Mottka
Since most of the great minds that have weighed the subject have arrived at the opinion that between poverty and crime there is an inevitable affinity, the suspicion with which the eye of Policeman Billings rested upon Mottka, the vender of roasted chestnuts, reflected creditably upon that good officer’s grasp of the higher philosophies.
Policeman Billings, sworn to uphold the law and assist in the protection of property, viewed the complications and mysteries of the social system with a simple and penetrating logic. The rich are not dangerous, reasoned Policeman Billings, because they have what they want. But the poor who have not what they want are, despite paradox and precedent, always to be watched closely. A raggedly dressed man walking in a dark, lonely street may be honesty itself. Yet rags, even when worn for virtue’s sake, are a dubious assurance of virtue. They are always ominous to one sworn to protect property and uphold the law.
There is a maxim by Chateaubriand, or perhaps it was Stendhal—maxims have a way of leaving home—which claims that the equilibrium of society rests upon the acquiescence of its oppressed and unfortunate.
In passing the battered chestnut roaster of the unfortunate Mottka, Policeman Billings was aware in his own way of the foregoing elements of social philosophy. Mottka had chosen for his little shop an old soapbox which a wastrel providence had deposited in the alley on Twenty-second Street, a few feet west of State Street. Here Mottka sat, nursing the fire of his chestnut roaster with odd bits of refuse which seldom reached the dignity of coal or even wood.
He was an old man and the world had used him poorly. He was, in fact, one of those upon whom the equilibrium of the social system rests. He was unfortunate, oppressed and acquiescent. Arriving early in the forenoon he set up his shop, lighted his fire and took his place on the soapbox. When the lights began to wink out along this highway of evil ghosts Mottka was still to be seen hunched over his chestnut roaster and waiting.
Policeman Billings strolling over his beat was wont to observe Mottka. There were many things demanding the philosophical attention of Policeman Billings. Not so long ago the neighborhood which he policed had been renowned to the four corners of the earth as the rendezvous of more temptations than even St. Anthony enumerated in his interesting brochure on the subject. And Policeman Billings felt the presence of much of this evil lingering in the brick walls, broken windows and sagging pavements of the district.
It was after a number of days on the beat that Policeman Billings began to take Mottka seriously. There was something curious about the chestnut vender, and the eye of the good officer grew narrow with suspicion. “This man,” reasoned Policeman Billings, “makes pretense of being a vender of roasted chestnuts. He sits all day in the alley between two saloons. I have never noticed him sell any chestnuts. And come to think of it, I have never seen more than a half-dozen chestnuts on his roasting pan. I begin to suspect that this old man is a fraud and that his roasting chestnuts is a blind. He is very likely a lookout for some bootlegger gang or criminal mob. And I will keep an eye on him.”
Mottka remained unaware of Policeman Billing’s attention. He continued to sit hunched over his roaster, nursing the little fire under it as best he could—and waiting. But finally Policeman Billings called himself to his attention in no uncertain way.
“What’s your name?” asked the good officer, stopping before the chestnut vender.
“Mottka,” answered Mottka.
“And what are you doing here?” asked Policeman Billings, frowning.
“I roast chestnuts and sell them,” said Mottka.
“Hm!” said Policeman Billings, “you do, eh? Well, we’ll see about that. Come along.”
Mottka rose without question. One does not ask questions of an officer of the law. Mottka stood up and put the fire out and put the handful of chestnuts in his pocket and picked up his roaster and followed the officer. A half-hour later Mottka stood before the sergeant in the Twenty-second street station.
“What’s the trouble?” asked the sergeant.
And Policeman Billings explained.
“He claims to be selling chestnuts and roasting them. But I never see him sell any, much less do I see him roasting any. He’s got about a dozen chestnuts altogether and I think he may bear looking into.”
“What about it, Mottka?” asked the sergeant.
Mottka shrugged his shoulders, shook his head and smiled deprecatingly.
“Nothing,” he said, “I got a chestnut roaster I got from a friend on the West Side. And I try to make business. I got a license.”
“But the officer says you never roast any chestnuts and he thinks you’re a fake.”
“Yes, yes,” smiled Mottka; “I don’t have so many chestnuts. I can’t afford only a little bit at a time. Some time I buy a basket of chestnuts.”
“Where do you live, Mottka?”
“Oh, on the West Side. On the West Side.”
“And what did you do before you roasted chestnuts?”
“Me? Oh, I was in a business. Yes, in a business. And it failed. So I got the chestnut roaster. I got a license.”
“It seems to me I’ve seen you before, Mottka.”
“Yes, yes. A policeman bring me here before when I was on Wabash Avenue with my chestnuts.”
“What did he bring you in for?”
“Oh, because he thinks I am a crook, because I don’t have enough chestnuts to sell. He says I am a lookout for crooks and he brings me in.”
Mottka laughed softly and shrugged his shoulders.
“I am no crook. Only I am too poor to buy more chestnuts.”
Policeman Billings frowned, but not at Mottka.
“Here,” said the good officer, and he handed Mottka a dollar. Three other upholders of the law were present and they too handed Mottka money.
“Go and buy yourself some chestnuts, Mottka,” said the sergeant, “so the officers won’t be runnin’ you in on suspicion of bein’ a criminal.”
Now Mottka’s chestnut roaster in the alley off State Street is full of chestnuts. A bright fire burns under the pan and Mottka sits watching the chestnuts brown and peel as they roast. And if you were to ask him about things he would say:
“Tell something? What is there to tell? Nothing.”
“FA’N TA MIG!”
Avast and belay there! Take in the topgallants, wind up the mizzenmast and reef the cleets! This is Tobias Wooden-Leg plowing his way through a high sea in Grand Avenue.
