Man Not Overboard

Ben Brainard posed for the newspaper photographers on the deck of the Gargantua, saying to himself: “There’s a picture for page one⁠—‘Young Novelist Kills Himself at Sea.’ ”

He went into his cabin and opened his two bags. In one were a couple of clean handkerchiefs. The other was empty. He would tell the steward he had come in a terrible hurry, had not had time to pack. The truth was that after eleven o’clock that night he would need nothing in the world, not even the clothes he was wearing. He wondered vacantly how long a man’s clothes outlasted his body in salt water.

He sat down on the bed and felt pressing against him the little gun he had bought on Third Avenue a week ago, the day when he had planned this thing he was going to do. He would have been a week dead now but for his not exceptional aversion to funerals and his preference to die at sea, and the added fact that it was not quite a year since he had taken out insurance for $10,000 in favor of his mother and sister and the suicide clause would still, five days ago, have been in force. The mother and sister had very little and he realized that he was hurting them enough by just killing himself without, in addition, leaving them penniless.

His plan had been carefully made. The Gargantua, on which his friend Phil Runyon was purser, would dock on the eighth and sail again on the tenth, just a week after his Third Avenue shopping tour. He would be on board and would have Phil for a witness of his death to avoid any balking on the part of the insurance company. And he would spend the intervening days and nights in boundless drinking, such as would cause him to be remembered around New York as something more than the writer of two popular books and one which no publisher would accept. (Perhaps they would accept it when he had made his name better known by doing what he was about to do; if so, the royalties would help his poor mother and sister.)

Well, he had had his orgy, opening and closing day clubs and night clubs till early yesterday morning, when he had been taken home and put to bed by his friend the purser after a party of whose details he remembered nothing at all.

The Gargantua was gliding smoothly out of New York Harbor. Ben Brainard went into the lounge and ordered three quick drinks to steady his hand so that he might write farewell letters to the members of his family and to the Girl whose heartless treatment of him had made life intolerable. His last act would be to entrust these letters to good old Phil Runyon, just previous to his embarkation to another World.

To his mother and sister he explained the reasons for his deed⁠—the failure of his latest and greatest work to win appreciation, and the loss of the most wonderful and lovable of all girls. He asked their forgiveness. He knew they would understand.

To the Girl he wrote over two thousand words that would make her at least a little bit sorry even if she were really as hard-hearted as she had appeared at their last meeting. (The Girl was Pauline Lannin of the chorus of Hit the Deck and he might have known that a chorus girl, what with making quick changes and one thing and another, would never have time to digest two thousand words, especially as the ordinary daily extent of her reading was the captions in an evening tabloid.)

The bugle blew for dinner, but of what use was dinner to a man who had only four hours more to live? What Brainard needed was enough Scotch to sustain his resolution, for it really is tough to pass out at the age of thirty, when you are a genius and there is so much good writing God wants you to do. It was this fear of weakening at the last moment that had influenced him to buy a gun. He was an excellent swimmer and if he toppled overboard without shooting himself first, a natural instinct of self-preservation might keep him afloat until the Gargantua’s sailors had rescued him.

He had had one drink and was about to order another when a stranger stopped at his table, a man of robust health, apparently about fifty-five years old.

“Do you mind if I join you?” he asked. “I am all alone and I like company when I have a drink.”

Brainard was going to lie and say he expected a friend, but it occurred to him that the time would pass more quickly if he had someone to talk to; listen to, rather, for he was not in a mood to do much talking himself.

“Sit down,” he invited. “I am ordering a Scotch highball. Perhaps you’d rather have a cocktail.”

“No, make it two highballs,” said the stranger, and added to the waiter, “Bring me the check.”

“You can buy the next one,” Brainard said. “I suppose we ought to introduce ourselves. I am Benjamin Brainard, of New York.”

“Not Benjamin Brainard the author!” the other exclaimed. “Why, I read two of your books and enjoyed them immensely. But I certainly never would have guessed you were such a young man; your novels show such a wide knowledge of life.”

“I guess I’ve lived!” said Brainard with a bitter smile.

“My name,” said his new companion, “is Fred Lemp. I’m just a plain business man, with very little business,” he added good-naturedly.

“Where are you bound for?” Brainard inquired.

“Paris,” said Lemp. “Paris and Château-Thierry. And you?”

Brainard’s face wore a queer expression. “I don’t know,” he said.

“You don’t know!”

“I only know that it’s a long way off,” said Brainard.

“Oh, I suppose you are just wandering around, in search of material for a new book.”

“I have written my last book.”

“You mustn’t say that! A man your age and with your talent! You owe it to the world to keep on writing.”

“Thank you, but I am sure I don’t owe the world anything.”

They had had four drinks and Brainard was now ordering another.

“I don’t know whether I’d better or not,” said Lemp hesitantly. “I hardly ever drink more than three, because after three I get talky and bore everybody to death.”

