1919 (22 page)

They waited two weeks in Vigo while the officials quarreled about their status and they got pretty fed up with it. Then they were all loaded on a train to take them to Gibraltar where they were to be taken on board a Shipping Board boat. They were three days on the train with nothing to sleep on but hard benches. Spain was just one set of great dusty mountains after another. They changed cars in Madrid and in Seville and a guy turned up each time from the consulate to take care of them. When they got to Seville they found it was Algeciras they were going to instead of Gib.

When they got to Algeciras they found that nobody had ever heard of them. They camped out in the consulate while the consul telegraphed all over the place and finally chartered two trucks and sent them over to Cadiz. Spain was some country, all rocks and wine and busty black eyed women and olive trees. When they got to Cadiz the consular agent was there to meet them with a telegram in his hand. The tanker
Gold Shell
was waiting in Algeciras to take them on board there, so it was back again cooped up on the trucks, bouncing on the hard benches with their faces powdered with dust and their mouths full of it and not a cent in anybody's jeans left to buy a drink with. When they got on board the
Gold Shell
around three in the morning a bright moonlight night some of the boys were so tired they fell down and went to sleep right on the deck with their heads on their seabags.

 

The
Gold Shell
landed 'em in Perth Amboy in late October. Joe drew his back pay and took the first train connections he could get for Norfolk. He was fed up with bawling out that bunch of pimps in the focastle. Damn it, he was through with the sea; he was going to settle down and have a little married life.

He felt swell coming over on the ferry from Cape Charles, passing the Ripraps, out of the bay full of whitecaps into the smooth brown water of Hampton Roads crowded with shipping; four great battlewaggons at anchor, subchasers speeding in and out and a white revenue cutter, camouflaged freighters and colliers, a bunch of red munitions barges anchored off by themselves. It was a sparkling fall day. He felt good; he had three hundred and fifty dollars in his pocket. He had a good suit on and he felt sunburned and he'd just had a good meal. God damn it, he wanted a little love now. Maybe they'd have a kid.

Things sure were different in Norfolk. Everybody in new uniforms, twominute speakers at the corner of Main and Granby, liberty loan posters, bands playing. He hardly knew the town walking up from the ferry. He'd written Del that he was coming but he was worried about seeing her, hadn't had any letters lately. He still had a latch key to the apartment but he knocked before opening the door. There was nobody there.

He'd always pictured her running to the door to meet him. Still it was only four o'clock, she must be at her work. Must have another girl with her, don't keep the house so tidy. . . . Underwear hung to dry on a line, bits of clothing on all the chairs, a box of candy with halfeaten pieces in it on the table. . . . Jez, they must have had a party last night. There was a half a cake, glasses that had had liquor in them, a plate full of cigarette butts and even a cigar butt. Oh, well, she'd probably had some friends in. He went to the bathroom and shaved and cleaned up a little. Sure Del was always popular, she probably had a lot of friends in all the time, playing cards and that. In the bathroom there was a pot of rouge and lipsticks, and facepowder spilt over the faucets. It made Joe feel funny shaving among all these women's things.

He heard her voice laughing on the stairs and a man's voice; the key clicked in the lock. Joe closed his suitcase and stood up. Del had bobbed her hair. She flew up to him and threw her arms around his neck. “Why, I declare it's my hubby.” Joe could taste rouge on her lips. “My, you look thin, Joe. Poor Boy, you musta been awful sick. . . . If I'd had any money at all I'd have jumped on a boat and come on down. . . . This is Wilmer Tayloe . . . I mean Lieutenant Tayloe, he just got his commission yesterday.”

Joe hesitated a moment and then held out his hand. The other fellow had red hair clipped close and a freckled face. He was all dressed up in a whipcord uniform, shiny Sam Browne belt and puttees. He had a silver bar on each shoulder and spurs on his feet.

“He's just going overseas tomorrow. He was coming by to take me out to dinner. Oh, Joe, I've got so much to tell you, honey.”

