Sun Cured

It seems there were two New Yorkers, C. L. Walters and Ernie Fretts. They met on a train Florida bound. Fretts was in the insurance business, over in Brooklyn.

“I’m in the insurance business, over in Brooklyn,” said Fretts. “Handle all kinds of insurance. I started when I was just a kid, twenty years ago, and now I’ve got it built up so’s I don’t need to worry. It runs itself. I guess that’s the trouble. I mean I got too much time on my hands, and I play around too much. Why, say, it’s a wonder I ain’t dead, the way I been going. I bet I ain’t been to bed before two, three o’clock the last six months. You can’t go that pace and not feel it.”

“It’s bound to tell on a man after a w’ile,” said Walters. “Now you take me⁠—”

“So I’m about all in,” said Fretts. “And the funny part of it is I didn’t realize it. I wouldn’t of thought nothing about it only for the girl I got in my office. You couldn’t hardly call her a girl, either; she’s a woman about fifty-three and looks like a Channel swimmer. That’s the kind to have in your office. I had a regular Miss America once, the first year I was in business for myself, and we were so busy petting each other that we couldn’t even answer the phone. I didn’t sell enough insurance that year to keep her in typewriter erl. The smartest play I ever made in my life was getting rid of her.

“This woman I got now⁠—well, you’d about as soon think of making love to a horse. And she’s as smart as a man; you don’t have to tell her nothing. And where do you think I got her? In an emplerment agency.”

“Now you take me⁠—” said Walters.

“So as I was telling you, I come in the office one day last week, along about noon, and hadn’t been to bed in thirty-six hours, and Miss Clancy⁠—that’s the woman I got in the office⁠—she give me one look and said, ‘Mr. Fretts,’ she said, ‘don’t think I am butting in on your private affairs, but you better be careful or you will kill yourself. If you will take my advice,’ she said, ‘lay off for a month or two and go to Florida or somewheres and rest up. Get away from these friends of yours for a w’ile.’

“She said, ‘You know you can trust me to handle the business,’ she said, ‘and if you will take a vacation for a month or two, you will feel like a new man. You use’ to play golf and tennis and enjer yourself in things that was good for you,’ she said, ‘and now look at you! I bet you ain’t taken no real exercise in four years. And you don’t sleep and you don’t eat. Just pack up and go down to Palm Beach or Miami or some place and take a little exercise and lay around in the sun and read, or just lay there and relax yourself. You got nothing in the world to worry about and if something does come up that needs your personal attention, I will let you know. But I won’t anner you,’ she said, ‘unless it’s absolutely necessary and I don’t think it will be.’

“She knows me so well that she could see what kind of shape I was in. I tell you I was a wreck, but wouldn’t of thought nothing of it only for her calling my attention. I tell you I was a wreck.”

“You and me both,” said Walters. “Now in my case⁠—”

“So I promised her I’d think it over and that night I went on another party⁠—without a wink of sleep, mind you⁠—and I told a pal of mine, Ben Drew⁠—he’s in the furniture business in Brooklyn, in partners with his brother, and a great pal of mine⁠—I told him what Miss Clancy had said, and they was a couple of girls with us. Bonnie Werner, the girl I been going around with, she was with us, and a girl named Stevens that Ben had picked up somewheres; they were both along on the party.

“The Werner girl thinks I’m going to marry her. Fine chance!

“Anyway, she overheard me telling Ben about this Florida idear and she was all ears. She made some crack about Palm Beach being a grand place for a honeymoon. I guess she thought I was steweder than I really was. I kept right on talking to Ben and he was cockeyed and got all steamed up over the idear and said he would go along with me. He would of been right on this train, too, only for his brother getting sick. But he’s going to jern me next week.”

“I tried to persuade a friend of mine⁠—”

“We got rid of the girls and sat up all that night in a poker game and I was half asleep, and at that I win over seven hundred dollars. We was playing deuces wild and they was one hand where I had three deuces and drew to them and caught a five and nine of clubs. Well, I and a fella named Garvey bet back and forth and he finally called me and laid down a deuce and three tens. I was so gone by this time that I couldn’t talk, so I just throwed down my hand face up and somebody said, ‘My Lord! A straight flush!’ So they give me the pot and I thought all the w’ile that what I had was four nines. That shows⁠—”

“I don’t like deuces wild,” said Walters. “What’s the⁠—”

