John Passos - Manhattan transfer

‘If I’d been a boy could I?’

‘I guess you could.’

In front of the Aquarium they stopped a minute to look down the bay. The liner with a tug puffing white smoke against either bow was abreast of them towering above the ferryboats and harborcraft. Gulls wheeled and screamed. The sun shone creamily on the upper decks and on the big yellow blackcapped funnel. From the foremast a string of little flags fluttered jauntily against the slate sky.

‘And there are lots of people coming over from abroad on that boat arent there daddy?’

‘Look you can see… the decks are black with people.’

Walking across Fiftythird Street from the East River Bud Korpenning found himself standing beside a pile of coal on the sidewalk. On the other side of the pile of coal a gray-haired woman in a flounced lace shirtwaist with a big pink cameo poised on the curve of her high bosom was looking at his stubbly chin and at the wrists that hung raw below the frayed sleeves of his coat. Then he heard himself speak:

‘Dont spose I could take that load of coal in back for you ma’am?’ Bud shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

‘That’s just what you could do,’ the woman said in a cracked voice. ‘That wretched coal man left it this morning and said he’d be back to bring it in. I suppose he’s drunk like the rest of them. I wonder if I can trust you in the house.’

‘I’m from upstate ma’am,’ stammered Bud.

‘From where?’

‘From Cooperstown.’

‘Hum… I’m from Buffalo. This is certainly the city for everyone being from somewhere else… Well you’re probably a burglar’s accomplice, but I cant help it I’ve got to have that coal in… Come in my man, I’ll give you a shovel and a basket and if you dont drop any in the passage or on the kitchen floor, because the scrubwoman’s just left… naturally the coal had to come when the floor was clean… I’ll give you a dollar.’

When he carried in the first load she was hovering in the kitchen. His caving hungersniff stomach made him totter lightheadedly, but he was happy to be working instead of dragging his feet endlessly along pavements, across streets, dodging drays and carts and streetcars.

‘How is it you haven’t got a regular job my man,’ she asked as he came back breathless with the empty basket.

‘I reckon it’s as I aint caught on to city ways yet. I was born an raised on a farm.’

‘And what did you want to come to this horrible city for?’

‘Couldn’t stay on the farm no more.’

‘It’s terrible what’s going to become of this country if all the fine strong young men leave the farms and come into the cities.’

‘Thought I could git a work as a longshoreman, ma’am, but they’re layin’ men off down on the wharves. Mebbe I kin go to sea as a sailor but nobody wants a green hand… I aint et for two days now.’

‘How terrible… Why you poor man couldn’t you have gone to some mission or something?’

When Bud had brought the last load in he found a plate of cold stew on the corner of the kitchen table, half a loaf of stale bread and a glass of milk that was a little sour. He ate quickly barely chewing and put the last of the stale bread in his pocket.

‘Well did you enjoy your little lunch?’

‘Thankye ma’am.’ He nodded with his mouth full.

‘Well you can go now and thank you very much.’ She put a quarter into his hand. Bud blinked at the quarter in the palm of his hand.

‘But ma’am you said you’d give me a dollar.’

‘I never said any such thing. The idea… I’ll call my husband if you dont get out of here immediately. In fact I’ve a great mind to notify the police as it is…’

Without a word Bud pocketed the quarter and shuffled out.

‘Such ingratitude,’ he heard the woman snort as he closed the door behind him.

A cramp was tying knots in his stomach. He turned east again and walked the long blocks to the river with his fists pressed tight in under his ribs. At any moment he expected to throw up. If I lose it it wont do me no good. When he got to the end of the street he lay down on the gray rubbish slide beside the wharf. A smell of hops seeped gruelly and sweet out of the humming brewery behind him. The light of the sunset flamed in the windows of factories on the Long Island side, flashed in the portholes of tugs, lay in swaths of curling yellow and orange over the swift browngreen water, glowed on the curved sails of a schooner that was slowly bucking the tide up into Hell Gate. Inside him the pain was less. Something flamed and glowed like the sunset seeping through his body. He sat up. Thank Gawd I aint agoin to lose it.

On deck it’s damp and shivery in the dawn. The ship’s rail is wet when you put your hand on it. The brown harborwater smells of washbasins, rustles gently against the steamer’s sides. Sailors are taking the hatches off the hold. There’s a rattle of chains and a clatter from the donkey-engine where a tall man in blue overalls stands at a lever in the middle of a cloud of steam that wraps round your face like a wet towel.

‘Muddy is it really the Fourth of July?’

Mother’s hand has grasped his firmly trailing him down the companionway into the dining saloon. Stewards are piling up baggage at the foot of the stairs.

‘Muddy is it really the Fourth of July?’

‘Yes deary I’m afraid it is… A holiday is a dreadful time to arrive. Still I guess they’ll all be down to meet us.’

She has her blue serge on and a long trailing brown veil and the little brown animal with red eyes and teeth that are real teeth round her neck. A smell of mothballs comes from it, of unpacking trunks, of wardrobes littered with tissuepaper. It’s hot in the dining saloon, the engines sob soothingly behind the bulkhead. His head nods over his cup of hot milk just colored with coffee. Three bells. His head snaps up with a start. The dishes tinkle and the coffee spills with the trembling of the ship. Then a thud and rattle of anchorchains and gradually quiet. Muddy gets up to look through the porthole.

‘Why it’s going to be a fine day after all. I think the sun will burn through the mist… Think of it dear; home at last. This is where you were born deary.’

‘And it’s the Fourth of July.’

‘Worst luck… Now Jimmy you must promise me to stay on the promenade deck and be very careful. Mother has to finish packing. Promise me you wont get into any mischief.’

‘I promise.’

He catches his toe on the brass threshold of the smoking-room door and sprawls on deck, gets up rubbing his bare knee just in time to see the sun break through chocolate clouds and swash a red stream of brightness over the puttycolored water. Billy with the freckles on his ears whose people are for Roosevelt instead of for Parker like mother is waving a silk flag the size of a handkerchief at the men on a yellow and white tugboat.

‘Didjer see the sun rise?’ he asks as if he owned it.

‘You bet I saw it from my porthole,’ says Jimmy walking away after a lingering look at the silk flag. There’s land close on the other side; nearest a green bank with trees and wide white gray-roofed houses.

‘Well young feller, how does it feel to be home?’ asks the tweedy gentleman with droopy mustaches.

‘Is that way New York?’ Jimmy points out over the still water broadening in the sunlight.

‘Yessiree-bobby, behind yonder bank of fog lies Manhattan.’

‘Please sir what’s that?’

‘That’s New York… You see New York is on Manhattan Island.’

‘Is it really on an island?’

‘Well what do you think of a boy who dont know that his own home town is on an island?’

The tweedy gentleman’s gold teeth glitter as he laughs with his mouth wide open. Jimmy walks on round the deck, kicking his heels, all foamy inside; New York’s on an island.