Aye, what a night, what a night! The devil astride the jib boom, his tail lashing in the wind. “Pokker!” says Tobias, “fa’n ta mig. Hold tight and here we go!”
The boys in the Elite poolroom stand grinning in the doorway. Old Norske Tobias is on a tear again, his red face shining with the memory of Stavanger storms, his beard bristling like a north cat’s back. An Odin in caricature.
They watch him pass. Drunker than a fiddler’s wench. Drunker than a bootlegger’s pal. Drunk as the devil himself and roaring at the top of his voice: “Belay, there! Hold tight and here we go!” Poor Tobias Wooden-Leg, the years keep plucking out his hairs and twisting his fingers into talons. Seventy years have squeezed him. And they have brought him piety and wisdom. They have taught him virtue and holiness.
But the wind suddenly rises and comes blowing out of Stavanger again. The great sea suddenly lifts under his one good leg. And Tobias with his Bibles and his prayer books struggles in the dark of his Grand Avenue bedroom. The devil comes and sits on his window sill, a devil with long locks and bronze wings beside his ears and a three-pronged pitchfork in his hand.
“Ho, ho!” cries this one on the window sill. “What are you doing here, Tobias? With the north wind blowing and the gray seas standing on their heads? Grown old, Tobias, eh? Sitting in a corner and mumbling over litanies.”
And it has always been like that since he came to Grand Avenue ten years ago. It has always turned out that Tobias takes off his white shirt and puts on his sailor’s black sweater and fastens on his old wooden leg and follows the one on the window sill.
Avast and belay! The night is still young and a sailor man’s abroad. The sergeant going off duty at the Chicago Avenue station passes and winks and calls: “Hello, Tobias. Pretty rough tonight.”
“Fa’n ta mig!” roars Tobias. “Hold tight.” And he steers for Clark Street. And now the one on the window sill is gone and the storm grows quiet. And poor Tobias Wooden-Leg, the venerable and pious, who has won the grace of God through a terrific fight, finds himself again lost and strayed.
Of what good were the prayers and the night after night readings in the old sea captain’s Bible stolen forty years ago? Of what good the promises and tears of repentance, when this thing that seemed to rise out of forgotten seas could come and jump up on his window sill and bewitch him as if he were a heedless boy? When it could sit laughing at him until in its laugh he heard the sounds of old winds roaring and old seas standing on their heads, and he put on his black sweater—the moth-eaten badge of his sinfulness—and he put on his wooden leg and lifted out the handful of money from under the corner of the carpet?
What good were the prayers if they couldn’t keep him pious? Yes, that was it. And here the habitués along North Clark Street grin. For Tobias Wooden-Leg is coming down the pavement, his head hanging low, his beard no longer bristling and his soul on a hunt for a new God. A strong God. A powerful and commanding God, stronger than the long-locked, bronze-winged one of the window sill.
They grin because this is an old story. Tobias is an old character. Once every two or three months for ten years Tobias has come like this with his head lowered searching for a new and powerful God that would keep him pious and that would kill the devil that seemed never to die inside his old Norske soul.
So he had taken them all—a jumble of gods, a patchwork of religions. Every soapbox apostle in the district had at one time converted him. Holy Roller, Methodist, Jumper, Yogi, Swami, Zionite—he had bowed his head before their and a dozen other varied gods. And the missions in the district had come to know him as “the convert.” He had been faithful to each of the creeds as long as he remained sober and as long as he sat in his room of nights reading in his Bible.
But come a storm out of Stavanger, come a whistling under the eaves and a thumping of wind on the window pane and Tobias was off again. “He is not a good God!” Tobias would cry in his new “repentance.” “His religion is too weak. The devil is stronger than Him. I want a stronger religion. Pagh, I want somebody big enough to kill this fanden inside me.”
The crowd around the soapbox evangelist is rather slight. The night is cold. The wind bites and the street has a dismal air. The evangelist stands around the corner from the old book store in whose windows thousands of musty volumes are piled like the bones of hermits. The man who owns this curious book store is a sun-worshipper. And the evangelist on the soapbox is a friend of his.
The slight crowd listens. Peace comes from the sun. The sun is the source of light and of health. It is the eye of God. Terrible by day and watching by night. It is the fire of life. The slight crowd grins and the evangelist, his mind bubbling with a cabalistic jargon remembered out of musty books, tries to explain something that seems vivid in his heart but vague to his tongue.
They will drop away soon because the night is cold and the evangelist a bit too nutty for serious attention. But here comes Tobias Wooden-Leg and some of the listeners grin and nudge one another. Tobias, with his voice hoarse and his blue eyes shining with wrath—wrath at himself and wrath at the God who had abandoned him, unable to cope with the one on the window sill.
Tobias listens. Terrible by day and ever watchful by night. The King of Kings, the Great Majesty and secret symbol of the absolute. Tobias drinks in the jargon of the soapbox man and then shouts: “I’ll join, I’ll join! I want a strong God!”
So now Tobias Wooden-Leg is a sun-worshipper. The boys in the Elite poolroom will tell you all about it. How he walks the street at dawn with his head raised and bows every seven steps. And how in the evening he is to be seen standing at his window bowing to the sun going down. And how he has been around saying: “Well, I have found the big God at last. No more monkey business for me. Listen to what it says in the book about him.” And how he will quote from the sea captain’s Bible stolen forty years ago.
But the boys also say: “Just wait.”
And they wink, meaning that another storm will blow up out of Stavanger in Norway and old Tobias will come plowing down the street again howling that fa’n ta mig the devil has him and that old Thor leaped on his window sill and tossed the all-powerful sun out of the sky with his hammer.