John Passos - Manhattan transfer

‘All right… Nevada will you excuse us if we talk business for just a second over here by the window. We’ll forget it by the time lunch comes.’

‘All righty I’ll change my dress.’

‘Sit down here Gus.’

They sat silent a moment looking out of the window at the red girder cage of the building under construction next door. ‘Well Gus,’ said Baldwin suddenly harshly, ‘I’m in the race.’

‘Good for you George, we need men like you.’

‘I’m going to run on a Reform ticket.’

‘The hell you are?’

‘I wanted to tell you Gus rather than have you hear it by a roundabout way.’

‘Who’s goin to elect you?’

‘Oh I’ve got my backing… I’ll have a good press.’

‘Press hell… We’ve got the voters… But Goddam it if it hadn’t been for me your name never would have come up for district attorney at all.’

‘I know you’ve always been a good friend of mine and I hope you’ll continue to be.’

‘I never went back on a guy yet, but Jez, George, it’s give and take in this world.’

‘Well,’ broke in Nevada advancing towards them with little dancesteps, wearing a flamingo pink silk dress, ‘havent you boys argued enough yet?’

‘We’re through,’ growled Gus. ‘…Say Miss Nevada, how did you get that name?’

‘I was born in Reno… My mother’d gone there to get a divorce… Gosh she was sore… Certainly put my foot in it that time.’

Anna Cohen stands behind the counter under the sign THE BEST SANDWICH IN NEW YORK. Her feet ache in her pointed shoes with runover heels.

‘Well I guess they’ll begin soon or else we’re in for a slack day,’ says the sodashaker beside her. He’s a rawfaced man with a sharp adamsapple. ‘It allus comes all of a rush like.’

‘Yeh, looks like they all got the same idear at the same time.’ They stand looking out through the glass partition at the endless files of people jostling in and out of the subway. All at once she slips away from the counter and back into the stuffy kitchenette where a stout elderly woman is tidying up the stove. There is a mirror hanging on a nail in the corner. Anna fetches a powderbox from the pocket of her coat on the rack and starts powdering her nose. She stands a second with the tiny puff poised looking at her broad face with the bangs across the forehead and the straight black bobbed hair. A homely lookin kike, she says to herself bitterly. She is slipping back to her place at the counter when she runs into the manager, a little fat Italian with a greasy bald head. ‘Cant you do nutten but primp an look in de glass all day?… Veree good you’re fired.’

She stared at his face sleek like an olive. ‘Kin I stay out my day?’ she stammers. He nods. ‘Getta move on; this aint no beauty parlor.’ She hustles back to her place at the counter. The stools are all full. Girls, officeboys, grayfaced bookkeepers. ‘Chicken sandwich and a cup o caufee.’ ‘Cream cheese and olive sandwich and a glass of buttermilk.’

‘Chocolate sundae.’

‘Egg sandwich, coffee and doughnuts.’ ‘Cup of boullion.’ ‘Chicken broth.’ ‘Chocolate icecream soda.’ People eat hurriedly without looking at each other, with their eyes on their plates, in their cups. Behind the people sitting on stools those waiting nudge nearer. Some eat standing up. Some turn their backs on the counter and eat looking out through the glass partition and the sign HCNUL ENIL NEERG at the jostling crowds filing in and out the subway through the drabgreen gloom.

‘Well Joey tell me all about it,’ said Gus McNiel puffing a great cloud of smoke out of his cigar and leaning back in his swivel chair. ‘What are you guys up to over there in Flatbush?’

O’Keefe cleared his throat and shuffled his feet. ‘Well sir we got an agitation committee.’

‘I should say you had… That aint no reason for raidin the Garment Workers’ ball is it?’

‘I didn’t have nothin to do with that… The bunch got sore at all these pacifists and reds.’

‘That stuff was all right a year ago, but public sentiment’s changin. I tell you Joe the people of this country are pretty well fed up with war heroes.’

‘We got a livewire organization over there.’

‘I know you have Joe. I know you have. Trust you for that… I’d put the soft pedal on the bonus stuff though… The State of New York’s done its duty by the ex-service man.’

‘That’s true enough.’

‘A national bonus means taxes to the average business man and nothing else… Nobody wants no more taxes.’

‘Still I think the boys have got it comin to em.’

‘We’ve all of us got a whole lot comin to us we dont never get… For crissake dont quote me on this… Joey fetch yourself a cigar from that box over there. Frien o mine sent em up from Havana by a naval officer.’

‘Thankye sir.’

‘Go ahead take four or five.’

‘Jez thank you.’

‘Say Joey how’ll you boys line up on the mayoralty election?’

‘That depends on the general attitude towards the needs of the ex-service man.’

‘Look here Joey you’re a smart feller…’

‘Oh they’ll line up all right. I kin talk em around.’

‘How many guys have you got over there?’

‘The Sheamus O’Rielly Post’s got three hundred members an new ones signin up every day… We’re gettin em from all over. We’re goin to have a Christmas dance an some fights in the Armory if we can get hold of any pugs.’

Gus McNiel threw back his head on his bullneck and laughed. ‘Thataboy!’

‘But honest the bonus is the only way we kin keep the boys together.’

‘Suppose I come over and talk to em some night.’

‘That’d be all right, but they’re dead sot against anybody who aint got a war record.’

McNiel flushed. ‘Come back feeling kinder smart, dont ye, you guys from overseas?’ He laughed. ‘That wont last more’n a year or two… I seen em come back from the Spanish American War, remember that Joe.’

An officeboy came in an laid a card on the desk. ‘A lady to see you Mr McNiel.’

‘All right show her in… It’s that old bitch from the school board… All right Joe, drop in again next week… I’ll keep you in mind, you and your army.’

Dougan was waiting in the outer office. He sidled up mysteriously. ‘Well Joe, how’s things?’

‘Pretty good,’ said Joe puffing out his chest. ‘Gus tells me Tammany’ll be right behind us in our drive for the bonus… planning a nation wide campaign. He gave me some cigars a friend o his brought up by airplane from Havana… Have one?’ With their cigars tilting up out of the corners of their mouths they walked briskly cockily across City Hall square. Opposite the old City Hall there was a scaffolding. Joe pointed at it with his cigar. ‘That there’s the new statue of Civic Virtue the mayor’s havin set up.’

The steam of cooking wrenched at his knotted stomach as he passed Child’s. Dawn was sifting fine gray dust over the black ironcast city. Dutch Robertson despondently crossed Union Square, remembering Francie’s warm bed, the spicy smell of her hair. He pushed his hands deep in his empty pockets. Not a red, and Francie couldn’t give him anything. He walked east past the hotel on Fifteenth. A colored man was sweeping off the steps. Dutch looked at him enviously; he’s got a job. Milkwagons jingled by. On Stuyvesant Square a milkman brushed past him with a bottle in each hand. Dutch stuck out his jaw and talked tough. ‘Give us a swig o milk will yez?’ The milkman was a frail pinkfaced youngster. His blue eyes wilted. ‘Sure go round behind the wagon, there’s an open bottle under the seat. Dont let nobody see you drink it.’ He drank it in deep gulps, sweet and soothing to his parched throat. Jez I didn’t need to talk rough like that. He waited until the boy came back. ‘Thankye buddy, that was mighty white.’