John Passos: The 42nd Parallel

At the station lunchcounter Uncle Tim set everybody up to breakfast. He dried Milly’s tears and blew Fainy’s nose in a big new pockethandkerchief that still had the tag on the corner and set them to work on bacon and eggs and coffee. Fainy hadn’t had coffee before, so the idea of sitting up like a man and drinking coffee made him feel pretty good. Milly didn’t like hers, said it was bitter. They were left all alone in the lunchroom for some time with the empty plates and empty coffee cups under the beady eyes of a woman with the long neck and pointed face of a hen who looked at them disapprovingly from behind the counter. Then with an enormous, shattering rumble, sludgepuff sludge… puff, the train came into the station. They were scooped up and dragged across the platform and through a pipesmoky car and before they knew it the train was moving and the wintry russet Connecticut landscape was clattering by.

we hurry wallowing like in a boat in the musty stably-smelling herdic cab He kept saying What would you do Lucy if I were to invite one of them to my table? They’re very lovely people Lucy the colored people and He had cloves in a little silver box and a rye whisky smell on his breath hurrying to catch the cars to New York

and She was saying Oh dolly I hope we wont be late and Scott was waiting with the tickets and we had to run up the platform of the Seventh Street Depot and all the little cannons kept falling out of the Olympia and everybody stooped to pick them up and the conductor Allaboard lady quick lady

they were little brass cannons and were bright in the sun on the platform of the Seventh Street Depot and Scott hoisted us all up and the train was moving and the engine bell was ringing and Scott put in your hand a little handful of brass tiny cannons just big enough to hold the smallest size red firecracker at the battle of Manila Bay and said Here’s the artillery Jack

and He was holding forth in the parlor car Why Lucy if it were necessary for the cause of humanity I would walk out and be shot any day you would Jack wouldn’t you? wouldn’t you porter? who was bringing appolinaris and He had a flask in the brown grip where the silk initialed handkerchiefs always smelt of bay rum

and when we got to Havre de Grace He said Remember Lucy we used to have to ferry across the Susquehanna before the bridge was built

and across Gunpowder Creek too

Russet hills, patches of woods, farmhouses, cows, a red colt kicking up its heels in a pasture, rail fences, streaks of marsh.

“Well, Tim, I feel like a whipped cur… So long as I’ve lived, Tim, I’ve tried to do the right thing,” Pop kept repeating in a rattling voice. “And now what can they be asayin’ about me?”

“Jesus God, man, there was nothin’ else you could do, was there? What the devil can you do if you haven’t any money and haven’t any job and a lot o’ doctors and undertakers and landlords come round with their bills and you with two children to support?”

“But I’ve been a quiet and respectable man, steady and misfortunate ever since I married and settled down. And now what’ll they be thinkin’ of me sneakin’ out like a whipped cur?”

“John, take it from me that I’d be the last one to want to bring disrespect on the dead that was my own sister by birth and blood… But it ain’t your fault and it ain’t my fault… it’s the fault of poverty, and poverty’s the fault of the system… Fenian, you listen to Tim O’Hara for a minute and Milly you listen too, cause a girl ought to know these things just as well as a man and for once in his life Tim O’Hara’s tellin’ the truth… It’s the fault of the system that don’t give a man the fruit of his labor… The only man that gets anything out of capitalism is a crook, an’ he gets to be a millionaire in short order… But an honest workin’ man like John or myself we can work a hundred years and not leave enough to bury us decent with.”

Smoke rolled white in front of the window shaking out of its folds trees and telegraph poles and little square shingle-roofed houses and towns and trolleycars, and long rows of buggies with steaming horses standing in line.

“And who gets the fruit of our labor, the goddam business men, agents, middlemen who never did a productive piece of work in their life.”

Fainy’s eyes are following the telegraph wires that sag and soar.

“Now, Chicago ain’t no paradise, I can promise you that, John, but it’s a better market for a workin’ man’s muscle and brains at present than the East is… And why, did you ask me why…? Supply and demand, they need workers in Chicago.”

“Tim, I tellyer I feel like a whipped cur.”

“It’s the system, John, it’s the goddam lousy system.”

A great bustle in the car woke Fainy up. It was dark. Milly was crying again. He didn’t know where he was.

“Well, gentlemen,” Uncle Tim was saying, “we’re about to arrive in little old New York.”

In the station it was light; that surprised Fainy, who thought it was already night. He and Milly were left a long time sitting on a suitcase in the waitingroom. The waitingroom was huge, full of unfamiliarlooking people, scary like people in picture-books. Milly kept crying.

“Hey, Milly, I’ll biff you one if you don’t stop crying.”

“Why?” whined Milly, crying all the more.

Fainy stood as far away from her as possible so that people wouldn’t think they were together. When he was about ready to cry himself Pop and Uncle Tim came and took them and the suitcase into the restaurant. A strong smell of fresh whisky came from their breaths, and they seemed very bright around the eyes. They all sat at a table with a white cloth and a sympathetic colored man in a white coat handed them a large card full of printing.

“Let’s eat a good supper,” said Uncle Tim, “if it’s the last thing we do on this earth.”

“Damn the expense,” said Pop, “it’s the system that’s to blame.”

“To hell with the pope,” said Uncle Tim. “We’ll make a social-democrat out of you yet.”

They gave Fainy fried oysters and chicken and icecream and cake, and when they all had to run for the train he had a terrible stitch in his side. They got into a daycoach that smelt of coalgas and armpits. “When are we going to bed?” Milly began to whine. “We’re not going to bed,” said Uncle Tim airily. “We’re going to sleep right here like little mice… like little mice in a cheese.” “I doan like mice,” yelled Milly with a new flood of tears as the train started.

Fainy’s eyes smarted; in his ears was the continuous roar, the clatter clatter over crossings, the sudden snarl under bridges. It was a tunnel, all the way to Chicago it was a tunnel. Opposite him Pop’s and Uncle Tim’s faces looked red and snarling, he didn’t like the way they looked, and the light was smoky and jiggly and outside it was all a tunnel and his eyes hurt and wheels and rails roared in his ears and he fell asleep.

When he woke up it was a town and the train was running right through the main street. It was a sunny morning. He could see people going about their business, stores, buggies and spring-wagons standing at the curb, newsboys selling newspapers, wooden Indians outside of cigarstores. At first he thought he was dreaming, but then he remembered and decided it must be Chicago. Pop and Uncle Tim were asleep on the seat opposite. Their mouths were open, their faces were splotched and he didn’t like the way they looked. Milly was curled up with a wooly shawl all over her. The train was slowing down, it was a station. If it was Chicago they ought to get off. At that moment the conductor passed, an old man who looked a little like Father O’Donnell.