U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [161]
It was almost dark when he got to the lake. As the
little steamboat drew up to the wharf he could hear the jazzband through the trees, and the rasp and rattle of the rol ercoaster and yel s as a car took a dip. There were a dancing pavilion and colored lights among the trees and a smel of girls' perfumery and popcorn and molasses candy and powder from the shooting gal ery and the barkers were at it in front of their booths. As it was Monday evening there weren't very many people. Charley
-377-went round the rol ercoaster a couple of times and got to talking with the young guy who ran it about what the chances were of getting a job round there.
The guy said to stick around, Svenson the manager
would be there when they closed up at eleven, and he thought he might be looking for a guy. The guy's name was Ed Walters; he said it wasn't much of a graft but that Svenson was pretty straight; he let Charley take a couple of free rides to see how the rol ercoaster worked and handed him out a bottle of cream soda and told him to keep his shirt on. This was his second year in the amuse-ment game and he had a sharp foxface and a wise man-ner. Charley's heart was thumping when a big hol owfaced man with. coarse sandy hair came round to col ect the receipts at the ticket booth. That was Svenson. He looked Charley up and down and said he'd try him out for a week and to remember that this was a quiet family amuse-ment park and that he wouldn't stand for any rough stuff and told him to come round at ten the next morning. Charley said "So long" to Ed Walters and caught the last boat and car back to town. When he got out of the car it was too late to take his bag out of the station parcel-room; he didn't want to spend money on a room or to go out to Jim's place so he slept on a bench in front of the City Hal . It was a warm night and it made him feel good to be sleeping on a bench like a regular hobo. The arclights kept getting in his eyes, though, and he was nervous about the cop; it'd be a hel of a note to get pinched for a rag and lose the job out at the park. His teeth were chattering when he woke up in the gray early morning. The arclights spluttered pink against a pale lemonyel ow sky; the big business blocks with al their empty windows looked funny and gray and deserted. He had to walk fast pounding the pavement with his heels to get the blood going through his veins again.
-378-He found a stand where he could get a cup of coffee and a doughnut for five cents and went out to Lake Min-netonka on the first car. It was a bright summer day with a little north in the wind. The lake was very blue and the birchtrunks looked very white and the little leaves danced in the wind greenyel ow against the dark evergreens and the dark blue of the sky. Charley thought it was the most beautiful place he'd ever seen. He waited a long time drowsing in the sun on the end of the wharf for the boat to start over to the island. When he got there the park was al locked up, there were shutters on al the booths and the motionless red and blue cars of the rol ercoaster looked forlorn in the morning light. Charley roamed round for a while but his eyes smarted and his legs ached and his suitcase was too heavy, so he found a place sheltered by the wal of a shack from the wind and lay down in the warm sun on the pineneedles and went to sleep with his suitcase beside him.
He woke up with a start. His Ingersol said eleven. He had a cold sinking feeling. It'd be lousy to lose the job by being