U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [497]
"Wel , they know I'm regular, been through the mil
. . . understand their point of view. It wasn't so long ago I was workin' at a lathe myself." Charley felt good. He poured them each another drink. Margo took his and poured half of the rye back into the bottle. "Don't want to get too cockeyed, Mr. A," she said in that new low caressing voice.
Charley grabbed her to him and kissed her hard on the mouth. "Christ, if you only knew how I've wanted to have a real y swel woman al to myself. I've had some awful bitches . .
. Gladys, God, what a bitch she was. She pretty near ruined me . . . tried to strip me of every cent I had in the world . . . ganged up on me with guys I thought were my friends. . . . But you just watch, little girl. I'm goin' to show 'em. In five years they'l come crawlin' to me on their bel ies. I don't know what it is, but I got a kind of feel for the big money . . . Nat Benton says I got it . . . I know I got it. I can travel on a hunch, see. Those bastards al had money to begin with." After they'd ordered their supper and while they were having just one little drink waiting for it, Margo brought out some bil s she had in her handbag. "Sure, I'l handle
'em right away." Charley shoved them into his pocket without looking at them. "You know, Mr. A, I wouldn't have to worry you about things like that if I had an ac-count in my own name.""How about ten grand in the First National Bank when we get to Miami?"
"Suit yourself, Charley . . . I never did understand
-359-more money than my week's salary, you know that. That's al any real trouper understands. I got cleaned out fixing the folks up in Trenton. It certainly costs money to die in this man's country."
Charley's eyes fil ed with tears. "Was it your dad, Margery?" She made a funny face. "Oh, no. The old man bumped off from too much Keeley cure when I was a little twirp with my hair down my back. . . . This was my step-mother's second husband. I'm fond of my stepmother, be-lieve it or not. . . . She's been the only friend I had in this world. I'l tel you about her someday. It's quite a story."
"How much did it cost? I'l take care of it." Margo shook her head. "I never loaded my relations on any man's back," she said.
When the waiter came in with a tray ful of big silver dishes fol owed by a second waiter pushing in a table already set, Margo pul ed apart from Charley. "Wel , this is the life," she whispered in a way that made him laugh. Driving down was a circus. The weather was good. As they went further south there began to be a green fuzz of spring on the woods. There were flowers in the pinebar-rens. Birds were singing. The car ran like a dream. Charley kept her at sixty on the concrete roads, driving careful y, enjoying the driving, the good fourwheel brakes, the easy whir of the motor under the hood. Margo was a smart girl and crazy about him and kept making funny cracks. They drank just enough to keep them feeling good. They made Savannah late that night and felt so good they got so tight there the manager threatened to run them out of the big old hotel. That was when Margo threw an ashtray through the transom.
They'd been too drunk to have much fun in bed that
night and woke up with a taste of copper in their mouths and horrible heads. Margo looked haggard and green and
-360-saggy under the eyes before she went in to take her bath. Charley made her a prairie oyster for breakfast like he said the English aviators used to make over on the other side, and she threw it right up without breaking the eggyolk. She made him come and look at it in the toilet before she pul ed the chain. There was the raw eggyolk looking up at them like it had just come out of the shel . They couldn't help laughing about it in spite of their heads. It was eleven o'clock when they pul ed out. Charley drove kind of easy along the winding road through the wooded section of southern Georgia, cut with inlets and saltmarshes from which cranes flew up and once a white flock of egrets. They