Mr. and Mrs. Green In a State Of Great Intoxication

A story that goes nowhere☹️other than showing us the error of our way

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Every Sunday, Mrs. Green set the entire house in commotion. There was incessant going and coming at every moment of the day, great calling up and down stairs, shouting from room to room, and opening and shutting of doors.

Followed by her housekeeper, she journeyed through the rooms, investigating each corner, ferreting through every old box and trunk, groping about on the top shelves of closets, peering into bags, and exasperating the housekeeper with her persistence to clean the uncleanable.

At last, guests arrived, wearing their finest with bright smiles displayed on their faces.

Drinks were brought out. The company began to be very gay.

More drinks were poured.

More guests arrived. Chairs and tables were fetched in from the adjoining rooms. Guests, fluttering from the kitchen to the dining room, collided with each other in their desire to have them in their hostess graces.

They were all very gay, getting in one another’s way, laughing over their mistakes, rushing into the dining room, brandishing plates and glasses, forks, and knives, and darting out again after more.

Greeting the guests, Mr. Green appeared jovially colossal. Above his massive shoulders rose his thick, red neck and mane of black hair. The light shimmered pink through the gristle of his enormous ears.

He whooshed about here and there, pouring wine into glasses, slapping guests upon the back, laughing and joking continually, rolling his eyes from face to face until his gaze landed on Mrs. Pipin’s sumptuous cleavage, whose blushing cheeks blossomed accordingly.

At last, the company sat down with a great clatter. Mr. Green assumed the head of the table, with Mrs. Green on his right. Mr. Pipin was on his left. Mr. Pipin’s cheeks were distended, his eyes wide, and his huge, salient jaw moved with a machine-like regularity.

They drank and feasted in an impromptu fashion. Everything had been eaten; there were sizeable loaves of rye bread full of grains. There were wiener-wurst and wiener sausages. There was salted butter. There were pretzels. There was cold, undercooked chicken, which one ate in slices, plastered with mustard that did not sting. There were dried apples that gave Mr. Green the hiccoughs.

As the night progressed, Mrs. Green, infamous for her sad, heavy drinking, lobbed inappropriate grins and giggles at her overanxious guests, with whom she had less interest than the diamonds she anticipated receiving the following day.

Bedecked in her black grenadine, false curls, coral brooch, and enormous diamonds in her ears, Mrs. Green was a large woman with a heft to her belly and ballooned bosom. Her merciless chatter plodded into its first and tragic minute and continued to launch into a long, weird rant in which she described the new Bently Mr. Green presented to her for her birthday.

Soon after Mrs. Green’s long monologue, the guests retired from the table and relaxed into couples and groups.

Stuffed to the eyes, Mr. Green drowsed over his big porcelain pipe, prone on his back, and settled himself contentedly in the lounge while guests washed the dishes. Mr. Green lit his pipe and blew an impressive cloud of smoke into the room.

The men followed suit, the aroma of their tobacco merging with the odors of ether and creosote, drifting into the faces of the women. Instantly, their eyes flamed, and they strangled and coughed.

In a state of great intoxication, Mr. Green began to involve himself in fearful political and social discussions with anyone within earshot. As was his custom, he carried on these discussions at the top of his voice, gesticulating fiercely, banging his thigh with his fists, and exciting himself with his clamor.

“It can’t be proven.” He was yelling — his vast, square-cut head, prominent jaw, huge, red hands, and massive, resistless strength. “I defy any politician whose eyes are not blinded by party prejudices. Look at your facts. I am a free American citizen, ain’t I? I pay my taxes to help a good government, don’t I? It’s a bond between me and the leadership, ain’t it? Well, then, by damn! If the powers that be do not or will not provide me protection for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, my responsibilities are ending; I withhold my taxes.”

Lights were lit as the evening wore on. Gorged with food, the men had unbuttoned their vests. The women sat in the parlor, exchanging confidences. Plates of cake settled in their sumptuous laps, and they sipped their wine with the delicacy of a white cat.

Mrs. Green wiped her forehead with her napkin. At intervals, she took a series of short breaths through her nose, secretly wishing for her guest’s early departure.

“Hey, dere, Missy,” she called out to her maid. “gif me some more oaf dat ‘bubble-water.’” That was how she spoke of the champagne — ’ bubble-water.’

The guests had shouted applause, “Outa sight.”

Bottle after bottle was uncorked, the women stopping their ears as the corks were drawn. Soon, the windows were raised.

Veins soaked in alcohol, Mrs. Green went off in a very spasm of delight, waving her bejeweled hand, laughing until her eyes watered. But what the guests endured as they listened to her tale, lashed and agitated by a merciless greed that checked at no story of treasure, however outlandish. Her stories ravished them with red, hot envy. They were near someone who had possessed such wealth.

Mr. Green had been pulling hard on his pipe, and for the third time, he thrust his face close to Mr. Pipin and, in opening his lips to talk, blew a stifling, acrid cloud directly into his eyes.

With a sudden flash of his hand, Mr. Pipin knocked the pipe from Mr. Green’s fingers; it rotated across the room and shattered into a dozen fragments in a far corner.

This sudden and extreme outburst heralded tremendous confusion. Mr. Green immediately threw off his previous air of relaxation. In his agitation, Mr. Green rose to his feet. The room swam before his eyes. Mr. Pipin’s image appeared doubled.

Matters were reaching a sudden climax.

“You don’t want to get into a row,” slurred Mr. Green.

His eyes wide, Mr. Pipin cried, “Get your damn smoke outa my face.”

Mr. Green was taken all aback by the suddenness and unreasonableness of Mr. Pipin’s outbreak. Why had Mr. Pipin broken his pipe?

“This resolves it right here. I’ve done with you. Don’t you ever dare talk to me again,” Mr. Green’s voice shook with fury. “And I’m sorry I ever reduced myself to keeping company with such dirt. Ah, ten-cent zinc — plugger — hoodlum — mucker!”

Mr. Pipin had made a quick motion, spinning his arm upward with a sweeping gesture; his jackknife lay open in his palm. Mr. Green sprang back as though avoiding a blow. All at once, there was a cry; the knife shot forward as Mr. Pipin flung it at Mr. Green and struck shuddering into the wall behind Mr. Green.

A chill ran through the room; the others stood mesmerized at the swift passage of some cold and deadly wind. Death had stooped there for an instant, had stooped and passed, leaving a trail of shock and confusion.

Then the door leading to the street slammed; Mr. Pipin had disappeared.

“He broke my pipe,” Mr. Green cried.

It was this that had stirred him. The tossed knife, the attempt on his life, was beyond his explanation, but the breaking of his pipe he understood clearly enough.

“I’ll show him,” he exclaimed.

“You’re drunk, that’s what you are.” Mrs. Green laid a retaining hand upon Mr. Green’s coat sleeve, but he swung himself around and, fixing his eyes on Mrs. Green, who stood on shaky legs, cried as if in answer to some misjudgment.

“What — what did he do it for?” stammered Mr. Green. “I got no quarrel with him.”

He was puzzled. Mr. Pipin would have killed him had he thrown his knife at him in an uncanny “greaser” style. It was incomprehensible. Mr. Green collapsed again, glaring senselessly about on the floor. In a corner of the room, his eye stumble upon his broken pipe, a dozen little fragments of painted porcelain, and the cherry wood and amber stem.

The End Without an End