by John Sanford
R. E. LEE to U. S. GRANT:
I suppose, General Grant, that the object of our present meeting is fully understood. I asked to see you to ascertain upon what terms you would receive the surrender of my army.
U. S. GRANT to R. E. LEE:
The terms I propose, etc. The officers and men surrendered to be paroled and disqualified, etc. The arms, artillery, and public property to be parked and stacked, etc. This will not embrace the side-arms of the officers, nor their private horses or baggage, etc.
R. E. LEE to U. S. GRANT:
This will have a very happy effect, etc.
U. S. GRANT to R. E. LEE:
Unless you have some suggestions, etc.
R. E. LEE to U.S. GRANT!
There is one thing I would like to mention. The cavalrymen and artillerists own their own horses in our army. I would like to understand whether these men will be permitted, etc.
U. S.GRANT to R. E. LEE:
You will find that the terms do not allow this. Only the officers, etc.
R. E. LEE to U. S. GRANT:
No, the terms do not allow it. That is clear.
U. S. GRANT to R. E. LEE:
Well, the subject is quite new to me, etc. I take it that most of the men in the ranks are small farmers, and as the country has been so raided by the two armies, it is doubtful whether they will be able to put in a crop, etc. Let all the men who claim to own a horse or mule take the animals home with them, etc.
R. E. LEE to U. S. GRANT:
This will have the best possible effect, etc.
And now Lee said something about notifying Meade, and Grant said something by way of apology for turning up without a sword (no disrespect intended, etc.), and Lee said something about the two armies being kept apart (personal encounters, useless effusion, etc.), and Grant suggested something or other, and Lee mentioned something about something else—but who remembered? It was over, it was all over.
Of course, there were some spoken words to be taken down, some names to be signed, and some hands to be shaken; there were some token courtesies (the bowing, the saluting) to be observed, some phrases still to be broken off, some coughs to cough and quickly kill, and a pause to fill and soften with goodbyes—but it was long over for the C. S. A. There were some odds and ends of defeat outside, but why report the idle staring of the Union staff, the halfminute wait for Traveller to be bridled, the queer way Lee stood striking and striking his hands, the misfortune of Grant’s appearing on the porch, and his covering the moment by baring his head? Why mention these things? Why pay attention to such details as a paroled officer mounting a free horse, sighing but not yet weeping, and riding back to what was left of the Army of Northern Virginia with the five years that were left of his life? Look away! For God’s sake, look away!
(Item: Phil Sheridan paid twenty dollars in gold for the table Grant had used, and Lee’s was sold to Cresap Ord for forty of the same.)
This will have a very happy effect, etc.
STATEN ISLAND FERRY
The sun lay in Kill Van Kull, and the air of the spring afternoon seemed to be filled with a fine fair hair, a barely moving crêpe-de-chine. The bay-water flashed in flakes, as if sequinned, and it kissed the hull as it passed toward Manhattan and the hazy castles in the sky.
[Two years gone, you thought, and nothing to show for them but the dust of thirty states in your pockets—but you were lying to yourself and you knew it. You weren’t empty-handed: you were heavy-ladenwith a burden that you could never put down. The cars, you thought, the cars …!]
WELL, BUD, THIS IS ALL THE FURTHER I GO
From up and down the stair-well came filtered sounds—of voices without words, of crying and coughing, of a harmonica being played—but beyond the door Dan stood before, there was silence. He put his hand to the knob and found it shaking with the rumor of a mile-away train. The rumor spread through his arms and body and through the walls and the floor, and then it became fact, and the world jigged with the right-of-way under a New York Central express. Not until the train was a rumor again did Dan open the door.
[They were at the table, and for a moment all they could do was sit there, still and staring, and then Pop tried to speak, but his voice cracked, and he tried again, but that time he had no voice at all, and then Mom, who’d never taken her eyes off you, began to rock her chair—only a little, because the recollection she held was now twenty years old, and if she heard it crying, its voice must’ve been very faint and very far away in her mind]
“Well, Johnsons,” Dan said, “your kid’s home.”
