U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [32]
Things happened fast. They went to a restaurant and had wine with a big feed and afterwards they went to a beergarden where there was a band, and drank whiskey-sours. When they went to the girls' apartment they took a quart of whiskey with them and Mac almost dropped it on the steps and the girls said, "For crissake don't make so much noise or you'l have the cops on us," and the apartment smelt of musk and facepowder and there was women's underwear around on al the chairs and the girls got fifteen bucks out of each of them first thing. Mac was in the bathroom with his girl and she smeared liprouge on his nose and they laughed and laughed until he got rough and she slapped his face. Then they al sat together round the table and drank some more and Ike danced a Solomeydance in his bare feet. Mac laughed, it was so very funny, but he was sitting on the floor and when he
-75-tried to get up he fel on his face and al of a sudden he was being sick in the bathtub and Gladys was cursing hel out of him. She got him dressed, only he couldn't find his necktie, and everybody said he was too drunk and pushed him out and he was walking down the street sing-ing Make a Noise Like a Hoop and Just Roll Away, Roll Away , and he asked a cop where the Y.M.C.A. was and the cop pushed him into a cel at the stationhouse and locked him up.
He woke up with his head like a big split mil stone. There was vomit on his shirt and a rip in his pants. He went over al his pockets and couldn't find his pocketbook. A cop opened the cel door and told him to make himself scarce and he walked out into the dazzling sun that cut into his eyes like a knife. The man at the desk at the Y
looked at him queerly when he went in, but he got up to his room and fel into bed without anybody saying any-thing to him. Ike wasn't back yet. He dozed off feeling his headache al through his sleep. When he woke up Ike was sitting on the bed. Ike's eyes were bright and his cheeks were red. He was stil a little drunk. "Say, Mac, did they rol yer? I can't find my pocketbook an' I tried to go back but I couldn't find the apartment. God, I'd have beat up the goddam floosies . . . Shit, I'm drunk as a pissant stil . Say, the galoot at the desk said we'd have to clear out. Can't have no drunks in the Y.M.C.A."
"But jez, we paid for a week.""He'l give us part of it back . . . Aw, what the hel , Mac . . . We're flat, but I feel swel . . . Say, I had a rough time with your Jane after they'd thrown you out."
"Hel , I feel sick as a dog."
"I'm afraid to go to sleep for fear of getting a hang-over. Come on out, it'l do you good." It was three in the afternoon. They went into a little Chinese restaurant on the waterfront and drank coffee. They had two dol ars they got from hocking their suit--76-cases. The pawnbroker wouldn't take the silk shirts be-cause they were dirty. Outside it was raining pitchforks.
"Jesus, why the hel didn't we have the sense to keep sober? God, we're a coupla big stiffs, Ike."
"We had a good party . . . Jez, you looked funny with that liprouge al over your face."
"I feel like hel . . . I wanta study an' work for things; you know what I mean, not to get to be a god-dam slavedriver but for socialism and the revolution an'
like that, not work an' go on a bat an' work an' go on a bat like those damn yaps on the railroad."
"Hel , another time we'l have more sense an' leave our wads somewhere safe . . . Gee, I'm beginning to sink by the bows myself."
"If the damn house caught fire I wouldn't have the strength to walk out." They sat in the Chink place as long as they could and then they went out in the rain to find a thirtycent flop-house where they spent the night, and the bedbugs ate them up. In the morning they went round looking for jobs, Mac in the printing trades and Ike at the shipping agencies. They met in the evening without having had any luck and slept in the park as it was a fine night. Eventual y they both signed