John Passos - The 42nd Parallel

Then they argued some more about where the Dipper was and Doc kept saying it had moved to the south and when they’d finished the second quart, Doc was saying he didn’t believe in white men shootin’ each other up, only niggers, and started going round the boat lookin’ for that damn shine steward to kill him just to prove it and the Est was singing The Marseillaise and Charley was telling everybody that what he wanted to do was to get in on the big war before it went bellyup. The Est and Charley had a hard time holding Doc down in his bunk when they put him to bed. He kept jumping out shouting he wanted to kill a couple of niggers.

They got into New York in a snowstorm. Doc said the Statue of Liberty looked like she had a white nightgown on. The Est looked around and hummed The Marseillaise and said American cities were not artistical because they did not have gables on the houses like in Baltic Europe.

When they got ashore Charley and Doc went to the Broadway Central Hotel together. Charley had never been in a big hotel like that and wanted to find a cheaper flop but Doc insisted that he come along with him and said he had plenty of jack for both of them and that it was no use saving money because things would go bellyup soon. New York was full of grinding gears and clanging cars and the roar of the “L” and newsboys crying extras. Doc lent Charley a good suit and took him down to the enlistment office of the ambulance corps that was in an important lawyer’s office in a big shiny officebuilding down in the financial district. The gentleman who signed the boys up was a New York lawyer and he talked about their being gentleman volunteers and behaving like gentlemen and being a credit to the cause of the Allies and the American flag and civilization that the brave French soldiers had been fighting for so many years in the trenches. When he found out Charley was a mechanic he signed him up without waiting to write to the principal of the highschool and the pastor of the Lutheran church home in Fargo whose names he had given as references. He told them about getting antityphoid injections and a physical examination and said to call the next day to find out the sailing date. When they came out of the elevator there was a group of men in the shinymarble lobby with their heads bent over a newspaper; the U.S. was at war with Germany. That night Charley wrote his mother that he was going to the war and please to send him fifty dollars. Then he and Doc went out to look at the town.

There were flags on every building. They walked past business block after business block looking for Times Square. Everywhere people were reading newspapers. At Fourteenth they heard a drumbeat and a band and waited at the corner to see what regiment it would be but it was only the Salvation Army. By the time they got to Madison Square it was the dinner hour and the streets were deserted. It began to drizzle a little and the flags up Broadway and Fifth Avenue hung limp from their poles.

They went into the Hofbrau to eat. Charley thought it looked too expensive but Doc said it was his party. A man was on a stepladder over the door screwing the bulbs into an electric sign of an American flag. The restaurant was draped with American flags inside and the band played The Star-Spangled Banner every other number, so that they kept having to get to their feet. “What do they think this is, settin’ up exercises?” grumbled Doc.

There was one group at a round table in the corner that didn’t get up when the band played The Star-Spangled Banner , but sat there quietly talking and eating as if nothing had happened. People round the restaurant began to stare at them and pass comments. “I bet they’re… Huns… German spies… Pacifists.” There was an army officer at a table with a girl who got red in the face whenever he looked at them. Finally a waiter, an elderly German, went up to them and whispered something.

“I’ll be damned if I will,” came the voice from the table in the corner. Then the army officer went over to them and said something about courtesy to our national anthem. He came away redder in the face than ever. He was a little man with bowlegs squeezed into brightly polished puttees. “Dastardly pro-Germans,” he sputtered as he sat down. Immediately he had to get up because the band played The Star-Spangled Banner. “Why don’t you call the police, Cyril?” the girl who was with him said. By this time people from all over the restaurant were advancing on the round table.

Doc pulled Charley’s chair around. “Watch this; it’s going to be good.”

A big man with a Texas drawl yanked one of the men out of his chair. “You git up or git out.”

“You people have no right to interfere with us,” began one of the men at the round table. “You express your approval of the war getting up, we express our disapproval by…”

There was a big woman with a red hat with a plume on it at the table who kept saying, “Shut up; don’t talk to ’em.” By this time the band had stopped. Everybody clapped as hard as he could and yelled, “Play it again; that’s right.” The waiters were running round nervously and the proprietor was in the center of the floor mopping his bald head.

The army officer went over to the orchestra leader and said, “Please play our national anthem again.” At the first bar he came stiffly to attention. The other men rushed the round table. Doc and the man with the English accent were jostling each other. Doc squared off to hit him.

“Come outside if you want to fight,” the man with the English accent was saying.

“Leave ’em be, boys,” Doc was shouting. “I’ll take ’em on outside, two at a time.”

The table was upset and the party began backing off towards the door. The woman with the red hat picked up a bowl of lobster mayonnaise and was holding back the crowd by chucking handfuls of it in their faces. At that moment three cops appeared and arrested the damn pacifists. Everybody stood around wiping mayonnaise off his clothes. The band played The Star-Spangled Banner again and everybody tried to sing but it didn’t make much of an effect because nobody knew the words.

After that Doc and Charley went to a bar to have a whisky sour. Doc wanted to go to see a legshow and asked the barkeep. A little fat man with an American flag in the lapel of his coat overheard him and said the best legshow in New York was Minsky’s on East Houston Street. He set them up to some drinks when Doc said they were going to see this here war, and said he’d take them down to Minsky’s himself. His name was Segal and he said he’d been a socialist up to the sinking of the Lusitania , but now he thought they ought to lick the Germans and destroy Berlin. He was in the cloak and suit business and was happy because he’d as good as landed a contract for army uniforms. “Ve need the var to make men of us,” he’d say and strike himself on the chest. They went down town in a taxi but when they got to the burlesque show it was so full they couldn’t get a seat.

“Standin’ room, hell… Ah want women,” Doc was saying. Mr. Segal thought a little while with his head cocked to one side. “Ve will go to ‘Little Hungary,’” he said.

Charley felt let down. He’d expected to have a good time in New York. He wished he was in bed. At “Little Hungary” there were many German and Jewish and Russian girls. The wine came in funny-looking bottles upside down in a stand in the middle of each table. Mr. Segal said it was his party from now on. The orchestra played foreign music. Doc was getting pretty drunk. They sat at a table crowded in among other tables. Charley roamed round and asked a girl to dance with him but she wouldn’t for some reason.

He got to talking to a young narrowfaced fellow at the bar who had just been to a peace meeting at Madison Square Garden. Charley pricked his ears up when the fellow said there’d be a revolution in New York if they tried to force conscription on the country. His name was Benny Compton and he’d been studying law at New York University. Charley went and sat with him at a table with another fellow who was from Minnesota and who was a reporter on The Call. Charley asked them about the chances of working his way through the engineering school. He’d about decided to back out of this ambulance proposition. But they didn’t seem to think there was much chance if you hadn’t any money saved up to start on. The Minnesota man said New York was no place for a poor man.