John Passos - The 42nd Parallel

Next evening it snowed. When she stepped out of the elevator crowded to the doors at five o’clock she looked eagerly round the vestibule. Joe wasn’t there. As she was saying goodnight to Gladys she saw him through the door. He was standing outside with his hands deep in the pockets of a blue peajacket. Big blobs of snowflakes spun round his face that looked lined and red and weatherbeaten.

“Hello, Joe,” she said.

“Hello, Janey.”

“When did you get in?”

“A couple days ago.”

“Are you in good shape, Joe? How do you feel?”

“I gotta rotten head today… Got stinkin’ last night.”

“Joe, I was so sorry about last night but there were a lot of people there and I wanted to see you alone so we could talk.”

Joe grunted.

“That’s awright, Janey… Gee, you’re lookin’ swell. If any of the guys saw me with you they’d think I’d picked up somethin’ pretty swell awright.”

Janey felt uncomfortable. Joe had on heavy workshoes and there were splatters of gray paint on his trouserlegs. He had a package wrapped in newspaper under his arm.

“Let’s go eat somewheres… Jez, I’m sorry I’m not rigged up better. We lost all our duffle, see, when we was torpedoed.”

“Were you torpedoed again?”

Joe laughed, “Sure, right off Cape Race. It’s a great life… Well, that’s strike two… I brought along your shawl though, by God if I didn’t… I know where we’ll eat; we’ll eat at Lüchow’s.”

“Isn’t Fourteenth Street a little…”

“Naw, they got a room for ladies… Janey, you don’t think I’d take you to a dump wasn’t all on the up an’ up?”

Crossing Union Square a seedylooking young man in a red sweater said, “Hi, Joe.” Joe dropped back of Janey for a minute and he and the young man talked with their heads together. Then Joe slipped a bill in his hand, said, “So long, Tex,” and ran after Janey who was walking along feeling a little uncomfortable. She didn’t like Fourteenth Street after dark. “Who was that, Joe?” “Some damn AB or other. I knew him down New Orleans… I call him Tex. I don’t know what his name is… He’s down on his uppers.” “Were you down in New Orleans?” Joe nodded. “Took a load a molasses out on the Henry B. Higginbotham … Piginbottom we called her. Well, she’s layin’ easy now on the bottom awright… on the bottom of the Grand Banks.” When they went in the restaurant the headwaiter looked at them sharply and put them at a table in the corner of a little inside room. Joe ordered a big meal and some beer, but Janey didn’t like beer so he had to drink hers too. After Janey had told him all the news about the family and how she liked her job and expected a raise Christmas and was so happy living with the Tingleys who were so lovely to her, there didn’t seem to be much to say. Joe had bought tickets to the Hippodrome but they had plenty of time before that started. They sat silent over their coffee and Joe puffed at a cigar. Janey finally said it was a shame the weather was so mean and that it must be terrible for the poor soldiers in the trenches and she thought the Huns were just too barbarous and the Lusitania and how silly the Ford peace ship idea was. Joe laughed in the funny abrupt way he had of laughing now, and said: “Pity the poor sailors out at sea on a night like this.” He got up to get another cigar.

Janey thought what a shame it was he’d had his neck shaved when he had a haircut; his neck was red and had little wrinkles in it and she thought of the rough life he must be leading and when he came back she asked him why he didn’t get a different job. “You mean in a shipyard? They’re making big money in shipyards, but hell, Janey, I’d rather knock around… It’s all for the experience, as the feller said when they blew his block off.” “No, but there are boys not half so bright as you are with nice clean jobs right in my office… and a future to look forward to.”

“All my future’s behind me,” said Joe with a laugh. “Might go down to Perth Amboy get a job in a munitions factory, but I rather be blowed up in the open, see?”

Janey went on to talk about the war and how she wished we were in it to save civilization and poor little helpless Belgium. “Can that stuff, Janey,” said Joe. He made a cutting gesture with his big red hand above the tablecloth. “You people don’t understand it, see… The whole damn war’s crooked from start to finish. Why don’t they torpedo any French Line boats? Because the Frogs have it all set with the Jerries, see, that if the Jerries leave their boats alone they won’t shell the German factories back of the front. What we wanta do’s sit back and sell ’em munitions and let ’em blow ’emselves to hell. An’ those babies are makin’ big money in Bordeaux and Toulouse or Marseilles while their own kin are shootin’ daylight into each other at the front, and it’s the same thing with the limeys… I’m tellin’ ye, Janey, this war’s crooked, like every other goddam thing.”

Janey started to cry. “Well, you needn’t curse and swear all the time.” “I’m sorry, sister,” said Joe humbly, “but I’m just a bum an’ that’s about the size of it an’ not fit to associate with a nicedressed girl like you.” “No, I didn’t mean that,” said Janey, wiping her eyes.

“Gee, but I forgot to show you the shawl.” He unwrapped the paper package. Two Spanish shawls spilled out on the table, one of black lace and the other green silk embroidered with big flowers. “Oh, Joe, you oughtn’t to give me both of them… You ought to give one to your best girl.” “The kinda girls I go with ain’t fit to have things like that… I bought those for you, Janey.” Janey thought the shawls were lovely and decided she’d give one of them to Eliza Tingley.

They went to the Hippodrome but they didn’t have a very good time. Janey didn’t like shows like that much and Joe kept falling asleep. When they came out of the theater it was bitterly cold. Gritty snow was driving hard down Sixth Avenue almost wiping the “L” out of sight. Joe took her home in a taxi and left her at her door with an abrupt, “So long, Janey.” She stood a moment on the step with her key in her hand and watched him walking west towards Tenth Avenue and the wharves, with his head sunk in his peajacket.

That winter the flags flew every day on Fifth Avenue. Janey read the paper eagerly at breakfast; at the office there was talk of German spies and submarines and atrocities and propaganda. One morning a French military mission came to call on J. Ward, handsome pale officers with blue uniforms and red trousers and decorations. The youngest of them was on crutches. They’d all of them been severely wounded at the front. When they’d left, Janey and Gladys almost had words because Gladys said officers were a lot of lazy loafers and she’d rather see a mission of private soldiers. Janey wondered if she oughtn’t to tell J. Ward about Gladys’s pro-Germanism, whether it mightn’t be her patriotic duty. The Comptons might be spies; weren’t they going under an assumed name? Benny was a socialist or worse, she knew that. She decided she’d keep her eyes right open.

The same day G. H. Barrow came in. Janey was in the private office with them all the time. They talked about President Wilson and neutrality and the stockmarket and the delay in transmission in the Lusitania note. G. H. Barrow had had an interview with the president. He was a member of a committee endeavoring to mediate between the railroads and the Brotherhoods that were threatening a strike. Janey liked him better than she had on the private car coming up from Mexico, so that when he met her in the hall just as he was leaving the office she was quite glad to talk to him and when he asked her to come out to dinner with him, she accepted and felt very devilish.