Streets of Night

by John Dos Passos

"No. Things have come to a jumping off place, that's all. I want some more satisfactory ..." Wenny smothered an impulse to boast.

"I see," said the man with a queer look.

"No, you don't ... Because I don't either.... But that's how things are, and to hell with the M. A."

It was good to pull off his heavy coat in his own room once the door had slammed behind him. The warmth made him very drowsy.

"Tomorrow," he said aloud as he tugged at his necktie. "Gee, it's lucky I had that row with Father. I'd never have waked up for years." When he had his clothes off he stretched himself and yawned. Old fool, Fanshaw, I wonder why I like him, he was thinking. We'll outlive his old dusty Picos and Mirandolas, anyway. O, and Nan, Nan. The thought of her body in his arms, of her slender body in the bed beside him, made his head swim in a haze of throbbing lights sharp like chirruping of crickets, sleepy like dryflies. He clicked off the electricity and let himself crumple on to the bed. After a minute he shivered and pulled the covers high about his face. And think that we're going abroad. Out among islands in a pearly blue sea dolphins danced, from the islands great gusts of fragrance came like music on the wind, the plunk of an anchor in blue bay-water, pink and yellow houses jostling each other on the sandy shore... He lay laughing happily, so that the bedsprings shook.

When he woke up the hands of his piefaced alarm clock were at seven. The sun was barely up. The poplars behind the dormitory cast streaky shadows on the pitted snow where here and there a bit of upturned crust glowed ruby and topaz color. Wenny reached out of the window for an icicle that glittered from the gutter above his head. It was cold against his tongue, tasted the way soot smells. He threw it at a sparrow perched fluffily on a bush. "Top of the mornin', Mr. Sparrow!" and closed the window. The sparrow was tiny and violet black as he flew into the dazzle of the sun. Wenny dressed hastily, wondering whether he should shave. I can't take the time; what the hell does it matter anyway? An old woman was scrubbing the stone steps. Cold, her hands must be, he thought as he rammed his hands into his overcoat pockets.

The lunchroom was almost empty.

"Scrambled eggs and bacon on toast and a cup of coffee," he said to the towhaired, pink-cheeked youth who was slipping into a white jacket behind the counter. "Fine morning, isn't it?"

"Aint no fine mornings at this job. I call a fine mornin' a mornin' I can lay in bed."

Wenny laughed. It'ld be fun to be a bussboy for a while, the grotesque people telling you yarns over coffee. Not here with these damn college snobs though, in a lunchwagon down in the North End. How many existences. Walt Whitman had it in The Song of Occupations. The toast and bacon crackled under his teeth. He noticed the clock. Hell's bells, only half past seven. I can't help it, I'll wake her up. She won't care. Nan asleep in her white bedroom, her hair plaited, sitting up in a dressing gown, he leaning over her talking to her, the smell of her hair in his nostrils. He would come up from behind and put his hands on her breasts and kiss her.