U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [169]
At the citylimits of Joliet they hopped a truck that carried them to Peoria, where they separated because
-394-Charley found a truckdriver he'd known in Chicago who offered him a lift al the way to St. Louis. In St. Louis things didn't seem to be so good, and he got into a row with a hooker he picked up on Market Street who tried to rol him, so as a guy told him there were plenty jobs to be had in Louisvil e he began to beat his way East. By the time he got to New Albany it was hot as the hinges of hel ; he'd had poor luck on hitches and his feet were swol en and blistered. He stood a long time on the bridge looking down into the swift brown current of the Ohio, too tired to go any further. He hated the idea of tramp-ing round looking for a job. The river was the color of gingerbread; he started to think about the smel of ginger-cookies Lizzie Green used to make in his mother's kitchen and he thought he was a damn fool to be bumming round like this. He'd go home and plant himself among the weeds, that's what he'd do.
Just then a brokendown Ford truck came by running
on a flat tire. "Hey, you've got a flat," yel ed Charley. The driver put on the brakes with a bang. He was a big bul etheaded man in a red sweater. "What the hel is it to you?""Jez, I just thought you might not a noticed."
"Ah notice everythin', boy . . . ain't had nutten but trouble al day. Wanta lift?""Sure," said Charley. "Now, Ah can't park on de bridge nohow . . . Been same god-dam thing al day. Here Ah gits up early in de mornin'
b'fo' day and goes out to haul foa hawgsheads a tobacca an de goddam nigger done lost de warehouse key. Ah
swear if Ah'd had a gun Ah'd shot de son of a bitch dead." At the end of the bridge he stopped and Charley helped him change the tire. "Where you from, boy?" he said as he straightened up and brushed the dust off his pants.
"I'm from up in the Northwest,"said Charley. "Ah reckon you're a Swede, ain't yez?" Charley laughed. "No; I'm a garage mechanic and lookin' for a job." "Pahl in, boy;
-395-we'l go an' see ole man Wiggins --he's ma boss --an' see what we can do." Charley stayed al summer in Louisvil e working at the Wiggins Repair Shops. He roomed with an Italian named Grassi who'd come over to escape military service. Grassi read the papers every day and was very much afraid the U. S. would go into the war. Then he said he'd have to hop across the border to Mexico. He was an anarchist and a quiet sort of guy who spent the evenings singing low to himself and playing the accordion on the lodginghouse steps. He told Charley about the big Fiat factories at Torino where he'd worked, and taught him to eat
spaghetti and drink red wine and to play Funiculi funicula on the accordion. His big ambition was to be an airplane pilot. Charley picked up with a Jewish girl who worked as sorter in a tobacco warehouse. Her name was Sarah Cohen but she made him cal her Bel e. He liked her wel enough but he was careful to make her understand that he wasn't the marrying kind. She said she was a radical and believed in free love, but that didn't suit him much either. He took her to shows and took her out walking in Cherokee Park and bought her an amethyst brooch
when she said amethyst was her birthstone.
When he thought about himself he felt pretty worried. Here he was doing the same work day after day, with no chance of making better money or getting any school-ing or seeing the country. When winter came on he got restless. He'd rescued an old Ford roadster that they were going to tow out to the junkheap and had patched it up with discarded spare