Joe couldn’t wait to get hold of Del and tell her about it. That night he took her to the movies to see the Four Horsemen. It was darned exciting, they held hands all through and he kept his leg pressed against her plump little leg. Seeing it with her and the war and everything flickering on the screen and the music like in church and her hair against his cheek and being pressed close to her a little sweaty in the warm dark like to went to his head. When the picture was over he felt he’d go crazy if he couldn’t have her right away. She was kinder kidding him along and he got sore and said God damn it, they’d have to get married right away or else he was through. She’d held out on him just about long enough. She began to cry and turned her face up to him all wet with tears and said if he really loved her he wouldn’t talk like that and that that was no way to talk to a lady and he felt awful bad about it. When they got back to her folks’ house, everybody had gone to bed and they went out in the pantry back of the kitchen without turning the light on and she let him love her up. She said honestly she loved him so much she’d let him do anything he wanted only she knew he wouldn’t respect her if she did. She said she was sick of living at home and having her mother keep tabs on her all the time, and she’d tell her folks in the morning about how he’d got a job as a ship’s officer and they had to get married before he left and that he must get him his uniform right away.
When Joe left the house to look around and find a flop, he was walking on air. He hadn’t planned to get married that soon but what the hell, a man had to have a girl of his own. He began doping out what he’d write Janey about it, but he decided she wouldn’t like it and that he’d better not write. He wished Janey wasn’t getting so kind of uppish, but after all she was making a big success of business. When he was skipper of his own ship she’d think it was all great.
Joe was two months ashore that time. He went to shore school every day, lived at the Y.M.C.A. and didn’t take a drink or shoot pool or anything. The pay he had saved up from the two trips on the North Star was just about enough to swing it. Every week or so he went over to Newport News to talk it over with old Cap’n Perry who told him what kind of questions the examining board would ask him and what kind of papers he’d need. Joe was pretty worried about his original A.B. certificate, but he had another now and recommendations from captains of ships he’d been on. What the hell, he’d been at sea four years, it was about time he knew a little about running a ship. He almost worried himself sick over the examination, but when he was actually there standing before the old birds on the board it wasn’t as bad as he thought it ud be. When he actually got the third mate’s license and showed it to Del, they were both of them pretty tickled.
Joe bought his uniform when he got an advance of pay. From then on he was busy all day doing odd jobs round the drydock for old Cap’n Perry who hadn’t gotten a crew together yet. Then in the evenings he worked painting up the little bedroom, kitchenette and bath he’d rented for him and Del to live in when he was ashore. Del’s folks insisted on having a church wedding and Will Stirp, who was making fifteen dollars a day in a shipyard in Baltimore, came down to be best man.
Joe felt awful silly at the wedding and Will Stirp had gotten hold of some whiskey and had a breath like a distillery wagon and a couple of the other boys were drunk and that made Del and her folks awful sore and Del looked like she wanted to crown him all through the service. When it was over Joe found he’d wilted his collar and Del’s old man began pulling a lot of jokes and her sisters giggled so much in their white organdy dresses, he could have choked ’em. They went back to the Matthews’ house and everybody was awful stiff except Will Stirp and his friends who brought in a bottle of whiskey and got old man Matthews cockeyed. Mrs. Matthews ran ’em all out of the house and all the old cats from the Ladies Aid rolled their eyes up and said, “Could you imagine it?” And Joe and Del left in a taxicab a feller he knew drove and everybody threw rice at them and Joe found he had a sign reading Newlywed pinned on the tail of his coat and Del cried and cried and when they got to their apartment Del locked herself in the bathroom and wouldn’t answer when he called and he was afraid she’d fainted.
Joe took off his new blue serge coat and his collar and necktie and walked up and down not knowing what to do. It was six o’clock in the evening. He had to be aboard ship at midnight because they were sailing for France as soon as it was day. He didn’t know what to do. He thought maybe she’d want something to eat so he cooked up some bacon and eggs on the stove. By the time everything was cold and Joe was walking up and down cussing under his breath, Del came out of the bathroom looking all fresh and pink like nothing had happened. She said she couldn’t eat anything but let’s go to a movie…“But, honeybug,” said Joe, “I’ve got to pull out at twelve.” She began to cry again and he flushed and felt awful fussed. She snuggled up to him and said, “We won’t stay for the feature. We’ll come back in time.” He grabbed her and started hugging her but she held him off firmly and said, “Later.”
Joe couldn’t look at the picture. When they got back to the apartment it was ten o’clock. She let him pull off her clothes but she jumped into bed and wrapped the bedclothes around her and whimpered that she was afraid of having a baby, that he must wait till she found out what to do to keep from having a baby. All she let him do was rub up against her through the bedclothes and then suddenly it was ten of twelve and he had to jump into his clothes and run down to the wharf. An old colored man rowed him out to where his ship lay at anchor. It was a sweetsmelling spring night without any moon. He heard honking overhead and tried to squint up his eyes to see the birds passing against the pale stars. “Them’s geese, boss,” said the old colored man in a soft voice. When he climbed onboard everybody started kidding him and declared he looked all wore out. Joe didn’t know what to say so he talked big and kidded back and lied like a fish.
Newsreel XXI
Goodby Broadway
Hello France
We’re ten million strong
8 YEAR OLD BOY SHOT BY LAD WITH RIFLE
the police have already notified us that any entertainment in Paris must be brief and quietly conducted and not in public view and that we have already had more dances than we ought
capitalization grown 104 % while business expands 520%
HAWAIIAN SUGAR CONTROL LOST BY GERMANS
efforts of the Bolshevik Government to discuss the withdrawal of the U.S. and allied forces from Russia through negotiation for an armistice are attracting no serious attention
BRISTISH AIRMAN FIGHTS SIXTY FOES
SERBIANS ADVANCE 10 MILES; TAKE 10 TOWNS;
MENACE PRILEP
Good morning
Mr. Zip Zip Zip
You’re surely looking fine
Good morning
Mr. Zip Zip Zip
With your hair cut just as short as
With your hair cut just as short as