Joe and Lieutenant Tayloe stood around eyeing each other uncomfortably while Del bustled around tidying the place up, talking to Joe all the time. “It's terrible I never get any chance to do anything and neither does Hilda . . . You remember Hilda Thompson, Joe? Well, she's been livin' with me to help make up the rent but we're both of us doin' war work down at the Red Cross canteen every evening and then I sell Liberty bonds. . . . Don't you hate the huns, Joe. Oh, I just hate them, and so does Hilda. . . . She's thinking of changing her name on account of its being German. I promised to call her Gloria but I always forget. . . . You know, Wilmer, Joe's been torpedoed twice.”

“Well, I suppose the first six times is the hardest,” stammered Lieutenant Tayloe. Joe grunted.

Del disappeared into the bathroom and closed the door. “You boys make yourselves comfortable. I'll be dressed in a minute.”

Neither of them said anything. Lieutenant Tayloe's shoes creaked as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. At last he pulled a flask out of his pocket. “Have a drink,” he said. “Ma outfit's goin' overseas any time after midnight.” “I guess I'd better,” said Joe, without smiling. When Della came out of the bathroom all dressed up she certainly looked snappy. She was much prettier than last time Joe had seen her. He was all the time wondering if he ought to go up and hit that damn shavetail until at last he left, Del telling him to come by and get her at the Red Cross canteen.

When he'd left she came and sat on Joe's knee and asked him about everything and whether he'd got his second mate's ticket yet and whether he'd missed her and how she wished he could make a little more money because she hated to have another girl in with her this way but it was the only way she could pay the rent. She drank a little of the whiskey that the lieutenant had forgotten on the table and ruffled his hair and loved him up. Joe asked her if Hilda was coming in soon and she said no she had a date and she was going to meet her at the canteen. But Joe went and bolted the door anyway and for the first time they were really happy hugged in each other's arms on the bed.

Joe didn't know what to do with himself around Norfolk. Del was at the office all day and at the Red Cross canteen all the evening. He'd usually be in bed when she came home. Usually there'd be some damn army officer or other bringing her home, and he'd hear them talking and kidding outside the door and lie there in bed imagining that the guy was kissing her or loving her up. He'd be about ready to hit her when she'd come in and bawl her out and they'd quarrel and yell at each other and she'd always end by saying that he didn't understand her and she thought he was unpatriotic to be interfering with her war work and sometimes they'd make up and he'd feel crazy in love with her and she'd make herself little and cute in his arms and give him little tiny kisses that made him almost cry they made him feel so happy. She was getting better looking every day and she sure was a snappy dresser.

Sunday mornings she'd be too tired to get up and he'd cook breakfast for her and they'd sit up in bed together and eat breakfast like he had with Marceline that time in Bordeaux. Then she'd tell him she was crazy about him and what a smart guy he was and how she wanted him to get a good shore job and make a lot of money so that she wouldn't have to work any more and how Captain Barnes whose folks were worth a million had wanted her to get a divorce from Joe and marry him and Mr. Canfield in the Dupont office who made a cool 50,000 a year had wanted to give her a pearl necklace but she hadn't taken it because she didn't think it was right. Talk like that made Joe feel pretty rotten. Sometimes he'd start to talk about what they'd do if they had some kids, but Del ud always make a funny face and tell him not to talk like that.

Joe went around looking for work and almost landed the job of foreman in one of the repair shops over at the shipyard in Newport News, but at the last minute another berry horned in ahead of him and got it. A couple of times he went out on parties with Del and Hilda Thompson, and some army officers and a midshipman off a destroyer, but they all highhatted him and Del let any boy who wanted to kiss her and would disappear into a phone booth with anything she could pick up so long as it had a uniform on and he had a hell of a time. He found a poolroom where some boys he knew hung out and where he could get corn liquor and started tanking up a good deal. It made Del awful sore to come home and find him drunk but he didn't care any more.

