Big Money

by John Dos Passos

  They went up with a flask of whiskey in each of the girls’ handbags and in Dick’s and Reggie’s back pockets. Reggie and Pat sang The Fireship in the taxi. Dick drank a good deal in the taxi to catch up with the others. Going down the steps to Small’s was like going underwater into a warm thickly-grown pool. The air was dense with musky smells of mulatto powder and perfume and lipstick and dresses and throbbed like flesh with the smoothlybalanced chugging of the band. Dick and Pat danced right away, holding each other very close. Their dancing seemed smooth as cream. Dick found her lips under his and kissed them. She kissed back. When the music stopped they were reeling a little. They walked back to their table with drunken dignity. When the band started again Dick danced with Jo. He kissed her too. She pushed him off a little. “Dick, you oughtn’t to.” “Reggie won’t mind. It’s all in the family. . . .” They were dancing next to Reggie and Pat hemmed in by a swaying blur of couples. Dick dropped Jo’s hand and put his hand on Reggie’s shoulder. “Reggie, you don’t mind if I kiss your future wife for you just once.” “Go as far as you like, senator,” said Reggie. His voice was thick. Pat was having trouble keeping him on his feet. Jo gave Dick a waspish look and kept her face turned away for the rest of the dance. As soon as they got back to the table she told Reggie that it was after two and she’d have to go home, she for one had to work in the morning.

  When they were alone and Dick was just starting to make love to Pat she turned to him and said, “Oh, Dick, do take me some place low . . . nobody’ll ever take me any place really low.” “I should think this would be quite low enough for a juniorleaguer,” he said. “But this is more respectable than Broadway, and I’m not a juniorleaguer . . . I’m the new woman.” Dick burst out laughing. They both laughed and had a drink on it and felt fond of each other again and Dick suddenly asked her why couldn’t they be together always. “I think you’re mean. This isn’t any place to propose to a girl. Imagine remembering all your life that you’d got engaged in Harlem. . . . I want to see life.” “All right, young lady, we’ll go . . . but don’t blame me if it’s too rough for you.” “I’m not a sissy,” said Pat angrily. “I know it wasn’t the stork.”

  Dick paid and they finished up one of the pints. Outside it was snowing. Streets and stoops and pavements were white, innocent, quiet, glittering under the streetlights with freshfallen snow. Dick asked the whiteeyed black doorman about a dump he’d heard of and the doorman gave the taximan the address. Dick began to feel good. “Gosh, Pat, isn’t this lovely,” he kept crying. “Those kids can’t take it. Takes us grownups to take it. . . . Say, Reggie’s getting too fresh, do you know it?” Pat held his hand tight. Her cheeks were flushed and her face had a taut look. “Isn’t it exciting?” she said. The taxi stopped in front of an unpainted basement door with one electriclightbulb haloed with snowflakes above it.

  They had a hard time getting in. There were no white people there at all. It was a furnaceroom set around with plain kitchen tables and chairs. The steampipes overhead were hung with colored paper streamers. A big brown woman in a pink dress, big eyes rolling loose in their dark sockets and twitching lips, led them to a table. She seemed to take a shine to Pat. “Come right on in, darlin’,” she said. “Where’s you been all my life?”

  Their whiskey was gone so they drank gin. Things got to whirling round in Dick’s head. He couldn’t get off the subject of how sore he was at that little squirt Reggie. Here Dick had been nursing him along in the office for a year and now he goes smartaleck on him. The little twirp.

  The only music was a piano where a slimwaisted black man was tickling the ivories. Dick and Pat danced and danced and he whirled her around until the sealskin browns and the highyallers cheered and clapped. Then Dick slipped and dropped her. She went spinning into a table where some girls were sitting. Dark heads went back, pink rubber lips stretched, mouths opened. Gold teeth and ivories let out a roar.

  Pat was dancing with a pale pretty mulatto girl in a yellow dress. Dick was dancing with a softhanded brown boy in a tightfitting suit the color of his skin. The boy was whispering in Dick’s ear that his name was Gloria Swanson. Dick suddenly broke away from him and went over to Pat and pulled her away from the girl. Then he ordered drinks all around that changed sullen looks into smiles again. He had trouble getting Pat into her coat. The fat woman was very helpful. “Sure, honey,” she said, “you don’t want to go on drinkin’ tonight, spoil your lovely looks.” Dick hugged her and gave her a ten-dollar bill.

  In the taxi Pat had hysterics and punched and bit at him when he held her tight to try to keep her from opening the door and jumping out into the snow. “You spoil everything. . . . You can’t think of anybody except yourself,” she yelled. “You’ll never go through with anything.” “But, Pat, honestly,” he was whining. “I thought it was time to draw the line.” By the time the taxi drew up in front of the big square apartmenthouse on Park Avenue where she lived she was sobbing quietly on his shoulder. He took her into the elevator and kissed her for a long time in the upstairs hall before he’d let her put the key in the lock of her door. They stood there tottering clinging to each other rubbing up against each other through their clothes until Dick heard the swish of the rising elevator and opened her door for her and pushed her in.

