John Passos - 1919

He heard her voice laughing on the stairs and a man’s voice; the key clicked in the lock. Joe closed his suitcase and stood up. Del had bobbed her hair. She flew up to him and threw her arms around his neck. “Why, I declare it’s my hubby.” Joe could taste rouge on her lips. “My, you look thin, Joe. Poor Boy, you musta been awful sick…. If I’d had any money at all I’d have jumped on a boat and come on down…. This is Wilmer Tayloe… I mean Lieutenant Tayloe, he just got his commission yesterday.”

Joe hesitated a moment and then held out his hand. The other fellow had red hair clipped close and a freckled face. He was all dressed up in a whipcord uniform, shiny Sam Browne belt and puttees. He had a silver bar on each shoulder and spurs on his feet.

“He’s just going overseas tomorrow. He was coming by to take me out to dinner. Oh, Joe, I’ve got so much to tell you, honey.”

Joe and Lieutenant Tayloe stood around eyeing each other uncomfortably while Del bustled around tidying the place up, talking to Joe all the time. “It’s terrible I never get any chance to do anything and neither does Hilda… You remember Hilda Thompson, Joe? Well, she’s been livin’ with me to help make up the rent but we’re both of us doin’ war work down at the Red Cross canteen every evening and then I sell Liberty bonds…. Don’t you hate the huns, Joe. Oh, I just hate them, and so does Hilda…. She’s thinking of changing her name on account of its being German. I promised to call her Gloria but I always forget…. You know, Wilmer, Joe’s been torpedoed twice.”

“Well, I suppose the first six times is the hardest,” stammered Lieutenant Tayloe. Joe grunted.

Del disappeared into the bathroom and closed the door. “You boys make yourselves comfortable. I’ll be dressed in a minute.”

Neither of them said anything. Lieutenant Tayloe’s shoes creaked as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. At last he pulled a flask out of his pocket. “Have a drink,” he said. “Ma outfit’s goin’ overseas any time after midnight.” “I guess I’d better,” said Joe, without smiling. When Della came out of the bathroom all dressed up she certainly looked snappy. She was much prettier than last time Joe had seen her. He was all the time wondering if he ought to go up and hit that damn shavetail until at last he left, Del telling him to come by and get her at the Red Cross canteen.

When he’d left she came and sat on Joe’s knee and asked him about everything and whether he’d got his second mate’s ticket yet and whether he’d missed her and how she wished he could make a little more money because she hated to have another girl in with her this way but it was the only way she could pay the rent. She drank a little of the whiskey that the lieutenant had forgotten on the table and ruffled his hair and loved him up. Joe asked her if Hilda was coming in soon and she said no she had a date and she was going to meet her at the canteen. But Joe went and bolted the door anyway and for the first time they were really happy hugged in each other’s arms on the bed.

Joe didn’t know what to do with himself around Norfolk. Del was at the office all day and at the Red Cross canteen all the evening. He’d usually be in bed when she came home. Usually there’d be some damn army officer or other bringing her home, and he’d hear them talking and kidding outside the door and lie there in bed imagining that the guy was kissing her or loving her up. He’d be about ready to hit her when she’d come in and bawl her out and they’d quarrel and yell at each other and she’d always end by saying that he didn’t understand her and she thought he was unpatriotic to be interfering with her war work and sometimes they’d make up and he’d feel crazy in love with her and she’d make herself little and cute in his arms and give him little tiny kisses that made him almost cry they made him feel so happy. She was getting better looking every day and she sure was a snappy dresser.

Sunday mornings she’d be too tired to get up and he’d cook breakfast for her and they’d sit up in bed together and eat breakfast like he had with Marceline that time in Bordeaux. Then she’d tell him she was crazy about him and what a smart guy he was and how she wanted him to get a good shore job and make a lot of money so that she wouldn’t have to work any more and how Captain Barnes whose folks were worth a million had wanted her to get a divorce from Joe and marry him and Mr. Canfield in the Dupont office who made a cool 50,000 a year had wanted to give her a pearl necklace but she hadn’t taken it because she didn’t think it was right. Talk like that made Joe feel pretty rotten. Sometimes he’d start to talk about what they’d do if they had some kids, but Del ud always make a funny face and tell him not to talk like that.

Joe went around looking for work and almost landed the job of foreman in one of the repair shops over at the shipyard in Newport News, but at the last minute another berry horned in ahead of him and got it. A couple of times he went out on parties with Del and Hilda Thompson, and some army officers and a midshipman off a destroyer, but they all highhatted him and Del let any boy who wanted to kiss her and would disappear into a phone booth with anything she could pick up so long as it had a uniform on and he had a hell of a time. He found a poolroom where some boys he knew hung out and where he could get corn liquor and started tanking up a good deal. It made Del awful sore to come home and find him drunk but he didn’t care any more.

Then one night when Joe had been to a fight with some guys and had gotten an edge on afterward, he met Del and another damn shavetail walking on the street. It was pretty dark and there weren’t many people around and they stopped in every dark doorway and the shavetail was kissing and hugging her. When he got them under a street light so’s he made sure it was Del he went up to them and asked them what the hell they meant. Del must have had some drinks because she started tittering in a shrill little voice that drove him crazy and he hauled off and let the shavetail have a perfect left right on the bottom. The spurs tinkled and the shavetail went to sleep right flat on the little grass patch under the streetlight. It began to hit Joe kinder funny but Del was sore as the devil and said she’d have him arrested for insult to the uniform and assault and battery and that he was nothing but a yellow sniveling slacker and what was he doing hanging around home when all the boys were at the front fighting the huns. Joe sobered up and pulled the guy up to his feet and told them both they could go straight to hell. He walked off before the shavetail, who musta been pretty tight, had time to do anything but splutter, and went straight home and packed his suitcase and pulled out.

Will Stirp was in town so Joe went over to his house and got him up out of bed and said he’d busted up housekeeping and would Will lend him twentyfive bucks to go up to New York with. Will said it was a damn good thing and that love ’em and leave ’em was the only thing for guys like them. They talked till about day about one thing and another. Then Joe went to sleep and slept till late afternoon. He got up in time to catch the Washington boat. He didn’t take a room but roamed around on deck all night. He got to cracking with one of the officers and went and sat in the pilot house that smelt comfortably of old last year’s pipes. Listening to the sludge of water from the bow and watching the wabbly white finger of the searchlight pick up buoys and lighthouses he began to pull himself together. He said he was going up to New York to see his sister and try for a second mate’s ticket with the Shipping Board. His stories about being torpedoed went big because none of them on the Dominion City had even been across the pond.