U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [60]
-143-but Janey ran off and left them. Her only thought was to get to bed so that she could put her face into the pil ow and cry.
After that Janey never cried much; things upset her but she got a cold hard feeling al over instead. High-school went by fast, with hot thunderstormy Washing-ton summers in between terms, punctuated by an occa-sional picnic at Marshal Hal or a party at some house in the neighborhood. Joe got a job at the Adams Express. She didn't see him much as he didn't eat home any more. Alec had bought a motorcycle and although he was stil in highschool Janey heard little about him. Sometimes she sat up to get a word with Joe when he came home at night. He smelt of tobacco and liquor though he never seemed to be drunk. He went to his job at seven and when he got out in the evenings he went out with the bunch hanging round poolrooms on 4 ½ Street or playing craps or bowling. Sundays he played basebal in Mary-land. Janey would sit up for him, but when he came she'd ask him how things were going where he worked and
he'd say "Fine" and he'd ask her how things were going at school and she'd say "Fine" and then they'd both go off to bed. Once in a while she'd ask if he'd seen Alec and he'd say "Yes" with a scrap of a smile and she'd ask how Alec was and he'd say "Fine." She had one friend, Alice Dick, a dark stubby girl with glasses who took al the same classes with her at high-school. Saturday afternoons they'd dress up in their best and go window-shopping down F Street way. They'd buy a few little things, stop in for a soda and come home on the streetcar feeling they'd had a busy afternoon. Once in a very long while they went to a matinee at Poli's and Janey would take Alice Dick home to supper. Alice Dick liked the Wil iamses and they liked her. She said it made her feel freer to spend a few hours with broadminded people. Her own folks were Southern Methodists and
-144-very narrow. Her father was a clerk in the Government Printing Office and was in daily dread that his job would come under the civil service regulations. He was a stout shortwinded man, fond of playing practical jokes on his wife and daughter, and suffered from chronic dyspepsia. Alice Dick and Janey planned that as soon as they got through highschool they'd get jobs and leave home. They even picked out the house where they'd board, a greenstone house near Thomas Circle, run by a Mrs. Jenks, widow of a naval officer, who was very refined and had southern cooking and charged moderately for table-board. One Sunday night during the spring of her last term in highschool Janey was in her room getting undressed. Francie and El en were stil playing in the backyard. Their voices came in through the open window with a spicy waft of lilacs from the lilacbushes in the next yard. She had just let down her hair and was looking in the mirror imagining how she'd look if she was a peach and had auburn hair, when there was a knock at the door and Joe's voice outside. There was something funny about his voice.
"Come in," she cal ed. "I'm just fixin' my hair." She first saw his face in the mirror. It was very white and the skin was drawn back tight over the cheekbones and round the mouth.
"Why, what's the matter, Joe?" She jumped up and faced him.
"It's like this, Janey," said Joe, drawling his words out painful y. "Alec was kil ed. He smashed up on his motor-bike. I just come from the hospital. He's dead, al right." Janey seemed to be writing the words on a white pad in her mind. She couldn't say anything.
"He smashed up comin' home from Chevy Chase . . . He'd gone out to the bal game to see me pitch. You
oughter seen him al smashed to hel ."
-145-Janey kept trying to say something.
"He was your best . . ."
"He was the best guy I'l ever know," Joe went on gently. "Wel , that's that, Janey . . . But I wanted to tel you I don't want to hang round this lousy dump now that Alec's gone. I'm goin' to enlist in the navy. You tel the folks, see . . . I don't wanna talk to 'em.