{"product_id":"2940013772854","title":"The Iceman Cometh","description":"Harry Hope's is a Raines-Law hotel of the period, a cheap ginmill\u003cbr\u003eof the five-cent whiskey, last-resort variety situated on the\u003cbr\u003edowntown West Side of New York.  The building, owned by Hope, is a\u003cbr\u003enarrow five-story structure of the tenement type, the second floor\u003cbr\u003ea flat occupied by the proprietor.  The renting of rooms on the\u003cbr\u003eupper floors, under the Raines-Law loopholes, makes the\u003cbr\u003eestablishment legally a hotel and gives it the privilege of serving\u003cbr\u003eliquor in the back room of the bar after closing hours and on\u003cbr\u003eSundays, provided a meal is served with the booze, thus making a\u003cbr\u003eback room legally a hotel restaurant.  This food provision was\u003cbr\u003egenerally circumvented by putting a property sandwich in the middle\u003cbr\u003eof each table, an old desiccated ruin of dust-laden bread and\u003cbr\u003emummified ham or cheese which only the drunkest yokel from the\u003cbr\u003esticks ever regarded as anything but a noisome table decoration.\u003cbr\u003eBut at Harry Hope's, Hope being a former minor Tammanyite and still\u003cbr\u003epossessing friends, this food technicality is ignored as\u003cbr\u003eirrelevant, except during the fleeting alarms of reform agitation.\u003cbr\u003eEven Hope's back room is not a separate room, but simply the rear\u003cbr\u003eof the barroom divided from the bar by drawing a dirty black\u003cbr\u003ecurtain across the room.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Iceman Cometh\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eACT ONE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSCENE--The back room and a section of the bar of Harry Hope's\u003cbr\u003esaloon on an early morning in summer, 1912.  The right wall of the\u003cbr\u003eback room is a dirty black curtain which separates it from the bar.\u003cbr\u003eAt rear, this curtain is drawn back from the wall so the bartender\u003cbr\u003ecan get in and out.  The back room is crammed with round tables and\u003cbr\u003echairs placed so close together that it is a difficult squeeze to\u003cbr\u003epass between them.  In the middle of the rear wall is a door\u003cbr\u003eopening on a hallway.  In the left corner, built out into the room,\u003cbr\u003eis the toilet with a sign \"This is it\" on the door.  Against the\u003cbr\u003emiddle of the left wall is a nickel-in-the-slot phonograph.  Two\u003cbr\u003ewindows, so glazed with grime one cannot see through them, are in\u003cbr\u003ethe left wall, looking out on a backyard.  The walls and ceiling\u003cbr\u003eonce were white, but it was a long time ago, and they are now so\u003cbr\u003esplotched, peeled, stained and dusty that their color can best be\u003cbr\u003edescribed as dirty.  The floor, with iron spittoons placed here and\u003cbr\u003ethere, is covered with sawdust.  Lighting comes from single wall\u003cbr\u003ebrackets, two at left and two at rear.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are three rows of tables, from front to back.  Three are in\u003cbr\u003ethe front line.  The one at left-front has four chairs; the one at\u003cbr\u003ecenter-front, four; the one at right-front, five.  At rear of, and\u003cbr\u003ehalf between, front tables one and two is a table of the second row\u003cbr\u003ewith five chairs.  A table, similarly placed at rear of front\u003cbr\u003etables two and three, also has five chairs.  The third row of\u003cbr\u003etables, four chairs to one and six to the other, is against the\u003cbr\u003erear wall on either side of the door.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt right of this dividing curtain is a section of the barroom, with\u003cbr\u003ethe end of the bar seen at rear, a door to the hall at left of it.\u003cbr\u003eAt front is a table with four chairs.  Light comes from the street\u003cbr\u003ewindows off right, the gray subdued light of early morning in a\u003cbr\u003enarrow street.  In the back room, Larry Slade and Hugo Kalmar are\u003cbr\u003eat the table at left-front, Hugo in a chair facing right, Larry at\u003cbr\u003erear of table facing front, with an empty chair between them.  A\u003cbr\u003efourth chair is at right of table, facing left.  Hugo is a small\u003cbr\u003eman in his late fifties.  He has a head much too big for his body,\u003cbr\u003ea high forehead, crinkly long black hair streaked with gray, a\u003cbr\u003esquare face with a pug nose, a walrus mustache, black eyes which\u003cbr\u003epeer nearsightedly from behind thick-lensed spectacles, tiny hands\u003cbr\u003eand feet.  He is dressed in threadbare black clothes and his white\u003cbr\u003eshirt is frayed at collar and cuffs, but everything about him is\u003cbr\u003efastidiously clean.  Even his flowing Windsor tie is neatly tied.\u003cbr\u003eThere is a foreign atmosphere about him, the stamp of an alien\u003cbr\u003eradical, a strong resemblance to the type Anarchist as portrayed,\u003cbr\u003ebomb in hand, in newspaper cartoons.  He is asleep now, bent\u003cbr\u003eforward in his chair, his arms folded on the table, his head\u003cbr\u003eresting sideways on his arms.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47070250434800,"sku":"2940013772854","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013772854_p0.jpg?v=1763590074","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013772854","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}