The 42nd Parallel

  They got a room in a house near the levee for three dollars a week. The landlady was a yellowfaced woman from Panama and there was a parrot on the balcony outside their room and the sun was warm on their shoulders walking along the street. Grassi was very happy. “This is like the Italia,” he kept saying. They walked around and tried to find out about jobs but they couldn’t seem to find out about anything except that Mardi Gras was next week. They walked along Canal Street that was crowded with colored people, Chinamen, pretty girls in brightcolored dresses, racetrack hangerson, tall elderly men in palmbeach suits. They stopped to have a beer in a bar open to the street with tables along the outside where all kinds of men sat smoking cigars and drinking. When they came out Grassi bought an afternoon paper. He turned pale and showed the headline, war with Germany imminent. “If America go to war with Germany cops will arrest all Italian man to send back to Italy for fight, see? My friend tell who work in consule’s office; tell me, see? I will not go fight in capitalista war.” Charley tried to kid him along, but a worried set look came over Grassi’s face and as soon as it was dark he left Charley saying he was going back to the flop and going to bed.

  Charley walked round the streets alone. There was a warm molasses smell from the sugar refineries, whiffs of gardens and garlic and pepper and oil cookery. There seemed to be women everywhere, in bars, standing round streetcorners, looking out invitingly behind shutters ajar in all the doors and windows; but he had twenty dollars on him and was afraid one of them might lift it off him, so he just walked around until he was tired and then went back to the room, where he found Grassi already asleep with the covers over his head.

  It was late when he woke up. The parrot was squawking on the gallery outside the window, hot sunlight filled the room. Grassi was not there.

  Charley had dressed and was combing his hair when Grassi came in looking very much excited. He had taken a berth as donkey-engineman on a freighter bound for South America. “When I get Buenos Aires goodby and no more war,” he said. “If Argentina go to war, goodby again.” He kissed Charley on the mouth, and insisted on giving him his accordion and there were tears in his eyes when he went off to join the boat that was leaving at noon.

  Charley walked all over town inquiring at garages and machineshops if there was any chance of a job. The streets were broad and dusty, bordered by low shuttered frame houses, and distances were huge. He got tired and dusty and sweaty. People he talked to were darned agreeable but nobody seemed to know where he could get a job. He decided he ought to stay through the Mardi Gras anyway and then he would go up North again. Men he talked to told him to go to Florida or Birmingham, Alabama, or up to Memphis or Little Rock, but everybody agreed that unless he wanted to ship as a seaman there wasn’t a job to be had in the city. The days dragged along warm and slow and sunny and smelling of molasses from the refineries. He spent a great deal of time reading in the public library or sprawled on the levee watching the niggers unload the ships. He had too much time to think and he worried about what he was going to do with himself. Nights he couldn’t sleep well because he hadn’t done anything all day to tire him.

  One night he heard guitarmusic coming out of a joint called “The Original Tripoli,” on Chartres Street. He went in and sat down at a table and ordered drinks. The waiter was a Chink. Couples were dancing in a kind of wrestling hug in the dark end of the room. Charley decided that if he could get a girl for less than five seeds he’d take one on. Before long he found himself setting up a girl who said her name was Liz to drinks and a feed. She said she hadn’t had anything to eat all day. He asked her about Mardi Gras and she said it was a bum time because the cops closed everything up tight. “They rounded up all the waterfront hustlers last night, sent every last one of them up the river.” “What they do with ’em?” “Take ’em up to Memphis and turn ’em loose . . . ain’t a jail in the state would hold all the floosies in this town.” They laughed and had another drink and then they danced. Charley held her tight. She was a skinny girl with little pointed breasts and big hips. “Jez, baby, you’ve got some action,” he said after they’d been dancing a little while. “Ain’t it ma business to give the boys a good time?” He liked the way she looked at him. “Say, baby, how much do you get?” “Five bucks.” “Jez, I ain’t no millionaire . . . and didn’t I set you up to some eats?” “Awright, sugarpopper; make it three.”

  They had another drink. Charley noticed that she took some kind of lemonade each time. “Don’t you ever drink anything, Liz?” “You can’t drink in this game, dearie; first thing you know I’d be givin’ it away.”