“It doesn’t matter to me if you get talky,” said Brainard, and added to himself: “I don’t have to listen to you.”

“Well, it’s on your own head,” said Lemp, and ordered his fifth highball.

“Mr. Lemp,” Brainard said, “what would you do⁠—Never mind. I guess I’m getting too talky myself.”

“Not at all,” said Lemp. “I’d like to hear what you were going to ask me.”

“Well, I was going to ask what you would do if you were an artist in a certain line and nobody appreciated your work⁠—”

“I’d keep at it anyway if I knew it was good work.”

“I wasn’t through. What would you do if you suddenly realized you were an unappreciated artist, and then, on top of that, a Girl broke your heart?”

“Is this autobiographical?”

“Perhaps.”

“Well, I’d try my best to forget her and I’d go ahead and do such masterful work that she would be very sorry for what she had done to me.”

“Forget her!” Brainard’s tone was bitter in the extreme.

They were awaiting a sixth drink.

“You said you were going to Château-Thierry. I was in the fight there. I wish I’d been killed!”

“My boy was,” said Lemp.

“Are you going to visit the grave?”

“Yes, and also to visit a little Frenchwoman who ought to have been his wife. Every year I pay her a call, to see if there is anything I can do for her and her child. Every year I try to coax her back to America with me, but she won’t leave France. I wish she would. I’m all alone now and the youngster⁠—he’s nine years old⁠—he’s a mighty cute kid and would be company for me. A man gets lonesome sometimes. And my wife is worse than dead. She has lost her mind and has to be kept in a private sanitarium.”

“Are you allowed to see her?”

“I do see her twice a year, on her birthday and on our anniversary. But I might as well stay away. She has no idea who I am. Poor Margaret! She is almost as beautiful as the day I met her.”

“What type?”

“I suppose you would call her an Irish type⁠—black hair and blue eyes. Just the type my first wife was; in fact, I believe it was her resemblance to Edith that made me fall in love with her.”

“How old was your first wife when she died?”

“She didn’t die. Poor Edith! I guess it was mostly my fault. She was too young to marry, too young to know her own mind. When we had lived together a little over a year, she fell desperately in love with a man I used to invite frequently to the house, a business acquaintance.”

“Did she run away with him?”

“Yes. He had more money than I. I don’t mean to say that Edith was money-mad, but she did like good times and our marriage came just at a period when I was in desperate financial straits; rather, just before that period, for naturally, if I had known what was going to happen, I wouldn’t have married her.”

“What did happen?” asked Brainard, sipping his eighth drink.

“You are an inquisitive young man.”

“Oh, if you’d rather not tell me⁠—”

“I might as well. I warned you I’d get talky. Well, my youngest brother went wrong. He was cashier in a small bank, out on Long Island, and he embezzled to the extent of twenty thousand dollars. He had gambled it all away at the racetracks and in order to keep him out of jail, I liquidated all my assets and borrowed three thousand from a friend to make up the amount. I did it more for my mother’s sake than for his; I knew that if she heard that he had stolen, it would kill her.” Lemp brushed a hand across his eyes. “She found out about it anyway, and it did kill her.”

“Horrible!”

“I worked like the devil to get back on my feet, and I did it. But it was too late. Edith had gone.”

“What do you say if we have a drink?”

“I say yes.”

“And how long after that did you get married the second time?”

“Four years, and the same thing nearly happened again. My other brother, older than I, fell in love with a woman in Garden City, another man’s wife. The husband found it out and there was a fight in which my brother shot the husband dead. There was no chance in the world of my brother’s getting off, but I felt it my duty to give him the best counsel obtainable. He had no money himself. I paid two lawyers forty thousand and my brother went to the chair. Well, I learned afterwards that on the very same day my brother committed murder, Margaret, my second wife, became friendly with a piano tuner. Of course he had nothing except his wages and she was not fool enough to give me up for him. But when those lawyers had taken all my capital she would have left me if Providence had not intervened. The piano tuner was hit by a truck on the Fifty-ninth Street bridge and lost his hearing.”

“Did you have any other children besides the boy killed in the war?”

“Yes, a girl. But I’d rather not talk about her. Oh, well, what does it matter? Miriam was our firstborn, a year and a half older than my son. One day she was driving a car up in Westchester County, going forty or fifty miles an hour, when she was stopped by a handsome young motorcycle policeman, and the rascal told her he would let her off if she would be his girl.

“She said to him, ‘I don’t know what you mean by being your girl, but I think you’re awfully nice-looking and I’d just as soon be your wife.’ They were married and had three children. Then it was discovered that he had another wife and family in Ardsley. He was sent to jail, she is a stenographer in an insurance office downtown and I am supporting the kiddies.”

Brainard consumed his twelfth drink, then fumbled awkwardly in his pocket and drew out his gun.

“Mr. Lumps,” he said, “I’m going to ask you to do me a favor. Put this right in your mouth, aim it upwards and shoot.”

