U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [377]
-148-THE CAMERA EYE (46)
walk the streets and walk the streets inquiring of
Coca Cola signs Lucky Strike ads pricetags in storewindows scraps of overheard conversations stray tatters of news-print yesterday's headlines sticking out of ashcans for a set of figures a formula of action an address you don't quite know you've forgotten the number the street may be in Brooklyn a train leaving for somewhere a steam-boat whistle stabbing your ears a job chalked up in front of an agency
to do to make there are more lives than walking des-perate the streets hurry underdog do make a speech urging action in the crowded hal after hand-clapping the pats and smiles of others on the platform the scrape of chairs the expectant hush the few coughs during the first stuttering attempt to talk straight tough going the snatch for a slogan they are listening and then the easy climb slogan by slogan to applause (if somebody in your head didn't say liar to you and on Union Square
that time you leant from a soapbox over faces avid
young opinionated old the middleaged numb with over-work eyes bleared with newspaperreading trying to tel them the straight dope make them laugh tel them what they want to hear wave a flag whispers the internal agitator crazy to succeed)
-149-you suddenly falter ashamed flush red break out in sweat why not tel these men stamping in the wind that we stand on a quicksand? that doubt is the whetstone of understanding is too hard hurts instead of urging picket John D. Rockefel er the bastard if the cops knock your blocks off it's al for the advancement of the human race while I go home after a drink and a hot meal and read (with some difficulty in the Loeb Library trot) the epigrams of Martial and ponder the course of history and what leverage might pry the owners loose from power and bring back (I too Walt Whitman) our storybook democ-racy and al the time in my pocket that letter from that col egeboy asking me to explain why being right which he admits the radicals are in their private lives such shits lie abed underdog (peeling the onion of doubt) with the book unread in your hand and swing on the seesaw maybe after al maybe topdog make
money you understood what he meant the old
party with the white beard beside the crystal inkpot at the cleared varnished desk in the walnut office in whose voice boomed al the clergymen of childhood and shril ed the hosannahs of the offkey female choirs Al you say is very true but there's such a thing as sales and I have daughters I'm sure you too wil end by thinking dif-ferently make money in New York (lipstick kissed off the lips of a
-150-girl fashionablydressed fragrant at five o'clock in a taxicab careening down Park Avenue when at the end of each
crosstown street the west is flaming with gold and white smoke bil ows from the smokestacks of steamboats leaving port and the sky is lined with greenbacks the riveters are quiet the trucks of the producers are shoved off onto the marginal avenues
winnings sing from every streetcorner
crackle in the ignitions of the cars swish smooth in bal bearings sparkle in the lights going on in the show-windows croak in the klaxons tootle in the horns of im-ported mil ionaire shining towncars dol ars are silky in her hair soft in her dress sprout in the elaborately contrived rosepetals that you kiss be-come pungent and crunchy in the speakeasy dinner sting shril in the drinks
make loud the girlandmusic show set off the laughing jag in the cabaret swing in the shufflingshuffling orchestra click sharp in the hatcheck girl's goodnight) if not why not? walking the streets rol ing on your bed eyes sting from peeling the speculative onion of doubt if somebody in your head topdog? underdog?
didn't (and on Union Square) say liar to you
-151-NEWSREEL LII
assembled to a service for the dear departed, the last half hour of devotion and remembrance of deeds done and work undone; the remembrance of friendship and love; of what was and what could have been. Why not use well that last half hour, why not make that last service as beautiful as Frank E. Campbell can make it at the funeral church (nonsectarian)