John Passos: Big Money

Charley went back to his cab, carrying with him a last glimpse of long hazel eyes and her teasing smile. “Do you know if they still give officers special rates at the McAlpin?” he asked the taximan.

“Sure, they treat you all right if you’re an officer… If you’re an enlisted man you get your ass kicked,” answered the taximan out of the corner of his mouth and slammed the gears.

The taxi turned into a wide empty cobbled street. The cab rode easier than the Paris cabs. The big warehouses and marketbuildings were all closed up. “Gee, things look pretty quiet here,” Charley said, leaning forward to talk to the taximan through the window.

“Quiet as hell… You wait till you start to look for a job,” said the taximan.

“But, Jesus, I don’t ever remember things bein’ as quiet as this.”

“Well, why shouldn’t they be quiet… It’s Sunday, ain’t it?”

“Oh, sure, I’d forgotten it was Sunday.”

“Sure it’s Sunday.”

“I remember now it’s Sunday.”

Yankee Doodle that melodee

COLONEL HOUSE ARRIVES FROM EUROPE

APPARENTLY A VERY SICK MAN

Yankee Doodle that melodee

TO CONQUER SPACE AND SEE DISTANCES

but has not the time come for newspaper proprietors to join in a wholesome movement for the purpose of calming troubled minds, giving all the news but laying less stress on prospective calamitiesd

DEADLOCK UNBROKEN AS FIGHT SPREADS

they permitted the Steel Trust Government to trample underfoot the democratic rights which they had so often been assured were the heritage of the people of this country

SHIPOWNERS DEMAND PROTECTION

Yankee doodle that melodee

Yankee doodle that melodee

Makes me stand right up and cheer

only survivors of crew of schooner Onato are put in jail on arrival in Philadelphia

PRESIDENT STRONGER WORKS IN SICKROOM

I’m coming U.S.A.

I’ll say

MAY GAG PRESS

There’s no land… so grand

Charles M. Schwab, who has returned from Europe, was a luncheon guest at the White House. He stated that this country was prosperous but not so prosperous as it should be, because there were so many disturbing investigations on foot

… as my land

From California to Manhattan Isle

The ratfaced bellboy put down the bags, tried the faucets of the washbowl, opened the window a little, put the key on the inside of the door and then stood at something like attention and said, “Anything else, lootenant?” This is the life, thought Charley, and fished a quarter out of his pocket. “Thank you, sir, lootenant.” The bellboy shuffled his feet and cleared his throat. “It must have been terrible overseas, lootenant.” Charley laughed. “Oh, it was all right.” “I wish I coulda gone, lootenant.” The boy showed a couple of ratteeth in a grin. “It must be wonderful to be a hero,” he said and backed out the door.

Charley stood looking out the window as he unbuttoned his tunic. He was high up. Through a street of grimy square buildings he could see some columns and the roofs of the new Penn station and beyond, across the trainyards, a blurred sun setting behind high ground the other side of the Hudson. Overhead was purple and pink. An el train clattered raspingly through the empty Sundayevening streets. The wind that streamed through the bottom of the window had a gritty smell of coalashes. Charley put the window down and went to wash his face and hands. The hotel towel felt soft and thick with a little whiff of chloride. He went to the lookingglass and combed his hair. Now what?

He was walking up and down the room fidgeting with a cigarette, watching the sky go dark outside the window, when the jangle of the phone startled him. It was Ollie Taylor’s polite fuddled voice. “I thought maybe you wouldn’t know where to get a drink. Do you want to come around to the club?” “Gee, that’s nice of you, Ollie. I was jus’ wonderin’ what a feller could do with himself in this man’s town.” “You know it’s quite dreadful here,” Ollie’s voice went on. “Prohibition and all that, it’s worse than the wildest imagination could conceive. I’ll come and pick you up with a cab.” “All right, Ollie, I’ll be in the lobby.”

Charley put on his tunic, remembered to leave off his Sam Browne belt, straightened his scrubby sandy hair again, and went down into the lobby. He sat down in a deep chair facing the revolving doors.

The lobby was crowded. There was music coming from somewhere in back. He sat there listening to the dancetunes, looking at the silk stockings and the high heels and the furcoats and the pretty girls’ faces pinched a little by the wind as they came in off the street. There was an expensive jingle and crinkle to everything. Gosh, it was great. The girls left little trails of perfume and a warm smell of furs as they passed him. He started counting up how much jack he had. He had a draft for three hundred bucks he’d saved out of his pay, four yellowbacked twenties in the wallet in his inside pocket he’d won at poker on the boat, a couple of tens, and let’s see how much change. The coins made a little jingle in his pants as he fingered them over.

Ollie Taylor’s red face was nodding at Charley above a big camels-hair coat. “My dear boy, New York’s a wreck… They are pouring icecream sodas in the Knickerbocker bar…” When they got into the cab together he blew a reek of highgrade rye whiskey in Charley’s face. “Charley, I’ve promised to take you along to dinner with me… Just up to ole Nat Benton’s. You won’t mind… he’s a good scout. The ladies want to see a real flying aviator with palms.” “You’re sure I won’t be buttin’ in, Ollie?” “My dear boy, say no more about it.”

At the club everybody seemed to know Ollie Taylor. He and Charley stood a long time drinking Manhattans at a dark-paneled bar in a group of whitehaired old gents with a barroom tan on their faces. It was Major this and Major that and Lieutenant every time anybody spoke to Charley. Charley was getting to be afraid Ollie would get too much of a load on to go to dinner at anybody’s house.

At last it turned out to be seventhirty, and leaving the final round of cocktails, they got into a cab again, each of them munching a clove, and started uptown. “I don’t know what to say to ’em,” Ollie said. “I tell them I’ve just spent the most delightful two years of my life, and they make funny mouths at me, but I can’t help it.”

There was a terrible lot of marble, and doormen in green, at the apartmenthouse where they went out to dinner and the elevator was inlaid in different kinds of wood. Nat Benton, Ollie whispered while they were waiting for the door to open, was a Wall Street broker.

They were all in eveningdress waiting for them for dinner in a pinkishcolored drawingroom. They were evidently old friends of Ollie’s because they made a great fuss over him and they were very cordial to Charley and brought out cocktails right away, and Charley felt like the cock of the walk.

There was a girl named Miss Humphries who was as pretty as a picture. The minute Charley set eyes on her Charley decided that was who he was going to talk to. Her eyes and her fluffy palegreen dress and the powder in the little hollow between her shoulderblades made him feel a little dizzy so that he didn’t dare stand too close to her. Ollie saw the two of them together and came up and pinched her ear. “Doris, you’ve grown up to be a raving beauty.” He stood beaming teetering a little on his short legs. “Hum… only the brave deserve the fair… It’s not every day we come home from the wars, is it, Charley me boy?”