Beyond the Mississippi dawn creeps up behind through the murk over the great plains. Puddles of mist go white in the Iowa hills, farms, fences, silos, steel glint from a river. The blinking eyes of the beacons reddening into day. Watercourses vein the eroded hills.
Omaha. Great cumulus clouds, from coppery churning to creamy to silvery white, trail brown skirts of rain over the hot plains. Red and yellow badlands, tiny horned shapes of cattle.
Cheyenne. The cool high air smells of sweetgrass.
The tightbaled clouds to westward burst and scatter in tatters over the strawcolored hills. Indigo mountains jut rimrock. The plane breasts a huge crumbling cloudbank and toboggans over bumpy air across green and crimson slopes into the sunny dazzle of Salt Lake.
The transcontinental passenger thinks contracts, profits, vacationtrips, mighty continent between Atlantic and Pacific, power, wires humming dollars, cities jammed, hills empty, the indiantrail leading into the wagonroad, the macadamed pike, the concrete skyway; trains, planes: history the billiondollar speedup,
and in the bumpy air over the desert ranges towards Las Vegas
sickens and vomits into the carton container the steak and mushrooms he ate in New York. No matter, silver in the pocket, greenbacks in the wallet, drafts, certified checks, plenty restaurants in L.A.)
The young man waits on the side of the road; the plane has gone; thumb moves in a small arc when a car tears hissing past. Eyes seek the driver’s eyes. A hundred miles down the road. Head swims, belly tightens, wants crawl over his skin like ants:
went to school, books said opportunity, ads promised speed, own your home, shine bigger than your neighbor, the radiocrooner whispered girls, ghosts of platinum girls coaxed from the screen, millions in winnings were chalked up on the boards in the offices, paychecks were for hands willing to work, the cleared desk of an executive with three telephones on it;
waits with swimming head, needs knot the belly; idle hands numb, beside the speeding traffic.
A hundred miles down the road.
About the Author
Born in Chicago on January 14, 1896, JOHN DOS PASSOS is one of the most well known writers of our time. He graduated cum laude from Harvard College in 1916 and went on to serve in the United States Medical Corps during the remainder of World War I. Upon his return Dos Passos began writing for several newspapers and magazines. His first novel, One Man’s Initiation, published in 1920, was inspired by his involvement in World War I. Dos Passos went on to publish more than forty books, fiction and nonfiction, focusing on social and political issues and customarily taking an extreme leftist approach. He was one of the most adept chroniclers in the twentieth century of the difficulties of the American working class and the decadence of the well-to-do. While his political views eventually grew more conservative, in his writing he still strove to create an accurate reflection of American culture throughout his career. Some consider Dos Passos’s most important work to be the U.S.A. trilogy. Among his other well-known titles are Three Soldiers, Manhattan Transfer, and District of Columbia. In his later years he made his home with his wife on a Westmoreland County, Virginia, property previously owned by his father. John Dos Passos died in 1970 at the age of seventy-four.