The Red Book Magazine/Volume 30/Number 4/The Clubby Roadster

by Ring Lardner

This is the story of a gloom-ride—which is much more typical than a joy-ride.

It also tells of a man and
his money who were parted
even sooner than usual.

 

THE CLUBBY ROADSTER

BY RING W. LARDNER

YOUNG Harry Cross breezed into my office one morning in May with the sad news that his wife's Aunt Myrtle had died of the blues in Memphis and had left Harry and she twenty-five hundred dollars.

“And only thirty-nine years old!” said Harry.

“Don't kick about her going so young,” I told him. “You'd ought to be glad she succumbed before spending the twenty-five hundred.”

“That's no way to talk!” he said. “I care more for Nan's relatives than all the money in the world.”

“But it looks like the hand of Providence was in this,” said I. “It means you're at liberty to leave home and go to France. I wish I could.”

“Why don't you?” he asked me.

“How can I,” I said, “with a dependable wife and no millionaire aunts?”

“But what's twenty-five hundred dollars?” said Harry. “The interest on it wouldn't hardly keep a person in toothpicks.”

“You can do the next-best thing then,” I said. “You can buy twenty-five hundred dollars' worth of Liberty bonds.”

“Not no three and a half per cent, I can't!” said Cross. “A man that don't get six per cent for his money these days is a fish. But,” he goes on, “I'm not going to get no six per cent or any other per cent. I'm going to spend the money.”

I asked him what on.

“Well, he said, “I'm tired of living with the wife's folks.”

“And maybe it's fifty-fifty,” said I.

“Anyway,” he said, “I and Nan are figuring on a cozy little flat of our own, and it's going to cost us about six hundred dollars for furniture, a piano inclusive.”

“Well,” I said, “that'll leave you nineteen hundred for the Liberty loan.”

“No,” said Cross, “because I promised to buy the Missus a car.”

“You certainly are a sport,” said I, “—to forget your own comfort and enjoyment and think only of your wife's, especially when you stop to consider that the lady who died was her aunt. I suppose it'll be an electric.”

“No,” said Cross, “and it wont be no flivver. When I buy a car, it'll be a regular car. We've just about decided on a Champion.”

“A seven-passenger?” I asked him.

“No,” he said, “it's what they call the Clubby Roadster, with room for four.”

“And how much do they cost?” said I.

“About fifteen hundred,” he said. “But that don't include the extra tire or the engine-driven pump or the bumper, or the freight from Cleveland to here.”

“I suppose,” said I, “that they throw in a steering-wheel and a horn.”

“Altogether,” said Cross, “it comes to about fifteen-ninety, and the salesman says it's the biggest bargain a man could find.”

I asked him if he could drive it.

“I wont have no trouble,” he said. “It's half nerve and half good judgment.”

“Well,” said I, “you can be sure of fifty per cent efficiency.”

“And as soon as I get good,” said Cross, “I'm coming to take you and your Missus for a ride.”

“Call up ahead of time,” I said. “We're busy about one night a week.”

“What night?” he asked me.

“The night you come to take us for a ride,” said I. ....

But one day near the end of June I picked up a paper and seen where Mr. Wilson was liable to torpedo all the neutral Bourbon without warning; so I and a friend of mine down to the office spent the afternoon lightening his task. And by the time I got home, I was on friendly terms with the whole world and absolutely unable to say no to anybody. That's the only way I can explain accepting Cross' invitation, and if the Prohibition forces wants to use this as a moral lesson, they're as welcome as a fresh egg.

He called up while the Missus was doing the supper-dishes.

“Listen!” he said. “Could you and your wife get off next Saturday?”

I told him I was off now.

“If you could,” he said, “how would you like to take a trip in the car with my wife and I?”

“Tickled to death!” said I.

“All right,” said Cross. “We'll be over for you early Saturday morning. And have your nighties packed, because wherever we go, we wont get back before Sunday night.”

