U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [565]
make love to Pat she turned to him and said, "Oh, Dick, do take me some place low. . . nobody'l ever take me
-514-any place real y low.""I should think this would be quite low enough for a juniorleaguer," he said. "But this is more respectable than Broadway, and I'm not a juniorleaguer I'm the new woman." Dick burst out laughing. They both laughed and had a drink on it and felt fond of each other again and Dick suddenly asked her why couldn't they be together always. "I think you're mean. This isn't any place to propose to a girl. Imagine remembering al your life that you'd got engaged in Harlem. . . . I want to see life." "Al right, young lady, we'l go. . . but don't blame me if it's too rough for you." "I'm not a sissy," said Pat angrily. "I know it wasn't the stork." Dick paid and they finished up one of the pints. Outside it was snowing. Streets and stoops and pavements were white, innocent, quiet, glittering under the streetlights with freshfal en snow. Dick asked the whiteeyed black doorman about a dump he'd heard of and the doorman
gave the taximan the address. Dick began to feel good.
"Gosh, Pat, isn't this lovely," he kept crying. "Those kids can't take it. Takes us grownups to take it. . . . Say, Reg-gie's getting too fresh, do you know it?" Pat held his hand tight. Her cheeks were flushed and her face had a taut look. "Isn't it exciting?" she said. The taxi stopped in front of an unpainted basement door with one electriclightbulb haloed with snowflakes above it.
they had a hard time getting in. There were no white people there at al . It was a furnaceroom set around with plain kitchen tables and chairs. The steampipes overhead, were hung with colored paper streamers. A big brown woman in a pink dress, big eyes rol ing loose in their dark sockets and twitching lips, led them to a table. She seemed to take a shine to Pat. "Come right on in, darlin'," she said. "Where's you been al my life?" Their whiskey was gone so they drank gin. Things got to whirling round in Dick's head. He couldn't get off the subject of how sore he was at that little squirt Reggie.
-515-Here Dick had been nursing him along in the office for a year and now he goes smartaleck on him. The little twirp. The only music was a piano where a slimwaisted black man was tickling the ivories. Dick and Pat danced and danced and he whirled her around until the sealskin browns and the highyal ers cheered and clapped. Then Dick slipped and dropped her. She went spinning into a table where some girls were sitting. Dark heads went back, pink rubber lips stretched, mouths opened. Gold teeth and ivories let out a roar.
Pat was dancing with a pale pretty mulatto girl in a yel ow dress. Dick was dancing with a softhanded brown boy in a tightfitting suit the color of his skin. The boy was whispering in Dick's ear that his name was Gloria Swan-son. Dick suddenly broke away from him and went over to Pat and pul ed her away from the girl. Then he ordered drinks al around that changed sul en looks into smiles again. He had trouble getting Pat into her coat. The fat woman was very helpful. "Sure, honey," she said, "you don't want to go on drinkin' tonight, spoil your lovely looks." Dick hugged her and gave her a tendol ar bil . In the taxi Pat had hysterics and punched and bit at him when he held her tight to try to keep her from opening the door and jumping out into the snow. "You spoil every-thing. . . . You can't think of anybody except yourself," she yel ed. "You'l never go through with anything.""But, Pat, honestly," he was whining, "I thought it was time to draw. the line." By the time the taxi drew up in front of the big square apartmenthouse