U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [436]
-217-long coils of hair had come undone and hung down over the wheel. Somehow he managed to drive.
He woke up next morning in a rattletrap hotel in Coney Island. It was nine o'clock, he had a frightful head and Aunt Hartmann was sitting up in bed looking pink, broad and beefy and asking for kaffee und schlagsahne. He took her out to breakfast at a Vienna bakery. She ate a great deal and cried a great deal and said he mustn't think she was a bad woman, because she was just a poor girl out of work and she'd felt so badly on account of his being a poor homeless boy. He said he'd be a poor homeless boy for fair if he didn't get back to the office. He gave her al the change he had in his pocket and a fake address and left her crying over a third cup of coffee in the Vienna bakery and headed for Long Island City. About Ozone Park he had to stop to upchuck on the side of the road. He just managed to get into the yard of the plant with his last drop of gas. He slipped into his office. It was ten minutes of twelve.
His desk was ful of notes and letters held together with clips and blue papers marked IMMEDIATE ATTENTION. He was scared Miss Robinson or Joe Askew would find out he was back. Then he remembered he had a silver flask of old bourbon in his desk drawer that Doris had given him the night before she sailed, to forget her by she'd said, kidding him. He'd just tipped his head back to take a swig when he saw Joe Askew standing in front of his desk. Joe stood with his legs apart with a worn frowning look on his face. "Wel , for Pete's sake, where have you been?
We been worried as hel about you. . . . Grace waited dinner an hour."
"Why didn't you cal up the hangar?"
"Everybody had gone home. . . . Stauch's sick. Every-thing's tied up."
"Haven't you heard from Merritt?"
"Sure . . . but that means we've got to reorganize pro--218-duction. . . . And frankly, Charley, that's a hel of an example to set the employees . . . boozing around the office. Last time I kept my mouth shut, but my god . . ." Charley walked over to the cooler and drew himself a couple of papercupfuls of water. "I got to celebratin' that trip to Washington last night. . . . After al , Joe, these contracts wil put us on the map. . . . How about havin'
a little drink?" Joe frowned. "You look like you'd been having plenty . . . and how about shaving before you come into the office? We expect our employees to do it, we ought to do it too. . . . For craps' sake, Charley, re-member that the war's over." Joe turned on his heel and went back to his own office.
Charley took another long pul on the flask. He was mad. "I won't take it," he muttered,
"not from him or anybody else." Then the phone rang. The foreman of the assemblyroom was standing in the door. "Please, Mr. An-derson," he said. That was the beginning of it. From then everything
seemed to go haywire. At eight o'clock that night Charley hadn't yet had a shave. He was eating a sandwich and drinking coffee out of a carton with the mechanics of the repaircrew over a busted machine. It was midnight and he was al in before he got home to the apartment. He was al ready to give Joe a piece of his mind but there wasn't an Askew in sight.
Next morning at breakfast Grace's eyebrows were raised when she poured out the coffee. "Wel , if it isn't the lost battalion," she said.
Joe Askew cleared his throat. "Charley," he said nerv-ously, "I didn't have any cal to bawl you out like that
. . . I guess I'm getting cranky in my old age. The plant's been hel on wheels al week." The two little girls began to giggle.