“I finally got home about noon and called up the office and then slept five or six hours and by that time I was ready for another party. But when I showed up at the office on Wednesday, Miss Clancy bawled me out again and I promised I’d take her advice. Well, I hadn’t played golf or tennis for years and meanw’ile I’d moved three or four times and when I come to look for my golf-clubs and tennis racket, well, they’d disappeared. And I couldn’t find a bathing-suit either, or my fishing-tackle. So all this stuff I’m taking along, it’s all new; I had to buy an entire new outfit⁠—seventy-some dollars for a set of golf-clubs and a bag, fourteen dollars for a tennis racket, and thirty-odd dollars for fishing-tackle. And besides that, a bathing-suit that I paid thirty-two dollars for it, but it’ll knock ’em dead.

“I don’t know how my golf game will be after laying off so long; I expect it’ll come back to me after the first couple of days. The last time I played was out on Long Island, at the Engineers’; must of been four, five years ago. I remember I shot an eighty-seven and win over a hundred dollars. Tennis is my game, though, and I can’t hardly wait to get at it again. What I’m planning to do is get up early in the morning, have breakfast, play two or three sets of tennis, then go swimming and maybe lay around on the beach for an hour; have lunch and then get in eighteen holes of golf and another little swim; then have my dinner, probably up in my room, and go to bed around nine, ten o’clock. Three weeks and I’ll be in the pink!”

“Now you take me,” said Walters, “and⁠—”

“Yes,” said Fretts, “but you probably use some judgment, or maybe you’re married and don’t⁠—”

“No, I’m⁠—”

“I don’t believe they’s a man living could of went the pace I been going and stood up under it. Ben Drew⁠—he’s a pal of mine⁠—he says I’m a marvel. He said, ‘Ernie, you’re a marvel!’ Why listen: Here’s what I did three weeks ago, just for an example. That was right after New Year’s eve. Of course I was on parties morning, night and noon all through the holidays and wound up with a bat that started New Year’s eve and lasted till Monday morning, the third. I slept a w’ile Monday forenoon and showed up at the office about three o’clock. Miss Clancy⁠—the girl I got in the office⁠—she give me a message to call up a pal of mine, Ben Drew.

“I called him up and he had a date with a girl he had picked up somewhere named Stevens, and would I and my girl come along. That’s a girl named Bonnie Werner that I been going with. She thinks I’m going to marry her, and I suppose everybody’s entitled to their opinion. Anyway, I couldn’t leave Ben in a hole so I said all right and he and I got together around five o’clock and loaded up on cocktails and later we jerned the girls and made the rounds and wound up at a Black and Tan, and I and Ben both got pie-eyed and finally sent the girls home mad and we stayed and got in a crap game and I win two three hundred dollars. The game broke up at noon.

“I went straight to the office and Miss Clancy give me a message to call up Miss Werner; that’s the girl I was with the night before, Monday. She was sore on account of me not seeing her home and said if I didn’t take her out this night⁠—Tuesday⁠—why, it was all off between her and I. Well, Tuesday nights we always have a big poker game and I told her I couldn’t get out of the game, but I would see her Wednesday night. I was praying she’d stay sore and carry out her threat and I wouldn’t have to bother with her no more. But no; she backed down and said Wednesday would be k. o.

“So I got in the poker game and it not only lasted all Tuesday night and all day Wednesday, but all night Wednesday night. I got outside of five, six bottles of Ben Drew’s Scotch and win a hundred and seventy dollars. I snatched three, four hours sleep Thursday forenoon and when I showed up at the office, the girl, the Werner girl, was waiting for me.

“To keep her from making a scene I had to promise to devote the rest of the week to her, and the next three nights, we made the rounds of all the different jernts, dancing and drinking rat-poison. Now that’s just one week, but it’s like all the other weeks. No wonder Miss Clancy said I looked terrible!”

“A man can’t go that pace and not feel it. I know in my case⁠—”

“So I need just this kind of a trip⁠—go down there where I don’t know nobody and no girls pestering me all the w’ile, and be outdoors all day and exercise and breathe God’s fresh air. Three, four weeks of that life and the boys in Brooklyn and New York won’t recognize me. And besides that, I never been to Florida and I’m anxious to look it over and see if it’s all they claim. They tell me a man can pick up some great bargains there now and if I find something I like, I’m liable to grab off a piece of it, not for speculation, but maybe build myself a little place to spend the winter months. I hate cold weather and snow and they’s no sense in a man in my position hanging around New York and freezing to death when I could just as well be enjering myself in a clean, wholesome way, in the sunshine.”

