John Passos - Big Money

a full knapsack

and leaving the embers dying in the hollow of the barren Syrian hills where the Agail had camped when dawn sharpshining cracked night off the ridged desert had ridden towards the dungy villages and the patches of sesame and the apricotgardens)

shaved off his beard in Damascus

and sat drinking hot milk and coffee in front of the hotel in Beirut staring at the white hulk of Lebanon fumbling with letters piled on the table and clipped streamers of newsprint

addressed not to the unspeaker of arabic or the clumsy scramblerup on camelback so sore in the rump from riding

but to someone

who

(but this evening in the soft nightclimate of the Levantine coast the kind officials are contemplating further improvements

scarcelybathed he finds himself cast for a role provided with a white tie carefully tied by the viceconsul stuffed into a boiled shirt a tailcoat too small a pair of dresstrousers too large which the kind wife of the kind official gigglingly fastens in the back with safetypins which immediately burst open when he bows to the High Commissioner’s lady faulty costuming makes the role of eminent explorer impossible to play and the patent leather pumps painfully squeezing the toes got lost under the table during the champagne and speeches)

who arriving in Manhattan finds waiting again the forsomebodyelsetailored dress suit

the position offered the opportunity presented the collarbutton digging into the adamsapple while a wooden image croaks down a table at two rows of freshlypressed gentlemen who wear fashionably their tailored names

stuffed into shirts to caption miles lightyears of clipped streamers of newsprint

Gentlemen I apologize it was the wrong bell it was due to a misapprehension that I found myself on the stage when the curtain rose the poem I recited in a foreign language was not mine in fact it was somebody else who was speaking it’s not me in uniform in the snapshot it’s a lamentable error mistaken identity the servicerecord was lost the gentleman occupying the swivelchair wearing the red carnation is somebody else than

whoever it was who equipped with false whiskers was standing outside in the rainy street and has managed undetected to make himself scarce down a manhole

the pastyfaced young man wearing somebody else’s readymade business opportunity

is most assuredly not

the holder of any of the positions for which he made application at the employmentagency

The train was three hours late getting into St. Paul. Charley had his coat on and his bag closed an hour before he got in. He sat fidgeting in the seat taking off and pulling on a pair of new buckskin gloves. He wished they wouldn’t all be down at the station to meet him. Maybe only Jim would be there. Maybe they hadn’t got his wire.

The porter came and brushed him off, then took his bags. Charley couldn’t see much through the driving steam and snow outside the window. The train slackened speed, stopped in a broad snowswept freightyard, started again with a jerk and a series of snorts from the forced draft in the engine. The bumpers slammed all down the train. Charley’s hands were icy inside his gloves. The porter stuck his head in and yelled, “St. Paul.” There was nothing to do but get out.

There they all were. Old man Vogel and Aunt Hartmann with their red faces and their long noses looked just the same as ever, but Jim and Hedwig had both of them filled out. Hedwig had on a mink coat and Jim’s overcoat looked darn prosperous. Jim snatched Charley’s bags away from him and Hedwig and Aunt Hartmann kissed him and old man Vogel thumped him on the back. They all talked at once and asked him all kinds of questions. When he asked about Ma, Jim frowned and said she was in the hospital, they’d go around to see her this afternoon. They piled the bags into a new Ford sedan and squeezed themselves in after with a lot of giggling and squealing from Aunt Hartmann. “You see I got the Ford agency now,” said Jim. “To tell the truth, things have been pretty good out here.” “Wait till you see the house, it’s all been done over,” said Hedwig. “Vell, my poy made de Cherman Kaiser run. Speaking for the Cherman-American commoonity of the Twin Cities, ve are pr’roud of you.”

They had a big dinner ready and Jim gave him a drink of whiskey and old man Vogel kept pouring him out beer and saying, “Now tell us all about it.” Charley sat there his face all red, eating the stewed chicken and the dumplings and drinking the beer till he was ready to burst. He couldn’t think what to tell them so he made funny cracks when they asked him questions. After dinner old man Vogel gave him one of his best Havana cigars.

That afternoon Charley and Jim went to the hospital to see Ma. Driving over, Jim said she’d been operated on for a tumor but that he was afraid it was cancer, but even that hadn’t given Charley an idea of how sick she’d be. Her face was shrunken and yellow against the white pillow. When he leaned over to kiss her her lips felt thin and hot. Her breath was very bad. “Charley, I’m glad you came,” she said in a trembly voice. “It would have been better if you’d come sooner… Not that I’m not comfortable here… any way I’ll be glad having my boys around me when I get well. God has watched over us all, Charley, we mustn’t forget Him.” “Now, Ma, we don’t want to get tired and excited,” said Jim. “We want to keep our strength to get well.”

“Oh, but He’s been so merciful.” She brought her small hand, so thin it was blue, out from under the cover and dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. “Jim, hand me my glasses, that’s a good boy,” she said in a stronger voice. “Let me take a look at the prodigal son.”

Charley couldn’t help shuffling his feet uneasily as she looked at him.

“You’re quite a man now and you’ve made quite a name for yourself over there. You boys have turned out better than I hoped… Charley, I was afraid you’d turn out a bum like your old man.” They all laughed. They didn’t know what to say.

She took her glasses off again and tried to reach for the bedside table with them. The glasses dropped out of her hand and broke ontheconcretefloor. “Oh… my… never mind, I don’t need ’em much here.”

Charley picked the pieces up and put them carefully in his vest pocket. “I’ll get ’em fixed, Ma.”

The nurse was standing in the door beckoning with her head. “Well, goodby, see you tomorrow,” they said.

Once they were out in the corridor Charley felt that tears were running down his face.

“That’s how it is,” said Jim, frowning. “They keep her under dope most of the time. I thought she’d be more comfortable in a private room, but they sure do know how to charge in these damn hospitals.” “I’ll chip in on it,” said Charley. “I got a little money saved up.” “Well, I suppose it’s no more than right you should,” Jim said.

Charley took a deep breath of the cold afternoon when they paused on the hospital steps, but he couldn’t get the smell of ether and drugs and sickness out of his head. It had come on fine with an icy wind. The snow on the streets and roofs was bright pink from the flaring sunset.

“We’ll go down to the shop and see what’s what,” said Jim. “I told the guy works for me to call up some of the newspaperboys. I thought it would be a little free advertising if they came down to the salesroom to interview you.” Jim slapped Charley on the back. “They eat up this returnedhero stuff. String ’em along a little, won’t you?”

Charley didn’t answer.

“Jesus Christ, Jim, I don’t know what to tell ’em,” he said in a low voice when they got back in the car. Jim was pressing his foot on the selfstarter. “What do you think of comin’ in the business, Charley? It’s gettin’ to be a good un, I can tell you that.” “That’s nice of you, Jim. Suppose I kinder think about it.”