Big Money

by John Dos Passos

  the limeycold reek of an oysterboat in winter

  and creak of rockers on the porch of the scrollsaw cottage and uncles voices pokerface stories told sideways out of the big mouth (from Missouri who took no rubber nickels) the redskin in the buffalorobe selling snakeroot in the flare of oratorical redfire the sulphury choke and the hookandladder clanging down the redbrick street while the clinging firemen with uncles’ faces pull on their rubbercoats

  and the crunch of whitecorn muffins and coffee with cream gulped in a hurry before traintime and apartmenthouse mornings stifling with newspapers and the smooth powdery feel of new greenbacks and the whack of a cop’s billy cracking a citizen’s skull and the faces blurred with newsprint of men in jail

  the whine and shriek of the buzzsaw and the tipsy smell of raw lumber and straggling through slagheaps through fireweed through wasted woodlands the shantytowns the shantytowns

  what good burying those years in the old graveyard by the brokendown brick church that morning in the spring when the sandy lanes were streaked with blue puddles and the air was violets and pineneedles

  what good burying those hated years in the latrinestench at Brocourt under the starshells

  if today the crookedfaced customsinspector with the soft tough talk the burring speech the funnypaper antics of thick hands jerking thumb

  (So you brought home French books didjer?)

  is my uncle

  Newsreel XLVII

  boy seeking future offered opportunity . . . good positions for bright . . . CHANCE FOR ADVANCEMENT. . . boy to learn . . . errand boy . . . officeboy

  YOUNG MAN WANTED

  Oh tell me how long

  I’ll have to wait

  OPPORTUNITY

  in bank that chooses its officers from the ranks, for wideawake ambitious bookkeeper . . . architectural draftsman with experience on factory and industrial buildings in brick, timber, and reinforced concrete . . . bronze fitter . . . letterer . . . patternmaker . . . carriage painter . . . first class striper and finisher . . . young man for hosiery, underwear and notion house . . . assistant in order department . . . first class penman accurate at figures . . . energetic hardworker for setting dies in power presses for metal parts

  canvasser . . . flavor chemist . . . freight elevator man . . . house salesman . . . insurance man . . . insurance man . . . invoice clerk . . . jeweler . . . laborer . . . machinist . . . milling machine man . . . shipping clerk . . . shipping clerk . . . shipping clerk . . . shoe salesman . . . signwriter . . . solicitor for retail fishmarket . . . teacher . . . timekeeper . . . tool and diemaker, tracer, toolroom foreman, translator, typist . . . window trimmer . . . wrapper

  OPPORTUNITY FOR

  Do I get it now

  Or must I hesitate

  young man not afraid of hard work

  young man for office

  young man for stockroom

  young man as stenographer

  young man to travel

  young man to learn

  OPPORTUNITY

  Oh tell me how long

  to superintend municipal light, water and ice plant in beautiful growing, healthful town in Florida’s highlands . . . to take charge of underwear department in large wholesale mail house . . . to assist in railroad investigation . . . to take charge of about twenty men on tools, dies, gigs and gauges . . . as bookkeeper in stockroom . . . for light porter work . . . civil engineer . . . machinery and die appraiser . . . building estimator . . . electrical and power plant engineer

  The Camera Eye (44)

  the unnamed arrival

  (who had hung from the pommel of the unshod white stallion’s saddle

  a full knapsack

  and leaving the embers dying in the hollow of the barren Syrian hills where the Agail had camped when dawn sharpshining cracked night off the ridged desert had ridden towards the dungy villages and the patches of sesame and the apricotgardens)

  shaved off his beard in Damascus

  and sat drinking hot milk and coffee in front of the hotel in Beirut staring at the white hulk of Lebanon fumbling with letters piled on the table and clipped streamers of newsprint

  addressed not to the unspeaker of arabic or the clumsy scramblerup on camelback so sore in the rump from riding

  but to someone

  who

  (but this evening in the soft nightclimate of the Levantine coast the kind officials are contemplating further improvements

