The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-01-20
NoPrivileges
By CHARLES YALE HARRISON.

ment house is a curious and terrlty-
ing thing. From its depths come
jumbo OF sounds, the waning of an
| ear-splCClng soprano floating IN over
the radio, The cIaLter OF supper pots
beng washed and banged around,
The changing syncopatlon OF per-
SIStent AUTOMATIC piano and the ever
lasting rauoouS argumen, auon OF an
emDaCCIed couple down on the second
floor.
Up the air-shaft they well-the
smear OF street noises, the grinding
| OF gears going from second into high,
the booming l., KIDS paying ROBBERS
and police and the plalnCIve wall of
a mo her calling her son-Jlmmie-e-e
Jimmle-e-e-e.
At night the windows across the
shaft light up revealing a panto-
mime OF shadows which dance gro
tesquely, haH-clad on the fly-blown
window shades.
Tonight, however, not all the
shades are down. It is a greasy
night. A night of sill and evil odors,
oppressive, panClng, a SLOW, silent
sweating night.
Across the air-shaft facing my
window she sits, bllnd up, tanning
herself with Coney Island souvenir
| fan. She is half-clad, her fleshy arms
cleaning in the light of her tang-
stem. l sit in the darkness of room
enjoying the role of eavesdropper.
| She wipes the small beads of sweat
from her face with a soiled hand
| kerchief.
the wall of the soprano bursts into
a cressendo:
"Come, come, love you only"
The second floor domestic belliger-
ents are shouting. The male voice
suddenly dominates:
and if you don't like it, you
lousy 3D., get the hell outa here"
The argument subsidies.
From the front of the house the
mothers voice calls anxiously-Jim-
mie-e-e-e, Jimmie-e-e-e!
l know that she rents her room
because she is the fifth harried oc-
cupant IN the past few months, and
l know that she is stranger in the
city because she stays in her room
night after night. Every night she
sits at her table and reads lurid
newspaper. Sometimes she reads a
comic line or passes her eyes over
comic strip and laughs an incre-
dibly tragic laugh.
When l get up in the morning she
is gone and when I return she sits
at the eternal table sometimes sewing
a run in her pulp-wood silk stock
ings, but mostly she reads the lurid
paper and occasionally laughs at the
funnies. She is Polish or Finnish or
some other sort of Slav and when
she laughs her small beady eyes al
most bury themselves somewhere be-
hind her high cheek bones.
Two weeks ago the unutterable
loneliness Of her room must have
driven her out into the garish streets.
She put her paper down with a GEES
ture of despair and returned few
hours later with man with oil
plastered black hair.
The air-shaft was quiet and they
sat at her table and talked in low
pitched voices. Her small eyes glis-
tened with pleasure and small beads
of perspiration stood out on her fore
head.
The mantle man was her male
counterpart. They talked for while
and then put the lights out.
There were other hot nights and
other men, but some evenings she sat
alone and read the Lonely Hearts"
column in the lurid newspaper.
Young man, German descent, re-
fined, musical, wishes to meet Ameri-
can lady, must be good pal. No gold
diggers need apply"
| AT other times she sewed her
shabby clothes or hung washed wet
stockings out to dry.
There are some who say that radi-
cal propaganda undermines the home,
but | have yet to see anything more
demoralizing that furnished room.
Millions of them all through the city.
The same bleary electric globes, tbs
same multi-colored pictures on the
bilious wall, the same cynical, worn
carpets.
1t was good to see my Slav friend
smiling under her aaaemic electric
light.
She had never heard that lack of
religious training is the cause of girls
going wrong. She had never heard
that the movies, sex-novels, Commu-
nisin are the cause of immortality. But
the Reverand Stanford should see a
furnished room.
A few nights ago another man
came home with her. Again the same
pantomime. Talk. Beads of pers-
piration. A little nervous laughter
and then the lights go out.
| Her new young man differed in no