Read Online Manhattan Transfer by John Dos Passos - Free Book Online

across the top with a wooden scoop, lets the foam settle a second, then puts the glass under the faintly wheezing spigot again. Gus is settling his heel comfortably against the brass rail.
    ‘Well how’s the job?’
    Gus gulps the glass of beer and makes a mark on his neck with his flat hand before wiping his mouth with it. ‘Full up to the neck wid it… I tell yer what I’m goin to do, I’m goin to go out West, take up free land in North Dakota or somewhere an raise wheat… I’m pretty handy round a farm… This here livin in the city’s no good.’
    ‘How’ll Nellie take that?’
    ‘She wont cotton to it much at foist, loikes her comforts of home an all that she’s been used to, but I think she’ll loike it foine onct she’s out there an all. This aint no loife for her nor me neyther.’
    ‘You’re right there. This town’s goin to hell… Me and the misses’ll sell out here some day soon I guess. If we could buy a noice genteel restaurant uptown or a roadhouse, that’s what’d suit us. Got me eye on a little property out Bronxville way, within easy drivin distance.’ He lifts a malletshaped fist meditatively to his chin. ‘I’m sick o bouncin these goddam drunks every night. Whade hell did I get outen the ring for xep to stop fightin? Jus last night two guys starts asluggin an I has to mix it up with both of em to clear the place out… I’m sick o fighten every drunk on Tenth Avenoo… Have somethin on the house?’
    ‘Jez I’m afraid Nellie’ll smell it on me.’
    ‘Oh, niver moind that. Nellie ought to be used to a bit of drinkin. Her ole man loikes it well enough.’
    ‘But honest Mac I aint been slopped once since me weddinday.’
    ‘I dont blame ye. She’s a real sweet girl Nellie is. Those little spitcurls o hers’d near drive a feller crazy.’
    The second beer sends a foamy acrid flush to Gus’s fingertips. Laughing he slaps his thigh.
    ‘She’s a pippin, that’s what she is Gus, so ladylike an all.’
    ‘Well I reckon I’ll be gettin back to her.’
    ‘You lucky young divil to be goin home to bed wid your wife when we’re all startin to go to work.’
    Gus’s red face gets redder. His ears tingle. ‘Sometimes she’s abed yet… So long Mac.’ He stamps out into the street again.
    The morning has grown bleak. Leaden clouds have settled down over the city. ‘Git up old skin an bones,’ shouts Gus jerking at the gelding’s head. Eleventh Avenue is full of icy dust, of grinding rattle of wheels and scrape of hoofs on the cobblestones. Down the railroad tracks comes the clang of a locomotive bell and the clatter of shunting freightcars. Gus is in bed with his wife talking gently to her: Look here Nellie, you wouldn’t moind movin West would yez? I’ve filed application for free farmin land in the state o North Dakota, black soil land where we can make a pile o money in wheat; some fellers git rich in foive good crops… Healthier for the kids anyway… ‘Hello Moike!’ There’s poor old Moike still on his beat. Cold work bein a cop. Better be a wheatfarmer an have a big farmhouse an barns an pigs an horses an cows an chickens… Pretty curlyheaded Nellie feedin the chickens at the kitchen door…
    ‘Hay dere for crissake…’ a man is yelling at Gus from the curb. ‘Look out for de cars!’
    A yelling mouth gaping under a visored cap, a green flag waving. ‘Godamighty I’m on the tracks.’ He yanks the horse’s head round. A crash rips the wagon behind him. Cars, the gelding, a green flag, red houses whirl and crumble into blackness.

3 Dollars

    All along the rails there were faces; in the portholes there were faces. Leeward a stale smell came from the tubby steamer that rode at anchor listed a little to one side with the yellow quarantine flag drooping at the foremast.
    ‘I’d give a million dollars,’ said the old man resting on his oars, ‘to know what they come for.’
    ‘Just for that pop,’ said the young man who sat in the stern. ‘Aint it the