U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [397]
brakes in the crunching ash of the yard in front of the office, then he pul ed off his padded aviator's helmet and sat there a minute in the car after he'd switched off the motor listening to the hum and whir and clatter of the plant. "The sonsabitches are slackenin'
up," he muttered under his breath.
He stuck his head in Joe's office for a moment but Joe was busy talking to a guy in a coonskin coat who looked like a bond salesman. So he ran down the hal to his own office, said, "Hel o, El a, get me Mr. Stauch," and sat down at his desk which was covered with notes on blue and yel ow sheets. "A hel of a note," he was thinking,
"for a guy to be glued to a desk al his life." Stauch's serious square pale face topped by a brush of colorless hair sprouting from a green eyeshade was lean-ing over him. "Sit down, Julius," he said. "How's tricks?
. . . Burnishin' room al right?""Ach, yes, but we haf two stampingmachines broken in one day.""The hel you say. Let's go look at them."
When Charley got back to the office he had a streak of grease on his nose. He stil had an oily micrometer in his hand. It was six o'clock. He cal ed up Joe. "Hel o, Joe, goin'
home?""Sure, I was waiting for you; what was the trouble?""I was crawlin' around on my bel y in the grease as usual."
Charley washed his hands and face in the lavatory and ran down the rubbertreaded steps. Joe was waiting for him in the entry. "My wife's got my car, Charley, let's take yours," said Joe. "It'l be a bit drafty, Joe.""We can stand it.""Goodnight, Mr. Askew, goodnight, Mr. Anderson,"
-201-said the old watchman in his blue cap with earflaps, who was closing up behind them.
"Say, Charley," Joe said when they'd turned into the stream of traffic at the end of the al ey. "Why don't you let Stauch do more of the routine work? He seems pretty efficient.""Knows a hel of a lot more than I do," said Charley, squinting through the frosted windshield. The headlights coming the other way made big sparkling blooms of light in the driving snow. On the bridge the girders were already al marked out with neat streaks of white. Al you could see of the river and the city was a shadowy swirl, now dark, now glowing. Charley had al he could do to keep the car from skidding on the icy places on the bridge. "Attaboy, Charley," said Joe as they slewed down the ramp into the crosstown street ful of golden light.
Across Fiftyninth they had to go at a snail's pace. They were stiff with cold and it was seven thirty before they drove up to the door of the apartmenthouse on Riverside Drive where Charley had been living al winter with the Askews. Mrs. Askew and two yel owhaired little girls met them at their door.
Grace Askew was a bleachedlooking woman with pale
hair and faint crowsfeet back of her eyes and on the sides of her neck that gave her a sweet crumpled complaining look. "I was worried," she said, "about your not having the car in this blizzard."
Jean, the oldest girl, was jumping up and down singing,
"Snowy snowy snowy, it's going to be snowy."
"And, Charles," said Grace in a teasing voice as they went into the parlor, that smelt warm of dinner cooking, to spread their hands before the gaslogs, "if she cal ed up once she cal ed up twenty times. She must think I'm trying to keep you away from her."
"Who . . . Doris?"
Grace pursed up her lips and nodded. "But, Charles,
-202-you'd better stay home to dinner. I've got a wonderful leg of lamb and sweetpotatoes. You know you like our dinners better here than al those fancy fixin's over there . . ." Charley was already at the phone. "Oh, Charley," came Doris's sweet lisping voice, "I was afraid you'd been snowed in over on Long Island. I cal ed there but nobody answered. . . . I've got an extra place . . . I've got some people to dinner you'd love to meet. . . . He was an engineer under the Czar. We're al waiting for you."
"But honestly, Doris, I'm al in.""This'l be a change. Mother's gone south and we'l have the house to ourselves. We'l wait. . . ."
"It's those lousy Russians again," muttered Charley as he ran to his room and hopped into his dinnerclothes.