The Celebrant by Eric Rolfe Greenberg

Author:Eric Rolfe Greenberg [Greenberg, Eric Rolfe]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-8032-7403-7
Publisher: Bison Books
Published: 2014-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

I adored the aspect of the Ansonia Hotel. For two years I’d watched swarms of masons inventing every manner of decoration for its ledges, its balconies, its apses and domes until it looked like an utterly gigantic and unbelievably complex cuneiform. It fronted Broadway along the whole block between Seventy-Third and Seventy-Fourth Streets, the largest hotel in the city and at every point its most ornate, the apotheosis of the Beaux Arts style. I felt that it would stand when every other structure in the city I knew had crumbled; it was our mightiest celebration of affected energy. It was, moreover, a people’s hotel; the Waldorf, the Fifth Avenue, the new Plaza by the Park disdained all but the rich, but the Ansonia welcomed everyone, and for this it had quickly become a favorite of the people’s entertainers. Cohan, Foy, John Drew stayed at the Ansonia, Tod Sloan in racing season, and the whole fistic mob in winter. The thick walls of its rooms were proof against disturbance; Rudolf Friml could rehearse productions in his huge rooms on the hotel’s uppermost floor while in the next apartment Anna Russell could sleep in peace. There was never an hour when some great luminary could not be seen and approached there; as this was known the lobby and public rooms were forever crowded with schemers and promoters who, like the pigeons in the thousand nooks of the decorative front, roosted there and fouled the place with their leavings.

It was close to dark when Eli and I arrived. We took a table for dinner, but my brother never sat for more than five minutes at a stretch; he was forever up and about, greeting (it seemed to me) every third person who came into the place and whispering his guesses at the course of events. He learned nothing to ease his mind. The Giants certainly had not won the game, and might yet lost it; Chicago claimed, with unarguable veracity, that the home club had failed to clear the field for the tenth inning and therefore ought to forfeit. To Giant fans—and everyone in the hotel was a Giant fan—the whole matter was ridiculous; the game had ended when McCormick touched home with the winning run. But the rulebook had it otherwise: Merkle had not touched second base.

It was sad to watch Eli scamper from place to place in a vain attempt to gain the inside dope. I’d always imagined that he had easy access to the innermost circles of concern, but the odd customers with odder names who came to our table could only repeat the common and incredible rumors on every tongue: Frank Chance had been seen handing O’Day five hundred dollars cash! said Harry the Hat; the police had O’Day in “protective custody”! said Bobby Bottles; Pulliam had fired O’Day and declared the Giants winners! said Sandpaper Sam; Pulliam had suspended McGraw and forfeited all remaining Giant games! said Nick the Greek. And Merkle had committed suicide! (“Good!” ran the popular reaction to the tale.

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