“You’re my kid,” she murmured, running her fingers through his thick hair. “For me, you have never got any bigger.”
“On’y a kid?” demanded Joe, raising his head, and grinning close in her face.
“Oh well, a man, too. Crazy about yourself, ain’t yeh?”
“When I come here,” he said, dropping back on the pillow, “a weight rolls off me, sort of. I can let myself go. I been with lots of women, but it wasn’t the same. I was always tryin’ to make them crazy about me. With you, you old slob! I don’t think of nothing. What ud be the use? You know me!”
Rolling over, he flung his arms around her body. “You’re so damn solid, so damn solid!” he muttered. “Gee! it’s great. I don’t know why. You’re so slow and hard to change. It’s funny, but whatever you say seems to come right out of the middle of you. You’re never any different, only more so. Like a tree, damn you! Rooted in the same spot!”
He sat up on the bed, nursing his knees. “Well, here’s me, if you know what I mean. Look at the way I’ve worked and schemed, and gone up like a skyrocket. It’s been a hell of a lot of fun, but it don’t seem quite real. All sparks, like the tail of the rocket. It’s been too easy, maybe. Men are such simps. I never had no setbacks to speak of. All I was concerned with was keepin’ out of jail. The same with women. They fell for me so easy, there was no zip to it. I’ve cut out women. . . .
“Here I am at the top, and I don’t find it no different. At heart I’m the same kid that used to swipe apples offen t’ pushcarts out there. Gee! I never found a street I liked as well as Rivington. . . . In them days I thought it would be different to be rich. A kind of dream, like. But everything stays just the same. Not but what I enjoy all the big stuff at that; conferring with prominent men, and making them do what I want; being God to thousands of little men; and living in a God-damn palace and all. But not so much as I did. I’m used to it now. And there’s always that feeling somehow that it ain’t quite real. I’ve got a child, and I swear I can’t feel that he’s mine at all. . . . Funny! . . .
“When I was a kid, once in a while I’d wake up in my bed all in a sweat. I don’t know . . . I can’t exactly name it. A sort of where-am-I feeling, and not a damn thing to grab hold of. God! for a minute, it makes you fair sick at your stomach. Well . . . that’s what I mean. Up there on the Avenue in my fancy bed—it was Louis the something or other’s bed, or one of those guys; I swear I have the same dream every once in a while, and wake up sweating just the same old way. So what have I got out of it all? Me, myself, inside, I’m just the same. I’ve got you; but I had you when I was a kid, and hadn’t nothing else. . . .
“It’s a funny thing, when you come to think of it. I don’t mean to be complaining. I’ve had a hell of a good time, and still do. I have everything a man could have. I travel light. I don’t worry about nothing. It’s wonderful what a lot of things I don’t worry about! They call me heartless. Well, —— them! A pack of coyotes. They used to yelp at me in their newspapers. Well, I bought their newspapers. I’m one of the most powerful men in New York they say. I suppose I am. But . . . somehow it don’t seem quite real . . . !”
He dropped down, and put his hands around her thick throat. “Only this . . . ! By God! this is real . . . !”