“You take me, now⁠—”

“You’re probably a fella that uses some judgment and eat regular, or maybe you got a wife and family to make you behave. But I got nobody only my friends, though I guess I got more of them than any man in Brooklyn. That’s one of my troubles, having too many friends, but only for them, I wouldn’t be where I am, I mean in business. A man in my business has got to have friends, or they wouldn’t have no business.”

“In my business, too. I’m⁠—”

“This must be Fayetteville we’re coming to,” said Fretts. “I’ve got to send a wire to a pal of mine, Ben Drew. He’s in Brooklyn now, but he’s going to jern me next week down in Miami.”

It seems that the two New Yorkers happened to be on the same train a month later, northward bound from Jacksonville.

“Hello, there,” said Walters.

“Fine,” replied Fretts, regarding the other somewhat vaguely.

“I come down on the same train with you a month ago,” said Walters.

“That’s right,” said Fretts. “We come down on the same train together.”

“Well, what do you think of Florida?”

“No place like it in the world!” said Fretts, warming up. “Say, I could write a book! I wished I’d kept a diary of the month I been there. Only nobody would believe it.”

“Where was you? Palm Beach?”

“No, Miami. That is, I guess we drove up to Palm Beach one night. I don’t know.”

“Where did you stop in Miami?”

“Over at the Beach, at the Flamingo.”

“What did they charge you there?”

“I’ve got no idear. I paid them with a check,” said Fretts.

“It’s American plan, ain’t it?”

“No. Yes, yes, it’s American plan.”

“And how was the meals?”

“Meals! I don’t know. I didn’t hear anybody say anything about them.”

“I thought⁠—”

“After this, I’m going to take all my vacations in the winter and spend them right there. That’s the Garden Spot of God’s Green Footstool!”

“So you bought yourself a place?”

“No, I didn’t buy nothing; that is, no real estate. I met some guy the second day that was talking about a big bargain in some development he was interested in, and I promised I’d go out and look at it. He called up a couple of times to remind me of my promise, so to keep him from pestering me, I finally did go out there, but they was no moon, so I couldn’t tell much about it.”

“I thought⁠—”

“Listen till you hear something funny. When I got to the hotel, they told me my room was still occupied, but the guy was just moving out and I could move in inside of an hour. Well, they made the fella pack up in a hurry and he overlooked two bottles of Plymouth gin. So there was the two bottles staring me in the eye and I was afraid he’d come back after them, so I phoned up to another fella’s room that had rode over with me in the taxi from the station and he come down and we had ten, eleven Tom Collinses just as fast as we could drink them.

“Then we filled up the both bottles with water and fixed them like they hadn’t been opened, and sure enough, the bird come back for his treasure. He said he was on his way to Key West and had got clear over near to Miami station when he recalled leaving the gin and he had enough time to come back for it and still catch his train yet. That’s one thing about Florida trains⁠—you can’t miss them no matter what time you get there. He said it was a good thing for him that his room had been inherited by an honest man. I’d like to heard what he said when he took his first swig out of those bottles.

“Well, I and the other fella, the fella that split the gin with me⁠—he’s a fella named Leo Hargrave, from Cleveland; got a foundry there or something⁠—the two of us went up in his room and polished off a bottle of Scotch and then it was time to dress for dinner. That’s all I done about dinner the whole month I was in Miami⁠—I dressed for it, but I never got it. Hargrave said he knew a swell jernt out near Hialeah and we hired a car and drove out there and it was a place where you dined and danced, but we wasn’t hungry and we didn’t have nobody to dance with. So we just ordered some drinks⁠—”

“Did you have any trouble getting drinks?”

“Yes. You had to call a waiter. Well, we stayed there till pretty close to midnight and then drove back towards the beach and stopped at another jernt where you play roulette. There’s a game I always been wild about and I’d of been satisfied to send for my baggage and settle right down for the month. But Hargrave was dance mad and he said we would have to find some girls to travel around with. He said he knew one girl; he would call her up in the morning, and maybe she had a friend.

“I told him to never mind about a friend, because it’s been my experience that when you ask a girl to bring along a girlfriend, the girlfriend generally always looks like she had charge of the linen room at a two dollar hotel. So we stayed up till the telegraph office was open and then I sent a letter to New York, to a girl I been going around with, a girl named Bonnie Werner, and told her to jump in an upper and jern me.”