I told him that suited me fine, and the deal was closed. You wouldn't hardly believe a man could get that bad in one afternoon.

Cross came for us about eight o'clock.

“The wife wasn't quite ready,” he said. “We'll pick her up on the way. And that'll give you and your Missus a chance to run up and see our flat.”

So we climbed into the shiny new Champion, I and the Missus in the back seat, and Cross started her off so smooth and easy that I cut my lip on the top of my spine. That first standing broad jump of half a block was the fastest we went on the whole trip.

“The engine's a little stiff,” said Cross.

“The driver's a big one,” I said to the Missus.

“They call this car the Clubby Roadster,” said Cross. “It's a roadster, but most of them only have the driver's seat, where this one's got the extra seat for two more passengers. It's a regular roadster body, only for the extra seat, so they call it a Clubby Roadster, on account of the back seat being right up close to the front. Everybody close together, so they named it the Clubby Roadster.”

“I never saw this style of car before,” said I. “I should think they'd have some special name for it, like Clubby Roadster.”

“That's what they do call it,” said Cross and

I asked him why, but a postman was crossing the street four blocks off and he had to concentrate.

After we'd cleared this hazard, Cross said:

“I'm wild to get out on the country roads where I can step on her. They tell me she's capable of fifty-five miles an hour. Would you believe it?”

“You bet I would,” said I, “and hearsay evidence ample.”

“We're only going fourteen now,” said Cross. “If I speeded up here in the city, I'd be liable to get pinched.”

“And the way you're going now,” said I, “the danger is that a thirsty truck-horse will romp up behind and drink all your gasoline. Or maybe a vicious snail will stick a claw through your extra tire.”

“There! I just hit fifteen,” said Cross. “The way that I tell is by this thing on the dashboard. It registers how fast I'm going. They call it a speedometer.”

“Is that so!” I said. “I always thought a speedometer was a kind of germicide.”

“No,” said Cross. “One part of it registers speed and another part registers mileage. So far, I've [trav]eled just two hundred and twelve miles.”

“You'd ought to swap experiences with Bud Holmes,” said I.

Pretty soon we come to the Honeymoon Pub and Cross stopped the Champion by the simple process of running her into the curb.

“We'll all go up for just a minute,” said our host. “Nan will be pretty near ready.”

Nan was pretty near ready—to cry. From her miserable looks I figured she must of broken a tumbler, but it seems it was worse than that.

“Oh, Harry,” she said to her husband, “I turned Jack down.”

Then she went on to tell him that her brother had been in the Officers' Reserve camp out to Fort Sheridan, and he'd just called up to say that they'd (illegible text) for waivers on him.

“Well,” I said, “I don't see what you're sad over. Did you want him to get killed?”

“Oh, no,” she sniffled. “But it'll break his heart. He was crazy to give himself to the country. He passed the physical test and everything—and now he can't go.”

“It's too bad,” I said, “that there's no vacancies in the regular army. Otherwise he might horn in there as a private. Haven't you no friends with a political pull?”

“Let's not talk about it, or the little girl's trip will be spoiled,” said Cross. “Come on and see what you think of our flat.”

Well, this tour of examination didn't take much time. There was four rooms all told, and Jess Willard could have hung his head out of the front window and washed his feet in the kitchen sink. If a man coming in had tripped on the hall rug, he'd be in bed.

After an argument about whether Nan was taking enough wraps, and whether Harry should have the pajamas with the feet in them or the ones that allowed his toe-ums to run amuck at night, we squeezed out and started downstairs, Then Nan wasn't sure she'd locked the door.

“What's the difference?” I asked her. “A very thin burglar might manage to scrape in between the furniture, but Houdini's the only one that could get out again and bring anything with him.”

She ran back, though, and convinced herself, and then we went on down to the car. Nan said I and the Missus would have to sit in back, so she could be beside Harry in front and read him the route out of the Blue Book.

