Wind rattling the windowframes wakened her. John was far away, the other side of the big bed. With the wind and the rain streaming in the window it was as if the room and the big bed and everything were moving, running forward like an airship over the sea. Oh it rained forty days… Through a crack in the cold stiffness the little tune trickled warm as blood… And it rained forty nights. Gingerly she drew a hand over her husband’s hair. He screwed his face up in his sleep and whined ‘Dont’ in a littleboy’s voice that made her giggle. She lay giggling on the far edge of the bed, giggling desperately as she used to with girls at school. And the rain lashed through the window and the song grew louder until it was a brass band in her ears:
Jimmy Herf sits opposite Uncle Jeff. Each has before him on a blue plate a chop, a baked potato, a little mound of peas and a sprig of parsley.
‘Well look about you Jimmy,’ says Uncle Jeff. Bright topstory light brims the walnutpaneled diningroom, glints twistedly on silver knives and forks, gold teeth, watch-chains, scarfpins, is swallowed up in the darkness of broadcloth and tweed, shines roundly on polished plates and bald heads and covers of dishes. ‘Well what do you think of it?’ asks Uncle Jeff burying his thumbs in the pockets of his fuzzy buff vest.
‘It’s a fine club all right,’ says Jimmy.
‘The wealthiest and the most successful men in the country eat lunch up here. Look at the round table in the corner. That’s the Gausenheimers’ table. Just to the left.’… Uncle Jeff leans forward lowering his voice, ‘the man with the powerful jaw is J. Wilder Laporte.’ Jimmy cuts into his muttonchop without answering. ‘Well Jimmy, you probably know why I brought you down here… I want to talk to you. Now that your poor mother has… has been taken, Emily and I are your guardians in the eyes of the law and the executors of poor Lily’s will… I want to explain to you just how things stand.’ Jimmy puts down his knife and fork and sits staring at his uncle, clutching the arms of his chair with cold hands, watching the jowl move blue and heavy above the ruby stickpin in the wide satin cravat. ‘You are sixteen now aren’t you Jimmy?’
‘Yes sir.’
‘Well it’s this way… When your mother’s estate is all settled up you’ll find yourself in the possession of approximately fiftyfive hundred dollars. Luckily you are a bright fellow and will be ready for college early. Now, properly husbanded that sum ought to see you through Columbia, since you insist on going to Columbia… I myself, and I’m sure your Aunt Emily feels the same way about it, would much rather see you go to Yale or Princeton… You are a very lucky fellow in my estimation. At your age I was sweeping out an office in Fredericksburg and earning fifteen dollars a month. Now what I wanted to say was this… I have not noticed that you felt sufficient responsibility about moneymatters… er… sufficient enthusiasm about earning your living, making good in a man’s world. Look around you… Thrift and enthusiasm has made these men what they are. It’s made me, put me in the position to offer you the comfortable home, the cultured surroundings that I do offer you… I realize that your education has been a little peculiar, that poor Lily did not have quite the same ideas that we have on many subjects, but the really formative period of your life is beginning. Now’s the time to take a brace and lay the foundations of your future career… What I advise is that you follow James’s example and work your way up through the firm… From now on you are both sons of mine… It will mean hard work but it’ll eventually offer a very substantial opening. And dont forget this, if a man’s a success in New York, he’s a success!’ Jimmy sits watching his uncle’s broad serious mouth forming words, without tasting the juicy mutton of the chop he is eating. ‘Well what are you going to make of yourself?’ Uncle Jeff leaned towards him across the table with bulging gray eyes.
Jimmy chokes on a piece of bread, blushes, at last stammers weakly, ‘Whatever you say Uncle Jeff.’
‘Does that mean you’ll go to work for a month this summer in my office? Get a taste of how it feels to make a living, like a man in a man’s world, get an idea of how the business is run?’ Jimmy nods his head. ‘Well I think you’ve come to a very sensible decision,’ booms Uncle Jeff leaning back in his chair so that the light strikes across the wave of his steelgray hair. ‘By the way what’ll you have for dessert?… Years from now Jimmy, when you are a successful man with a business of your own we’ll remember this talk. It’s the beginning of your career.’
The hatcheck girl smiles from under the disdainful pile of her billowy blond hair when she hands Jimmy his hat that looks squashed flat and soiled and limp among the big-bellied derbies and the fedoras and the majestic panamas hanging on the pegs. His stomach turns a somersault with the drop of the elevator. He steps out into the crowded marble hall. For a moment not knowing which way to go, he stands back against the wall with his hands in his pockets, watching people elbow their way through the perpetually revolving doors; softcheeked girls chewing gum, hat-chetfaced girls with bangs, creamfaced boys his own age, young toughs with their hats on one side, sweatyfaced messengers, crisscross glances, sauntering hips, red jowls masticating cigars, sallow concave faces, flat bodies of young men and women, paunched bodies of elderly men, all elbowing, shoving, shuffling, fed in two endless tapes through the revolving doors out into Broadway, in off Broadway. Jimmy fed in a tape in and out the revolving doors, noon and night and morning, the revolving doors grinding out his years like sausage meat. All of a sudden his muscles stiffen. Uncle Jeff and his office can go plumb to hell. The words are so loud inside him he glances to one side and the other to see if anyone heard him say them.
They can all go plumb to hell. He squares his shoulders and shoves his way to the revolving doors. His heel comes down on a foot. ‘For crissake look where yer steppin.’ He’s out in the street. A swirling wind down Broadway blows grit in his mouth and eyes. He walks down towards the Battery with the wind in his back. In Trinity Churchyard stenographers and officeboys are eating sandwiches among the tombs. Outlandish people cluster outside steamship lines; towhaired Norwegians, broadfaced Swedes, Polacks, swarthy stumps of men that smell of garlic from the Mediterranean, mountainous Slavs, three Chinamen, a bunch of Lascars. On the little triangle in front of the Customhouse, Jim Herf turns and stares long up the deep gash of Broadway, facing the wind squarely. Uncle Jeff and his office can go plumb to hell.
Bud sat on the edge of his cot and stretched out his arms and yawned. From all round through a smell of sweat and sour breath and wet clothes came snores, the sound of men stirring in their sleep, creaking of bedsprings. Far away through the murk burned a single electric light. Bud closed his eyes and let his head fall over on his shoulder. O God I want to go to sleep. Sweet Jesus I want to go to sleep. He pressed his knees together against his clasped hands to keep them from trembling. Our father which art in Heaven I want to go to sleep.