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006 - The Elusive Tenderloin · O. Henryana

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  Speaker 1: Section six of O. Henryanna by O. Henry. This LibriVox
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  Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain recording by Phil Schampf.
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  Speaker 1: The elusive tenderloin. There is no tenderloin. There never was,
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  Speaker 1: That is none that you could run a tape line around.
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  Speaker 1: The word really implies a condition or a quality, much
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  Speaker 1: as you would say reprehensibility or cold feet. Meats and
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  Speaker 1: bounds have been assigned to it. Taino real is separated
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  Speaker 1: from fourteenth to forty second and as far west as
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  Speaker 1: et cetera, But the larger meaning of the word remains
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  Speaker 1: with me. Confirmation of my interpretation of the famous slaughter
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  Speaker 1: house noun adjective came to me from Bill Jeremy, a
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  Speaker 1: friend from out of the west. Bill lives in a
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  Speaker 1: town on the edge of the Prairie Dog country. At times,
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  Speaker 1: Bill yearns to maintain the tradition that ginger shall be
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  Speaker 1: hot in the bouth. He brought his last yearning to
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  Speaker 1: New York, and it devolved upon me. You know what
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  Speaker 1: that means. I took Bill to see the cavity that
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  Speaker 1: has been drilled in the city's tooth, soon to be
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  Speaker 1: filled with the new Gold Subway, and the Eden musee,
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  Speaker 1: and the flat iron and the crack in the front
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  Speaker 1: window pane of Russell Sage's house, and the old man
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  Speaker 1: that threw the stone that did it when he was
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  Speaker 1: a boy and I asked Bill what he thought of
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  Speaker 1: New York. You may mean, well, said Bill, with a
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  Speaker 1: gentle reproach, but you've got in a groove. You thought
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  Speaker 1: I was underwear buyer, or the blue front dry goods
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  Speaker 1: emporium of Pine Nab, North Carolina, didn't ye, Or the
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  Speaker 1: junior partner of Slow Coach and Green of g G
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  Speaker 1: Wocomi State of Goobers. Come on for the false stock
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  Speaker 1: of jeans, lingerie and whetstones. Don't treat me like a
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  Speaker 1: business friend. Do you suppose the wild, incensate longing I
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  Speaker 1: feel for Metropolitan gaiety is going to be satisfied by
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  Speaker 1: waxworks and razorback architecture. Now you get out the old
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  Speaker 1: envelope with the itinerary on it and cross out the
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  Speaker 1: Birkham Bridge and the cab that Morgan rides home in
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  Speaker 1: and the remaining objects of interest. For I'm going it alone.
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  Speaker 1: The tenderloin well done is what I shall admire. For
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  Speaker 1: to see Bill Jeremy has a way of doing as
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  Speaker 1: he says he will. So I did not urge upon
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  Speaker 1: him the bridge, or Carnegie Hall, or the Greek tomb.
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  Speaker 1: Wonders that the unselfish New Yorker reserves unseen for his friends.
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  Speaker 1: That evening bill descended unprotected upon the tenderloin. The Next
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  Speaker 1: day he came and put his feet upon my desk
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  Speaker 1: and told me about it. This tenderloin said, he is
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  Speaker 1: a cross between a fake side show and a foot race.
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  Speaker 1: It's a movable feast, something like Easter or trying to
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  Speaker 1: eat spaghetti with chopsticks. Last night, I put all my
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  Speaker 1: money but nine dollars under a corner of the carpet
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  Speaker 1: and started out. I had along a bill of fare
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  Speaker 1: of this here tenderloin, it said, it begins at fourteenth
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  Speaker 1: Street and runs to forty second, with Fourth Avenue and
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  Speaker 1: Seventh on each side of it. Well, I started up
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  Speaker 1: from fourteenth so I wouldn't miss any of it. Lots
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  Speaker 1: of people was traveling on the streets in a hurry.
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  Speaker 1: Thinks I the tenderloin sizzling tonight. If I don't hurry,
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  Speaker 1: I won't get a seat at the performance. Most of
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  Speaker 1: the crowd seemed to be going up, and I went up,
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  Speaker 1: and then they seemed to be going down, and I
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  Speaker 1: went down. I asked a man in a light overcoat
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  Speaker 1: with a blue jaw leaning against the lamp post, where
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  Speaker 1: was this tenderloin up that way? He says, waving his fingering.
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  Speaker 1: How will I know it when I get to it?
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  Speaker 1: I asks, Yeah, says he, like he was sick. You'll
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  Speaker 1: see a flats headed call staking a doll in a
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  Speaker 1: ninety eight cent shirtwaist to a cheese sandwich in Sasparilla,
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  Speaker 1: and five Salvation Army corporals waiting round for the change.
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  Speaker 1: There'll be a phonograph playing, and nine cops getting ready
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  Speaker 1: to raid the joint. That'll be it. I asked that
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  Speaker 1: fellow where I was then two blocks from De Pom
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  Speaker 1: says he. I goes on uptown, and, seeing nothing particular
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  Speaker 1: in the line of sinful delight, I strikes Crosstown to
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  Speaker 1: another avenue that was sixth I reckon. People were still
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  Speaker 1: walking up and down, putting first one foot in front
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  Speaker 1: and then the other, in the irreligious and wicked manner
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  Speaker 1: that I suppose has given the tenderloin its frivolous reputation.