PART FOUR
HUMPTY-DUMPTY: A MONTAGE
Dan “I saw a new ad on a billboard today. It said, ‘America is two-car conscious.’ Pretty soon, we’ll be two-bed conscious. You mean to say you only sleep in one bed? Mister, the modern way is two! And if you can afford two beds, why not two wives, and if you can afford two wives, why not two Gods? Make America two-God conscious! Are you limping along on only one God? Get yourself another de luxe twelve-apostle God and learn what real praying-comfort means! Don’t wait! Buy now!”
* * *
THE HACK-DRIVER: “There’s a million these days in anything you make eyes at: all you need is a little imagination. For instance, I put fresh flowers in the cab every morning, rain or shine—roses, daisies, violets, sometimes all three—and on a handy rack right in front of him, a fare can find his favorite paper. Result: a guy rides from Penn Station to the Cunard docks and pays off with a five-dollar gold-piece. Imagination: that’s the secret.”
* * *
DAN: “I had a date to take a walk with Mig last night, and the first thing he said when he saw me was, ‘Nifty suit you’re wearing, kid. What did it set you back?’ I said, ‘Fifty-odd,’ and he said, ‘Doing pretty good for yourself, no?’ I said, ‘I’ve got no kick,’ and he said, ‘I know, but you used to have.’ Peculiar kind of remark.”
* * *
HACK-DRIVER: “Used to be, when a guy hailed a cab, he was a banker, or an actor, or a judge, or a sport out sporting, and you picked him up in front of a big hotel or a high-class knocking-shop, and about the only time you went through a crumby neighborhood was on your way home. Nowadays, though, everybody’s a banker, everybody’s a sport, and it makes no difference if they’re wearing spats or carrying a pick: this day and age, everybody rides. My God, what don’t happen in that old Pierce-A! They use it for everything from a haystack to a board-room. They sniff snow back there, they load pistols, and they sign contracts. They talk love, gin, stocks, and abortions. Everybody rides, I tell you!”
* * *
DAN: [“Dress now, Mr. Lovejoy, but make no sound, or you’ll wake the drunken lady from her dreams of the long-legged dolls that lie scattered on the floor; make your way among them to the door, Mr. Lovejoy, leave a bill of suitable denomination under a highball glass, and walk out into the winter night; and as you walk, Mr. Lovejoy, try to breathe away the kissed-off powder and the faint fumes of disinfectant, and try too not to think of Pike’s Peak and your mile-high past.”]
* * *
THE HACK-DRIVER: “One of my regular fares gave me a tip on a stock, and I made a hundred bucks in an hour. If I’d held on to the close, though, I’d’ve made two hundred more. The way I figure it, I’m a hundred in and two hundred out, so I really lose a hundred on the day.”
* * *
JULIA: [“What would you give to know where I am, Danny, my God damn Dan—the name of the town, the street and number, the floor and room, and the exact location of the bed? and whether the bed’s in a flat, a hotel, a home in the suburbs, or a cat-house? and whether I have a husband with me, or a customer, or a lover (male or female), or a toy poodle? Wouldn’t you like to know, Danny, my socialist hero, and wouldn’t you like to take me skating tonight, to watch me move in the firelight, to take me home and undress me and you-know-what me? Wouldn’t you, Mr. Union Label? Wouldn’t you, you hardhearted son-of-a-bitch?”]
* * *
DAN: “Mostly
, the people I met were small fry—truckers, farmers, back-country salesmen, bums, brakemen, gas-jerkers, a doctor or two, a game-warden—and the more I met, the more most people seemed to live as if life were a subway, with long dark stretches between dim short stops. They’re born, I thought, they mess around in the gloom for sixty years, and they die all-even or in hock, but never with an estate. If you were ordinary, I thought, you took things as you found them, and if you were noble like a certain Italian, you tried to change them with words and deeds and your sweet sad face. One way, you lived; the other, you got two thousand volts, and you were dead.”
