Mary reeled, suddenly feeling drunk in the cold air and Ada put her arm round her to steady her. “Oh, Mary,” Ada said in her ear, “I wish everybody wasn’t so unhappy.”
“It’s the waste,” Mary cried out savagely, suddenly able to articulate. Ada and George Barrow were helping her into the cab. “The food they waste and the money they waste while our people starve in tarpaper barracks.” “The contradictions of capitalism,” said George Barrow with a knowing leer. “How about a bite to eat?”
“Take me home first. No, not to Ada’s,” Mary almost yelled. “I’m sick of this parasite life. I’m going back to the office tomorrow… I’ve got to call up tonight to see if they got in all right with that load of condensed milk…” She picked up Ada’s hand, suddenly feeling like old times again, and squeezed it. “Ada, you’ve been sweet, honestly you’ve saved my life.”
“Ada’s the perfect cure for hysterical people like us,” said George Barrow. The taxi had stopped beside the row of garbagecans in front of the house where Mary lived. “No, I can walk up alone,” she said harshly and angrily again. “It’s just that being tiredout a drink makes me feel funny. Goodnight. I’ll get my bag at your place tomorrow.” Ada and Barrow went off in the taxicab with their heads together chatting and laughing. They’ve forgotten me already, thought Mary as she made her way up the stairs. She made the stairs all right but had some trouble getting the key in the lock. When the door finally would open she went straight to the couch in the front room and lay down and fell heavily asleep.
In the morning she felt more rested than she had in years. She got up early and ate a big breakfast with bacon and eggs at Childs on the way to the office. Rudy Goldfarb was already there, sitting at her desk.
He got up and stared at her without speaking for a moment. His eyes were red and bloodshot and his usually sleek black hair was all over his forehead. “What’s the matter, Rudy?”
“Comrade French, they got Eddy.”
“You mean they arrested him.”
“Arrested him nothing, they shot him.”
“They killed him.” Mary felt a wave of nausea rising in her. The room started to spin around. She clenched her fists and the room fell into place again. Rudy was telling her how some miners had found the truck wrecked in a ditch. At first they thought that it had been an accident but when they picked up Eddy Spellman he had a bullethole through his temple.
“We’ve got to have a protest meeting… do they know about it over at the Party?”
“Sure, they’re trying to get Madison Square Garden. But, Comrade French, he was one hell of a swell kid.” Mary was shaking all over. The phone rang. Rudy answered it. “Comrade French, they want you over there right away. They want you to be secretary of the committee for the protest meeting.” Mary let herself drop into the chair at her desk for a moment and began noting down the names of organizations to be notified. Suddenly she looked up and looked Rudy straight in the eye. “Do you know what we’ve got to do… we’ve got to move the relief committee to Pittsburgh. I knew all along we ought to have been in Pittsburgh.”
“Risky business.”
“We ought to have been in Pittsburgh all along,” Mary said firmly and quietly.
The phone rang again.
“It’s somebody for you, Comrade French.”
As soon as the receiver touched Mary’s ear there was Ada talking and talking. At first Mary couldn’t make out what it was about. “But, Mary darling, haven’t you read the papers?” “No, I said I hadn’t. You mean about Eddy Spellman?” “No, darling, it’s too awful, you re member we were just there yesterday for a cocktail party… you must remember, Eveline Johnson, it’s so awful. I’ve sent out and got all the papers. Of course the tabloids all say it’s suicide.” “Ada, I don’t understand.” “But, Mary, I’m trying to tell you… I’m so upset I can’t talk… she was such a lovely woman, so talented, an artist really… Well, when the maid got there this morning she found her dead in her bed and we were just there twelve hours before. It gives me the horrors. Some of the papers say it was an overdose of a sleeping medicine. She couldn’t have meant to do it. If we’d only known we might have been able to do something, you know she said she had a headache. Don’t you think you could come up, I can’t stay here alone I feel so terrible.” “Ada, I can’t… Something very serious has happened in Pennsylvania. I have a great deal of work to do organizing a protest. Goodby, Ada.” Mary hung up, frowning.
“Say, Rudy, if Ada Cohn calls up again tell her I’m out of the office… I have too much to do to spend my time taking care of hysterical women a day like this.” She put on her hat, collected her papers, and hurried over to the meeting of the committee.
Vag
The young man waits at the edge of the concrete, with one hand he grips a rubbed suitcase of phony leather, the other hand almost making a fist, thumb up
that moves in ever so slight an arc when a car slithers past, a truck roars clatters; the wind of cars passing ruffles his hair, slaps grit in his face.
Head swims, hunger has twisted the belly tight,
he has skinned a heel through the torn sock, feet ache in the broken shoes, under the threadbare suit carefully brushed off with the hand, the torn drawers have a crummy feel, the feel of having slept in your clothes; in the nostrils lingers the staleness of discouraged carcasses crowded into a transient camp, the carbolic stench of the jail, on the taut cheeks the shamed flush from the boring eyes of cops and deputies, railroadbulls (they eat three squares a day, they are buttoned into wellmade clothes, they have wives to sleep with, kids to play with after supper, they work for the big men who buy their way, they stick their chests out with the sureness of power behind their backs). Git the hell out, scram. Know what’s good for you, you’ll make yourself scarce. Gittin’ tough, eh? Think you kin take it, eh?
The punch in the jaw, the slam on the head with the nightstick, the wrist grabbed and twisted behind the back, the big knee brought up sharp into the crotch,
the walk out of town with sore feet to stand and wait at the edge of the hissing speeding string of cars where the reek of ether and lead and gas melts into the silent grassy smell of the earth.
Eyes black with want seek out the eyes of the drivers, a hitch, a hundred miles down the road.
Overhead in the blue a plane drones. Eyes follow the silver Douglas that flashes once in the sun and bores its smooth way out of sight into the blue.
(The transcontinental passengers sit pretty, big men with bankaccounts, highlypaid jobs, who are saluted by doormen; telephonegirls say goodmorning to them. Last night after a fine dinner, drinks with friends, they left Newark. Roar of climbing motors slanting up into the inky haze. Lights drop away. An hour staring along a silvery wing at a big lonesome moon hurrying west through curdling scum. Beacons flash in a line across Ohio.
At Cleveland the plane drops banking in a smooth spiral, the string of lights along the lake swings in a circle. Climbing roar of the motors again; slumped in the soft seat drowsing through the flat moonlight night.
Chi. A glimpse of the dipper. Another spiral swoop from cool into hot air thick with dust and the reek of burnt prairies.