U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [56]
-142-summits of the cloudheads. Everything got to be livid white and purple. The boys paddled as hard as they
could. They could hear the advancing rumble of thunder. The bridge was wel in sight when the wind hit them, a hot stormwind ful of dust and dead leaves and bits of chaff and straw, churning the riverwater.
They made the shore just in time. "Dod gast it, this is goin' to be some storm," said Alec;
" Janey, get under the boat." They turned the canoe over on the pebbly shore in the lee of a big bowlder and huddled up under it. Janey sat in the middle with the waterlilies they had picked that morning al shriveled and clammy from the heat in her hand. The boys lay in their damp bathing-suits on either side of her. Alec's towsled black hair was against her cheek. The other side of her Joe lay with his head in the end of the canoe and his lean brown feet and legs in their rol edup pants tucked under her dress. The smel of sweat and riverwater and the warm boysmel of Alec's hair and shoulders made her dizzy. When the rain came drumming on the bottom of the canoe curtaining them in with lashing white spray, she slipped her arm round Alec's neck and let her hand rest timidly on his bare shoulder. He didn't move.
The rain passed after a while. "Gee, that wasn't as bad as I thought it would be," said Alec. They were pretty wet and chil y but they felt good in the fresh rainwashed air. They put the canoe back in the water and went on down as far as the bridge. Then they carried it back to the house they'd gotten it from, and went to the little shelter to wait for the electric car. They were tired and sunburned and sticky. The car was packed with a damp Sunday afternoon crowd, picnickers caught by the shower at Great Fal s and Glen Echo. Janey thought she'd never stand it til she got home. Her bel y was al knotted up with a cramp. When they got to Georgetown the boys stil had fifty cents between them and wanted to go to a movie,
-143-but Janey ran off and left them. Her only thought was to get to bed so that she could put her face into the pil ow and cry.
After that Janey never cried much; things upset her but she got a cold hard feeling al over instead. High-school went by fast, with hot thunderstormy Washing-ton summers in between terms, punctuated by an occa-sional picnic at Marshal Hal or a party at some house in the neighborhood. Joe got a job at the Adams Express. She didn't see him much as he didn't eat home any more. Alec had bought a motorcycle and although he was stil in highschool Janey heard little about him. Sometimes she sat up to get a word with Joe when he came home at night. He smelt of tobacco and liquor though he never seemed to be drunk. He went to his job at seven and when he got out in the evenings he went out with the bunch hanging round poolrooms on 4 ½ Street or playing craps or bowling. Sundays he played basebal in Mary-land. Janey would sit up for him, but when he came she'd ask him how things were going where he worked and
he'd say "Fine" and he'd ask her how things were going at school and she'd say "Fine" and then they'd both go off to bed. Once in a while she'd ask if he'd seen Alec and he'd say "Yes" with a scrap of a smile and she'd ask how Alec was and he'd say "Fine." She had one friend, Alice Dick, a dark stubby girl with glasses who took al the same classes with her at high-school. Saturday afternoons they'd dress up in their best and go window-shopping down F Street way. They'd buy a few little things, stop in for a soda and come home on the streetcar feeling they'd had a busy afternoon. Once in a very long while they went to a matinee at Poli's and Janey would take Alice Dick home to supper. Alice Dick liked the Wil iamses and they liked her. She said it made her feel freer to spend a few hours with broadminded people. Her own folks were Southern Methodists and
-144-very narrow. Her father was a clerk in the Government Printing Office and was in daily dread that his job would come under the civil service regulations. He was a stout shortwinded man, fond of playing practical jokes on his wife and daughter, and suffered from chronic dyspepsia. Alice Dick and Janey planned that as soon as they got through highschool they'd get jobs and leave home. They even picked out the house where they'd board, a greenstone house near Thomas Circle, run by a Mrs. Jenks, widow of a naval officer, who was very refined and had southern cooking and charged moderately for table-board. One Sunday night during the spring of her last term in highschool Janey was in her room getting undressed. Francie and El en were stil playing in the backyard. Their voices came in through the open window with a spicy waft of lilacs from the lilacbushes in the next yard. She had just let down her hair and was looking in the mirror imagining how she'd look if she was a peach and had auburn hair, when there was a knock at the door and Joe's voice outside. There was something funny about his voice.