U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [31]
They had a couple of beers at the bar, then they went back on deck. The girls had gone. Mac and Ike walked disconsolately round the deck for a while, then they found the girls leaning over the rail in the stern. It was a cloudy moonlight night. The sea and the dark islands covered with spiring evergreens shone light and dark in a mottling silvery sheen. Both girls had frizzy hair and dark circles under their eyes. Mac thought they looked too old, but as Ike had gone sailing ahead it was too late to say any-thing. The girl he talked to was named Gladys. He liked the looks of the other one, whose name was Olive, better, but Ike got next to her first. They stayed on deck kidding and giggling until the girls said they were cold, then they went in the saloon and sat on a sofa and Ike went and bought a box of candy.
"We ate onions for dinner today," said Olive. "Hope you fel ers don't mind. Gladys, I told you we oughtn't to of eaten them onions, not before comin' on the boat."
"Gimme a kiss an' I'l tel ye if I mind or not," said Ike.
"Kiddo, you can't talk fresh like that to us, not on this
-73-boat," snapped Olive, two mean lines appearing on either side of her mouth.
"We have to be awful careful what we do on the boat," explained Gladys. "They're terrible suspicious of two girls travelin' alone nowadays. Ain't it a crime?"
"It sure is." Ike moved up a little closer on the seat.
"Quit that . . . Make a noise like a hoop an' rol away. I mean it." Olive went and sat on the opposite bench. Ike fol owed her.
"In the old days it was liberty hal on these boats, but not so any more," Gladys said, talking to Mac in a low intimate voice. "You fel ers been workin' up in the canneries?"
"No, we been workin' for the C.P.R. al summer."
"You must have made big money." As she talked to him, Mac noticed that she kept looking out of the corner of her eye at her friend.
"Yare . . . not so big . . . I saved up pretty near a century."
"An' now you're going to Seattle."
"I want to get a job linotypist."
"That's where we live, Seattle. Olive an' I've got an apartment . . . Let's go out on deck, it's too hot in here."
As they passed Olive and Ike, Gladys leaned over and whispered something in Olive's ear. Then she turned to Mac with a melting smile. The deck was deserted. She let him put his arm round her waist. His fingers felt the bones of some sort of corset. He squeezed. "Oh, don't be too rough, kiddo," she whined in a funny little voice. He laughed. As he took his hand away he felt the con-tour of her breast. Walking, his leg brushed against her leg. It was the first time he'd been so close to a girl. After a while she said she had to go to bed. "How about me goin' down with ye?" She shook her head. "Not on this boat. See you tomorrow; maybe you and your
-74-pal 'l come and see us at our apartment. We'l show you the town.""Sure," said Mac. He walked on round the deck, his heart beating hard. He could feel the pound of the steamboat's engines and the arrowshaped surge of broken water from the bow and he felt like that. He met Ike.
"My girl said she had to go to bed.""So did mine."
"Get anywheres, Mac?""They got an apartment in Seattle.""I got a kiss off mine. She's awful hot. Jez, I thought she was going to feel me up.""We'l get it to-morrow al right." The next day was sunny; the Seattle waterfront was
sparkling, smelt of lumberyards, was noisy with rattle of carts and yel s of drivers when they got off the boat. They went to the Y.M.C.A. for a room. They were through with being laborers and hobos. They were going to get clean jobs, live decently and