U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [232]
Mommer looked older but she was in pretty good
shape and al taken up with her boarders and how the girls were both engaged. They said that Janey was doing so wel in her work, but that living in New York had changed her. Joe said he was going down to New York to try to get his second mate's ticket and that he sure would look her up. When they asked him about the war and the submarines and al that he didn't know what to tel 'em so he kinder kidded them along. He was glad when it was time to go over to Washington to get his train, though they were darn nice to him and seemed to think that he was making a big success getting to be a second mate so young. He didn't tel 'em about being married.
Going down on the train to New York Joe sat in the
smoker looking out of the window at farms and stations and bil boards and the grimy streets of factory towns through Jersey under a driving rain and everything he saw seemed to remind him of Del and places outside of Norfolk and good times he'd had when he was a kid.
When he got to the Penn Station in New York first thing he did was check his bag, then he walked down Eighth Avenue al shiny with rain to the corner of the street where Janey lived. He guessed he'd better phone her first and cal ed from a cigarstore. Her voice sounded
-169-kinder stiff; she said she was busy and couldn't see him til tomorrow. He came out of the phonebooth and
walked down the street not knowing where to go. He had a package under his arm with a couple of Spanish shawls he'd bought for her and Del on the last trip. He felt so blue he wanted to drop the shawls and everything down a drain, but he thought better of it and went back to the checkroom at the station and left them in his suitcase. Then he went and smoked a pipe for a while in the wait-ingroom. God damn it to hel he needed a drink. He went over to Broadway and walked down to Union Square, stopping in every place he could find that looked like a saloon but they wouldn't serve him anywhere. Union Square was
al lit up and ful of navy recruiting posters. A big wooden model of a battleship fil ed up one side of it. There was a crowd standing around and a young girl dressed like a sailor was making a speech about patriotism. The cold rain came on again and the crowd scattered. Joe went down a street and into a ginmil cal ed The Old Farm. He must have looked like somebody the barkeep knew because he said hel o and poured him out a shot of rye.
Joe got to talking with two guys from Chicago who
were drinking whiskey with beer chasers. They said this wartalk was a lot of bushwa propaganda and that if work-ing stiffs stopped working in munition factories making shel s to knock other working stiffs' blocks off with, there wouldn't be no goddam war. Joe said they were goddam right but look at the big money you made. The guys from Chicago said they'd been working in a munitions factory themselves but they were through, goddam it, and that if the working stiffs made a few easy dol ars it meant that the war profiteers were making easy mil ions. They said the Russians had the right idea, make a revolution and shoot the goddam profiteers and that ud happen in this
-170-country if they didn't watch out and a damn good thing too. The barkeep leaned across the bar and said they'd oughtn't to talk thataway, folks ud take 'em for German spies.
"Why, you're a German yourself, George," said one of the guys. The barkeep flushed and said, "Names don't mean nothin' . . . I'm a patriotic American. I vas talking yust for your good. If you vant to land in de hoosgow it's not my funeral." But he set them up to drinks on the house and it seemed to Joe that he agreed with 'em. They drank another round and Joe said it was al true but what the hel could you do about it? The guys said what you could do about it was join the I.W.W. and carry a red card and be a classconscious worker. Joe said that stuff was only for foreigners, but if somebody started a white man's party to fight the profiteers and the goddam bankers he'd be with 'em. The guys from Chicago began to get sore and said the wobblies were just as much white men as he was and that political parties were the bunk and that al southerners were scabs. Joe backed off and was looking at the guys to see which one of 'em he'd hit first when the barkeep stepped around from the end of the bar and came between them. He was fat but he had shoulders and a meanlooking pair of blue eyes.