I asked where we was headed.

“It's a secret,” said Mrs. Cross, giggling.

“I don't doubt it,” said I. “With your husband in the driver's seat, the destination's always a secret.”

I and the wife braced ourselves for another leaping get-away, but Cross did a whole lot better this time.

“If it wasn't for straining the engine,” he said, “I'd start right out on high.”

“Anyway,” said I, “that's where we'll probably finish.”

We hadn't been out of bed more than two hours, but that didn't stop my Missus from going to sleep before we struck South Chicago.

After four wrong turns, we finally came to Indianapolis Avenue, that's named after a town in the American Association. A few blocks ahead I saw a roadhouse called the Auto Inn, probably under the same management as the Grand Hotel and the Elite Café and the Economy Dry Goods Store.

“Cross,” I said, “our cupboard was bare this morning, and I don't like to start out on a joy-ride with no oil. If you think you're not going too fast to stop, let's pull up minute at the joint with the peculiar name and get a couple of quick ones while the Missus is asleep.”

Nan cut in.

“No, indeed!” she said. “Harry mustn't drink while he's driving. Pretty near all automobile accidents are caused by liquor.”

“Anyway,” said Cross, “I'm going to try not to stop at all till we reach Michigan City. You can get a drink there.”

“How far is that?” I asked him.

“About sixty miles,” he said.

“But Indiana goes dry next April,” I said.

The book told us to fork off Indianapolis Avenue to the right. Between the place you fork and the outskirts of Hammond, there's three or four miles of cement along Lake George that's like a billiard table, and wide enough for three machines and a kid on roller skates to pass.

“Now we can make some time,” said Cross, and before I realized it, he had her up to eighteen miles per hour.

Nan grabbed his right arm. “Oh, Harry, please slow down!” she said.

“I'm all right,” said Cross, giving a kind of scared laugh. “There's no danger as long as I keep my nerve. Besides, I've gone faster than this already.”

“Yes,” said his wife, “but it was when the instructor was with you.”

“But he couldn't do anything to prevent an accident,” said Cross.

“He might have bigger hands than your wife,” said I, “and get a better grip on your arm. Many a life's been saved by a good tight grasp on the chauffeur's arm.”

In East Chicago we changed our minds about not stopping. The book said we had to turn left at the intersection of Chicago Avenue and something else, and right in the middle of the four corners, there was the East Chicago traffic-squad. Cross cut in to the left of him and he was on our running-board in nothing.

“Czech ipecac?” he said, which means in the English language: “What's the matter with you?”

“Don't get fresh, now!” said Cross.

“Tisza goulash!” (Come along to the station!) said the squad.

“Listen, old pal!” I said. “The lady in the back seat here is sick, and we're trying to get her to a hospital in Gary. Do you ever smoke?”

So we were on our way again.

“Cross,” I said, “I bet your middle initial is von Bethmann. You know just how to handle 'em. Only you made one mistake. You should always call them some name—or else have your tire-wrench handy and crack them in the bean.”

The book's next instructions was to cross fifty-two railroad tracks, but the deck was a couple shy.

“*'t the end of the street,'” read Mrs. Cross, “'turn right.'”

This was pretty good dope, as you couldn't of turned to the left or driven straight ahead without hurdling a fence or a signboard into a field.

“The man that got up this book,” said Mrs. Cross, “must of rode along here himself sometime.”

“Either that,” I said, “or else he wrote the book first and then they made the turns to fit it.”

We hit eighteen again on the cement stretch that precedes the curve onto Fifth Avenue, Gary. But Fifth Avenue, Gary, or whatever they call the western continuation of it, must of been selected as the scene of some of our intense training in digging trenches. Anyway, there's three miles of gorges before you strike town, some of them as much as a yard apart. The first jolt woke the Missus. It would of done the same to Rip Van Winkle.

“Where are we?” she asked, rubbing her eyes.

“This is the Swiss Alps,” I said.

