1919 by John Dos Passos

kind of questions the examining board would ask him and what kind of papers he’d need. Joe was pretty worried about his original A.B. certificate, but he had another now and recommendations from captains of ships he’d been on. What the hell, he’d been at sea four years, it was about time he knew a little about running a ship. He almost worried himself sick over the examination, but when he was actually there standing before the old birds on the board it wasn’t as bad as he thought it ud be. When he actually got the third mate’s license and showed it to Del, they were both of them pretty tickled.
    Joe bought his uniform when he got an advance of pay. From then on he was busy all day doing odd jobs round the drydock for old Cap’n Perry who hadn’t gotten a crew together yet. Then in the evenings he worked painting up the little bedroom, kitchenette and bath he’d rented for him and Del to live in when he was ashore. Del’s folks insisted on having a church wedding and Will Stirp, who was making fifteen dollars a day in a shipyard in Baltimore, came down to be best man.
    Joe felt awful silly at the wedding and Will Stirp had gotten hold of some whiskey and had a breath like a distillery wagon and a couple of the other boys were drunk and that made Del and her folks awful sore and Del looked like she wanted to crown him all through the service. When it was over Joe found he’d wilted his collar and Del’s old man began pulling a lot of jokes and her sisters giggled so much in their white organdy dresses, he could have choked ’em. They went back to the Matthews’ house and everybody was awful stiff except Will Stirp and his friends who brought in a bottle of whiskey and got old man Matthews cockeyed. Mrs. Matthews ran ’em all out of the house and all the old cats from the Ladies Aid rolled their eyes up and said, “Could you imagine it?” And Joe and Del left in a taxicab a feller he knew drove and everybody threw rice at them and Joe found he had a sign reading Newlywed pinned on the tail of his coat and Del cried and cried and when they got to their apartment Del locked herself in
the bathroom and wouldn’t answer when he called and he was afraid she’d fainted.
    Joe took off his new blue serge coat and his collar and necktie and walked up and down not knowing what to do. It was six o’clock in the evening. He had to be aboard ship at midnight because they were sailing for France as soon as it was day. He didn’t know what to do. He thought maybe she’d want something to eat so he cooked up some bacon and eggs on the stove. By the time everything was cold and Joe was walking up and down cussing under his breath, Del came out of the bathroom looking all fresh and pink like nothing had happened. She said she couldn’t eat anything but let’s go to a movie . . .“But, honeybug,” said Joe, “I’ve got to pull out at twelve.” She began to cry again and he flushed and felt awful fussed. She snuggled up to him and said, “We won’t stay for the feature. We’ll come back in time.” He grabbed her and started hugging her but she held him off firmly and said, “Later.”
    Joe couldn’t look at the picture. When they got back to the apartment it was ten o’clock. She let him pull off her clothes but she jumped into bed and wrapped the bedclothes around her and whimpered that she was afraid of having a baby, that he must wait till she found out what to do to keep from having a baby. All she let him do was rub up against her through the bedclothes and then suddenly it was ten of twelve and he had to jump into his clothes and run down to the wharf. An old colored man rowed him out to where his ship lay at anchor. It was a sweetsmelling spring night without any moon. He heard honking overhead and tried to squint up his eyes to see the birds passing against the pale stars.