MRS. JOHNSON: “You don’t take either way: you want to be a certain Italian that lives to get rich.”
* * *
HACK-DRIVER: “I’m sitting in my cab, corner of Wall and William, and all of a sudden I hear a whack!, like somebody dropped a sack of water off a roof. People start running like crazy, and I turn around to see what’s the matter. Jesus in Heaven! Thirty feet back of the cab, right there in the street … ! God, Polly, there must be one snort of whisky in the house!”
EMPLOYMENT-AGENCY
“Last name?” the man said.
[Under his hand lay a pad of application-forms. When the blanks were filled with fact, a paper Daniel Johnson would be in being, and a paper Daniel Johnson would be for hire.] “Johnson,” Dan said.
[First name? Address? Phone number? Date of birth? Weight and height? Nationality? Birthplace? Religion? A southbound elevated-train passed the window, and you watched it go in a marching slant of snow.] “None,” Dan said.
“Your people must belong to a church. Which?”
“None.”
“Is that what you want me to write down—no religion?”
“Write whatever you like, or leave it blank.”
“As you say,” the man said, “only it might cost you a job.”
“Let it cost. Who wants to work for a fanatic?”
[Married, single, divorced? Live at home? Use tobacco or spirits? Physical defects? Communicable diseases? Education? Speak foreign language? Employed at present? Where last employed?] “Metropolitan Life,” Dan said.
“In what capacity?” the man said.
“I was a filing-clerk.”
“Why did you leave?”
“I was fired.”
“For what reason?”
“I was a lousy filing-clerk.”
“What other jobs have you held?”
“I’ve worked in a print-shop. I’ve been a waiter, summer-camp and hotel. I’ve done time in a newspaper-office—clipping, pasting, and once in a while covering a bazaar. In the past year or so, I’ve had a slew of places—shipping-departments in the garment-trade, a couple of months of selling gray-goods for a cotton converter, a spell of stock-and-bond running for an odd-lot house, and so on.”
[Other experience and hobbies? Salaries received? Salary expected? Salary take? Accept temporary work? Leave city for work? Own or drive car? Ever arrested?] “Once, in Florida,” Dan said.
“What for?”
“Nothing that shows on the books. A cop socked me, and I socked back, and then I got beat up, and they kept me in jail till the scabs came off.”
[Ever sued? Ever in bankruptcy?] “Don’t make me laugh,” Dan said.
The man put his pen down, saying, “I’m afraid there isn’t much here to go on.”
“No? What do you need to go on?”
“Something to make you different than a million other guys.”
“But I am a million other guys.”
“Why should you get taken on instead of them?”
“Don’t ask me,” Dan said. “That’s your job. Tell people how pretty I am.”
“I’ve got to have something to sell, Johnson.”
“Sell Johnson. I didn’t come here because I’m a genius. I came because I’m not.”
“You know,” the man said, “when we started, I’d’ve been willing to bet you had a better record than this. I don’t know why. Just a feeling.”
“Well, get over it,” Dan said. “There’s only one Dan Johnson, and he’s right there on that sheet of paper. If you can’t do anything for him, tear him up.”
“It’s hard to believe that all you can do is wrap bundles, and it’s impossible to believe that all you’re interested in is a job—not with that attitude of yours. Sports? Art? History? Science? Politics? What?”
“Look,” Dan said, “nobody’s going to call you up and ask for a bundle-wrapper who knows how the U. S. A. got Texas.”
“Ah!” the man said. “How did we get Texas?”
“By plundering Mexico. You satisfied?”
“Perfectly, but they didn’t teach you that at De Witt.”
“We’re a little far afield, aren’t we? I came here for a job that pays x-bucks a week, and if I had thirty years of experience at anything, I’d cough it out. What do you think I’m trying to do—make it tough for myself?”
