It proved a misfortune to be moved to lofty sentience, at that time.
The tiresome military iron clanked by as it has clanked through every city on the earth for thousands of years.
More men of the newer war came, canoe-shaped hats worn cock-eyed, bellies lean still, faces blank in the scalding sunshine.
I noticed, now, that many paraders were moving among the spectators—marchers who had been dismissed some distance up the Avenue. These men, from other states, ticketed like parcel post, badge-thick and boozy, shoved among the ordinary citizens, cawing and singing, carrying pails, and shooting water pistols. Occasional cops watched them with the fixed, tolerating smiles taught in the department—proper address toward large political groups. The men, in what they thought of as boisterous glee, peed out their pistol streams at any pretty girl, blotting blouses, stippling skirts with dark dribbles, and evoking, as often as not, coaxing screams.
I wandered through a block or two of this nickering infantilism, this petty and symbolic repayment for a thousand lacks and ten thousand wretched frustrations. Men will be boys, I thought. Boys, I knew, will hardly ever be men.
I came to a lamppost where a dozen pistoleers were singing, "I want a girl just like the girl who married dear old dad." Their mouths yearned it and the sun sparkled on the gold fillings in their teeth. This song, so far as I recall, is the only legitimate outlet for the Oedipus complex permitted in twentieth-century U.S.A. So I watched gents from Oklahoma and Idaho and Nebraska sing their incest, get their backs in it, and I wondered how much effort it would take to elicit from even one of them an acknowledgment of that emotion which, hidden deep inside him, gave him his particular inflection and look while he sang that particular song. I have wondered before while viewing luncheon clubs as they yearned for a girl like mother. To a face, every here and there, the anthem does memorable things. I supposed they would all rather be dead than have to admit the possibility of the truth. I supposed that the recognition of the baby alive in us all would require the hurdling of yet more dead bodies—billions, at least—to bring them to a happy acceptance of such affairs.
American babies are not allowed to be Freudian.
Not till they grow up, anyhow.
I pushed along.
There was a clearing in the crowd ahead. Out of it came such blats of laughter, animal calls, and whistlings as mark the approach to a feeding zoo—the same sound that is emitted by the amused radio audience.