“I must of dropped off,” said she, and I thought at first she was trying to pull something, but then I remembered who it was.

“How long have we been on the road?” she asked me.

“Ever since we started,” said I, “up to just now.”

But Mrs. Cross heard us and looked at her wrist-watch, the gift of the groom.

“Why, Harry,” she said, “we left Chicago at just nine and it's after eleven now, and you said we could get to Michigan City in three hours.”

“We could if you'd let me step on her,” said Harry.

“Maybe we're not on the right road,” said Nan.

“Whose fault is it if we aint?” said Cross, and his tone was not that of a passionate lover. I whispered to the Missus. “This may not be such a rotten trip after all,” I said.

There was no more social intercourse till we reached the pavement in Gary proper, if you could call it that.

“Yes, we're all right,” said Nan, when we'd crossed the main street. “That was Broadway, and we're on Fifth Avenue. Straight ahead now.”

“I don't see how they think of all those names for streets,” said I.

“There's a Broadway in New York, and a Fifth Avenue too,” said Mrs. Cross. “Maybe these were named after those.”

You can't find fault with the stretch of road leading east out of Gary.

“Now's your chance, Cross,” I said. “No danger to your springs here.” And I kept after him till we just touched twenty.

“Oh, look!” said the Missus. “We're coming to a soldiers' camp.”

“They're guarding the Ætna Explosives,” said Cross.

A sentry loomed up on the horizon.

“Now listen, Cross,” I said. “If this guy tells you to halt, call him something and then run him down. No use arguing with him.”

“Harry, you be careful!” said Nan. “We'd better stop if he says so.”

“Oh, shut up!” said Cross, and my hopes revived.

The sentry saw he was badly outnumbered and let us pass unchallenged. Otherwise we might never have seen the town of Miller, which was evidently named after Joe.

Just this side of East Gary there was a sign that said: “Danger. Bridge Unsafe for Loads over 3,000 Pounds.”

“Let's see,” said Cross, when he'd stopped the car. “The machine's supposed to weigh just twenty-eight-fifty. I weigh one hundred and forty-three pounds, and Nan weighs one hundred and thirteen. How much do you weigh?”

“About three hundred for both of us,” I said, “and the division of poundage is none of your business.”

“I and the car together makes twenty-nine-ninety-three,” said Cross. “You three people'll have to get out, and I'll pick you up when I get across.”

“But listen!” said I. “The suit-cases and your tools and the extra tire totals a whole lot more than seven pounds. If I was you, I'd start the car at the regular pace and then jump out. We can catch up with it the other side of the bridge.”

“How would it steer?” he asked me.

“You can stand on the running-board and guide it,” said I.

“No,” he said, “I'll stick at the wheel and chance it”

Well, sir, three of us got out and walked ahead, and arranged it so we were standing right in the middle of the bridge when Cross drove over. And he was too scared to notice!

While he halted again to let us get in, a furniture van that must of weighed two and a half tons passed from the opposite direction and sailed over the bridge without even stopping to unload a soft pillow.

The giddy whirl of East Gary was too much for Mrs. Cross, and she sent us a matter of three miles up the wrong road. By the time we got back to the metropolis and headed in the right direction, the pair on the front seat were speaking to each other in words of one syllable and very few of those. But Dearie had to talk to somebody.

“The next town's Porter,” she said, turning round. “There's another route that goes right through it. But we miss it.”

“Speak for yourself. I don't,” said I.

“Porter,” said the Missus. “That's a funny name for a town.”

“Nothing funny about it, when you know how it got it's name,” I said. “You see, practically all the railroads from the East run through it, and it's forty miles from Chicago, and most people don't sleep very good on a train, and they wake up along about here, and they can't find their shoes, so they all stick their heads out at once and say the name of the town.”

“Porter?” asked the Missus.

“No,” said I. “George.”

Six miles west of of Michigan City, Mrs. Cross looked at her watch and announced it was one o'clock.

