H.P. Lovecraft. Old Bugs
Old Bugs
An Extemporaneous Sob Story by Marcus Lollius, Proconsul of Gaul
by H. P. Lovecraft
Written 1919
Sheehan's Pool Room, which adorns one of the lesser alleys in the heart of
Chicago's stockyard district, is not a nice place. Its air, freighted with
a thousand odours such as Coleridge may have found at Cologne, too seldom
knows the purifying rays of the sun; but fights for space with the acrid
fumes of unnumbered cheap cigars and cigarettes which dangle from the
coarse lips of unnumbered human animals that haunt the place day and
night. But the popularity of Sheehan's remains unimpaired; and for this
there is a reason -- a reason obvious to anyone who will take the trouble
to analyse the mixed stenches prevailing there. Over and above the fumes
and sickening closeness rises an aroma once familiar throughout the land,
but now happily banished to the back streets of life by the edict of a
benevolent government -- the aroma of strong, wicked whiskey -- a precious
kind of forbidden fruit indeed in this year of grace 1950.
Sheehan's is the acknowledged centre to Chicago's subterranean traffic in
liquor and narcotics, and as such has a certain dignity which extends even
to the unkempt attaches of the place; but there was until lately one who
lay outside the pale of that dignity -- one who shared the squalor and
filth, but not the importance, of Sheehan's. He was called "Old Bugs", and
was the most disreputable object in a disreputable environment. What he
had once been, many tried to guess; for his language and mode of utterance
when intoxicated to a certain degree were such as to excite wonderment;
but what he was, presented less difficulty -- for "Old Bugs", in
superlative degree, epitomised the pathetic species known as the "bum" or
the "down-and-outer". Whence he had come, no one could tell. One night he
had burst wildly into Sheehan's, foaming at the mouth and screaming for
whiskey and hasheesh; and having been supplied in exchange for a promise
to perform odd jobs, had hung about ever since, mopping floors, cleaning
cuspidors and glasses, and attending to an hundred similar menial duties
in exchange for the drink and drugs which were necessary to keep him alive
and sane.
He talked but little, and usually in the common jargon of the underworld;
but occasionally, when inflamed by an unusually generous dose of crude
whiskey, would burst forth into strings of incomprehensible polysyllables
and snatches of sonorous prose and verse which led certain habitues to
conjecture that he had seen better days. One steady patron -- a bank
defaulter under cover -- came to converse with him quite regularly, and
from the tone of his discourse ventured the opinion that he had been a
writer or professor in his day. But the only tangible clue to Old Bugs'
past was a faded photograph which he constantly carried about with him --
the photograph of a young woman of noble and beautiful features. This he
would sometimes draw from his tattered pocket, carefully unwrap from its
covering of tissue paper, and gaze upon for hours with an expression of
ineffable sadness and tenderness. It was not the portrait of one whom an
underworld denizen would be likely to know, but of a lady of breeding and
quality, garbed in the quaint attire of thirty years before. Old Bugs
himself seemed also to belong to the past, for his nondescript clothing
bore every hallmark of antiquity. He was a man of immense height, probably
more than six feet, though his stooping shoulders sometimes belied this
fact. His hair, a dirty white and falling out in patches, was never
combed; and over his lean face grew a mangy stubble of coarse beard which
seemed always to remain at the bristling stage -- never shaven -- yet
never long enough to form a respectable set of whiskers. His features had
perhaps been noble once, but were now seamed with the ghastly effects of
terrible dissipation. At one time -- probably in middle life -- he had
evidently been grossly fat; but now he was horribly lean, the purple flesh
hanging in loose pouches under his bleary eyes and upon his cheeks.
Altogether, Old Bugs was not pleasing to look upon.