“Did she come?”

“Sure, she come. She thinks I’m going to marry her. But she couldn’t get there till two, three days later and in the meanwhile, I run around with Hargrave and his dame. I wasn’t lonesome, though; not as long as they was plenty of Scotch and a roulette w’eel, and besides that, I found a poker game, to say nothing about a couple dandy fellas lives there at the Beach and love to just sit around and hit up the old barber shop harmony⁠—Jim Allison and Jess Andrew.

“But I didn’t really strike my stride till Miss Werner got in. From that time on, I went some pace! And of course it was even worse when Ben Drew showed up. He’s a pal of mine, in partners with his brother in the furniture business in Brooklyn. He was going to come down with me, but his brother got sick and held him up a week. He brought a girl named Stevens that he picked up somewheres, and with Miss Werner and I, and Ben Drew and the Stevens dame, and Hargrave and his girl, that made six of us that stuck together all the w’ile; that is, for the first few nights. After that, we’d get the girls all wore out by one, two o’clock and chase them home and then I and Ben and Hargrave, we’d play the w’eel or sit in a game of stud.

“It was the same schedule, day after day, the whole time I was there. The party would start out along about seven, eight o’clock in the evening and go to whatever place we hadn’t been to the night before. We’d dance till, say, one o’clock and then chase the women home and do a little serious gambling. The poker game generally broke up a little before noon. That would give us fellas the afternoon to sleep, w’ile the girls would do their shopping or go to the polo or waste their time some way another. About six o’clock, I’d get up and have the barber come in and shave me and then I’d dress and be all set for the roll-call.”

“But I thought⁠—”

“From the first day, I didn’t wear nothing but dinner clothes. And I brought along a trunk full of white pants and knickers that I never even unpacked.

“You’d have to get Miss Werner or one of the other girls to tell you the different places we went. They all looked alike to me⁠—just jernts, with tables and waiters and an orchestra.”

“But the weather was beautiful⁠—”

“So I heard somebody say. I guess it’s a great climate, if that’s what a man is looking for. They say California’s another garden spot and that’s another place I’ve always intended to go. But of course it takes longer.”

“The California climate,” said Walters, “is probably just as good⁠—”

“I’ve always intended to go out there. But of course it takes longer. Four, five days on a train is too much. A fella don’t get no sun or air. I always feel cooped up on a train.”

“How was the golf?”

“I didn’t get to play golf; never had my clubs out of the bag. But I heard somebody telling Ben Drew that they had four, five fine courses around Miami.”

“Play any tennis?”

“No, I didn’t have time for tennis. They got some swell courts right by the hotel, but even at that, when you change into your tennis clothes and play four, five sets and then take a bath and dress again, why, it means a waste of two hours.”

“Go fishing?”

“Fishing! That’s a whole day! And as far as bathing is concerned, why, it looks like they was a law that you couldn’t swim only at noon time, just when a man’s ready for the hay.”

“How far is the ocean from the hotel where you stopped?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t get over there. You see you can’t do everything at a place like that. It would wear you out. I’m thirty-eight years old and when a man gets that age, you’ve got to watch your step. You can’t go in for athaletics like you was a kid.

“I’m in the insurance business in Brooklyn, and one of the things we learn in our business is that a man is taking chances if he goes in too strong for sports after a certain age. You can’t be a youngster all your life.”

“Did your friends go home ahead of you?”

“Do you mean Ben Drew and Miss Werner and the Stevens girl? No, Ben, he’s back there in a compartment dead to the world and he said he’d shoot anybody that woke him up this side of Manhattan Transfer.

“And the girls⁠—they look like they’d just stepped out of a wastepipe.”

“You look pretty good yourself, better than last time I seen you.”

“I should! A trip like this was just what I needed⁠—away from the office a whole month and longer and ain’t even given business a thought.

“That’s where so many men make mistakes⁠—not taking a vacation; or if they do take one, they keep in touch with their office all the time and sperl the whole trip, worrying. I got a girl that can run my business pretty near as good as I can myself⁠—not a girl, either; a woman about fifty-three years old; a Miss Clancy.

“She’s the one that realized the shape I was in and insisted on me taking this trip. And how her face will light up when I walk in that office Monday morning⁠—or maybe Monday afternoon⁠—and she sees what this has done for me!”