“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.”
“Good for old man McNiel come at last.”
“Howde do Mr. McNiel?” The bar quiets down.
Gus McNiel waves his stick in the air. “Attaboy fellers, have a good time. … Burke ole man set the company up to a drink on me.” “Dere’s Father Mulvaney wid him too. Good for Father Mulvaney. … He’s a prince that feller is.”
For he’s a jolly good fellow
That nobody can deny …
Broad backs deferentially hunched follow the slowly pacing group out among the dancers. O the big baboon by the light of the moon is combing his auburn hair. “Wont you dance, please?” The girl turns a white shoulder and walks off.
I am a bachelor and I live all alone
And I work at the weaver’s trade. …
Stan finds himself singing at his own face in a mirror. One of his eyebrows is joining his hair, the other’s an eyelash. … “No I’m not bejases I’m a married man. … Fight any man who says I’m not a married man and a citizen of City of New York, County of New York, State of New York. …” He’s standing on a chair making a speech, banging his fist into his hand. “Friends Roooomans and countrymen, lend me five bucks. … We come to muzzle Caesar not to shaaaave him. … According to the Constitution of the City of New York, County of New York, State of New York and duly attested and subscribed before a district attorney according to the provisions of the act of July 13th 1888. … To hell with the Pope.”
“Hey quit dat.” “Fellers lets trow dis guy out. … He aint one o de boys. … Dunno how he got in here. He’s drunk as a pissant.” Stan jumps with his eyes closed into a thicket of fists. He’s slammed in the eye, in the jaw, shoots like out of a gun out into the drizzling cool silent street. Ha ha ha.
For I am a bachelor and I live all alone
And there’s one more river to cross
One more river to Jordan
One more river to cross …
It was blowing cold in his face and he was sitting on the front of a ferryboat when he came to. His teeth were chattering, he was shivering … “I’m having D.T.’s. Who am I? Where am I? City of New York, State of New York. … Stanwood Emery age twentytwo occupation student. … Pearline Anderson twentyone occupation actress. To hell with her. Gosh I’ve got fortynine dollars and eight cents and where the hell have I been? And nobody rolled me. Why I havent got the D.T.’s at all. I feel fine, only a little delicate. All I need’s a little drink, dont you? Hello, I thought there was somebody here. I guess I’d better shut up.”
Fortynine dollars ahanging on the wall
Fortynine dollars ahanging on the wall
Across the zinc water the tall walls, the birchlike cluster of downtown buildings shimmered up the rosy morning like a sound of horns through a chocolatebrown haze. As the boat drew near the buildings densened to a granite mountain split with knifecut canyons. The ferry passed close to a tubby steamer that rode at anchor listing towards Stan so that he could see all the decks. An Ellis Island tug was alongside. A stale smell came from the decks packed with upturned faces like a load of melons. Three gulls wheeled complaining. A gull soared in a spiral, white wings caught the sun, the gull skimmed motionless in whitegold light. The rim of the sun had risen above the plumcolored band of clouds behind East New York. A million windows flashed with light. A rasp and a humming came from the city.
The animals went in two by two
The elephant and the kangaroo
There’s one more river to Jordan
One more river to cross
In the whitening light tinfoil gulls wheeled above broken boxes, spoiled cabbageheads, orangerinds heaving slowly between the splintered plank walls, the green spumed under the round bow as the ferry skidding on the tide, gulped the broken water, crashed, slid, settled slowly into the slip. Handwinches whirled with jingle of chains, gates folded upward. Stan stepped across the crack, staggered up the manuresmelling wooden tunnel of the ferryhouse out into the sunny glass and benches of the Battery. He sat down on a bench, clasped his hands round his knees to keep them from shaking so. His mind went on jingling like a mechanical piano.
With bells on her fingers and rings on her toes
Shall ride a