  scarcelybathed he finds himself cast for a role provided with a white tie carefully tied by the viceconsul stuffed into a boiled shirt a tailcoat too small a pair of dresstrousers too large which the kind wife of the kind official gigglingly fastens in the back with safetypins which immediately burst open when he bows to the High Commissioner’s lady faulty costuming makes the role of eminent explorer impossible to play and the patent leather pumps painfully squeezing the toes got lost under the table during the champagne and speeches)

  who arriving in Manhattan finds waiting again the forsomebodyelsetailored dress suit

  the position offered the opportunity presented the collarbutton digging into the adamsapple while a wooden image croaks down a table at two rows of freshlypressed gentlemen who wear fashionably their tailored names

  stuffed into shirts to caption miles lightyears of clipped streamers of newsprint

  Gentlemen I apologize it was the wrong bell it was due to a misapprehension that I found myself on the stage when the curtain rose the poem I recited in a foreign language was not mine in fact it was somebody else who was speaking it’s not me in uniform in the snapshot it’s a lamentable error mistaken identity the servicerecord was lost the gentleman occupying the swivelchair wearing the red carnation is somebody else than

  whoever it was who equipped with false whiskers was standing outside in the rainy street and has managed undetected to make himself scarce down a manhole

  the pastyfaced young man wearing somebody else’s readymade business opportunity

  is most assuredly not

  the holder of any of the positions for which he made application at the employmentagency

  Charley Anderson

  The train was three hours late getting into St. Paul. Charley had his coat on and his bag closed an hour before he got in. He sat fidgeting in the seat taking off and pulling on a pair of new buckskin gloves. He wished they wouldn’t all be down at the station to meet him. Maybe only Jim would be there. Maybe they hadn’t got his wire.

  The porter came and brushed him off, then took his bags. Charley couldn’t see much through the driving steam and snow outside the window. The train slackened speed, stopped in a broad snowswept freightyard, started again with a jerk and a series of snorts from the forced draft in the engine. The bumpers slammed all down the train. Charley’s hands were icy inside his gloves. The porter stuck his head in and yelled, “St. Paul.” There was nothing to do but get out.

  There they all were. Old man Vogel and Aunt Hartmann with their red faces and their long noses looked just the same as ever, but Jim and Hedwig had both of them filled out. Hedwig had on a mink coat and Jim’s overcoat looked darn prosperous. Jim snatched Charley’s bags away from him and Hedwig and Aunt Hartmann kissed him and old man Vogel thumped him on the back. They all talked at once and asked him all kinds of questions. When he asked about Ma, Jim frowned and said she was in the hospital, they’d go around to see her this afternoon. They piled the bags into a new Ford sedan and squeezed themselves in after with a lot of giggling and squealing from Aunt Hartmann. “You see I got the Ford agency now,” said Jim. “To tell the truth, things have been pretty good out here.” “Wait till you see the house, it’s all been done over,” said Hedwig. “Vell, my poy made de Cherman Kaiser run. Speaking for the Cherman-American commoonity of the Twin Cities, ve are pr’roud of you.”

  They had a big dinner ready and Jim gave him a drink of whiskey and old man Vogel kept pouring him out beer and saying, “Now tell us all about it.” Charley sat there his face all red, eating the
stewed chicken and the dumplings and drinking the beer till he was ready to burst. He couldn’t think what to tell them so he made funny cracks when they asked him questions. After dinner old man Vogel gave him one of his best Havana cigars.

  That afternoon Charley and Jim went to the hospital to see Ma. Driving over, Jim said she’d been operated on for a tumor but that he was afraid it was cancer, but even that hadn’t given Charley an idea of how sick she’d be. Her face was shrunken and yellow against the white pillow. When he leaned over to kiss her her lips felt thin and hot. Her breath was very bad. “Charley, I’m glad you came,” she said in a trembly voice. “It would have been better if you’d come sooner. . . . Not that I’m not comfortable here . . . any way I’ll be glad having my boys around me when I get well. God has watched over us all, Charley, we mustn’t forget Him.” “Now, Ma, we don’t want to get tired and excited,” said Jim. “We want to keep our strength to get well.”

