U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [566]
-516-When he got outside the door he found the taxi waiting for him. He'd forgotten to pay the driver. He couldn't stand to go home. He didn't feel drunk, he felt immensely venturesome and cool and innocently excited. Patricia Doolittle he hated more than anybody in the world. "The bitch," he kept saying aloud. He wondered how it would be to go back to the dump and see what happened and there he was being kissed by the fat woman who wiggled her breasts as she hugged him and cal ed him her own lovin' chile, with a bottle of gin in his hand pouring drinks for everybody and dancing cheek to cheek with Gloria Swanson who was humming in his ear: Do I get it now
. . . or must I he. . . esitate.
It was morning. Dick was shouting the party couldn't break up, they must al come to breakfast with him. Every-body was gone and he was getting into a taxicab with Gloria and a strapping black buck he said was his girl-friend Florence. He had a terrible time getting his key in the lock. He tripped and fel towards the paleblue light seeping through his mother's lace curtains in the windows. Something very soft tapped him across the back of the head.
He woke up undressed in his own bed. It was broad
daylight. The phone was ringing. He let it ring. He sat up. He felt lightheaded but not sick. He put his hand to his ear and it came away al bloody. It must have been a stocking ful of sand that hit him. He got to his feet. He felt tottery but he could walk. His head began to ache like thunder. He reached for the place on the table he usual y left his watch. No watch. His clothes were neatly hung on a chair. He found the wal et in its usual place, but the rol of bil s was gone. He sat down on the edge of the bed. Of al the damn fools. Never never never take a risk like that again. Now they knew his name his address his phone-number. Blackmail, oh, Christ. How would it be when Mother came home from Florida to find her son earning
-517-twentyfive thousand a year, junior partner of J. Ward Moorehouse being blackmailed by two nigger whores,
male prostitutes receivifig males? Christ. And Pat Doo-little and the Bingham girls. It would ruin his life. For a second he thought of going into the kitchenette and turn-ing on the gas. He pul ed himself together and took a bath. Then he dressed careful y and put on his hat and coat and went out. It was only nine o'clock. He saw the time in a jeweler's window on Lexington. There was a mirror in the same win-dow. He looked at his face. Didn't look so bad, would look worse later, but he needed a shave and had to do something about the clotted blood on his ear. He didn't have any money but he had his checkbook.
He walked to a Turkish bath near the Grand Central. The attendants kidded him about what a fight he'd been in. He began to get over his scare a little and to talk big about what he'd done to the other guy. They took his check al right and he even was able to buy a drink to have before his breakfast. When he got to the office his head was stil split-ting but he felt in fair shape. He had to keep his hands in his pockets so that Miss Hil es shouldn't see how they shook. Thank God he didn't have to sign any letters til afternoon. Ed Griscolm came in and sat on his desk and talked
about J. W.'s condition and the Bingham account and Dick was sweet as sugar to him. Ed Griscolm talked big about an offer he'd had from Halsey, but Dick said of course he couldn't advise him but that as for him the one place in the country he wanted to be was right here, especial y now as there were bigger things in sight than there had ever been before, he and J. W. had had a long talk going down on the train. "I guess you're'