U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [541]
Late that night she went through al the Italian restau-rants on Hanover Street looking for an anarchist Stevens wanted to see. Every place was empty. There was a hush over everything. Death watch. People kept away from each other as if to avoid some contagion. At the back of a room in a little upstairs speakeasy she saw Jerry Burn-ham sitting alone at a table with a jigger of whiskey and a bottle of gingerale in front of him. His face was white as a napkin and he was teetering gently in his chair. He stared at her without seeing her. The waiter was bending over him shaking him. He was hopelessly drunk.
It was a relief to run back to the office where Stevens was stil trying to line up a general strike. He gave her a searching look when she came in. "Failed again," she said bitterly. He put down the telephone receiver, got to
-458-his feet, strode over to the line of hooks on the grimy yel ow wal and got down his hat and coat. "Mary French, you're deadtired. I'm going to take you home." They had to walk around several blocks to avoid the cordon of police guarding the State House.
"Ever played tug of war?" Don was saying. "You pul with al your might but the other guys are heavier and you feel your-self being dragged their way. You're being pul ed for-ward faster than you're pul ing back. . . . Don't let me talk like a defeatist. . . . We're not a couple of god-damned liberals," he said and burst into a dry laugh.
"Don't you hate lawyers?" They were standing in front of the bowfronted brick house where she had her room.
"Goodnight, Don," she said. "Goodnight, Mary, try and sleep." Monday was like another Sunday. She woke late. It
was an agony getting out of bed. It was a fight to put on her clothes, to go down to the office and face the de-feated eyes. The people she met on the street seemed to look away from her when she passed them. Death watch. The streets were quiet, even the traffic seemed muffled as if the whole city were under the terror of dying that night. The day passed in a monotonous mumble of words, col-umns in newspapers, telephone cal s. Death watch. That night she had a moment of fierce excitement when she and Don started for Charlestown to join the protest pa-rade. She hadn't expected they'd be so many. Gusts of singing, scattered bars of the International burst and faded above the packed heads between the blank windows of the dingy houses. Death watch. On one side of her was a little man with eyeglasses who said he was a musicteacher, on the other a Jewish girl, a member of the Ladies' Ful -fashioned Hosiery Workers. They linked arms. Don was in the front rank, a little ahead. They were crossing the bridge. They were walking on cobbles on a badlylighted
-459-street under an elevated structure. Trains roared overhead.
"Only a few blocks from Charlestown jail," a voice yel ed. This time the cops were using their clubs. There was the clatter of the horses' hoofs on the cobbles and the whack thud whack thud of the clubs. And way off the jangle jangle of patrolwagons. Mary was terribly scared. A big truck was bearing down on her. She