U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [43]
"I'm not giving up the fight, Fred . . . I'm not sel in'
out; I swear to God I'm not."
Fred Hoff had gotten very pale. Sucking his lips in be-tween his teeth he got up from the table and left the res-taurant. Mac sat there a long time feeling gloomy as hel . Then he went back to the office of the Workman. Fred Hoff was at the desk writing hard. "Say, Fred," said Mac,
"I'l stay another month. I'l write Maisie right now."
"I knew you'd stay, Mac; you're no quitter.""But Jesus God, man, you expect too much of a fel er.""Too much is too damn little," said Fred Hoff. Mac started running the paper through the press.
For the next few weeks, when Maisie's letters came he put them in his pocket without reading them. He wrote her as reassuringly as he could, that he'd come as soon as the boys could get someone to take his place.
Then Christmas night he read al Maisie's letters. They were al the same; they made him cry. He didn't want to get married, but it was hel living up here in Nevada al winter without a girl, and he was sick of whoring around. He didn't want the boys to see him looking so glum, so he went down to have a drink at the saloon the restaurant workers went to. A great roaring steam of drunken sing-ing came out of the saloon. Going in the door he met Ben Evans. "Hel o, Ben, where are you goin'?""I'm goin' to have a drink as the fel er said.""Wel , so am I.""What's the matter?""I'm blue as hel ." Ben Evans laughed.
"Jesus, so am I . . . and it's Christmas, ain't it?" They had three drinks each but the bar was crowded
and they didn't feel like celebrating; so they took a pint flask, which was al they could afford, up to Ben Evans'
room. Ben Evans was a dark thickset young man with
very black eyes and hair. He hailed from Louisvil e, Ken-tucky. He'd had oonsiderable schooling and was an auto--104-mobile mechanic. The room was icy cold. They sat on the bed, each of them wrapped in one of his blankets.
"Wel , ain't this a way to spend Christmas?" said Mac.
"Holy Jesus, it's a good thing Fred Hoff didn't ketch us," Mac snickered. "Fred's a hel of a good guy, honest as the day an' al that, but he won't let a fel er live.""I guess if the rest of us were more like Fred we'd get somewheres sooner.""We would at that . . . Say, Mac, I'm blue as hel about al this business, this shootin' an' these fel ers from the W.F.M. goin'
up to the Montezuma Club and
playin' round with that damn scab delegate from Wash-ington.""Wel , none of the wobbly crowd's done any-thing like that.""No, but there's not enough of us . . ."
"What you need's a drink, Ben.""It's just like this god-dam pint, as the fel er said, if we had enough of 'em we'd get fried, but we haven't. If we had enough boys like Fred Hoff we'd have a revolution, but we haven't." They each had a drink from the pint and then Mac
said: "Say, Ben, did you ever get a girl in trouble, a girl you liked a hel ova lot?"
"Sure, hundreds of 'em."
"Didn't it worry you?"
"For crissake, Mac, if a girl wasn't a goddam whore she wouldn't let you, would she?"
"Jeez, I don't see it like that, Ben . . . But hel , I don't know what to do about it . . . She's a good kid, anyways, gee . . ."
"I don't trust none of 'em . . . I know a guy onct married a girl like that, carried on and bawled an' made out he'd knocked her up. He married her al right an' she turned out to be a goddam whore and he got the siph off'n her . . . You take it from me, boy. . . . Love
'em and leave 'em, that's the only way for stiffs like us." They finished up the pint. Mac went back to the Work-man office and went to sleep with the whisky burning in his stomach. He dreamed he was walking across a field
-105-with a girl on a warm day. The whisky was hotsweet in his mouth, buzzed like bees in his ears. He wasn't sure if the girl was Maisie or just a goddam whore, but he felt very warm and tender, and she was saying in a little hot-sweet voice, "Love me up, kid," and he could see her body through her thingauze dress as he leaned over her and she kept crooning, "Love me up, kid,"