The disposition of Old Bugs was as odd as his aspect. Ordinarily he was
true to the derelict type -- ready to do anything for a nickel or a dose
of whiskey or hasheesh -- but at rare intervals he shewed the traits which
earned him his name. Then he would try to straighten up, and a certain
fire would creep into the sunken eyes. His demeanour would assume an
unwonted grace and even dignity; and the sodden creatures around him would
sense something of superiority -- something which made them less ready to
give the usual kicks and cuffs to the poor butt and drudge. At these times
he would shew a sardonic humour and make remarks which the folk of
Sheehan's deemed foolish and irrational. But the spells would soon pass,
and once more Old Bugs would resume his eternal floor-scrubbing and
cuspidor-cleaning. But for one thing Old Bugs would have been an ideal
slave to the establishment -- and that one thing was his conduct when
young men were introduced for their first drink. The old man would then
rise from the floor in anger and excitement, muttering threats and
warnings, and seeking to dissuade the novices from embarking upon their
course of "seeing life as it is." He would sputter and fume, exploding
into sesquipedalian admonitions and strange oaths, and animated by a
frightful earnestness which brought a shudder to more than one drug-racked
mind in the crowded room. But after a time his alcohol-enfeebled brain
would wander from the subject, and with a foolish grin he would turn once
more to his mop or cleaning-rag.
I do not think that many of Sheehan's regular patrons will ever forget the
day that young Alfred Trever came. He was rather a "find" -- a rich and
high-spirited youth who would "go the limit" in anything he undertook --
at least, that was the verdict of Pete Schultz, Sheehan's "runner", who
had come across the boy at Lawrence College, in the small town of
Appleton, Wisconsin. Trever was the son of prominent parents in Appleton.
His father, Karl Trever, was an attorney and citizen of distinction,
whilst his mother had made an enviable reputation as a poetess under her
maiden name of Eleanor Wing. Alfred was himself a scholar and poet of
distinction, though cursed with a certain childish irresponsibility which
made him an ideal prey for Sheehan's runner. He was blond, handsome, and
spoiled; vivacious and eager to taste the several forms of dissipation
about which he had read and heard. At Lawrence he had been prominent in
the mock-fraternity of "Tappa Tappa Keg", where he was the wildest and
merriest of the wild and merry young roysterers; but this immature,
collegiate frivolity did not satisfy him. He knew deeper vices through
books, and he now longed to know them at first hand. Perhaps this tendency
toward wildness had been stimulated somewhat by the repression to which he
had been subjected at home; for Mrs. Trever had particular reason for
training her only child with rigid severity. She had, in her own youth,
been deeply and permanently impressed with the horror of dissipation by
the case of one to whom she had for a time been engaged.
Young Galpin, the fiance in question, had been one of Appleton's most
remarkable sons. Attaining distinction as a boy through his wonderful
mentality, he won vast fame at the University of Wisconsin, and at the age
of twenty-three returned to Appleton to take up a professorship at
Lawrence and to slip a diamond upon the finger of Appleton's fairest and
most brilliant daughter. For a season all went happily, till without
warning the storm burst. Evil habits, dating from a first drink taken
years before in woodland seclusion, made themselves manifest in the young
professor; and only by a hurried resignation did he escape a nasty
prosecution for injury to the habits and morals of the pupils under his
charge. His engagement broken, Galpin moved east to begin life anew; but
before long, Appletonians heard of his dismissal in disgrace from New York
University, where he had obtained an instructorship in English. Galpin now
devoted his time to the library and lecture platform, preparing volumes
and speeches on various subjects connected with belles lettres, and always
shewing a genius so remarkable that it seemed as if the public must
sometime pardon him for his past mistakes. His impassioned lectures in
defence of Villon, Poe, Verlaine, and Oscar Wilde were applied to himself
as well, and in the short Indian summer of his glory there was talk of a
renewed engagement at a certain cultured home on Park Avenue. But then the
blow fell. A final disgrace, compared to which the others had been as
nothing, shattered the illusions of those who had come to believe in
Galpin's reform; and the young man abandoned his name and disappeared from
public view. Rumour now and then associated him with a certain "Consul
Hasting" whose work for the stage and for motionpicture companies
attracted a certain degree of attention because of its scholarly breadth
and depth; but Hasting soon disappeared from the public eye, and Galpin
became only a name for parents to quote in warning accents. Eleanor Wing
soon celebrated her marriage to Karl Trever, a rising young lawyer, and of
her former admirer retained only enough memory to dictate the naming of
her only son, and the moral guidance of that handsome and headstrong
youth. Now, in spite of all that guidance, Alfred Trever was at Sheehan's
and about to take his first drink.
