John Passos - Manhattan transfer

‘You look right glad to get home little boy,’ says the Southern lady.

‘Oh I am, I could fall down and kiss the ground.’

‘Well that’s a fine patriotic sentiment… I’m glad to hear you say it.’

Jimmy scalds all over. Kiss the ground, kiss the ground, echoes in his head like a catcall. Round the deck.

‘That with the yellow flag’s the quarantine boat.’ A stout man with rings on his fingers - he’s a Jew - is talking to the tweedy man. ‘Ha we’re under way again… That was quick, what?’

‘We’ll be in for breakfast, an American breakfast, a good old home breakfast.’

Muddy coming down the deck, her brown veil floating. ‘Here’s your overcoat Jimmy, you’ve got to carry it.’

‘Muddy, can I get out that flag?’

‘What flag?’

‘The silk American flag.’

‘No dear it’s all put away.’

‘Please I’d so like to have that flag cause it’s the Fourth of July an everything.’

‘Now dont whine Jimmy. When mother says no she means no.’

Sting of tears; he swallows a lump and looks up in her eyes.

‘Jimmy it’s put away in the shawlstrap and mother’s so tired of fussing with those wretched bags.’

‘But Billy Jones has one.’

‘Look deary you’re missing things… There’s the statue of Liberty.’ A tall green woman in a dressing gown standing on an island holding up her hand.

‘What’s that in her hand?’

‘That’s a light, dear… Liberty enlightening the world… And there’s Governors Island the other side. There where the trees are… and see, that’s Brooklyn Bridge… That is a fine sight. And look at all the docks… that’s the Battery… and the masts and the ships… and there’s the spire of Trinity Church and the Pulitzer building.’… Mooing of steamboat whistles, ferries red and waddly like ducks churning up white water, a whole train of cars on a barge pushed by a tug chugging inside it that lets out cotton steampuffs all the same size. Jimmy’s hands are cold and he’s chugging and chugging inside.

‘Dear you mustn’t get too excited. Come on down and see if mother left anything in the stateroom.’

Streak of water crusted with splinters, groceryboxes, orangepeel, cabbageleaves, narrowing, narrowing between the boat and the dock. A brass band shining in the sun, white caps, sweaty red faces, playing Yankee Doodle. ‘That’s for the ambassador, you know the tall man who never left his cabin.’ Down the slanting gangplank, careful not to trip. Yankee Doodle went to town… Shiny black face, white enameled eyes, white enameled teeth. ‘Yas ma’am, yas ma’am’… Stucka feather in his hat, an called it macaroni … ‘We have the freedom of the port.’ Blue custom officer shows a bald head bowing low… Tumte boomboom BOOM BOOM BOOM… cakes and sugar candy…

‘Here’s Aunt Emily and everybody… Dear how sweet of you to come.’

‘My dear I’ve been here since six o’clock!’

‘My how he’s grown.’

Light dresses, sparkle of brooches, faces poked into Jimmy’s, smell of roses and uncle’s cigar.

‘Why he’s quite a little man. Come here sir, let me look at you.’

‘Well goodby Mrs Herf. If you ever come down our way… Jimmy I didn’t see you kiss the ground young man.’

‘Oh he’s killing, he’s so oldfashioned… such an oldfashioned child.’

The cab smells musty, goes rumbling and lurching up a wide avenue swirling with dust, through brick streets soursmelling full of grimy yelling children, and all the while the trunks creak and thump on top.

‘Muddy dear, you dont think it’ll break through do you?’

‘No dear,’ she laughs tilting her head to one side. She has pink cheeks and her eyes sparkle under the brown veil.

‘Oh muddy.’ He stands up and kisses her on the chin. ‘What lots of people muddy.’

‘That’s on account of the Fourth of July.’

‘What’s that man doing?’

‘He’s been drinking dear I’m afraid.’

From a little stand draped with flags a man with white whiskers with little red garters on his shirtsleeves is making a speech. ‘That’s a Fourth of July orator… He’s reading the Declaration of Independence.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it’s the Fourth of July.’

Crang!… that’s a cannon-cracker. ‘That wretched boy might have frightened the horse… The Fourth of July dear is the day the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776 in the War of the Revolution. My great grandfather Harland was killed in that war.’

A funny little train with a green engine clatters overhead.

‘That’s the Elevated… and look this is Twentythird Street… and the Flatiron Building.’

The cab turns sharp into a square glowering with sunlight, smelling of asphalt and crowds and draws up before a tall door where colored men in brass buttons run forward.

‘And here we are at the Fifth Avenue Hotel.’

Icecream at Uncle Jeff’s, cold sweet peachy taste thick against the roof of the mouth. Funny after you’ve left the ship you can still feel the motion. Blue chunks of dusk melting into the squarecut uptown streets. Rockets spurting bright in the blue dusk, colored balls falling, Bengal fire, Uncle Jeff tacking pinwheels on the tree outside the apartmenthouse door, lighting them with his cigar. Roman candles you have to hold. ‘Be sure and turn your face away, kiddo.’ Hot thud and splutter in your hands, egg-shaped balls soaring, red, yellow, green, smell of powder and singed paper. Down the fizzing glowing street a bell clangs, clangs nearer, clangs faster. Hoofs of lashed horses striking sparks, a fire engine roars by, round the corner red and smoking and brassy. ‘Must be on Broadway.’ After it the hookandladder and the firechief’s high-pacing horses. Then the tinkletinkle of an ambulance. ‘Somebody got his.’

The box is empty, gritty powder and sawdust get under your nails when you feel along it, it’s empty, no there are still some little wooden fire engines on wheels. Really truly fire engines. ‘We must set these off Uncle Jeff. Oh these are the best of all Uncle Jeff.’ They have squibs in them and go sizzling off fast over the smooth asphalt of the street, pushed by sparkling plumed fiery tails, leaving smoke behind some real fire engines.

Tucked into bed in a tall unfriendly room, with hot eyes and aching legs. ‘Growing pains darling,’ muddy said when she tucked him in, leaning over him in a glimmering silk dress with drooping sleeves.

‘Muddy what’s that little black patch on your face?’

‘That,’ she laughed and her necklace made a tiny tinkling, ‘is to make mother look prettier.’

He lay there hemmed by tall nudging wardrobes and dressers. From outside came the sound of wheels and shouting, and once in a while a band of music in the distance. His legs ached as if they’d fall off, and when he closed his eyes he was speeding through flaring blackness on a red fire engine that shot fire and sparks and colored balls out of its sizzling tail.

The July sun pricked out the holes in the worn shades on the office windows. Gus McNiel sat in the morrischair with his crutches between his knees. His face was white and puffy from months in hospital. Nellie in a straw hat with red poppies rocked herself to and fro in the swivel chair at the desk.

‘Better come an set by me Nellie. That lawyer might not like it if he found yez at his desk.’

She wrinkled up her nose and got to her feet. ‘Gus I declare you’re scared to death.’

‘You’d be scared too if you’d had what I’d had wid de railroad doctor pokin me and alookin at me loike I was a jailbird and the Jew doctor the lawyer got tellin me as I was totally in-cap-aciated. Gorry I’m all in. I think he was lyin though.’