U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [120]
"Wel , good night, Joe . . . you be mighty careful yourself. When do you expect to get your wings?" "Oh, in a couple of weeks." "How's Gladys and Bunny?" "Oh, they're al right," said Joe; a funny constraint came into
-282-his voice and he blushed. "They're in Tulsa with Mrs. Higgins." She went to bed and lay there without moving, feeling desperately quiet and cool; she was too tired to sleep. When morning came she went around to the garage to get her car. She felt in the pocket on the door to see if her handbag was there that always had her little pearlhandled revolver in it, and drove out to the aviation camp. At the gate the sentry wouldn't let her by, so she sent a note to Colonel Morrissey who was a friend of Dad's, saying that she must see him at once. The corporal was very nice and got her a chair in the little office at the gate and a few min-utes later said he had Colonel Morrissey on the wire. She started to talk to him but she couldn't think what to say. The desk and the office and the corporal began swaying giddily and she fainted.
She came to in a staffcar with Joe Washburn who was taking her back to the hotel. He was patting her hand saying, "That's al right, Daughter." She was clinging to him and crying like a little tiny girl. They put her to bed at the hotel and gave her bromides and the doctor wouldn't let her get up until after the funeral was over.
She got a reputation for being a little crazy after that. She stayed on in San Antonio. Everything was very gay and tense. Al day she worked in a canteen and evenings she went out, supper and dancing, every night with a dif-ferent aviation officer. Everybody had taken to drinking a great deal. It was like when she used to go to highschool dances, she felt herself moving in a bril iantly lighted daze of suppers and lights and dancing and champagne and dif-ferent colored faces and stiff identical bodies of men danc-ing with her, only now she had a kidding line and let them hug her and kiss her in taxicabs, in phonebooths, in people's backyards.
One night she met Joe Washburn at a party Ida Olsen was giving for some boys who were leaving for overseas.
-283-It was the first time she'd ever seen Joe drink. He wasn't drunk but she could see that he'd been drinking a great deal. They went and sat side by side on the back steps of the kitchen in the dark. It was a clear hot night ful of dryflies with a hard hot wind rustling the dry twigs of the trees. Suddenly she took Joe's hand: "Oh, Joe, this is awful." Joe began to talk about how unhappy he was with his wife, how he was making big money through his oil leases and didn't give a damn about it, how sick he was of the army. They'd made him an instructor and wouldn't let him go overseas and he was almost crazy out there in camp. "Oh, Joe, I want to go overseas too. I'm leading such a sil y life here." "You have been actin' kinder wild, Daughter, since Bud died," came Joe's soft deep drawling voice. "Oh, Joe, I wisht I was dead," she said and put her head on his knee and began to cry. "Don't cry, Daughter, don't cry," he began to say, then suddenly he was kissing her. His kisses were hard and crazy and made her go al limp against him.
"I don't love anybody but you, Joe," she suddenly said quietly. But he already had control