  There was a big drunken guy in a dirty undershirt looked like a ship’s stoker reeling round the room. He got hold of Liz’s hand and made her dance with him. His big arms tattooed blue and red folded right round her. Charley could see he was mauling and pulling at her dress as he danced with her. “Quit that, you son of a bitch,” she was yelling. That made Charley sore and he went up and pulled the big guy away from her. The big guy turned and swung on him. Charley ducked and hopped into the center of the floor with his dukes up. The big guy was blind drunk, as he let fly another haymaker Charley put his foot out and the big guy tripped and fell on his face upsetting a table and a little dark man with a black mustache with it. In a second the dark man was on his feet and had whipped out a machete. The Chinks ran round mewing like a lot of damn gulls. The proprietor, a fat Spaniard in an apron, had come out from behind the bar and was yellin’, “Git out, every last one of you.” The man with the machete made a run at Charley. Liz gave him a yank one side and before Charley knew what had happened she was pulling him through the stinking latrines into a passage that led to a back door out into the street. “Don’t you know no better’n to git in a fight over a goddam whore?” she was saying in his ear.

  Once out in the street Charley wanted to go back to get his hat and coat. Liz wouldn’t let him. “I’ll get it for you in the mornin’,” she said. They walked along the street together. “You’re a damn good girl; I like you,” said Charley. “Can’t you raise ten dollars and make it all night?” “Jez, kid, I’m broke.” “Well, I’ll have to throw you out and do some more hustlin’, I guess . . . There’s only one feller in this world gets it for nothin’ and you ain’t him.”

  They had a good time together. They sat on the edge of the bed talking. She looked flushed and pretty in a fragile sort of way in her pink shimmy shirt. She showed him a snapshot of her steady who was second engineer on a tanker. “Ain’t he handsome? I don’t hustle when he’s in town. He’s that strong . . . He can crack a pecan with his biceps.” She showed him the place on his arm where her steady could crack a pecan.

  “Where you from?” asked Charley.

  “What’s that to you?”

  “You’re from up North; I can tell by the way you talk.”

  “Sure. I’m from Iowa, but I’ll never go back there no more . . . It’s a hell of a life, bo, and don’t you forget . . .‘Women of pleasure’ my foot. I used to think I was a classy dame up home and then I woke up one morning and found I was nothing but a goddam whore.”

  “Ever been to New York?”

  She shook her head. “It ain’t such a bad life if you keep away from drink and the pimps,” she said thoughtfully.

  “I guess I’ll shove off for New York right after Mardi Gras. I can’t seem to find me a master in this man’s town.”

  “Mardi Gras ain’t so much if you’re broke.”

  “Well, I came down here to see it and I guess I’d better see it.”

  It was dawn when he left her. She came downstairs with him. He kissed her and told her he’d give her the ten bucks if she got his hat and coat back for him and she said to come around to her place that evening about six, but not to go back to the “Tripoli” because that greaser was a bad egg and would be laying for him.

  The streets of old stucco houses inset with lacy iron balconies were brimful of blue mist. A few mulatto women in bandanas were moving around in the courtyard
s. In the market old colored men were laying out fruit and green vegetables. When he got back to his flop the Panama woman was out on the gallery outside his room holding out a banana and calling “Ven, Polly . . . Ven, Polly,” in a little squeaky voice. The parrot sat on the edge of the tiled roof cocking a glassy eye at her and chuckling softly. “Me here all night,” said the Panama woman with a tearful smile. “Polly no quiere come.” Charley climbed up by the shutter and tried to grab the parrot but the parrot hitched away sideways up to the ridge of the roof and all Charley did was bring a tile down on his head. “No quiere come,” said the Panama woman sadly. Charley grinned at her and went into his room, where he dropped on the bed and fell asleep.

  During Mardi Gras Charley walked round town till his feet were sore. There were crowds everywhere and lights and floats and parades and bands and girls running round in fancy dress. He picked up plenty of girls but as soon as they found he was flat they dropped him. He was spending his money as slowly as he could. When he got hungry he’d drop into a bar and drink a glass of beer and eat as much free lunch as he dared.

