David Goodis: The Blonde on the Street Corner

He crossed his legs at the ankles and took a deep drag at the half-smoked cigarette and then murdered the cigarette in the ashtray. He watched the smoke float from his mouth. He had a good feeling inside. He wasn’t a big eater at all but tonight he had been real hungry and he had eaten a lot and now his belly was content. The smoke from the deep drag kept floating from his mouth.

Now he was telling himself that he was really better off than guys with jobs. They were slaves. Sure, he knew. He knew what it was to work in a shipping room and sweat his balls off and listen to the big shots telling him how dumb he was, and pointing here and pointing there, and telling him to do this, and do that, and asking him where he was when the brains were handed out. And the packages, the packages, and the curses, and the paper, the twine. And the dust, the sweat, everybody tired and miserable and muttering curses and hating the boss and hating each other and waiting and hoping and praying for five-thirty to please hurry up and arrive because a guy can stand so much and no more.

And that was a job.

That was what they called “doing something.” Well, if that was doing something then he would just sit around and do nothing. If they were dumb enough to stay down there in that hole of a shipping room and die a slow death, he’d just take things easy and hang around on the corner and at least he’d be breathing fresh air. And it didn’t make any difference whether the job was in a shipping room or whether it was in a machine shop or a butcher shop or a great big office or where it was. It was a job and it was no good because nothing was good if a guy really didn’t get a kick out of doing it. Sure, these fools got a kick out of collecting their pay-check each week, but after all, that was what they were working for, and it was just a question of whether it was worth all the trouble to work and work and work for that check each week, especially when a guy figured out what was on that check. And going even further than that, what were all these guys working for, anyway? The dough? So they spent the dough. What did they spend it on? So if they were single, like him, they had to kick in at least half in the house. If they were lucky to get twenty a week they had to give in ten. That left ten. So what did they do? They had ten bucks in their pocket and they were big men. They spent it on ties and shoes and hats and coats and cigarettes and cokes and in the pool-room and bowling alley and in the taproom, guzzling beer and throwing darts. But most of it they spent on females.

All these fools, these saps, these suckers, with their jobs and the dumb look in their eyes and their clean white shirts with the clean starched collar being wasted on a date with some bag who was using the date to see maybe if this dope wouldn’t take her some place where she might meet something worthwhile.

So it would go on and on and on and when Sunday came around the bankroll was zero. Or maybe they had something after all. Maybe they even had something in the bank. Maybe even forty bucks. Pot of gold. Forty bucks in the bank. Now it was really time to settle down. Sure. Thirty bucks a week, forty bucks in the bank. And before they knew what they were doing, these idiots, these fools were actually — now get this — actually — asking the girls to marry them. Did they think they were doing something that would make them happy? That was a good one. Make them happy. Jokes. Why — these fools, these maniacs — they were making the biggest mistake that any man could make. Now they were really going to get hell. Well, it was just too bad for these morons. They had only themselves to blame. They couldn’t let well enough alone. They had to go and get married. And now here they were, stuck with something with a big mouth and a face that when a guy took a good look at it, maybe a few months after the wedding, he thought to himself maybe there was something wrong with his eyes. But it wasn’t his eyes that needed fixing. It was his brain. And now it was too late. He was coming home from work — this was good — he was coming home from work, see, and all day long he had nothing but hardship. He was tired and miserable and all he wanted was to be left alone and so he comes home and right away, see, right away she starts in on him. All day long she has nothing to do but figure out reasons for a great big fight when he comes home. So right away she starts and he tells her to shut up. Anyway, he sits down to eat and she don’t know how to cook and he wishes he could run over to Broad Street to Horn and Hardart and get something to eat. He won’t say anything, though, because he hates to hurt her feelings. So he looks up and what does he see? He sees that face sitting across from him. That face he married. And he wonders what did he do? What in God’s name did he do? And he blinks a few times and he even closes his eyes for maybe a few seconds. Maybe when he opens them he’ll see that he’s back home again, sitting with the family, a single guy again, free to go and come as he pleases and to do whatever the hell he wants to do. But when he opens his eyes he sees it’s no nightmare. It’s true. Jesus Christ, it’s true. That face. And she’s yelling at him, yelling about something. That’s a good one. As though she has a right to yell. He puts down his knife and fork. Already he’s lost his appetite. He’s ready for anything because it’s up to his neck. She keeps yapping on and on. All of a sudden he lets loose and tells her to shut up or he’ll knock all her teeth out. Finally he gets up and goes out and she’s crying. And all this they put under the heading of happily ever after. This is what they call wedded bliss.

He laughed aloud. He leaned his head back against the top of the sofa. The laugh rippled as he floated along in languid enjoyment of his thoughts.

His father looked at him and went back to the paper.

Ralph was thinking again about all these married men with their bliss. And they were still going to work every day. They were still squeezing out that thirty a week and every cent of it, every single cent was being spent. The wives saw to that. The cartoonists, the gag men on the radio made a big joke about it — the wives spending all the money. But it was no joke. There wasn’t anything funny about it. It was downright murder. These men were killing themselves for that thirty a week and even if they could save a buck, and they damn well couldn’t, their wives made sure that every single cent was spent. But all right — grant that they could save a dollar. So what did they do? What in God’s name did they do?

They went and had a baby.

They went and had a baby. Now just figure that out. Just take the time to figure that one out.

He tightened his lips and shook his head from side to side in derision blended with pity.

A baby. And trouble. Trouble and a baby. They made a good team. From the very beginning they made a good team. And then another baby. Hollering all over the house. Trouble. Trouble.

But here his thoughts slipped into a hollow filled with vague greyness. He didn’t want to think about it any more. He had a last, misty impression of all these poor fools with their little jobs and little houses and wives and kids and trouble. And he didn’t want to think about it any more.

Instead he was thinking of himself.

Thinking of how he was out of a job, and was glad of it. He had it easy. In the mornings he slept as late as he pleased. And he went to bed at whatever time he felt like. And he did whatever he wanted to do. Of course he never had a cent in his pocket, but what difference did that make? No money, no money worries. Except that he knew of a lot of things he would buy if he did have money. His eyes ran up along the worn grey flannel of his trousers. He had paid seventy bucks for this suit, at a time when he had been working. He let the sum caress his mood. Seventy bucks. Seventy solid bucks. Seven hundred dollars. Seven thousand dollars. Seventy thousand dollars. Seven hundred thousand dollars.