“What do you care?” said Cross.

“I'm hungry,” she said, and her voice was full of tears.

“Well,” said Cross, “we'll be in, in half an hour.”

Which words were scarcely uttered when there was a pop and hiss, and our right tire was down.

“It can't be!” said Cross, looking at it. “They're all guaranteed for six thousand miles.”

“Not against nails,” said I.

“It must be a puncture,” said Cross.

“Don't jump at conclusions,” I said,

“I've forgotten if it's Resta or De Palma or who holds that record for quick changes, or what the record is but in exactly thirty-five minutes we had the bum tire hanging on the back and the spare one in its place and were more moving Michigan Cityward. And I had the dirtiest shirt I ever saw, next to Harry's.

“You Can stop at a garage and have them patch that tube while we eat lunch,” I said.

“Like blazes!” said Cross. “I'll wait till we get back home. We could never have two punctures on one trip.”

“No,” said I. “I'd forgotten that rule for the moment.”

“And furthermore,” said Cross, “we're not going to stop in Michigan City for no lunch. We're going to stop just long enough to get water and gas. Those that are hungry can buy some sandwiches and eat them on the way.”

“But Harry, I'm starved,” said his wife.

“Well, it's your own fault.” said Cross. “In the first place, you didn't get up in time to cook a decent breakfast. And the second place, if you'd kept track of the route, and not run us clear to Louisville trying to get out of East Gary, we'd of had time for a porterhouse steak in this town we're coming to.”

“If you'd watched where you were driving, we might not of picked up that nail,” said his wife. “And then it took you all day and half the night to switch tires.”

“Shut up!” said Cross.

When we stopped in front of Michigan City's handsomest garage, I handed the Missus fifty cents and jumped out.

“Buy yourself whatever you want to eat,” I told her. “I've got a date down at the next corner.”

She leaned over and whispered to me. “Don't be long,” she said. “He's just mean enough to go off and leave you.”

“You mean,” said I, “that he's just mean enough not to.”

I was right. I had five and took my time about it, but when I came back, the car was still there. The Missus had a sackful of doughnuts, and Mrs. Cross an eyeful of tears.

The Missus whispered to me again. “He's been abusing her terribly,” she said.

“What for?” I asked.

“Because you kept us waiting,” said the Missus. “He's no different from other husbands.”

I was feeling too good to resent this fearful insult at the time, and I managed to be jovial all the way to New Buffalo. But it was a solo part. The Missus offered Nan a doughnut and got snapped at. Cross lost all control of himself and covered a mile and a half at the fearful rate of twenty-two per hour.

“Look out, boy!” I said to him. “There's speed-laws even in the country.”

“Shut up!” said Cross.

“You've got some vocabulary! Six words and a bark!”

I'd been through New Buffalo on the train, but never knew before why they call it that. It's because the sensation of motoring through the streets is like going over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

A mile or so the other side we stopped dead, all spraddled out over a railroad track.

“This is the Père Marquette,” said Cross.

“Even so,” I said, “there may be trains on it.”

“I've killed my engine,” said Cross.

“That has nothing to do with theirs,” said I, and I got out to stretch.

We'd been pulling through sand in second speed, and at the time of the engine's demise our host had neglected to shift into neuter. So when his foot pressed the self-starter, the Champion was off the track in one jump. After that the engine died again.

“Now you're using better judgment,” I said, and climbed back in.

“If you don't like the way I drive, you know what you can do,” said Cross.

“Yes sir,” said I, “and I'm going to do it.”

And while we were breezing along the beautiful road to Three Oaks at a nineteen-mile gait, I confided my plans to the Missus.

“I'm beginning to get deliberately unfriendly myself,” I told her. “They hate us, and we hate them. They also hate each other, and it's just a question of time till we'll be doing that too. Where we're going is no longer a secret. We're going back to Chicago.”

“Mrs. Cross will be mad,” said the wife.