  “Oh, but He’s been so merciful.” She brought her small hand, so thin it was blue, out from under the cover and dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. “Jim, hand me my glasses, that’s a good boy,” she said in a stronger voice. “Let me take a look at the prodigal son.”

  Charley couldn’t help shuffling his feet uneasily as she looked at him.

  “You’re quite a man now and you’ve made quite a name for yourself over there. You boys have turned out better than I hoped. . . . Charley, I was afraid you’d turn out a bum like your old man.” They all laughed. They didn’t know what to say.

  She took her glasses off again and tried to reach for the bedside table with them. The glasses dropped out of her hand and broke ontheconcretefloor. “Oh . . . my . . . never mind, I don’t need ’em much here.”

  Charley picked the pieces up and put them carefully in his vest pocket. “I’ll get ’em fixed, Ma.”

  The nurse was standing in the door beckoning with her head. “Well, goodby, see you tomorrow,” they said.

  Once they were out in the corridor Charley felt that tears were running down his face.

  “That’s how it is,” said Jim, frowning. “They keep her under dope most of the time. I thought she’d be more comfortable in a private room, but they sure do know how to charge in these damn hospitals.” “I’ll chip in on it,” said Charley. “I got a little money saved up.” “Well, I suppose it’s no more than right you should,” Jim said.

  Charley took a deep breath of the cold afternoon when they paused on the hospital steps, but he couldn’t get the smell of ether and drugs and sickness out of his head. It had come on fine with an icy wind. The snow on the streets and roofs was bright pink from the flaring sunset.

  “We’ll go down to the shop and see what’s what,” said Jim. “I told the guy works for me to call up some of the newspaperboys. I thought it would be a little free advertising if they came down to the salesroom to interview you.” Jim slapped Charley on the back. “They eat up this returnedhero stuff. String ’em along a little, won’t you?”

  Charley didn’t answer.

  “Jesus Christ, Jim, I don’t know what to tell ’em,” he said in a low voice when they got back in the car. Jim was pressing his foot on the selfstarter. “What do you think of comin’ in the business, Charley? It’s gettin’ to be a good un, I can tell you that.” “That’s nice of you, Jim. Suppose I kinder think about it.”

  When they got back to the house, they went around to the new salesroom Jim had built out from the garage, that had been a liverystable in the old days, back of old man Vogel’s house. The salesroom had a big plateglass window with Ford slanting across it in blue letters. Inside stood a new truck all shining and polished. Then there was a green carpet and a veneered mahogany desk and a telephone that pulled out on a nickel accordion bracket and an artificial palm in a fancy jardiniere in the corner. “Take your weight off your feet, Charley,” said Jim, pointing to the swivelchair and bringing out a box of cigars. “Let’s sit around and chew the rag a little.”

  Charley sat down and picked himself out a cigar. Jim stood against the radiator with his thumbs in the armholes of his vest. “What do you think of it, kid, pretty keen, ain’t it?”

  “Pretty keen, Jim.” They lit their cigars and scuffled around with their feet a little.

  Jim began again: “But it won’t do. I got to get me a big new place downtown. This used to be central. Now it’s out to hell and gone.”

  Charley kinder grunted and puffed on his cigar. Jim took a couple of steps back and forth, looking at Charley all the time. “With your connections in the Legion and aviation and all that kinder stuff, we’ll be jake. Every other Ford dealer in the district’s got a German name.”

  “Jim, can that stuff. I can’t talk to newspapermen.”

  Jim flushed and frowned and sat down on the edge of the desk. “But you got to hold up your end. . . . What do you think I’m taking you in on it for? I’m not doin’ it for my kid brother’s pretty blue eyes.”

  Charley got to his feet. “Jim, I ain’t goin’ in on it. I’m already signed up with an aviation proposition with my old C.O.”

  “Twentyfive years from now you can talk to me about aviation. Ain’t practical yet.”

  “Well, we got a couple of tricks up our sleeve. . . . We’re shootin’ the moon.”