“What are you talking about, boy? Do you want me to commit suicide? Why, I’m only sixty-one years old and having a damn good time!”

“You do as I say and do it right in here so we won’t lose the gun. I’m going to need it myself at eleven o’clock.”

“What for?”

“To do the same thing you’re going to do.”

“But I’m not going to do anything except go to bed. What you intend to do is none of my business, though I would suggest that as you still have over two hours and a half to wait, you go to your cabin and take a nap and leave a call for eleven. I’ve always heard that the time to kill yourself with the best results is right after a nice nap.”

Brainard had already started on one, but Lemp and a steward managed to get his room key out of his pocket and arouse him sufficiently to be conducted to the cabin, partly undressed and laid on his bed. Lemp then returned to the lounge and was soon joined by Phil Runyon.

“He’s safe for the night anyway,” said Lemp.

“You’ve done a good job, Fred, and I’m grateful to you,” said the purser.

“I made him cry twice, and there were three or four times when I nearly broke down myself. Here’s his gun.”

“All right; I’ll take charge of it if you’re sure you don’t want it. Though I don’t know what good it would do you, as I emptied it yesterday morning after I’d got him to sleep, and I don’t think we’re selling any ammunition on the Gargantua, except what comes in bottles. That was a great party he took me on night before last. He insisted on dragging me to some night club and who should be there but this dame that’s turned him down. She was with a man who could have been her father, but wouldn’t want to if he was sober. I swear, Fred, she must be the manager’s wife’s sister ever to land a job in what they tell me is a pretty chorus.

“He was going to their table and make a scene, but I told him it would be cowardly to pick on a man as old as that. I finally got her eye and gave her the office to duck, and when she saw who was with me, she didn’t hesitate a minute.

“Pretty soon Ben was worse than I ever saw him. He had his suicide plan all worked out and he gave me the details, thinking I was somebody else. He talked like this:

“ ‘I haven’t much longer to live,’ he said. ‘In fact, this is the last time you’ll see me. I’ve got it all fixed up to kill myself and a good old pal of mine is going to help me. I’ve bought a gun; it’s over in my room now, all loaded and waiting for me. Well, this pal of mine is Phil Runyon, purser on the Gargantua, and she sails day after tomorrow. I’m going to be aboard and I’ll make a date to meet Phil when we’re out at sea and I’ll coax him to one of the decks, telling him I want to discuss something with him where we can’t be overheard. Then I’ll sit up on the rail and I’ll sit so that when I shoot myself, I’ll be bound to fall overboard. You see, I’ve got to have him there, or somebody else that knows me, so there won’t be any trouble about my insurance. How is that for an idea?’

“Imagine him asking me what kind of an idea I thought it was!

“And the funny part, along about five o’clock, when I finally succeeded in getting him out of the place, he knew me and was calling me Phil and talking about other times we’d been out together.

“Yesterday afternoon I called up his hotel and made sure he was out; then I went there and fixed it with a bellhop and porter to go up in his room after he left this morning and pack up enough stuff for him to make the trip with and have it sent down to the ship in my name. He thinks he hasn’t any baggage, but he’s got enough to go over and back with, and I really think the crossing will do him a lot of good. Though writers are mostly all nutty and you never know what to expect of them.”

“I haven’t told you,” said Lemp, “that when I was through with my story, he gave me the gun and ordered me to use it on myself.”

“Oh, Ben was always a generous boy,” said Runyon. “It surprises me that he didn’t offer to take you out on deck, shoot you and throw you off the ship.”

“Listen,” said Lemp: “I need one more drink for courage and then I’ve got to find my wife and take my scolding. I explained to her that I’d met a man I thought I could do some business with and I might not be in for dinner. But what good is that explanation going to be when she sees me?”

“Probably none,” Runyon said cheerfully. “But the drink is on me.”

About noon next day Brainard woke up, summoned his steward and ordered him to send the purser to his cabin.

“Phil,” he said when Runyon arrived, “didn’t we have an engagement last night?”

“Yes, but you went to bed long before your bedtime.”

“Phil, where did that steamer trunk come from?”

“I suppose it came from your hotel.”

“I didn’t bring any baggage except those two empty bags.”

“Did you plan crossing the ocean without baggage?”

“I didn’t plan crossing the ocean. And another thing, who was the fella I was with all evening, a fella about sixty years old, named Limp or Lemp or something?”

“Oh,” said Runyon, “that’s Fred Lemp, a big hosiery manufacturer from upstate.”

“Say, he’s had a tough life. He told me all about it. He told me stuff enough for a whale of a novel.”

“Why don’t you write it?”

“Because I can’t remember a word he said.”

“Well,” said Runyon, “we’ll get you together again sometime.”

“Do that, Phil,” said Brainard. “But make it out on deck where he can’t order so many drinks. A man as old as he ought not to drink so much. It’s liable to get him.”