"Boss," cried Schultz, as he entered the vile-smelling room with his young
victim, "meet my friend Al Trever, bes' li'1' sport up at Lawrence --
thas"n Appleton, Wis., y' know. Some swell guy, too -- 's father's a big
corp'ration lawyer up in his burg, 'n' 's mother's some fiery genius. He
wants to see life as she is -- wants to know what the real lightnin' juice
tastes like -- so jus'remember he's me friend an' treat 'im right."
As the names Trever, Lawrence, and Appleton fell on the air, the loafers
seemed to sense something unusual. Perhaps it was only some sound
connected with the clicking balls of the pool tables or the rattling
glasses that were brought from the cryptic regions in the rear -- perhaps
only that, plus some strange rustling of the dirty draperies at the one
dingy window-but many thought that someone in the room had gritted his
teeth and drawn a very sharp breath.
"Glad to know you, Sheehan," said Trever in a quiet, well-bred tone.
"This is my first experience in a place like this, but I am a student of
life, and don't want to miss any experience. There's poetry in this sort
of thing, you know -- or perhaps you don't know, but it's all the same.
"Young feller," responded the proprietor, "ya come tuh th' right place tuh
see life. We got all kinds here -- reel life an' a good time. The damn'
government can try tuh make folks good of it wants tuh, but it can't stop
a feller from hittin"er up when he feels like it. Whaddya want, feller --
booze, coke, or some other sorta dope? Yuh can't ask for nothin' we ain't
got."
Habitues say that it was at this point they noticed a cessation in the
regular, monotonous strokes of the mop.
"I want whiskey -- good old-fashioned rye!" exclaimed Trever
enthusiastically. "I'll tell you, I'm good and tired of water after
reading of the merry bouts fellows used to have in the old days. I can't
read an Anacreontic without watering at the mouth -- and it's something a
lot stronger than water that my mouth waters for!"
"Anacreontic -- what'n hell's that?" several hangers-on looked up as the
young man went slightly beyond their depth. But the bank defaulter under
cover explained to them that Anacreon was a gay old dog who lived many
years ago and wrote about the fun he had when all the world was just like
Sheehan's.
"Let me see, Trever," continued the defaulter, "didn't Schultz say your
mother is a literary person, too?"
"Yes, damn it," replied Trever, "but nothing like the old Teian! She's one
of those dull, eternal moralisers that try to take all the joy out of
life. Namby-pamby sort -- ever heard of her? She writes under her maiden
name of Eleanor Wing."
Here it was that Old Bugs dropped his mop.
"Well, here's yer stuff," announced Sheehan jovially as a tray of bottles
and glasses was wheeled into the room. "Good old rye, an' as fiery as ya
kin find anyw'eres in Chi."
The youth's eyes glistened and his nostrils curled at the fumes of the
brownish fluid which an attendant was pouring out for him. It repelled him
horribly, and revolted all his inherited delicacy; but his determination
to taste life to the full remained with him, and he maintained a bold
front. But before his resolution was put to the test, the unexpected
intervened. Old Bugs, springing up from the crouching position in which he
had hitherto been, leaped at the youth and dashed from his hands the
uplifted glass, almost simultaneously attacking the tray of bottles and
glasses with his mop, and scattering the contents upon the floor in a
confusion of odoriferous fluid and broken bottles and tumblers. Numbers of
men, or things which had been men, dropped to the floor and began lapping
at the puddles of spilled liquor, but most remained immovable, watching
the unprecedented actions of the barroom drudge and derelict. Old Bugs
straightened up before the astonished Trever, and in a mild and cultivated
voice said, "Do not do this thing. I was like you once, and I did it. Now
I am like -- this."