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  Speaker 1: Street cars was running past most impious and unregenerate, and
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  Speaker 1: the profligate Dagoes was splitting chestnuts roast with a wild
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  Speaker 1: abandon that reminded me considerably of Doin's in Paris, France.
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  Speaker 1: The dissipated bootblacks was sleeping in their chairs, and the
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  Speaker 1: rose peanut whistles sounded gay and devilish. Among the mad
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  Speaker 1: throng that leaned again the awning posts, a fellow with
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  Speaker 1: a high hat and brass buttons gets down off the
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  Speaker 1: top of his covered sulky and says to me, kem sir,
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  Speaker 1: whereabouts is this tenderloin? Colonel I asks, You're right in
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  Speaker 1: the center of it. Boss says he. You are standing
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  Speaker 1: right now on the wickedest corner in New York, not
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  Speaker 1: ten feet from here. A push cart man had his
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  Speaker 1: pocket picked last night. And if you're here for a week,
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  Speaker 1: I can show you at least two moonlit trolley parties
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  Speaker 1: go by on the New Amsterdam Line. Look here, says I.
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  Speaker 1: I'm out for a razzou. I've gotten nine iron medallions
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  Speaker 1: of liberty and holes in my pocket mining I want
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  Speaker 1: to split this tenderloin in too, if there's anything in it.
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  Speaker 1: Now put me on to something that's real, degraded and
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  Speaker 1: boisterous and sizzling with cultured and uproarious sin, something in
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  Speaker 1: the way of metropolitan bise that I can be proud
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  Speaker 1: of when I go back home. Ain't you got any
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  Speaker 1: civic pride about you? This sulky driver scratched the heel
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  Speaker 1: of the chin just now. Boss says he. Everything's layin low.
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  Speaker 1: There's a tip out that Jerome's cigarettes ain't agreeing with him.
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  Speaker 1: If it was any other time, say says he. Like
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  Speaker 1: an idea struck him. How would you like to take
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  Speaker 1: in the all night restaurants, lots of electric lights, Boss,
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  Speaker 1: and people in fun sometimes they laugh right out loud.
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  Speaker 1: Out of town visitors mostly visit our restaurants. Get Away,
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  Speaker 1: says I. I'm beginning to think your old tenderloin is
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  Speaker 1: nothing but the butcher's article, a little spice and infamy
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  Speaker 1: and audible riot. It's what I'm after. If you can't
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  Speaker 1: furnish it, go back and climb on your DENI barouche.
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  Speaker 1: We have restaurants out west, I tells him. Where we
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  Speaker 1: eat grub attended by artificial light and laughter. Where is
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  Speaker 1: the boasted badness of your unjustly vituperated city. The fellow
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  Speaker 1: rubs his chin again. Indeed, if I know Boas, says he.
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  Speaker 1: Right now, you see Jerome. And then he buds out
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  Speaker 1: with another idea. Tell you what, says he be the
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  Speaker 1: very thing. You Jump in my cab and I'll drive
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  Speaker 1: you over to Brooklyn. My aunt's given a Yuker party tonight,
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  Speaker 1: says he, because Miles of Riley is busy watching the natatorium.
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  Speaker 1: Somebody tipped him off. It was a pool room. Can
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  Speaker 1: you play Yuker? The cabbleby three point fifty an hour?
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  Speaker 1: Jump right in, Boss. That was the best I could
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  Speaker 1: do on the wickedest corner in New York. So I
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  Speaker 1: walks over where it's more righteous open. There might be
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  Speaker 1: something doing among the Pharisees. Everything, so far as I
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  Speaker 1: could see, was as free from guile as a hammock
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  Speaker 1: in a Chautauqua picnic. The people just walked up and down,
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  Speaker 1: speaking at chrysanthemum shows and oratorios, and enjoying the misbegotten
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  Speaker 1: reputation of being the wickedest race on the continent. It's
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  Speaker 1: too bad, Bill, I said that you were disappointed in
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  Speaker 1: the tenderloin didn't you have a chance to spend any
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  Speaker 1: of your money? Oh? Yes, said Bill. I managed to
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  Speaker 1: drop one dollar over on the edge of the sinful district.
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  Speaker 1: I was going along down at Boulevard when I hears
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  Speaker 1: an awful hollering and fussing that sounded good. It reminded
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  Speaker 1: me of a real enjoyable rough house out west. Some
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  Speaker 1: fellow was quarreling at the top of his voice, using
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  Speaker 1: cusswords and calling down all kinds of damn nation about something.
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  Speaker 1: The sounds come out through a big door in a
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  Speaker 1: high building, and I went to see the fun. Thinks I,
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  Speaker 1: I'll get a small slice of this here tenderloin. Anyhow well,
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  Speaker 1: I went in, and that's where I dropped the dollar.
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  Speaker 1: They came around and collected it. What was inside, Bill,
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  Speaker 1: I asked. A fellow told me. When we came out,
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  Speaker 1: said Bill, it was a church, and one of these
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  Speaker 1: preachers that mixes up in politics was denouncing the evils
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  Speaker 1: of the tenderloin. End of section six