That's enough! That's enough! I'm done now. I've licked-cha," or "I'm licked. No more. Not another round. Come on, Dreiser, I know just the place for us—" and then descanting on a steak or fish planked, or some new method of serving corn or sweet potatoes or tomatoes, he would lead the way somewhere to a favorite "rat's killer," as he used to say, or grill or Chinese den, and order enough for four or five, unless stopped. As he walked, and he always preferred to walk, the latest political row or scandal, the latest discovery, tragedy or art topic would get his keen attention. In his presence the whole world used to look different to me, more colorful, more hopeful, more gay. Doors seemed to open; in imagination I saw the interiors of a thousand realms—homes, factories, laboratories, dens, resorts of pleasure. During his day such figures as McKinley, Roosevelt, Hanna, Rockefeller, Rogers, Morgan, Peary, Harriman were abroad and active, and their mental states and points of view and interests—and sincerities and insincerities—were the subject of his wholly brilliant analysis. He rather admired the clever opportunist, I think, so long as he was not mean in view or petty, yet he scorned and even despised the commercial viewpoint or trade reactions of a man like McKinley. Rulers ought to be above mere commercialism. Once when I asked him why he disliked McKinley so much he replied laconically, "The voice is the voice of McKinley, but the hands—are the hands of Hanna." Roosevelt seemed to amuse him always, to be a delightful if ridiculous and self-interested "grandstander," as he always said, "always looking out for Teddy, you bet," but good for the country, inspiring it with visions. Rockefeller was wholly admirable as a force driving the country on to autocracy, oligarchy, possibly revolution. Ditto Hanna, ditto Morgan, ditto Harriman, ditto Rogers, unless checked. Peary might have, and again might not have, discovered the North Pole. He refused to judge. Old "Doc" Cook, the pseudo discoverer, who appeared very shortly before he died, only drew forth chuckles of delight. "My God, the gall, the nerve! And that wreath of roses the Danes put around his neck! It's colossal, Dreiser. It's grand. Munchausen, Cook, Gulliver, Marco Polo—they'll live forever, or ought to!"

      Some Saturday afternoons or Sundays, if he came to me or I to him in time, we indulged in long idle rambles, anywhere, either going first by streetcar, boat or train somewhere and then walking, or, if the mood was not so, just walking on and on somewhere and talking. On such occasions Peter was at his best and I could have listened forever, quite as the disciples of Plato and Aristotle must have to them, to his discourses on life, his broad and broadening conceptions of Nature—her cruelty, beauty, mystery. Once, far out somewhere beyond Camden, we were idling about an inlet where were boats and some fishermen and a trestle which crossed it. Just as we were crossing it some men in a boat below discovered the body of a possible suicide, in the water, days old and discolored, but still intact and with the clothes of a man of at least middle-class means. I was for leaving, being made a little sick by the mere sight. Not so Peter. He was for joining in the effort which brought the body to shore, and in a moment was back with the small group of watermen, speculating and arguing as to the condition and character of the dead man, making himself really one of the group. Finally he was urging the men to search the pockets while some one went for the police. But more than anything, with a hard and yet in its way humane realism which put any courage of mine in that direction to the blush, he was all for meditating on the state and nature of man, his chemical components—chlorine, sulphuric acid, phosphoric acid, potassium, sodium, calcium, magnesium, oxygen—and speculating as to which particular chemicals in combination gave the strange metallic blues, greens, yellows and browns to the decaying flesh! He had a great stomach for life. The fact that insects were at work shocked him not at all. He speculated as to these, their duties and functions! He asserted boldly that man was merely a chemical formula at best, that something much wiser than he had prepared him, for some not very brilliant purpose of his or its own perhaps, and that he or it, whoever or whatever he or it was, was neither good nor bad, as we imagined such things, but both. He at once went off into the mysteries—where, when with me at least, he seemed to prefer to dwell—talked of the divinations of the Chaldeans, how they studied the positions of the stars and the entrails of dead animals before going to war, talked of the horrible fetiches of the Africans, the tricks and speculations of the priests of Greek and Roman temples, finally telling me the story of the ambitious eel-seller who anchored the dead horse in the stream in order to have plenty of eels every morning for market. I revolted. I declared he was sickening.

      "My boy," he assured me, "you are too thin-skinned. You can't take life that way. It's all good to me, whatever happens. We're here. We're not running it. Why be afraid to look at it? The chemistry of a man's body isn't any worse than the chemistry of anything else, and we're eating the dead things we've killed all the time. A little more or a little less in any direction—what difference?"

      Apropos of this same a little later—to shock me, of course, as he well knew he could—he assured me that in eating a dish of chop suey in a Chinese restaurant, a very low one, he had found and eaten a part of the little finger of a child, and that "it was very good—very good, indeed."

      "Dog!" I protested. "Swine! Thou ghoula!" but he merely chuckled heartily and stuck to his tale!

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