"What do you mean, you damned old fool?" shouted Trever. "What do you mean
by interfering with a gentleman in his pleasures?" Sheehan, now recovering
from his astonishment, advanced and laid a heavy hand on the old waif's
shoulder.
"This is the last time far you, old bird!" he exclaimed furiously. "When a
gen'l'man wants tuh take a drink here, by God, he shall, without you
interferin'. Now get th' hell outa here afore I kick hell outa ya."
But Sheehan had reckoned without scientific knowledge of abnormal
psychology and the effects of nervous stimulus. Old Bugs, obtaining a
firmer hold on his mop, began to wield it like the javelin of a Macedonian
hoplite, and soon cleared a considerable space around himself, meanwhile
shouting various disconnected bits of quotation, among which was
prominently repeated, " . . . the sons of Belial, blown with insolence and
wine."
The room became pandemonium, and men screamed and howled in fright at the
sinister being they had aroused. Trever seemed dazed in the confusion, and
shrank to the wall as the strife thickened. "He shall not drink! He shall
not drink!" Thus roared Old Bugs as he seemed to run out of -- or rise
above -- quotations. Policemen appeared at the door, attracted by the
noise, but for a time they made no move to intervene. Trever, now
thoroughly terrified and cured forever of his desire to see life via the
vice route, edged closer to the blue-coated newcomers. Could he but escape
and catch a train for Appleton, he reflected, he would consider his
education in dissipation quite complete.
Then suddenly Old Bugs ceased to wield his javelin and stopped still --
drawing himself up more erectly than any denizen of the place had ever
seen him before. "Ave, Caesar, moriturus te saluto!" he shouted, and
dropped to the whiskey-reeking floor, never to rise again.
Subsequent impressions will never leave the mind of young Trever. The
picture is blurred, but ineradicable. Policemen ploughed a way through the
crowd, questioning everyone closely both about the incident and about the
dead figure on the floor. Sheehan especially did they ply with inquiries,
yet without eliciting any information of value concerning Old Bugs. Then
the bank defaulter remembered the picture, and suggested that it be viewed
and filed for identification at police headquarters. An officer bent
reluctantly over the loathsome glassyeyed form and found the
tissue-wrapped cardboard, which he passed around among the others.
"Some chicken!" leered a drunken man as he viewed the beautiful face, but
those who were sober did not leer, looking with respect and abashment at
the delicate and spiritual features. No one seemed able to place the
subject, and all wondered that the drug-degraded derelict should have such
a portrait in his possession -- that is, all but the bank defaulter, who
was meanwhile eyeing the intruding bluecoats rather uneasily. He had seen
a little deeper beneath Old Bugs' mask of utter degradation.
Then the picture was passed to Trever, and a change came over the youth.
After the first start, he replaced the tissue wrapping around the
portrait, as if to shield it from the sordidness of the place. Then he
gazed long and searchingly at the figure on the floor, noting its great
height, and the aristocratic cast of features which seemed to appear now
that the wretched flame of life had flickered out. No, he said hastily, as
the question was put to him, he did not know the subject of the picture.
It was so old, he added, that no one now could be expected to recognise
it.
But Alfred Trever did not speak the truth, as many guessed when he offered
to take charge of the body and secure its interment in Appleton. Over the
library mantel in his home hung the exact replica of that picture, and all
his life he had known and loved its original.
For the gentle and noble features were those of his own mother.
The Lovecraft Library wishes to extend its gratitude to Jim Java for this
text.