And Bunny was in that great "Emperor" ball-room, where he had danced so many a night, first with Eunice Hoyt and then with Vee Tracy. All his friends would be there tonight—Verne and Annabelle and Fred Orpan and Thelma Norman and Mrs. Pete O'Reilly and Mark Eisenberg—the cream of the plutocracy, celebrating their greatest triumph to date. There would be American flags and streamers on the walls, and some would wave little flags— a great patriotic occasion—nothing like it since the Armistice—ray for Coolidge, keep cool with Cal! The room would be crowded to suffocation, and by this hour nine-tenths of the dancers would be staggering. Large-waisted financiers with crumpled shirt-fronts, hugging stout wives or slender mistresses, with naked backs and half-naked bosoms hung with diamonds and pearls, red paint plastered on their lips and platinum bangles in their ears, shuffling round and round to the thump of the tomtom, the wail of the saxophone, the rattle and clatter of sticks, the banging of bells and snarl of stopped trumpets. "She does the camel-walk!" shrilled the singer; and the hip and buttock muscles of the large-waisted financier would be alternately contracted and relaxed, and his feet dragged about the floor in the incoordinate reactions of the locomotor ataxia and spastic paraplegia.
XIV
Paul had begun to thresh his arms about: it was necessary to hold him, and when they tried it, he began to fight back. Did he think the strike-guards at Paradise had seized him? Or was it the jailors at San Elido? Or the Federal secret service agents? Or the French gendarmes? Or the sailors of the fleet? Or the thugs with hatchets and iron pipe? He fought with maniacal fury, and there was Bunny, holding down one arm and Gregor the other, with Ruth and Rachel each clinging to one foot, while the nurse came running with a straight jacket. So with much labor they tied him fast. He would make terrific efforts; his face would turn purple, and the cords would stand out in his neck; but the system had got him, he could not escape. Meantime, through the open window, Radio VXZ, the main dining-room of the Admiralty Hotel; a blended sound of many hundreds of people, shouting, singing, cheering, now and then smashing a plate, or pounding on the table. Some one was making a speech to the assembly, but he was so drunk he could hardly talk, and they were so drunk they could not have understood anyhow. One got snatches—"glorish victry—greatesh country—soun instooshns—greatesh man ever in White Housh—Cautioush Cal—ray for Coolidge!" A storm of cheers, yells, laughter—and the voice of the announcer, drunk also: "Baby Belle, hottes' lill babe, sing us hot one, right off griddle. Go to it, Baby, I'll hold you!" Yes, the announcer was drunk, the very radio was drunk, the instruments would not send the wave-lengths true, the ether could not carry them straight, they wavered and wiggled; the laws of the physical universe had gone staggering, God was drunk on His Throne, so pleased by the election of the greatesh man ever in White Housh. Bunny, dazed with exhaustion, saw the scene through a blur of sound and motion, the shining mouths of trumpets, the waving of flags, the flashing of electric signs, the cavorting of satyrs, the prancing of savages, the jiggling of financiers and their mistresses simulating copulation. Baby Belle was unsteady before the microphone, you lost parts of her song at each stagger; but snatches came, portraying the nymphomania of "Flamin' Mamie, sure-fire vamp—hottes' baby in the town—some scorcher—love's torture—gal that burns 'em down!" "Oh, God! Oh, God!" cried Ruth. "He's trying to speak to me!" And so for an instant it seemed. Paul's one eye had come open, wild and frightful; he lifted his head, he made a choking noise— "Comes to lovin'—she's an oven!" shrilled the radio voice. "Paul! What is it?" shrieked Ruth. "Ain't it funny—paper money burns right in her hand!" Paul sank back, he gave up, and Ruth, her two hands clasped as if praying to him, seemed to follow with her soul into that faraway place where he was going. "Flamin' Mamie, workin' in a mine, ate a box o' matches at the age o' nine!" "He's dead! He's dead!" Ruth put her hand over Paul's heart, and then started up with a scream. "Flamin' Mamie, sure-fire vamp," reiterated the chorus, "hottes' baby in the town!" And Ruth rushed to the window, and threw herself—no, not out, because Bunny had been too quick for her; the others helped to hold her, and the nurse came running with a hypodermic needle, and in a few minutes she was lying on a cot at the side of the room, looking as dead as her brother. And the householder turned to Radio RWKY, the Angel City Patriot broadcasting from its own studio. "Latest bulletin from New York, the Republican Central Committee claims that Calvin Coolidge will have the greatest plurality ever cast in American history, close to eighteen million votes. Good-night, friends of Ra-dioland."
XV
The Communists wanted to have a "Red funeral," to make a piece of propaganda out of Paul's death. But Eli interposed his majestic authority; since Paul had repented his evil ways and come back to Jesus, he should be buried according to the rites of the Third Revelation. So three days later a little pageant wound its way to the top of one of the hills of Paradise. There was a crowd on hand, and a truck with the necessary radio apparatus—never were any of the precious words of Eli lost nowadays; the two hundred thousand radio housewives of California had been notified by the newspapers, and a hundred and ninety thousand of them had put off their marketing to hear this romantic funeral service. Bunny and Rachel and a handful of the reds stood to one side, knowing they were not welcome. Ruth stood near the grave with the weeping family, having on each side of her a sturdy oil worker—her two brothers-in-law, Andy Bugner and Jerry Black—because she had been violent on occasions, and no one knew what she might do. She was white and fearful in looks, but seemed not to realize the meaning of the big hole dug in the ground, or of the long black box covered with flowers. While Eli was preaching his fervid sermon about the prodigal son who returned, and about the strayed lamb which was found, Ruth stood gazing at the white clouds moving slowly behind the distant hill-tops. She would make them no more trouble. All she wanted was to wander over these hills, and call now and then for the sheep which were no longer there. Sometimes she called Paul, and sometimes she called Bunny, and so they let her wander; until one day she went calling Joe Gundha. The oil workers who were putting up the new derricks and cleaning out the burned wells to put them back on production were new men to the Ross Junior tract—it is the Roscoe Junior tract now, by the way, one of Vernon Roscoe's four sons being in charge of the job. These new men had never heard about the "roughneck" who had fallen into the discovery well, so they paid no attention to the unhappy girl who wandered here and there calling his name. It was not till late that night, when Ruth was missing, and the family making a search, that some one told of hearing her call Joe Gundha. Meelie remembered right away, and they put down a hook in the discovery well, which was having to be drilled again, and they brought up a piece of Ruth's dress; so they put down a three-pronged grab, and brought up the rest of her, and Eli came again, and they buried her alongside Paul, and with Joe Gundha not far away. You can see those graves, with a picket fence about them, and no derrick for a hundred feet or more. Some day all those unlovely derricks will be gone, and so will the picket fence and the graves. There will be other girls with bare brown legs running over those hills, and they may grow up to be happier women, if men can find some way to chain the black and cruel demon which killed Ruth Watkins and her brother—yes, and Dad also: an evil Power which roams the earth, crippling the bodies of men and women, and luring the nations to destruction by visions of unearned wealth, and the opportunity to enslave and exploit labor.
THE END
Upton Sinclair, Oil! A Novel by Upton Sinclair
(Series: # )
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