John Passos - Big Money

“Shush,” said Ada. “Here’s Eveline now… Well, Eveline dear, the captains and the kings depart. Soon there’ll be nothing but us smallfry left.”

“She didn’t seem awful bright to me,” said Eveline, dropping into a chair beside them. “Let me get you a drink, Eveline dear,” said Ada. Eveline shook her head. “What you need, Eveline, my dear,” said the broadfaced woman, leaning across the couch again, “… is a good trip abroad. New York’s impossible after January… I shan’t attempt to stay… It would just mean a nervous breakdown if I did.”

“I thought maybe I might go to Morocco sometime if I could scrape up the cash,” said Eveline.

“Try Tunis, my dear. Tunis is divine.”

After she’d drunk the cocktail Barrow brought Mary sat there seeing faces, hearing voices in a blank hateful haze. It took all her attention not to teeter on the edge of the couch. “I really must go.” She had hold of George’s arm crossing the room. She could walk very well but she couldn’t talk very well. In the bedroom Ada was helping her on with her coat. Eveline Johnson was there with her big hazel eyes and her teasing singsong voice. “Oh, Ada, it was sweet of you to come. I’m afraid it was just too boring… Oh, Miss French, I so wanted to talk to you about the miners… In ever get a chance to talk about things I’m really interested in any more. Do you know, Ada, I don’t think I’ll ever do this again… It’s just too boring.” She put her long hand to her temple and rubbed the fingers slowly across her forehead. “Oh, Ada, I hope they go home soon… I’ve got such a headache.”

“Oughtn’t you to take something for it?”

“I will. I’ve got a wonderful painkiller. Ask me up next time you play Bach, Ada… I’d like that. You know it does seem too silly to spend your life filling up rooms with illassorted people who really hate each other.” Eveline Johnson followed them all the way down the hall to the front door as if she didn’t want to let them go. She stood in her thin dress in the gust of cold wind that came from the open door while George went to the corner to get a cab. “Eveline, go back in, you’ll catch your death,” said Ada. “Well, goodby… you were darlings to come.” As the door closed slowly behind her Mary watched Eveline Johnson’s narrow shoulders. She was shivering as she walked back down the hall.

Mary reeled, suddenly feeling drunk in the cold air and Ada put her arm round her to steady her. “Oh, Mary,” Ada said in her ear, “I wish everybody wasn’t so unhappy.”

“It’s the waste,” Mary cried out savagely, suddenly able to articulate. Ada and George Barrow were helping her into the cab. “The food they waste and the money they waste while our people starve in tarpaper barracks.” “The contradictions of capitalism,” said George Barrow with a knowing leer. “How about a bite to eat?”

“Take me home first. No, not to Ada’s,” Mary almost yelled. “I’m sick of this parasite life. I’m going back to the office tomorrow… I’ve got to call up tonight to see if they got in all right with that load of condensed milk…” She picked up Ada’s hand, suddenly feeling like old times again, and squeezed it. “Ada, you’ve been sweet, honestly you’ve saved my life.”

“Ada’s the perfect cure for hysterical people like us,” said George Barrow. The taxi had stopped beside the row of garbagecans in front of the house where Mary lived. “No, I can walk up alone,” she said harshly and angrily again. “It’s just that being tiredout a drink makes me feel funny. Goodnight. I’ll get my bag at your place tomorrow.” Ada and Barrow went off in the taxicab with their heads together chatting and laughing. They’ve forgotten me already, thought Mary as she made her way up the stairs. She made the stairs all right but had some trouble getting the key in the lock. When the door finally would open she went straight to the couch in the front room and lay down and fell heavily asleep.

In the morning she felt more rested than she had in years. She got up early and ate a big breakfast with bacon and eggs at Childs on the way to the office. Rudy Goldfarb was already there, sitting at her desk.

He got up and stared at her without speaking for a moment. His eyes were red and bloodshot and his usually sleek black hair was all over his forehead. “What’s the matter, Rudy?”

“Comrade French, they got Eddy.”

“You mean they arrested him.”

“Arrested him nothing, they shot him.”

“They killed him.” Mary felt a wave of nausea rising in her. The room started to spin around. She clenched her fists and the room fell into place again. Rudy was telling her how some miners had found the truck wrecked in a ditch. At first they thought that it had been an accident but when they picked up Eddy Spellman he had a bullethole through his temple.

“We’ve got to have a protest meeting… do they know about it over at the Party?”

“Sure, they’re trying to get Madison Square Garden. But, Comrade French, he was one hell of a swell kid.” Mary was shaking all over. The phone rang. Rudy answered it. “Comrade French, they want you over there right away. They want you to be secretary of the committee for the protest meeting.” Mary let herself drop into the chair at her desk for a moment and began noting down the names of organizations to be notified. Suddenly she looked up and looked Rudy straight in the eye. “Do you know what we’ve got to do… we’ve got to move the relief committee to Pittsburgh. I knew all along we ought to have been in Pittsburgh.”

“Risky business.”

“We ought to have been in Pittsburgh all along,” Mary said firmly and quietly.

The phone rang again.

“It’s somebody for you, Comrade French.”

As soon as the receiver touched Mary’s ear there was Ada talking and talking. At first Mary couldn’t make out what it was about. “But, Mary darling, haven’t you read the papers?” “No, I said I hadn’t. You mean about Eddy Spellman?” “No, darling, it’s too awful, you re member we were just there yesterday for a cocktail party… you must remember, Eveline Johnson, it’s so awful. I’ve sent out and got all the papers. Of course the tabloids all say it’s suicide.” “Ada, I don’t understand.” “But, Mary, I’m trying to tell you… I’m so upset I can’t talk… she was such a lovely woman, so talented, an artist really… Well, when the maid got there this morning she found her dead in her bed and we were just there twelve hours before. It gives me the horrors. Some of the papers say it was an overdose of a sleeping medicine. She couldn’t have meant to do it. If we’d only known we might have been able to do something, you know she said she had a headache. Don’t you think you could come up, I can’t stay here alone I feel so terrible.” “Ada, I can’t… Something very serious has happened in Pennsylvania. I have a great deal of work to do organizing a protest. Goodby, Ada.” Mary hung up, frowning.

“Say, Rudy, if Ada Cohn calls up again tell her I’m out of the office… I have too much to do to spend my time taking care of hysterical women a day like this.” She put on her hat, collected her papers, and hurried over to the meeting of the committee.

The young man waits at the edge of the concrete, with one hand he grips a rubbed suitcase of phony leather, the other hand almost making a fist, thumb up

that moves in ever so slight an arc when a car slithers past, a truck roars clatters; the wind of cars passing ruffles his hair, slaps grit in his face.

Head swims, hunger has twisted the belly tight,

he has skinned a heel through the torn sock, feet ache in the broken shoes, under the threadbare suit carefully brushed off with the hand, the torn drawers have a crummy feel, the feel of having slept in your clothes; in the nostrils lingers the staleness of discouraged carcasses crowded into a transient camp, the carbolic stench of the jail, on the taut cheeks the shamed flush from the boring eyes of cops and deputies, railroadbulls (they eat three squares a day, they are buttoned into wellmade clothes, they have wives to sleep with, kids to play with after supper, they work for the big men who buy their way, they stick their chests out with the sureness of power behind their backs). Git the hell out, scram. Know what’s good for you, you’ll make yourself scarce. Gittin’ tough, eh? Think you kin take it, eh?