  When he got outside the door he found the taxi waiting for him. He’d forgotten to pay the driver. He couldn’t stand to go home. He didn’t feel drunk, he felt immensely venturesome and cool and innocently excited. Patricia Doolittle he hated more than anybody in the world. “The bitch,” he kept saying aloud. He wondered how it would be to go back to the dump and see what happened and there he was being kissed by the fat woman who wiggled her breasts as she hugged him and called him her own lovin’ chile, with a bottle of gin in his hand pouring drinks for everybody and dancing cheek to cheek with Gloria Swanson who was humming in his ear: Do I get it now . . . or must I he . . . esitate.

  It was morning. Dick was shouting the party couldn’t break up, they must all come to breakfast with him. Everybody was gone and he was getting into a taxicab with Gloria and a strapping black buck he said was his girlfriend Florence. He had a terrible time getting his key in the lock. He tripped and fell towards the paleblue light seeping through his mother’s lace curtains in the windows. Something very soft tapped him across the back of the head.

  He woke up undressed in his own bed. It was broad daylight. The phone was ringing. He let it ring. He sat up. He felt lightheaded but not sick. He put his hand to his ear and it came away all bloody. It must have been a stocking full of sand that hit him. He got to his feet. He felt tottery but he could walk. His head began to ache like thunder. He reached for the place on the table he usually left his watch. No watch. His clothes were neatly hung on a chair. He found the wallet in its usual place, but the roll of bills was gone. He sat down on the edge of the bed. Of all the damn fools. Never never never take a risk like that again. Now they knew his name his address his phonenumber. Blackmail, oh, Christ. How would it be when Mother came home from Florida to find her son earning twentyfive thousand a year, junior partner of J. Ward Moorehouse being blackmailed by two nigger whores, male prostitutes receiving males? Christ. And Pat Doolittle and the Bingham girls. It would ruin his life. For a second he thought of going into the kitchenette and turning on the gas.

  He pulled himself together and took a bath. Then he dressed carefully and put on his hat and coat and went out. It was only nine o’clock. He saw the time in a jeweler’s window on Lexington. There was a mirror in the same window. He looked at his face. Didn’t look so bad, would look worse later, but he needed a shave and had to do something about the clotted blood on his ear.

  He didn’t have any money but he had his checkbook. He walked to a Turkish bath near the Grand Central. The attendants kidded him about what a fight he’d been in. He began to get over his scare a little and to talk big about what he’d done to the other guy. They took his check all right and he even was able to buy a drink to have before his bre
akfast. When he got to the office his head was still splitting but he felt in fair shape. He had to keep his hands in his pockets so that Miss Hilles shouldn’t see how they shook. Thank God he didn’t have to sign any letters till afternoon.

  Ed Griscolm came in and sat on his desk and talked about J.W.’s condition and the Bingham account and Dick was sweet as sugar to him. Ed Griscolm talked big about an offer he’d had from Halsey, but Dick said of course he couldn’t advise him but that as for him the one place in the country he wanted to be was right here, especially now as there were bigger things in sight than there had ever been before, he and J.W. had had a long talk going down on the train. “I guess you’re right,” said Ed. “I guess it was sour grapes a little.” Dick got to his feet. “Honestly, Ed, old man, you mustn’t think for a minute J.W. doesn’t appreciate your work. He even let drop something about a raise.” “Well, it was nice of you to put in a word for me, old man,” said Ed and they shook hands warmly.

  As Ed was leaving the office he turned and said, “Say, Dick, I wish you’d give that youngster Talbot a talking to. . . . I know he’s a friend of yours so I don’t like to do it, but Jesus Christ, he’s gone and called up again saying he’s in bed with the grippe. That’s the third time this month.”

  Dick wrinkled up his brows. “I don’t know what to do about him, Ed. He’s a nice kid all right but if he won’t knuckle down to serious work . . . I guess we’ll have to let him go. We certainly can’t let drinking acquaintance stand in the way of the efficiency of the office. These kids all drink too much anyway.”

  After Ed had gone Dick found on his desk a big lavender envelope marked Personal. A whiff of strong perfume came out when he opened it. It was an invitation from Myra Bingham to come to the housewarming of her studio on Central Park South. He was still reading it when Miss Hilles’ voice came out of the interoffice phone. “There’s Mr. Henry B. Furness of the Furness Corporation says he must speak to Mr. Moorehouse at once.” “Put him on my phone, Miss Hilles. I’ll talk to him . . . and, by the way, put a social engagement on my engagement pad . . . January fifteen that five o’clock . . . reception Miss Myra Bingham, 36 Central Park South.”

  Newsreel LXVIII

  WALL STREET STUNNED

  This is not Thirty-eight but it’s old Ninety-seven

  You must put her in Center on time

  MARKET SURE TO RECOVER FROM SLUMP

  Decline in Contracts

  POLICE TURN MACHINE GUNS

  ON COLORADO MINE STRIKERS

  KILL 5 WOUND 40

  sympathizers appeared on the scene just as thousands of office workers were pouring out of the buildings at the lunch hour. As they raised their placard high and started an indefinite march from one side to the other, they were jeered and hooted not only by the office workers but also by workmen on a building under construction

  NEW METHODS OF SELLING SEEN

  Rescue Crews Try To Upend Ill-fated Craft While Waiting For Pontoons

  He looked ’round an’ said to his black greasy fireman

  Jus’ shovel in a little more coal

  And when we cross that White Oak Mountain

  You can watch your Ninety-seven roll

  I find your column interesting and need advice. I have saved four thousand dollars which I want to invest for a better income. Do you think I might buy stocks?

