Dutch Robertson sat on a bench on Brooklyn Bridge with the collar of his army overcoat turned up, running his eye down Business Opportunities. It was a muggy fogchoked afternoon; the bridge was dripping and aloof like an arbor in a dense garden of steamboatwhistles. Two sailors passed. ‘Ze best joint I’ve been in since B.A.’
Partner movie theater, busy neighborhood… stand investigation… $3,000… Jez I haven’t got three thousand mills… Cigar stand, busy building, compelled sacrifice… Attractive and completely outfitted radio and music shop… busy… Modern mediumsized printingplant consisting of cylinders, Kelleys, Miller feeders, job presses, linotype machines and a complete bindery… Kosher restaurant and delicatessen… Bowling alley… busy… Live spot large dancehall and other concessions. WE BUY FALSE TEETH, old gold, platinum, old jewelry. The hell they do. HELP WANTED MALE. That’s more your speed you rummy. Addressers, first class penmen… Lets me out… Artist, Attendant, Auto, Bicycle and Motorcycle repair shop… He took out the back of an envelope and marked down the address. Bootblacks… Not yet. Boy; no I guess I aint a boy any more, Candy-store, Canvassers, Carwashers, Dishwasher. EARN WHILE YOU LEARN. Mechanical dentistry is your shortest way to success… No dull seasons…
‘Hello Dutch… I thought I’d never get here.’ A grayfaced girl in a red hat and gray rabbit coat sat down beside him.
‘Jez I’m sick o readin want ads.’ He stretched out his arms and yawned letting the paper slip down his legs.
‘Aint you chilly, sittin out here on the bridge?’
‘Maybe I am… Let’s go and eat.’ He jumped to his feet and put his red face with its thin broken nose close to hers and looked in her black eyes with his pale gray eyes. He tapped her arm sharply. ‘Hello Francie… How’s my lil girl?’
They walked back towards Manhattan, the way she had come. Under them the river glinted through the mist. A big steamer drifted by slowly, lights already lit; over the edge of the walk they looked down the black smokestacks.
‘Was it a boat as big as that you went overseas on Dutch?’
‘Bigger ’n that.’
‘Gee I’d like to go.’
‘I’ll take you over some time and show you all them places over there… I went to a lot of places that time I went A.W.O.L.’
In the L station they hesitated. ‘Francie got any jack on you?’
‘Sure I got a dollar… I ought to keep that for tomorrer though.’
‘All I got’s my last quarter. Let’s go eat two fiftyfive cent dinners at that chink place… That’ll be a dollar ten.’
‘I got to have a nickel to get down to the office in the mornin.’
‘Oh Hell! Goddam it I wish we could have some money.’
‘Got anything lined up yet?’
‘Wouldn’t I have told ye if I had?’
‘Come ahead I’ve got a half a dollar saved up in my room. I can take carfare outa that.’ She changed the dollar and put two nickels into the turnstile. They sat down in a Third Avenue train.
‘Say Francie will they let us dance in a khaki shirt?’
‘Why not Dutch it looks all right.’
‘I feel kinder fussed about it.’
The jazzband in the restaurant was playing Hindustan. It smelled of chop suey and Chinese sauce. They slipped into a booth. Slickhaired young men and little bobhaired girls were dancing hugged close. As they sat down they smiled into each other’s eyes.
‘Jez I’m hungry.’
‘Are you Dutch?’
He pushed forward his knees until they locked with hers. ‘Gee you’re a good kid,’ he said when he had finished his soup. ‘Honest I’ll get a job this week. And then we’ll get a nice room an get married an everything.’
When they got up to dance they were trembling so they could barely keep time to the music.
‘Mister… no dance without ploper dless…’ said a dapper Chinaman putting his hand on Dutch’s arm.
‘Waz he want?’ he growled dancing on.
‘I guess it’s the shirt, Dutch.’
‘The hell it is.’
‘I’m tired. I’d rather talk than dance anyway…’ They went back to their booth and their sliced pineapple for dessert.
Afterwards they walked east along Fourteenth. ‘Dutch cant we go to your room?’
‘I ain’t got no room. The old stiff wont let me stay and she’s got all my stuff. Honest if I dont get a job this week I’m goin to a recruiting sergeant an re-enlist.’
‘Oh dont do that; we wouldn’t ever get married then Dutch… Gee though why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I didn’t want to worry you Francie… Six months out of work… Jez it’s enough to drive a guy cookoo.’
‘But Dutch where can we go?’
‘We might go out that wharf… I know a wharf.’
‘It’s so cold.’
‘I couldn’t get cold when you were with me kid.’
‘Dont talk like that… I dont like it.’
They walked leaning together in the darkness up the muddy rutted riverside streets, between huge swelling gastanks, broken-down fences, long manywindowed warehouses. At a corner under a streetlamp a boy catcalled as they passed.
‘I’ll poke your face in you little bastard,’ Dutch let fly out of the corner of his mouth.
‘Dont answer him,’ Francie whispered, ‘or we’ll have the whole gang down on us.’
They slipped through a little door in a tall fence above which crazy lumberpiles towered. They could smell the river and cedarwood and sawdust. They could hear the river lapping at the piles under their feet. Dutch drew her to him and pressed his mouth down on hers.
‘Hay dere dont you know you cant come out here at night disaway?’ a voice yapped at them. The watchman flashed a lantern in their eyes.
‘All right keep your shirt on, we were just taking a little walk.’
‘Some walk.’
They were dragging themselves down the street again with the black riverwind in their teeth.
‘Look out.’ A policeman passed whistling softly to himself. They drew apart. ‘Oh Francie they’ll be takin us to the nuthouse if we keep this up. Let’s go to your room.’
‘Landlady’ll throw me out, that’s all.’
‘I wont make any noise… You got your key aint ye? I’ll sneak out before light. Goddam it they make you feel like a skunk.’
‘All right Dutch let’s go home… I dont care no more what happens.’
They walked up mudtracked stairs to the top floor of the tenement.
‘Take off your shoes,’ she hissed in his ear as she slipped the key in the lock.
‘I got holes in my stockings.’
‘That dont matter, silly. I’ll see if it’s all right. My room’s way back past the kitchen so if they’re all in bed they cant hear us.’