John Passos - Manhattan transfer

Dizzy he staggered up into the air and the blinking blocks of lights. Upper Broadway was full of people. Sailors lounged in twos and threes at the corner of Ninetysixth. He ate a ham and a leberwurst sandwich in a delicatessen store. The woman behind the counter had buttercolored hair like the girl in the subway but she was fatter and older. Still chewing the crust of the last sandwich he went up in the elevator to the Japanese Garden. He sat thinking a while with the flicker of the screen in his eyes. Jeze dey’ll tink it funny to see a messengerboy up here in dis suit. I better get de hell outa here. I’ll go deliver my telegrams.

He tightened his belt as he walked down the stairs. Then he slouched up Broadway to 105th Street and east towards Columbus Avenue, noting doors, fire escapes, windows, cornices, carefully as he went. Dis is de joint. The only lights were on the second floor. He rang the second floor bell. The doorcatch clicked. He ran up the stairs. A woman with weedy hair and a face red from leaning over the stove poked her head out.

‘Telegram for Santiono.’

‘No such name here.’

‘Sorry maam I musta rung de wrong bell.’

Door slammed in his nose. His sallow sagging face tightened up all of a sudden. He ran lightly on tiptoe up the stairs to the top landing then up the little ladder to a trapdoor. The bolt ground as he slid it back. He caught in his breath. Once on the cindergritty roof he let the trapdoor back softly into place. Chimneys stood up in alert ranks all about him, black against the glare from the streets. Crouching he stepped gingerly to the rear edge of the house, let himself down from the gutter to the fire escape. His foot grazed a flowerpot as he landed. Everything dark. Crawled through a window into a stuffy womansmelling room, slid a hand under the pillow of an unmade bed, along a bureau, spilled some facepowder, in tiny jerks pulled open the drawer, a watch, ran a pin into his finger, a brooch, something that crinkled in the back corner; bills, a roll of bills. Getaway, no chances tonight. Down the fire escape to the next floor. No light. Another window open. Takin candy from a baby. Same room, smelling of dogs and incense, some kind of dope. He could see himself faintly, fumbling, in the glass of the bureau, put his hand into a pot of cold cream, wiped it off on his pants. Hell. Something fluffysoft shot with a yell from under his feet. He stood trembling in the middle of the narrow room. The little dog was yapping loud in a corner.

The room swung into light. A girl stood in the open door, pointing a revolver at him. There was a man behind her.

‘What are you doing? Why it’s a Western Union boy…’ The light was a coppery tangle about her hair, picked out her body under the red silk kimono. The young man was wiry and brown in his unbuttoned shirt. ‘Well what are you doing in chat room?’

‘Please maam it was hunger brought me to it, hunger an my poor ole muder starvin.’

‘Isnt that wonderful Stan? He’s a burglar.’ She brandished the revolver. ‘Come on out in the hall.’

‘Yes miss anythin you say miss, but dont give me up to de bulls. Tink o de ole muder starvin her heart out.’

‘All right but if you took anything you must give it back.’

‘Honest I didn’t have a chanct.’

Stan flopped into a chair laughing and laughing. ‘Ellie you take the cake… Wouldnt a thought you could do it.’

‘Well didnt I play this scene in stock all last summer?… Give up your gun.’

‘No miss I wouldn’t carry no gun.’

‘Well I dont believe you but I guess I’ll let you go.’

‘Gawd bless you miss.’

‘But you must make some money as a messengerboy.’

‘I was fired last week miss, it’s only hunger made me take to it.’

Stan got to his feet. ‘Let’s give him a dollar an tell him to get the hell out of here.’

When he was outside the door she held out the dollarbill to him.

‘Jez you’re white,’ he said choking. He grabbed the hand with the bill in it and kissed it; leaning over her hand kissing it wetly he caught a glimpse of her body under the arm in the drooping red silk sleeve. As he walked, still trembling, down the stairs, he looked back and saw the man and the girl standing side by side with their arms around each other watching him. His eyes were full of tears. He stuffed the dollarbill into his pocket.

Kid if you keep on bein a softie about women you’re goin to find yourself in dat lil summer hotel up de river… Pretty soft though. Whistling under his breath he walked to the L and took an uptown train. Now and then he put his hand over his back pocket to feel the roll of bills. He ran up to the third floor of an apartmenthouse that smelled of fried fish and coal gas, and rang three times at a grimy glass door. After a pause he knocked softly.

‘Zat you Moike?’ came faintly the whine of a woman’s voice.

‘No it’s Nicky Schatz.’

A sharpfaced woman with henna hair opened the door. She had on a fur coat over frilly lace underclothes.

‘Howsa boy?’

‘Jeze a swell dame caught me when I was tidying up a little job and whatjer tink she done?’ He followed the woman, talking excitedly, into a dining room with peeling walls. On the table were used glasses and a bottle of Green River whiskey. ‘She gave me a dollar an tole me to be a good little boy.’

‘The hell she did?’

‘Here’s a watch.’

‘It’s an Ingersoll, I dont call ‘at a watch.’

‘Well set yer lamps on dis.’ He pulled out the roll of bills. ‘Aint dat a wad o lettuce?… Got in himmel, dey’s tousands.’

‘Lemme see.’ She grabbed the bills out of his hand, her eyes popping. ‘Hay ye’re cookoo kid.’ She threw the roll on the floor and wrung her hands with a swaying Jewish gesture. ‘Oyoy it’s stage money. It’s stage money ye simple saphead, you goddam…’

Giggling they sat side by side on the edge of the bed. Through the stuffy smell of the room full of little silky bits of clothing falling off chairs a fading freshness came from a bunch of yellow roses on the bureau. Their arms tightened round each other’s shoulders; suddenly he wrenched himself away and leaned over her to kiss her mouth. ‘Some burglar,’ he said breathlessly.

‘Stan…’

‘Ellie.’

‘I thought it might be Jojo;’ she managed to force a whisper through a tight throat. ‘It’ll be just like him to come sneaking around.’

‘Ellie I don’t understand how you can live with him among all these people. You’re so lovely. I just dont see you in all this.’

‘It was easy enough before I met you… And honestly Jojo’s all right. He’s just a peculiar very unhappy person.’

‘But you’re out of another world old kid… You ought to live on top of the Woolworth Building in an apartment made of cutglass and cherry blossoms.’

‘Stan your back’s brown all the way down.’

‘That’s swimming.’

‘So soon?’

‘I guess most of it’s left over from last summer.’

‘You’re the fortunate youth all right. I never learned how to swim properly.’

‘I’ll teach you… Look next Sunday bright and early we’ll hop into Dingo and go down to Long Beach. Way down at the end there’s never anybody… You dont even have to wear a bathingsuit.’

‘I like the way you’re so lean and hard Stan… Jojo’s white and flabby almost like a woman.’

‘For crissake don’t talk about him now.’

Stan stood with his legs apart buttoning his shirt. ‘Look Ellie let’s beat it out an have a drink… God I’d hate to run into somebody now an have to talk lies to ’em… I bet I’d crown ’em with a chair.’

‘We’ve got time. Nobody ever comes home here before twelve… I’m just here myself because I’ve got a sick headache.’