U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [30]
"Kiddo, you can't talk fresh like that to us, not on this
-73-boat," snapped Olive, two mean lines appearing on either side of her mouth.
"We have to be awful careful what we do on the boat," explained Gladys. "They're terrible suspicious of two girls travelin' alone nowadays. Ain't it a crime?"
"It sure is." Ike moved up a little closer on the seat.
"Quit that . . . Make a noise like a hoop an' rol away. I mean it." Olive went and sat on the opposite bench. Ike fol owed her.
"In the old days it was liberty hal on these boats, but not so any more," Gladys said, talking to Mac in a low intimate voice. "You fel ers been workin' up in the canneries?"
"No, we been workin' for the C.P.R. al summer."
"You must have made big money." As she talked to him, Mac noticed that she kept looking out of the corner of her eye at her friend.
"Yare . . . not so big . . . I saved up pretty near a century."
"An' now you're going to Seattle."
"I want to get a job linotypist."
"That's where we live, Seattle. Olive an' I've got an apartment . . . Let's go out on deck, it's too hot in here."
As they passed Olive and Ike, Gladys leaned over and whispered something in Olive's ear. Then she turned to Mac with a melting smile. The deck was deserted. She let him put his arm round her waist. His fingers felt the bones of some sort of corset. He squeezed. "Oh, don't be too rough, kiddo," she whined in a funny little voice. He laughed. As he took his hand away he felt the con-tour of her breast. Walking, his leg brushed against her leg. It was the first time he'd been so close to a girl. After a while she said she had to go to bed. "How about me goin' down with ye?" She shook her head. "Not on this boat. See you tomorrow; maybe you and your
-74-pal 'l come and see us at our apartment. We'l show you the town.""Sure," said Mac. He walked on round the deck, his heart beating hard. He could feel the pound of the steamboat's engines and the arrowshaped surge of broken water from the bow and he felt like that. He met Ike.
"My girl said she had to go to bed.""So did mine."
"Get anywheres, Mac?""They got an apartment in Seattle.""I got a kiss off mine. She's awful hot. Jez, I thought she was going to feel me up.""We'l get it to-morrow al right." The next day was sunny; the Seattle waterfront was
sparkling, smelt of lumberyards, was noisy with rattle of carts and yel s of drivers when they got off the boat. They went to the Y.M.C.A. for a room. They were through with being laborers and hobos. They were going to get clean jobs, live decently and go to school nights. They walked round the city al day, and in the evening met Olive and Gladys in front of the totempole on Pioneer Square.
Things happened fast. They went to a restaurant and had wine with a big feed and afterwards they went to a beergarden where there was a band, and drank whiskey-sours. When they went to the girls' apartment they took a quart of whiskey with them and Mac almost dropped it on the steps and the girls said, "For crissake don't make so much noise or you'l have the cops on us," and the apartment smelt of musk and facepowder and there was women's underwear around on al the chairs and the girls got fifteen bucks out of each of them first thing. Mac was in the bathroom with his girl and she smeared liprouge on his nose and they laughed and laughed until he got rough and she slapped his face. Then they al sat together round the table and drank some more and Ike danced a Solomeydance in his bare feet. Mac laughed, it was so very funny, but he was sitting on the floor and when he
-75-tried to get up he fel on his face and al of a sudden he was being sick in the bathtub and Gladys was cursing hel out of him. She got him dressed, only he couldn't find his necktie, and everybody said he was too drunk and pushed him out and he was walking down the street sing-ing Make a Noise Like a Hoop and Just Roll Away, Roll Away , and he asked a cop where the Y.M.C.A. was and the cop pushed him into a cel at the stationhouse and locked him up.
He woke up with his head like a big split mil stone. There was vomit on his shirt and a rip in his pants. He went over al his pockets and couldn't find his pocketbook. A cop opened the cel door and told him to make himself scarce and he walked out into the dazzling sun that cut into his eyes like a knife. The man at the desk at the Y