Then one night when Joe had been to a fight with some guys and had gotten an edge on afterward, he met Del and another damn shavetail walking on the street. It was pretty dark and there weren't many people around and they stopped in every dark doorway and the shavetail was kissing and hugging her. When he got them under a street light so's he made sure it was Del he went up to them and asked them what the hell they meant. Del must have had some drinks because she started tittering in a shrill little voice that drove him crazy and he hauled off and let the shavetail have a perfect left right on the bottom. The spurs tinkled and the shavetail went to sleep right flat on the little grass patch under the streetlight. It began to hit Joe kinder funny but Del was sore as the devil and said she'd have him arrested for insult to the uniform and assault and battery and that he was nothing but a yellow sniveling slacker and what was he doing hanging around home when all the boys were at the front fighting the huns. Joe sobered up and pulled the guy up to his feet and told them both they could go straight to hell. He walked off before the shavetail, who musta been pretty tight, had time to do anything but splutter, and went straight home and packed his suitcase and pulled out.

Will Stirp was in town so Joe went over to his house and got him up out of bed and said he'd busted up housekeeping and would Will lend him twentyfive bucks to go up to New York with. Will said it was a damn good thing and that love 'em and leave 'em was the only thing for guys like them. They talked till about day about one thing and another. Then Joe went to sleep and slept till late afternoon. He got up in time to catch the Washington boat. He didn't take a room but roamed around on deck all night. He got to cracking with one of the officers and went and sat in the pilot house that smelt comfortably of old last year's pipes. Listening to the sludge of water from the bow and watching the wabbly white finger of the searchlight pick up buoys and lighthouses he began to pull himself together. He said he was going up to New York to see his sister and try for a second mate's ticket with the Shipping Board. His stories about being torpedoed went big because none of them on the
Dominion City
had even been across the pond.

It felt like old times standing in the bow in the sharp November morning, sniffing the old brackish smell of the Potomac water, passing redbrick Alexandria and Anacostia and the Arsenal and the Navy Yard, seeing the Monument stick up pink through the mist in the early light. The wharves looked about the same, the yachts and power boats anchored opposite, the Baltimore boat just coming in, the ramshackle excursion steamers, the oystershells underfoot on the wharf, the nigger roustabouts standing around. Then he was hopping the Georgetown car and too soon he was walking up the redbrick street. While he rang the bell he was wondering why he'd come home.

Mommer looked older but she was in pretty good shape and all taken up with her boarders and how the girls were both engaged. They said that Janey was doing so well in her work, but that living in New York had changed her. Joe said he was going down to New York to try to get his second mate's ticket and that he sure would look her up. When they asked him about the war and the submarines and all that he didn't know what to tell 'em so he kinder kidded them along. He was glad when it was time to go over to Washington to get his train, though they were darn nice to him and seemed to think that he was making a big success getting to be a second mate so young. He didn't tell 'em about being married.

 

Going down on the train to New York Joe sat in the smoker looking out of the window at farms and stations and billboards and the grimy streets of factory towns through Jersey under a driving rain and everything he saw seemed to remind him of Del and places outside of Norfolk and good times he'd had when he was a kid. When he got to the Penn Station in New York first thing he did was check his bag, then he walked down Eighth Avenue all shiny with rain to the corner of the street where Janey lived. He guessed he'd better phone her first and called from a cigarstore. Her voice sounded kinder stiff; she said she was busy and couldn't see him till tomorrow. He came out of the phonebooth and walked down the street not knowing where to go. He had a package under his arm with a couple of Spanish shawls he'd bought for her and Del on the last trip. He felt so blue he wanted to drop the shawls and everything down a drain, but he thought better of it and went back to the checkroom at the station and left them in his suitcase. Then he went and smoked a pipe for a while in the waitingroom.

God damn it to hell he needed a drink. He went over to Broadway and walked down to Union Square, stopping in every place he could find that looked like a saloon but they wouldn't serve him anywhere. Union Square was all lit up and full of navy recruiting posters. A big wooden model of battleship filled up one side of it. There was a crowd standing around and a young girl dressed like a sailor was making a speech about patriotism. The cold rain came on again and the crowd scattered. Joe went down a street and into a ginmill called The Old Farm. He must have looked like somebody the barkeep knew because he said hello and poured him out a shot of rye.