John Passos - The 42nd Parallel

and they stung him and he died

puzzled.

They buried him under a cedartree.

His favorite photograph

was of a little tot

standing beside a bed of hybrid

everblooming double Shasta daisies

with never a thought of evil

And Mount Shasta

in the background, used to be a volcano

but they don’t have volcanos

any more.

SAYS THIS IS CENTURY WHERE BILLIONS

AND BRAINS ARE TO RULE

infant born in Minneapolis comes here in incubator

Cheyenne Cheyenne

Hop on my pony

says Jim Hill hits oil trust on 939 counts

BIG FOUR TRAIN BLOWN TO PIECES

woman and children blotted out admits he saw floggings and even mutilations but no frightful outrages

TRUTH ABOUT THE CONGO FREE STATE

Find Bad Fault In Dreadnaught Santos Dumont tells of rival of bird of prey wives prime aim of Congo natives extraordinary letter ordering away U.S. marines

WHITES IN CONGO LOSE MORAL SENSE

WOMAN HELD A CAPTIVE BY AMBULANCE CHASERS

Thaw Faces Judge in Fateful Fight

LABOR MENACE IN POLITICS

last of Salome seen in New York heroism of mother unavailing

There’s room here for two, dear ,

But after the ceremony

Two, dear, as one, dear, will ride back on my pony

From old Cheyenne

you sat on the bed unlacing your shoes Hey Frenchie yelled Tylor in the door you’ve got to fight the Kid doan wanna fight him gotto fight him hasn’t he got to fight him fellers? Freddie pushed his face through the crack in the door and made a long nose Gotta fight him umpyaya and all the fellows on the top floor were there if not you’re a girlboy and I had on my pyjamas and they pushed in the Kid and the Kid hit Frenchie and Frenchie hit the Kid and your mouth tasted bloody and everybody yelled Go it Kid except Gummer and he yelled Bust his jaw Jack and Frenchie had the Kid down on the bed and everybody pulled him off and they all had Frenchie against the door and he was slamming right an’ left and he couldn’t see who was hitting him and everybody started to yell the Kid licked him and Tylor and Freddy held his arms and told the Kid to come and hit him but the Kid wouldn’t and the Kid was crying

the bloody sweet puky taste and then the bell rang for lights and everybody ran to their rooms and you got into bed with your head throbbing and you were crying when Gummer tiptoed in an’ said you had him licked Jack it was a fucking shame it was Freddy hit you that time, but Hoppy was tiptoeing round the hall and caught Gummer trying to get back to his room and he got his

By Thanksgiving Mac had beaten his way to Sacramento, where he got a job smashing crates in a dried fruit warehouse. By the first of the year he’d saved up enough to buy a suit of dark clothes and take the steamboat down the river to San Francisco.

It was around eight in the evening when he got in. With his suitcase in his hand, he walked up Market Street from the dock. The streets were full of lights. Young men and pretty girls in brightcolored dresses were walking fast through a big yanking wind that fluttered dresses and scarfs, slapped color into cheeks, blew grit and papers into the air. There were Chinamen, Wops, Portuguese, Japs in the streets. People were hustling to shows and restaurants. Music came out of the doors of bars, frying, buttery foodsmells from restaurants, smells of winecasks and beer. Mac wanted to go on a party but he only had four dollars so he went and got a room at the Y and ate some soggy pie and coffee in the deserted cafeteria downstairs.

When he got up in the bare bedroom like something in a hospital he opened the window, but it only gave on an airshaft. The room smelt of some sort of cleaning fluid and when he lay down on the bed the blanket smelt of formaldehyde. He felt too well. He could feel the prancing blood steam all through him. He wanted to talk to somebody, to go to a dance or have a drink with a fellow he knew or kid a girl somewhere. The smell of rouge and musky facepowder in the room of those girls in Seattle came back to him. He got up and sat on the edge of the bed swinging his legs. Then he decided to go out, but before he went he put his money in his suitcase and locked it up. Lonely as a ghost he walked up and down the streets until he was deadtired; he walked fast not looking to the right or left, brushing past painted girls at streetcorners, touts that tried to put addresscards into his hand, drunks that tried to pick fights with him, panhandlers whining for a handout. Then, bitter and cold and tired, he went back to his room and fell into bed.

Next day he went out and got a job in a small printshop run and owned by a baldheaded Italian with big whiskers and a flowing black tie, named Bonello. Bonello told him he had been a redshirt with Garibaldi and was now an anarchist. Ferrer was his great hero; he hired Mac because he thought he might make a convert out of him. All that winter Mac worked at Bonello’s, ate spaghetti and drank red wine and talked revolution with him and his friends in the evening, went to Socialist picnics or libertarian meetings on Sundays. Saturday nights he went round to whorehouses with a fellow named Miller whom he’d met at the Y. Miller was studying to be a dentist. He got to be friends with a girl named Maisie Spencer who worked in the millinery department at the Emporium. Sundays she used to try to get him to go to church. She was a quiet girl with big blue eyes that she turned up to him with an unbelieving smile when he talked revolution to her. She had tiny regular pearly teeth and dressed prettily. After a while she got so that she did not bother him so much about church. She liked to have him take her to hear the band play at the Presidio or to look at the statuary in Sutro Park.

The morning of the earthquake Mac’s first thought, when he got over his own terrible scare, was for Maisie. The house where her folks lived on Mariposa Street was still standing when he got there, but everyone had cleared out. It was not till the third day, three days of smoke and crashing timbers and dynamiting he spent working in a firefighting squad, that he found her in a provision line at the entrance to Golden Gate Park. The Spencers were living in a tent near the shattered greenhouses.

She didn’t recognise him because his hair and eyebrows were singed and his clothes were in tatters and he was soot from head to foot. He’d never kissed her before, but he took her in his arms before everybody and kissed her. When he let her go her face was all sooty from his. Some of the people in the line laughed and clapped, but the old woman right behind, who had her hair done in a pompadour askew so that the rat showed through and who wore two padded pink silk dressing gowns one above the other, said spitefully, “Now you’ll have to go and wash your face.”

After that they considered themselves engaged, but they couldn’t get married, because Bonello’s printshop had been gutted with the rest of the block it stood in, and Mac was out of a job. Maisie used to let him kiss her and hug her in dark doorways when he took her home at night, but further than that he gave up trying to go.

In the fall he got a job on the Bulletin. That was night work and he hardly ever saw Maisie except Sundays, but they began to talk about getting married after Christmas. When he was away from her he felt somehow sore at Maisie most of the time, but when he was with her he melted absolutely. He tried to get her to read pamphlets on socialism, but she laughed and looked up at him with her big intimate blue eyes and said it was too deep for her. She liked to go to the theater and eat in restaurants where the linen was starched and there were waiters in dress suits.