The man said, “Do you belong to a union?”
“How could I? I don’t have a trade.”
“You worked for a printer, you said. What did he run—open-shop?”
“I wasn’t old enough to hold a card.”
“Would you have joined if you could?”
“Like a shot,” Dan said.
“You believe in unions, then.”
“Come to think, you can write that down as my religion.”
“Do you believe in the American form of government?”
“Only theoretically.”
“I’d’ve thought democracy was practical.”
“Maybe it is, but what we’ve got isn’t democracy.”
“What would you call it?”
“Come on, now,” Dan said. “What’s this going to boil down to—a political debate?”
“I’m only trying to learn some things about you that this application doesn’t seem to get at.”
“Next time you print it up, stick in another question: ‘Member any organization overthrow government force and violence?’”
The man said, “Make believe it’s printed up.”
“Answer: I am not a communist.”
“If you don’t believe in Capitalism, why aren’t you doing something about it?”
“I don’t believe in death, either,” Dan said.
“What’re you so sour about?” the man said. “You’re twenty-two years old, but you could break up a German band without a lemon.”
“What could you do at twenty-two?”
“I could tell how the wind blew. At twenty-two, fresh from Belleau Wood, I could look around and say to myself, ‘So that’s the way it goes,’ and go the same way.”
“A man doesn’t have to like dirt just because he has to eat it.”
“Take your head out from under your arm. You’ll feel better.”
“How can I feel better? I’m dead.”
“You might work up to only being sick.”
“The hell with this deep thinking,” Dan said. “Can you get me a job, or not?”
“I’ll drop you a card,” the man said.
A BILL OF SUITABLE DENOMINATION
The dolls lay as if stricken and boned; their heads hung, and their giraffish legs were sprawled in some doll-orgy ended. [You moved quietly, as you always did now (to hide, you wondered, and to hide from whom?), and in a cold room cold-lit by a dun dawn, you began to dress.]
She said, “Going, Dan?”
“I tried not to disturb you,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t mind, except to see you go.”
“It’s good of you to say it.”
“The others, I can hardly wait for them to get out, but not you.”
“That’s too bad,” he said, “because I won’t be here every week any more.”
“If it’s the price, you can have it for two, same as tonight.”
“This is the last time I’ll be able to pay even that.”
“How could I live if I gave it away?”
“I don’t know, but you don’t have to give it away to me.”
“Couldn’t you scrape up something, Dan?”
“I’m down to smoke-money and carfare—and I’d hate to tell you where it comes from.”
“Well, try, anyhow,” she said.
“I’ll try my best,” he said, and he went toward the door.
“Night, Dan….”
* * *
[BARTO: “They take me in that cruel room, and they tie me up in that chair, and they say, ‘Well, Vanzetti, speak what you want to-day’ and I tell them, ‘I now wish to forgive some people for what they are doing to me,’ and that is my last speech on the living earth—and now I am saying to you that if I could so speak with people that were putting me to my death, then I could never in my whole life and death together condemn anyone that tried, as you did try, to help me to live and do beautiful things for the people. I love you for this forever, and I will never hate you.”]
* * *
“Still there, Dan?” she said. “What’re you doing?”
“Just thinking,” he said.
“About what, honey?”
“About what a skunk I am.”
“But that isn’t true.”
“I’m not worth killing.”
“Come over here a minute.”
“It’s late. I’d better go.”
“First come over here.”
He sat beside her. “What do you want?”
“I’m not sleepy any more.”
“Didn’t you hear me? I’m not worth killing.”
“You don’t have to pay, Danny.”
“I’m not worth killing!”
“You don’t ever have to pay,” she said.
USE TOBACCO OR SPIRITS?
The man said, “I told you the other day: if anything turned up, I’d drop you a card. Go home.”
“No harm done,” Dan said. “Unless you’re getting sick of my face.”
“I like your face. As you say, it’s pretty.”