  The day after Mardi Gras the crowds began to thin out, and Charley didn’t have any money for beer. He walked round feeling hungry and miserable; the smell of molasses and the absinthe smell from bars in the French Quarter in the heavy damp air made him feel sick. He didn’t know what to do with himself. He didn’t have the gumption to start off walking or hitchhiking again. He went to the Western Union and tried to wire Jim collect, but the guy said they wouldn’t take a wire asking for money collect.

  The Panama woman threw him out when he couldn’t pay for another week in advance and there he was walking down Esplanade Avenue with Grassi’s accordion on one arm and his little newspaper bundle of clothes under the other. He walked down the levee and sat down in a grassy place in the sun and thought for a long time. It was either throwing himself in the river or enlisting in the army. Then he suddenly thought of the accordion. An accordion was worth a lot of money. He left his bundle of clothes under some planks and walked around to all the hockshops he could find with the accordion, but they wouldn’t give him more than fifteen bucks for it anywhere. By the time he’d been round to all the hockshops and musicstores it was dark and everything had closed. He stumbled along the pavement feeling sick and dopy from hunger. At the corner of Canal and Rampart he stopped. Singing was coming out of a saloon. He got the hunch to go in and play Funiculi funicula on the accordion. He might get some free lunch and a glass of beer out of it.

  He’d hardly started playing and the bouncer had just vaulted across the bar to give him the bum’s rush, when a tall man sprawled at a table beckoned to him.

  “Brother, you come right here an’ set down.” It was a big man with a long broken nose and high cheekbones.

  “Brother, you set down.” The bouncer went back behind the bar. “Brother, you can’t play that there accordeen no mor’n a rabbit. Ah’m nutten but a lowdown cracker from Okachobee City but if Ah couldn’t play no better’n that . . .” Charley laughed. “I know I can’t play it. That’s all right.” The Florida guy pulled out a big wad of bills. “Brother, do you know what you’re going to do? You’re going to sell me the goddam thing. . . . Ah’m nothin’ but a lowdown cracker, but, by Jesus Christ . . .”

  “Hey, Doc, be yourself . . . You don’t want the damn thing.” His friends tried to make him put his money back.

  Doc swept his arm round with a gesture that shot three glasses onto the floor with a crash. “You turkey-buzzards talk in your turn . . . Brother, how much do you want for the accordeen?” The bouncer had come back and was standing threateningly over the table. “All right, Ben,” said Doc. “It’s all on your Uncle Henry . . . and let’s have another round a that good rye whisky. Brother, how much do you want for it?”

  “Fifty bucks,” said Charley, thinking fast. Doc handed him out five tens. Charley swallowed a drink, put the accordion on the table and went off in a hurry. He was afraid if he hung round the cracker ’ud sober up and try to get the money back, and besides he wanted to eat.

  Next day he got a steerage passage on the steamer Momus bound for New York. The river was higher than the city. It was funny standing on the stern of the steamboat and looking down on the roofs and streets and trolleycars of New Orleans. When the steamer pulled out from the wharf Charley began to feel good. He found the colored steward and got him to give him a berth in the deckhouse. When he put his newspaper package under the pillow he glanced down into the berth below. There lay Doc, fast asleep, all dressed up in a light gray suit and a straw hat with a burntout cigar sticking out of the corner of his mouth and the accordion beside him.

  They were passing between the Eads Jetties and feeling the sea-wind in their faces and the first uneasy swell of the Gulf under their feet when Doc came lurching on deck. He recognized Charley and went up to him with a big hand held out. “Well, I’ll be a sonofabitch if there ain’t the musicmaker . . . That’s a good accordeen, boy. Ah thought you’d imposed on me bein’ only a poa country lad an’ all that, but I’ll be a sonofabitch if it ain’t worth the money. Have a snifter on me?”

  They went and sat on Doc’s bunk and Doc broke out a bottle of Bacardi and they had some drinks and Charley told about how he’d been flat broke; if it wasn’t for that fifty bucks he’d still be sitting on the levee and Doc said that if it wasn’t for that fifty bucks he’d be riding firstclass.

  Doc said he was going up to New York to sail for France in a volunteer ambulance corps; wasn’t ever’day you got a chance to see a big war like that and he wanted to get in on it before the whole thing went bellyup; still he didn’t like the idea of shooting a lot of whitemen he didn’t have no quarrel with and reckoned this was the best way; if the Huns was niggers he’d feel different about it.