  POLICE KILLER FLICKS CIGARETTE AS

  HE GOES TREMBLING TO DOOM

  PLAY AGENCIES IN RING OF SLAVE GIRL MARTS

  Maker of Love Disbarred as Lawyer

  Oh the right wing clothesmakers

  And the Socialist fakers

  They make by the workers . . .

  Double cross

  They preach Social-ism

  But practice Fasc-ism

  To keep capitalism

  By the boss

  MOSCOW CONGRESS OUSTS OPPOSITION

  It’s a mighty rough road from Lynchburg to Danville

  An’ a line on a three mile grade

  It was on that grade he lost his average

  An’ you see what a jump he made

  MILL THUGS IN MURDER RAID

  here is the most dangerous example of how at the decisive moment the bourgeois ideology liquidates class solidarity and turns a friend of the workingclass of yesterday into a most miserable propagandist for imperialism today

  RED PICKETS FINED FOR PROTEST HERE

  We leave our home in the morning

  We kiss our children goodby

  OFFICIALS STILL HOPE FOR RESCUE OF MEN

  He was goin’ downgrade makin’ ninety miles an hour

  When his whistle broke into a scream

  He was found in the wreck with his hand on the throttle

  An’ was scalded to death with the steam

  RADICALS FIGHT WITH CHAIRS AT UNITY MEETING

  PATROLMEN PROTECT REDS

  U.S. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE URGES CONFIDENCE

  REAL VALUES UNHARMED

  While we slave for the bosses

  Our children scream an’ cry

  But when we draw our money

  Our grocery bills to pay

  PRESIDENT SEES PROSPERITY NEAR

  Not a cent to spend for clothing

  Not a cent to lay away

  STEAMROLLER IN ACTION AGAINST MILITANTS

  MINERS BATTLE SCABS

  But we cannot buy for our children

  Our wages are too low

  Now listen to me you workers

  Both you women and men

  Let us win for them the victory

  I’m sure it ain’t no sin

  CARILLON PEALS IN SINGING TOWER

  the President declared it was impossible to view the increased advantages for the many without smiling at those who a short time ago expressed so much fear lest our country might come under the control of a few individuals of great wealth

  HAPPY CROWDS THRONG CEREMONY

  on a tiny island nestling like a green jewel in the lake that mirrors the singing tower, the President today participated in the dedication of a bird sanctuary and its pealing carillon, fulfilling the dream of an immigrant boy

  The Camera Eye (51)

  at the head of the valley in the dark of the hills on the broken floor of a lurchedover cabin a man halfsits halflies propped up by an old woman two wrinkled girls that might be young chunks of coal flare in the hearth flicker in his face white and sagging as dough blacken the cavedin mouth the taut throat the belly swelled enormous with the wound he got working on the minetipple

  the barefoot girl brings him a tincup of water the woman wipes sweat off his streaming face with a dirty denim sleeve the firelight flares in his eyes stretched big with fever in the women’s scared eyes and in the blanched faces of the foreigners

  without help in the valley hemmed by dark strike-silent hills the man will die (my father died we know what it is like to see a man die) the women will lay him out on the rickety cot the miners will bury him

  in the jail it’s light too hot the steamheat hisses we talk through the greenpainted iron bars to a tall white mustachioed old man some smiling miners in shirtsleeves a boy faces white from mining have already the tallowy look of jailfaces

  foreigners what can we say to the dead? foreigners what can we say to the jailed? the representative of the political party talks fast through the bars join up with us and no other union we’ll send you tobacco candy solidarity our lawyers will write briefs speakers will shout your names at meetings they’ll carry your names on cardboard on picketlines the men in jail shrug their shoulders smile thinly our eyes look in their eyes through the bars what can I say? (in another continent I have seen the faces looking out through the barred basement windows behind the ragged sentry’s boots I have seen before day the straggling footsore prisoners herded through the streets limping between bayonets heard the volley

  I have seen the dead lying out in those distant deeper valleys) what can we say to the jailed?

  in the law’s office we stand against
the wall the law is a big man with eyes angry in a big pumpkinface who sits and stares at us meddling foreigners through the door the deputies crane with their guns they stand guard at the mines they blockade the miners’ soupkitchens they’ve cut off the road up the valley the hiredmen with guns stand ready to shoot (they have made us foreigners in the land where we were born they are the conquering army that has filtered into the country unnoticed they have taken the hilltops by stealth they levy toll they stand at the minehead they stand at the polls they stand by when the bailiffs carry the furniture of the family evicted from the city tenement out on the sidewalk they are there when the bankers foreclose on a farm they are ambushed and ready to shoot down the strikers marching behind the flag up the switchback road to the mine those that the guns spare they jail)