U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [5]
The funeral was from the undertaking parlors on River-side Avenue on the next block. Fainy felt very proud and important because everybody kissed him and patted his head and said he was behaving like a little man. He had a new black suit on, too, like a grownup suit with pockets and everything, except that it had short pants. There were al sorts of people at the undertaking parlors he had never been close to before, Mr. Russel , the butcher and Father O'Donnel and Uncle Tim O'Hara who'd come on from Chicago, and it smelt of whisky and beer like at Finley's. Uncle Tim was a skinny man with a knobbed red face and blurry blue eyes. He wore a loose black silk tie that wor-ried Fainy, and kept leaning down suddenly, bending from the waist as if he was going to close up like a jack-knife, and whispering in a thick voice in Fainy's ear.
"Don't you mind 'em, old sport, they're a bunch o'
bums and hypocrytes, stewed to the ears most of 'em already. Look at Father O'Donnel the fat swine already figurin' up the burial fees. But don't you mind 'em, re-member you're an O'Hara on your mother's side. I don't mind em, old sport, and she was my own sister by birth and blood."
When they got home he was terribly sleepy and his feet were cold and wet. Nobody paid any attention to him. He sat whimpering on the edge of the bed in the dark. In the front room there were voices and a sound of knives
-10-and forks, but he didn't dare go in there. He curled up against the wal and went to sleep. Light in his eyes woke him up. Uncle Tim and Pop were standing over him talk-ing loud. They looked funny and didn't seem to be stand-ing very steady. Uncle Tim held the lamp. Wel , Fainy, old sport, said Uncle Tim giving the
lamp a perilous wave over Fainy's head. Fenian O'Hara McCreary, sit up and take notice and tel us what you think of our proposed removal to the great and growing city of Chicago. Middletown's a terrible bitch of a dump if you ask me . . . Meanin' no offense, John . . . But Chicago . . . Jesus God, man, when you get there you'l think you've been dead and nailed up in a coffin al these years."
Fainy was scared. He drew his knees up to his chin and looked tremblingly at the two big swaying figures of men lit by the swaying lamp. He tried to speak but the words dried up on his lips.
The kid's asleep, Tim, for al your speechifyin' . . . Take your clothes off, Fainy, and get into bed and get a good night's sleep. We're leavin' in the mornin'." And late on a rainy morning, without any breakfast, with a big old swel top trunk tied up with rope joggling perilously on the roof of the cab that Fainy had been sent to order from Hodgeson's Livery Stable, they set out. Mil y was crying. Pop didn't say a word but sucked on an unlit pipe. Uncle Tim handled everything, making little jokes al the time that nobody laughed at, pul ing a rol of bil s out of his pocket at every juncture, or taking great gurgling sips out of the flask he had in his pocket. Mil y cried and cried. Fainy looked out with big dry eyes at the familiar streets, al suddenly odd and lopsided, that rol ed past the cab; the red bridge, the scabshingled houses where the Polaks lived, Smith's and Smith's cor-ner drugstore . . . there was Bil y Hogan just coming
-11-out with a package of chewing gum in his hand. Playing hockey again. Fainy had an impulse to yel at him, but something froze it . . . Main with its elms and street cars, blocks of stores round the corner of Church, and then the fire department. Fainy looked for the last time into the dark cave where shone entrancingly the brass and copper curves of the engine, then past the cardboard fronts of the First Congregational Church, The Carmel Baptist Church, St. Andrew's Episcopal Church built of brick and set catercornered on its lot instead of straight with a stern face to the street like the other churches, then the three castiron stags on the lawn in front of the Commercial House, and the residences, each with its lawn, each with its scrol saw porch, each with it hydrangea bush. Then the houses got smal er, and the lawns disappeared; the cab trundled round past Simpson's Grain and Feed Ware-house, along a row of barbershops, saloons and lunch-rooms, and they were al getting out at the station. At the station lunchcounter Uncle Tim set everybody up to breakfast. He dried Mil y's tears and blew Fainy's nose in a big new pockethandkerchief that stil had the tag on the corner and set them to work on bacon and eggs and coffee. Fainy hadn't had coffee before, so. the idea of sit-ting up like a man and drinking coffee made him feel pretty good. Mil y didn't like hers, said it was bitter. They were left al alone in the lunchroom for sometime with the empty plates and empty coffee cups under the beady eyes of a woman with the long neck and pointed face of a hen who looked at them disapprovingly from behind the counter. Then with an enormous, shattering rumble, sludgepuff sludge . . . puff, the train came into the station. They were scooped up and dragged across the platform and through a pipesmoky car and before they knew it the train was moving and the wintry russet Connecticut landscape was clattering by.