Booze is legal and all the gin joints are becoming respectable.”
Galloway sighed, stopped his trolley and rang his bell. “Man, what do you hope to accomplish on the eve of Our Savior’s birth before the sun is even up on Germantown Avenue?”
Eugene Quindlen swung his short body across the trolley’s entrance/exit bar and deposited his well-worn shoe leather on the cobblestoned street. He glanced back at the conductor’s honest face.
“I’m determined to provide some sort of happiness to my bride and children this Christmas,” he said. And, with that simple fiat, before the doors of Honest John’s trolley closed, Eugene’s eyes, which were a little bleary along the ride west on Germantown Avenue, burst into a brilliant, radiant blue - a blue hue Honest John hadn’t seen since his youthful last gaze upon the blustery Irish Sea before the turn of the last century.
Part Two: The Laughing Song
Eugene walked all morning and then all afternoon. He was looking for any opportunity. A woman wearing mink tipped him after he helped with her last minute Christmas packages and held open the door of her cab.
Lunch money. Not much, but it would at least stop the pang in his gut and get him off his feet. He went into the nearest diner.
There were no soup kitchens in this neighborhood. He couldn’t suppress the loud sigh emanating from his lungs as he sat down on a cushioned stool. An attractive waitress smacking a stick of gum between her ruby red lips heard him.
“What’ll it be, mister,” she said. It was more of a challenge than a question. She thought maybe he was just there to park himself and get out of the cold.
She wouldn’t stand for that. It was Christmas Eve and she needed every nickel to buy that baseball glove for her oldest boy.
Quindlen ordered black coffee, a bowl of vegetable soup and some rolls. He tried not to eat too quickly in order not to attract attention.
He bought a paper and had another cup of coffee. Buying a Philadelphia Sunday Bulletin was an accepted expense. Reading about anything new might provide a glimpse of opportunity.
REGINA | 88