  Charley said he was going to New York because he thought there were good chances of schooling in a big city like that and how he was an automobile mechanic and wanted to get to be a C.E. or something like that because there was no future for a working stiff without schooling.

  Doc said that was all mahoula and what a boy like him ought to do was go and sign up as a mechanic in this here ambulance and they’d pay fifty dollars a month an’ maybe more and that was a lot of seeds on the other side and he’d ought to see the goddam war before the whole thing went bellyup.

  Doc’s name was William H. Rogers and he’d come from Michigan originally and his old man had been a grapefruit grower down at Frostproof and Doc had cashed in on a couple of good crops of vegetables off the Everglades muck and was going over to see the mademosels before the whole thing went bellyup.

  They were pretty drunk by the time night fell and were sitting in the stern with a seedylooking man in a derby hat who said he was an Est from the Baltic. The Est and Doc and Charley got up on the little bridge above the afterhouse after supper; the wind had gone down and it was a starlight night with a slight roll and Doc said, “By God, there’s somethin’ funny about this here boat . . . Befoa we went down to supper the Big Dipper was in the north, and now it’s gone right around to the southwest.”

  “It is vat you vould expect of a kapitalistichesky society,” said the Est. When he found that Charley had a red card and that Doc didn’t believe in shooting anything but niggers he made a big speech about how revolution had broken out in Russia and the Czar was being forced to abdicate and that was the beginning of the regeneration of mankind from the East. He said the Ests would get their independence and that soon all Europe would be the free sozialistitchesky United States of Europe under the Red flag and Doc said, “What did I tell yez, Charley? The friggin’ business’ll go bellyup soon . . . What you want to do is come with me an’ see the war while it lasts.” And Charley said Doc was right and Doc said, “I’ll take you round with me, boy, an’ all you need do’s show your driver’s license an’ tell ’em you’re a college student.”

  The Est got sore at that and said that it was the duty of every classconscious worker to refuse to fight i
n this war and Doc said, “We ain’t goin’ to fight, Esty, old man. What we’ll do is carry the boys out before they count out on ’em, see? I’d be a disappointed sonofabitch if the whole business had gone bellyup befoa we git there, wouldn’t you, Charley?”

  Then they argued some more about where the Dipper was and Doc kept saying it had moved to the south and when they’d finished the second quart, Doc was saying he didn’t believe in white men shootin’ each other up, only niggers, and started going round the boat lookin’ for that damn shine steward to kill him just to prove it and the Est was singing The Marseillaise and Charley was telling everybody that what he wanted to do was to get in on the big war before it went bellyup. The Est and Charley had a hard time holding Doc down in his bunk when they put him to bed. He kept jumping out shouting he wanted to kill a couple of niggers.

  They got into New York in a snowstorm. Doc said the Statue of Liberty looked like she had a white nightgown on. The Est looked around and hummed The Marseillaise and said American cities were not artistical because they did not have gables on the houses like in Baltic Europe.

  When they got ashore Charley and Doc went to the Broadway Central Hotel together. Charley had never been in a big hotel like that and wanted to find a cheaper flop but Doc insisted that he come along with him and said he had plenty of jack for both of them and that it was no use saving money because things would go bellyup soon. New York was full of grinding gears and clanging cars and the roar of the “L” and newsboys crying extras. Doc lent Charley a good suit and took him down to the enlistment office of the ambulance corps that was in an important lawyer’s office in a big shiny officebuilding down in the financial district. The gentleman who signed the boys up was a New York lawyer and he talked about their being gentleman volunteers and behaving like gentlemen and being a credit to the cause of the Allies and the American flag and civilization that the brave French soldiers had been fighting for so many years in the trenches. When he found out Charley was a mechanic he signed him up without waiting to write to the principal of the highschool and the pastor of the Lutheran church home in Fargo whose names he had given as references. He told them about getting antityphoid injections and a physical examination and said to call the next day to find out the sailing date. When they came out of the elevator there was a group of men in the shinymarble lobby with their heads bent over a newspaper; the U.S. was at war with Germany. That night Charley wrote his mother that he was going to the war and please to send him fifty dollars. Then he and Doc went out to look at the town.