U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [153]
"Oh, Jez," said Charley. He looked at the flowered pink shade with a fringe over the lamp on the table be-side him and the tablecover with a fringe and at his shoes and the roses on the carpet. "Who was it?"
"It was when you were in the hospital, Charley. We had a lot of beer to drink an' he took me to a hotel. I guess I'm just bad, that's al . He was throwin' money around an' we went in a taxicab and I guess I was crazy. No, I'm a bad woman through and through, Charley. I went out with him every night when you were in the
hospital."
-386-"By God, it was Ed."
She nodded and then hid her face and started to cry again.
"The lousy little bastard," Charley kept saying. She crumpled up on the sofa with her face in her hands.
"He's gone to Chicago . . . He's a bad egg al right," said Charley. He felt he had to get out in the air. He picked up his coat and hat and started to put them on. Then she got to her feet and threw herself against him. She held him close and her arms were tight round his neck. "Honestly, Charley, I loved you al the time . . . I pretended to myself it was you." She kissed him on the mouth. He pushed her away, but he felt weak and tired and thought of the icy streets walking home and his cold hal bedroom and thought, what the hel did it matter anyway? and took off his hat and coat again. She kissed him and loved him up and locked the parlor door and they loved each other up on the sofa and she let him do everything he wanted. Then after a while she turned on the light and straightened her clothes and went over to the mirror to fix her hair and he tied his necktie again and she smoothed down his hair as best she could with her fingers and they unlocked the parlor door very careful y and she went out in the hal to cal dad. Her face was flushed and she looked very pretty again. Mr. Svenson and Anna and al the girls were out in the kitchen and Emiscah said, "Dad, Charley and I are going to get married next month," and everybody said, "Congratulations," and al the girls kissed Charley and Mr. Svenson broke out a bottle of whisky and they had a drink al round and Charley went home feeling like a whipped dog.
There was a fel ow named Hendriks at the shop seemed a pretty wise guy; Charley asked him next noon whether he didn't know of anything a girl could take and he said he had a perscription for some pil s and next day he
-387-brought it and told Charley not to tel the druggist what he wanted them for. It was payday and Hendriks came round to Charley's room after he'd gotten cleaned up that night and asked him if he'd gotten the pil s al right. Charley had the package right in his pocket and was going to cut nightschool that night and take it to Emiscah. First he and Hendriks went to have a drink at the corner. He didn't like whisky straight and Hendriks said to take it with ginger ale. It tasted great and Charley felt sore and miserable inside and didn't want to see Emiscah any-way. They had some more drinks and then went and bowled for a while. Charley beat him four out of five and Hendriks said the party was on him from now on.
Hendriks was a squareshouldered redheaded guy with
a freckled face and a twisted nose and he began tel ing stories about funny things that had happened with the ribs and how that was his long suit anyway. He'd been al over and had had high yal ers and sealskin browns down New Orleans and Chink girls in Seattle, Wash., and a ful blooded Indian squaw in Butte, Montana, and French girls and German Jewish girls in Colon and a Caribee woman more than ninety years old in Port of Spain. He said that the Twin Cities was the bunk and what a guy ought to do was to go down an' get a job in the oilfields at Tampico or in Oklahoma where you could make decent money and live like a white man. Charley said he'd pul out of St. Paul in a minute if it wasn't that he wanted to finish his course in nightschool and Hendriks told him he was a damn fool, that book learnin' never got nobody nowhere and what he wanted was to have a good time when he had his strength and after that to hel wid 'em. Charley said he felt like saying to hel wid 'em anyway.