  “That’s about the size of it.” Jim got to his feet. His lips got thin. “Well, you needn’t think you can lay around my house all winter just because you’re a war hero. If that’s your idea you’ve got another think comin’.” Charley burst out laughing. Jim came up and put his hand wheedlingly on Charley’s shoulder. “Say, those birds’ll be around here in a few minutes. You be a good feller and change into your uniform and put on all the medals. . . . Give us a break.”

  Charley stood a minute staring at the ash on his cigar. “How about givin’ me a break? Haven’t been in the house five hours and there you go pickin’ on me just like when I was workin’ back here. . . .”

  Jim was losing control of himself, he was starting to shake. “Well, you know what you can do about that,” he said, cutting his words off sharp. Charley felt like smashing him one in his damn narrow jaw. “If it wasn’t for Ma, you wouldn’t need to worry about that,” he said quietly.

  Jim didn’t answer for a minute. The wrinkles came out of his forehead. He shook his head and looked grave. “You’re right, Charley, you better stick around. If it gives her any pleasure . . .”

  Charley threw his cigar halfsmoked into the brass spittoon and walked out the door before Jim could stop him. He went to the house and got his hat and coat and went for a long walk through the soggy snow of the grey afternoon.

  They were just finishing at the suppertable when Charley got back. His supper had been set out on a plate for him at his place. Nobody spoke but old man Vogel. “Ve been tinking, dese airmen maybe dey live on air too,” he said and laughed wheezily. Nobody else laughed. Jim got up and went out of the room. As soon as Charley had swallowed his supper he said he was sleepy and went up to bed.

  Charley stayed on while November dragged on towards Thanksgiving and Christmas. His mother never seemed to be any better. Every afternoon he went over to see her for five or ten minutes. She was always cheerful. It made him feel terrible the way she talked about the goodness of God and how she was going to get better. He’d try to get her talking about Fargo and old Lizzie and the old days in the boardinghouse, but she didn’t seem to remember much about that, except about sermons she’d heard in church. He’d leave the hospital feeling weak and groggy. The rest of his time he spent looking up books on internalcombustion motors at the public library, or did odd jobs for Jim in the garage the way he used to when he was a kid.

  One evening after Newyears Charley went over to the Elks Ball in Minneapolis with a couple of fellows he knew. The big hall was full of noise and paper lanterns. He was cruising around threading his way between groups of people waiting for the next dance when he found himself looking into a thin face and blue eyes he knew. It was too late to
make out he hadn’t seen her. “Hello, Emiscah,” he said, keeping his voice as casual as he could.

  “Charley . . . my God.” He was afraid for a minute that she was going to faint. “Let’s dance,” he said.

  She felt limp in his arms. They danced a while without saying anything. She had too much rouge on her cheeks and he didn’t like the perfume she had on. After the dance they sat in a corner and talked. She wasn’t married yet. She worked in a departmentstore. No, she didn’t live at home any more, she lived in a flat with a girlfriend. He must come up. It would be like old times. He must give her his phonenumber. She supposed things seemed pretty tame to him now after all those French girls. And imagine him getting a commission, the Andersons sure were going up in the world, she guessed they’d be forgetting their old friends. Emiscah’s voice had gotten screechy and she had a way he didn’t like of putting her hand on his knee.

  As soon as he could Charley said he had a headache and had to go home. He wouldn’t wait for the guys he’d come with. The evening was ruined for him anyway, he was thinking. He rode back all alone on the interurban trolley. It was cold as blazes. It was about time he got the hell out of this dump. He really did have a splitting headache and chills.

  Next morning he was down with the flu and had to stay in bed. It was almost a relief. Hedwig brought him stacks of detective stories and Aunt Hartmann fussed over him and brought him toddies and eggflips, and all he had to do was lie there and read.

  First thing he did when he got on his feet was to go over to the hospital. Ma had had another operation and hadn’t come out of it very well. The room was darkened and she didn’t remember when she’d seen him last. She seemed to think she was home in Fargo and that he’d just come back from his trip south. She held tight to his hand and kept saying, “My son that was lost hath been returned to me . . . thank God for my boy.” It took the strength out of him so he had to sit down for a second in a wicker chair in the corridor when he left her.