The newspaper fell out of his hand. Jimmy stooped to pick it up. A face made out of modulated brown blurs gave him a twinge as if something had touched a nerve in a tooth. No it wasnt, she doesnt look like that, yes Talented Young Actress Scores Hit in the Zinnia Girl....
“Thanks, dont bother, I found it there,” said Harland. Jimmy dropped the paper; she fell face down.
“Pretty rotten photographs they have dont they?”
“It passes the time to look at them, I like to keep up with what’s going on in New York a little bit.... A cat may look at a king you know, a cat may look at a king.”
“Oh I just meant that they were badly taken.”
VII. Rollercoaster
The leaden twilight weighs on the dry limbs of an old man walking towards Broadway. Round the Nedick’s stand at the corner something clicks in his eyes. Broken doll in the ranks of varnished articulated dolls he plods up with drooping head into the seethe and throb into the furnace of beaded lettercut light. “I remember when it was all meadows,” he grumbles to the little boy.
Louis Expresso Association, the red letters on the placard jig before Stan’s eyes. Annual Dance. Young men and girls going in. Two by two the elephant And the kangaroo. The boom and jangle of an orchestra seeping out through the swinging doors of the hall. Outside it is raining. One more river, O there’s one more river to cross. He straightens the lapels of his coat, arranges his mouth soberly, pays two dollars and goes into a big resounding hall hung with red white and blue bunting. Reeling, so he leans for a while against the wall. One more river ... The dancefloor full of jogging couples rolls like the deck of a ship. The bar is more stable. “Gus McNiel’s here,” everybody’s saying “Good old Gus.” Big hands slap broad backs, mouths roar black in red faces. Glasses rise and tip glinting, rise and tip in a dance. A husky beetfaced man with deepset eyes and curly hair limps through the bar leaning on a stick. “How’s a boy Gus?”
“Yay dere’s de chief.”