“Will be!” I said.

“And besides,” said the Missus, “if we leave them to go on alone, they'll kill each other and then we'll have it on our conscience.”

“Not as much,” said I, “as though we personally assisted at the function.”

“Well,” said the Missus, “you know best.”

So on Main Street, in Three Oaks, Mich., I ordered our chauffeur to desist.

“Cross,” I said, “we're going to leave you here.”

“Oh, don't do that!” said Mrs. Cross, and her voice was as full of warmth as the Kaiser.

“We must,” I said. “My Missus doesn't feel good. She's got another of those spells that overtook her in East Chicago. And she's always prayed that when Death came, she would receive him at home and not among Michigan strangers.”

“Don't coax them!” said Cross. “If they want to quit on us, I'm willing.”

“Good-by, then,” I said, “and good luck to you!”

“Shut your mouth!” said Cross.

It was four o'clock when we were set down in Three Oaks, and we had to wait till pretty near seven for a train. So we had plenty of time to count all the acorns.

“I hope there's a diner,” said the Missus.

She said that four hundred and sixty-two times.

“I hope they have another puncture.”

I said that just as often.

“We made a mistake accepting their invitation,” said the Missus, when we were speeding westward with a double order of ham and eggs staring us in the face.

“Thanks for the ‘we,'” said I. “But it was my mistake.”

DURING the next two weeks I saw Cross five or six times and got nothing but sour looks. But on Monday morning of the third week he was standing by my desk when I blew in to work.

I didn't give him any encouragement, and it took all the nerve he had to open up.

“Well?” he said finally.

“Shut your mouth!” said I.

“Say, listen!” he said. “Let's forget all that. I owe you all kinds of apologies.”

“I'm willing you should stay in debt,” said I.

“But I'm not,” he said. “I acted like a rummy.”

“You were natural,” I said.

“No, I wasn't,” said Cross. “If that blasted car.”

Five minutes of silence.

“Would you like to hear what happened?” he asked me.

“Yes,” said I, knowing he'd tell me anyway.

“Well,” he said, “our intentions was to take you to St. Joe—but we never got there ourselves. We were going through a burg called Sawyer when the rule was broken.”

“What rule?” I asked him.

“I had another puncture,” he said.

“I was afraid you would,” said I.

“Well, I did,” said Cross, “and it kind of upset the both of us; and to hear us light into each other, you'd of thought we'd been married a year. There wasn't nothing to do but spend the night there. So I went to a kind of hotel, and she stayed with some old lady. The next day I got one of the tires fixed and drove back to Chi. She took our friend the Père Marquette.”

“I told you there might be trains on it,” said I.

“I didn't go home for two nights,” said Cross, “and when I did, she wasn't there. I found her at her folks'. I asked her to come home, but she said she wouldn't come home till I sold the car. She said that only for it, we'd of gone all our life without a cross word, and she never wanted to see it again. Well, I agreed with her. So we fixed it all up”

“And are you going to sell the Clubby Roadster?” I asked him.

“It's sold already,” he said.

“What profit did you make?” said I.

“I took a two-hundred-dollar loss,” said Cross. “Then when I got the money, we were going to take a boat-trip and spend some of it. And then we got to thinking it over and decided it'd be a nice thing to invest the whole roll in Liberty bonds. We felt like we ought to do something for the country.”

“That's a fine spirit!” I said. “But I know how you could of done a whole lot more.”

“How?” he asked me.

“You could of crated up the Clubby Roadster,” said I, “and sent it to the Kaiser with your fondest regards, and told him to be sure and take von Hindenburg and the Crown Prince and Mr. Ludendorff on a week-end trip, say to St. Joe or somewheres.”

“Well, it's too late now,” said Cross. “Besides, they might of been like Nan and I and loved each other all the more for having a little misunderstanding. I never really appreciated my wife till we quarreled. Now—”

“Shut up!” said I.