U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [184]
-47-First National Bank and used to say she'd never marry a boy who went to sea, you couldn't trust 'em and that it was a rough kind of a life and didn't have any advance-ment in it. Joe said she was right but you were only young once and what the hel things didn't matter so much anyway. She used to ask him about his folks and why he didn't go up to Washington to see them especial y as his dad was il . He said the old man could choke for al he cared, he hated him, that was about the size of it. She said she thought he was terrible. That time he was setting her up to a soda after the movies. She looked cute and plump in a fluffy pink dress and her little black eyes al excited and flashing. Joe said not to talk about that stuff, it didn't matter, but she looked at him awful mean and mad and said she'd like to shake him and that everything mattered terribly and it was wicked to talk like that and that he was a nice boy and came from nice people and had been nicely raised and ought to be thinking of get-ting ahead in the world instead of being a bum and a loafer. Joe got sore and said was that so? and left her at her folks' house without saying another word. He didn't see her for four or five days after that. Then he went by where Del a worked, and waited for
her to come out one evening. He'd been thinking about her more than he wanted to and what she'd said. First, she tried to walk past him but he grinned at her and she couldn't help smiling back. He was pretty broke by that time but he took her and bought her a box of candy. They talked about how hot it was and he said they'd go to the bal game next week. He told her how the Tampa was pul ing out for Pensacola to load lumber and then across to the other side.
They were waiting for the trol ey to go to Virginia Beach, walking up and down fighting the mosquitoes. She looked al upset when he said he was going to the other side. Before Joe knew what he was doing he was saying
-48-that he wouldn't ship on the Tampa again, but that he'd get a job right here in Norfolk. That night was ful moon. They fooled around in their bathing suits a long while on the beach beside a little smudgefire Joe made to keep the mosquitoes off. He was sitting crosslegged and she lay with her head on his knees and al the time he was stroking her hair and leaning over and kissing her; she said how funny his face looked upside down when he kissed her like that. She said they'd get married as soon as he got a steady job and between the two of them they'd amount to something. Ever since
she'd graduated from high school at the head of her class she'd felt she ought to work hard and amount to some-thing. "The folks round here are awful no-account, Joe, don't know they're alive half the time."
"D'you know it, Del, you kinda remind me o' my sis-ter Janey, honest you do. Dod gast it, she's amounting to something al right. . . . She's awful pretty too. . . ." Del a said she hoped she could see her some day and Joe said sure she would and he pul ed her to her feet and drew her to him tight and hugged her and kissed her. It was late, and the beach was chil y and lonely under the big moon. Del a got atrembling and said she'd have to get her clothes on or she'd catch her death. They had to run not to lose the last car. The rails twanged as the car lurched through the moonlit pinebarrens ful of tambourining dryflies and katydids. Del a suddenly crumpled up and began to cry. Joe kept asking her what the matter was but she wouldn't answer, only cried and cried. It was kind of a relief to leave her at her folks' house and walk alone through the empty airless streets to the boarding house where he had a room.
Al the next week he hoofed it around Norfolk and
Portsmouth looking for a job that had a future to it. He even went over to Newport News. Coming back on the
ferry, he didn't have enough jack to pay his fare and had
-49-to get the guy who took tickets to let him work his way over sweeping up. The landlady began to ask for next week's rent. Al the jobs Joe applied for needed experience or training or you'd ought to have finished high school and there weren't many jobs anyway, so in the end he had to go boating again, on a seagoing barge that was waiting for a towboat to take her down east to Rockport with a load of coal. There were five barges in the tow; it wasn't such a bad trip, just him and an old man named Gaskin and his boy, a kid of about fifteen whose name was Joe too. The only trouble they had was in a squal off Cape Cod when the tow rope parted, but the towboat captain was right up on his toes and managed to get a new cable on board 'em before they'd straightened out on their anchor.