John Passos: Manhattan transfer

‘Joseph Cameron Parker… We live in Union.’

‘An what’s yours?’

‘Antonio Camerone… de guys call me Skinny. Dis guy’s my cousin. His folks dey changed deir name to Parker, see?’

‘Changing your name wont do no good… they got all the aliases down in the judgment book… And verily I say unto you the Lord’s day is at hand… It was only yesterday that Gabriel says to me “Well Jonah, shall we let her rip?” an I says to him, “Gabriel ole scout think of the women and children an the little babies that dont know no better. If you shake it down with an earthquake an fire an brimstone from heaven they’ll all be killed same as the rich people an sinners,” and he says to me, “All right Jonah old horse, have it your own way… We wont foreclose on em for a week or two.”… But it’s terrible to think of, folks, the fire an brimstone an the earthquake an the tidal wave an the tall buildins crashing together.’

Joe suddenly slapped Skinny on the back. ‘You’re it,’ he said and ran off. Skinny followed him stumbling along the narrow path among the bushes. He caught up to him on the asphalt. ‘Jez, that guy’s nuts,’ he called.

‘Shut up cant ye?’ snapped Joe. He was peering back through the bushes. They could still see the thin smoke of their little fire against the sky. The tramp was out of sight. They could just hear his voice calling, ‘Gabriel, Gabriel.’ They ran on breathless towards the regularly spaced safe arclights and the street.

Jimmy Herf stepped out from in front of the truck; the mudguard just grazed the skirt of his raincoat. He stood a moment behind an L stanchion while the icicle thawed out of his spine. The door of a limousine suddenly opened in front of him and he heard a familiar voice that he couldnt place.

‘Jump in Meester ’Erf… Can I take you somewhere?’ As he stepped in mechanically he noticed that he was stepping into a Rolls-Royce.

The stout redfaced man in a derby hat was Congo. ‘Sit down Meester ’Erf… Very pleas’ to see you. Where were you going?’

‘I wasnt going anywhere in particular.’ ‘Come up to the house, I want to show you someting. Ow are you today?’

‘Oh fine; no I mean I’m in a rotten mess, but it’s all the same.’

‘Tomorrow maybe I go to jail… six mont’… but maybe not.’ Congo laughed in his throat and straightened carefully his artificial leg.

‘So they’ve nailed you at last, Congo?’

‘Conspiracy… But no more Congo Jake, Meester ’Erf. Call me Armand. I’m married now; Armand Duval, Park Avenue.’

‘How about the Marquis des Coulommiers?’

‘That’s just for the trade.’

‘So things look pretty good do they?’

Congo nodded. ‘If I go to Atlanta which I ’ope not, in six mont’ I come out of jail a millionaire… Meester ’Erf if you need money, juss say the word… I lend you tousand dollars. In five years even you pay it back. I know you.’

‘Thanks, it’s not exactly money I need, that’s the hell of it.’

‘How’s your wife?… She’s so beautiful.’

‘We’re getting a divorce… She served the papers on me this morning… That’s all I was waiting in this goddam town for.’

Congo bit his lips. Then he tapped Jimmy gently on the knee with his forefinger. ‘In a minute we’ll get to the ’ouse… I give you one very good drink.’… Yes wait,’ Congo shouted to the chauffeur as he walked with a stately limp, leaning on a goldknobbed cane, into the streaky marble hallway of the apartmenthouse. As they went up in the elevator he said, ‘Maybe you stay to dinner.’ ‘I’m afraid I cant tonight, Con… Armand.’

‘I have one very good cook… When I first come to New York maybe twenty years ago, there was a feller on the boat… This is the door, see A. D., Armand Duval. Him and me ran away togedder an always he say to me, “Armand you never make a success, too lazy, run after the leetle girls too much.… Now he’s my cook… first class chef, cordon bleu, eh? Life is one funny ting, Meester ’Erf.’

‘Gee this is fine,’ said Jimmy Herf leaning back in a highbacked Spanish chair in the blackwalnut library with a glass of old Bourbon in his hand. ‘Congo… I mean Armand, if I’d been God and had to decide who in this city should make a million dollars and who shouldnt I swear you’re the man I should have picked.’

‘Maybe by and by the misses come in. Very pretty I show you.’ He made curly motions with his fingers round his head. ‘Very much blond hair.’ Suddenly he frowned. ‘But Meester ’Erf, if dere is anyting any time I can do for you, money or like dat, you let me know eh? It’s ten years now you and me very good frien… One more drink?’

On his third glass of Bourbon Herf began to talk. Congo sat listening with his heavy lips a little open, occasionally nodding his head. ‘The difference between you and me is that you’re going up in the social scale, Armand, and I’m going down… When you were a messboy on a steamboat I was a horrid little chalkyfaced kid living at the Ritz. My mother and father did all this Vermont marble blackwalnut grand Babylonian stuff… there’s nothing more for me to do about it… Women are like rats, you know, they leave a sinking ship. She’s going to marry this man Baldwin who’s just been appointed District Attorney. They’re said to be grooming him for mayor on a fusion reform ticket… The delusion of power, that’s what’s biting him. Women fall for it like hell. If I thought it’d be any good to me I swear I’ve got the energy to sit up and make a million dollars. But I get no organic sensation out of that stuff any more. I’ve got to have something new, different… Your sons’ll be like that Congo… If I’d had a decent education and started soon enough I might have been a great scientist. If I’d been a little more highly sexed I might have been an artist or gone in for religion… But here I am by Jesus Christ almost thirty years old and very anxious to live… If I were sufficiently romantic I suppose I’d have killed myself long ago just to make people talk about me. I havent even got the conviction to make a successful drunkard.’

‘Looks like,’ said Congo filling the little glasses again with a slow smile, ‘Meester ’Erf you tink too much.’

‘Of course I do Congo, of course I do, but what the hell am I going to do about it?’

‘Well when you need a little money remember Armand Duval… Want a chaser?’

Herf shook his head. ‘I’ve got to chase myself… So long Armand.’

In the colonnaded marble hall he ran into Nevada Jones. She was wearing orchids. ‘Hullo Nevada, what are you doing in this palace of sin?’

‘I live here, what do you think?… I married a friend of yours the other day, Armand Duval. Want to come up and see him?’

‘Just been… He’s a good scout.’

‘He sure is.’

‘What did you do with little Tony Hunter?’

She came close to him and spoke in a low voice. ‘Just forget about me and him will you?… Gawd the boy’s breath’d knock you down… Tony’s one of God’s mistakes, I’m through with him… Found him chewing the edges of the rug rolling on the floor of the dressing room one day because he was afraid he was going to be unfaithful to me with an acrobat… I told him he’d better go and be it and we busted up right there… But honest I’m out for connubial bliss this time, right on the level, so for God’s sake dont let anybody spring anything about Tony or about Baldwin either on Armand… though he knows he wasnt hitching up to any plaster virgin… Why dont you come up and eat with us?’

‘I cant. Good luck Nevada.’ The whisky warm in his stomach, tingling in his fingers, Jimmy Herf stepped out into seven o’clock Park Avenue, whirring with taxicabs, streaked with smells of gasoline and restaurants and twilight.