Originally published in Which Grain Will Grow, 1950
I went to Manhattan to look for a job. I just got on the subway and went to Manhattan. On 42nd Street all the people were rushing about. They looked as if they knew where they were headed. I had no idea where to go. I didn’t even know where to look for a job. But I said to myself, “Jack,” I said (Jack isn’t my real name, but I call myself Jack because it is a nice-sounding name), “Jack, you have got to get a job. Look, everybody has a job. They have some place to go. They bring home money every week to support themselves with. Don’t you feel ashamed because you haven’t got a job?”
I am a writer. I didn’t feel ashamed, so I went to Central Park. It was spring, the rich green grass glistening with dew, and the caterpillars and false noses were dropping like raindrops from the trees. It was warm, and I walked with my hands in my pockets and my jacket swung over my shoulder. I thought it made me look real tough, and I like to look real tough, even when I’m out of a job and have only ten cents in my pocket.
I saw a pretty girl sunning herself on a bench. She was wearing a blue polka-dot dress. I wanted to sit down beside her and talk to her, but I was afraid, so instead I walked past her tough and swaggering, and I wished that I had a pretty girl in a blue polka-dot dress walking with her hand in mine.
The sun was shining brightly, and when I looked at the grass I wanted to take off my shoes and run barefoot or maybe just lie down and go to sleep with the caterpillars and false noses falling on my face.
Near the zoo I heard two fat old ladies talking. They both had nice pleasant old faces; they looked like grandmothers. They were looking at some bums sleeping on the grass.
“Can’t those riff-raff read signs?” one old lady said.
“It distinctly says ‘Keep Off’,” the other one said.
“I’d like to call a policeman and have them chased,” the first one said.
“Me too,” the other one said, looking for a policeman.
I was very glad that there were no policemen around to chase the sleeping tramps off the grass.
When I heard a lion roar just then, I knew I was very close to the zoo. I walked faster now that I had some place to go. I would be a mighty happy fellow, I thought, if I could walk with a pretty girl in a blue polka-dot dress with her hand in mine.
I went up to the lion’s cage. He was sprawled out in the sun with his paws in front of him and roaring. A woman behind me said that it seems silly for a lion to roar for no reason at all. I walked to the next cage and saw the lioness scratching at the bars. Then I knew why the lion was roaring. It seems a shame, I thought, and I went back to the lion’s cage and looked sympathetically into his sleepy brown eyes, and I know this is crazy, but I think he looked back sympathetically at me.
I went to the monkey house and saw a man give a cigar to a chimpanzee named Jimmy.
“Is that allowed?” I asked the man.
He didn’t answer, but instead he lit the chimpanzee’s cigar. The chimpanzee puffed the cigar and climbed to the top of the cage. He inhaled and blew the smoke out through his nose. A few people gathered around and looked up and laughed at him. I laughed because he looked like my father.
“He looks just like a man,” a little boy said.
“He seems to be having a lot of fun,” his mother said.
I no longer cared whether it was allowed or not.
After the monkeys, I watched the seals splashing around in the cool green water. One of them was sleeping on a stone slab.
“What a life!” a man behind me said. “Sit around and take a sunbath and then jump into the water and go for a swim.”
“It’s not who you are; it’s what you are,” I said.
I laughed and walked out of the zoo, still wishing that I had a pretty girl in a blue polka-dot dress walking with her hand in mine. On the Mall a little boy with a sunburnt nose spoke to me. He was holding a balloon that was in the shape of an elephant.
“Look! I got an elephant!” he said.
“That’s a mighty nice elephant,” I said.
“It can go up to the sky,” he said, lifting his arm way up in the air.
I remembered an old nursery rhyme that my mother used to recite to me:
I asked my mother for fifty cents
To see the elephant jump the fence.
He jumped so high he reached the sky
And never came down till the Fourth of July.
The little boy laughed and ran back to his mother. I took my shoes off and sat on a rock near the lake. People were rowing. Across the lake I saw a boy and a girl. They were sitting real close, her red hair blowing over his face. I wished that I could make love to some pretty girl in a blue polka-dot dress. I wished that I could kiss her cherry red lips and rub her nose with mine and let her hair blow over my face. I wished that we could go rowing and put our toes in the water over the back of the boat. I wished that we could sit on the grass and say nonsensical things. I wished that I could recite “Jabberwocky” into her ear while she kissed my neck:
’Twas brillig and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe
I was sitting under a tree, and the caterpillars and false noses were falling all over me. I put on a false nose. A little girl who saw me do it said to her mother, “Isn’t that silly?” I knew it was silly and I even said to myself, “Jack, you’re silly,” but I didn’t care.
There were no clouds in the sky and the sun made glistening spangles on the ripples of the lake. I watched them until my eyes began to hurt. A man from the park department with a long thin face was doing some hoeing near where I sat.
“Do you like your job?” I said.
“I like it this time of year,” he told me.
“It must be fun,” I said.
“Not in the wintertime,” he answered.
“I’d like to get a job like that,” I said.
“A young feller like you can get a better job than this. A young feller like you can get a good job, good pay, good future.”
“I’m not interested in things like that,” I said. “I’m a writer.”
“Why aren’t you home writing?” he said. He was a very smart man.
“I’m looking for a job,” I said.
“You sure are looking,” he said laughing. “You sure are looking!”
“What was your ambition when you were a boy?” I asked.
“I wanted to see the darkies pick cotton in Louisiana. I wanted to see the sun come up over the black hills of Dakota. I wanted to see the moon shine down on the Great Salt Lake. I wanted to see the men singing songs on top of railroad trains. I wanted to see men pick grapes in California and husk corn in Iowa and thresh wheat in Indiana.”
“Did you see all these things?” I asked.
“Sure did! I was a hobo for thirty years.”
“I’d like to be a hobo, especially in the springtime,” I said.
“That’s the best time,” the man said. I knew he was thinking about the time when he was a young man.
“What do you write about?” the man asked.
“I write about girls with blue polka-dot dresses and old ladies who chase bums off the grass and lions and monkeys and seals and little boys with toy balloon elephants and old men who used to be hobos.”
“You’re a funny kid,” the man said.
I walked near the sailboat pond and sat down on a bench. I thought about the whole country and then about the whole world and then about the universe.
“It’s not so big, Jack,” I said to myself.
Two young men sat down next to me. They took sandwiches out of a brown paper bag and began to eat. The sandwiches smelled like tuna fish. One young man had sad eyes, and I knew he was a philosopher.
“Sure is good to get out of that stuffy smelly office,” he said.
“Sure is,” the other one said.
“Some day I’m going out for lunch and then I’m going to take my tuna fish sandwich and throw it into this pond and never go back to that smelly office. Then I’m going to marry a rich girl and buy an estate and sit on my estate and get sun-tanned all day long. Then at night I’m going to do nothing but make love to my wife and thank God for her having all that money.”
“The grass always looks greener on the other side,” the other one said.
I looked out over the pond where a little sailboat was gracefully swaying on the crest of the wind. An old man with a long stick was following it along the shore.
“Some beaut!” a little boy said. He had a pleasant high-pitched voice. I wished I were a little boy or an old man having fun near a sailboat pond. But I was a young man and what would make me happy would be to make love on the grass to a pretty girl in a polka-dot dress. I was sorry that I was afraid to speak to the girl in the blue polka-dot dress sunning herself on a bench.
It began to get late. The sun dipped quietly behind the large trees and the children began to disappear from the park. I had started out to get a job. I did not know what kind of a job. I know now. I went home and wrote about Central Park, and when I went to bed I had a dream. And in my dream I was making love to a pretty girl in a blue polka-dot dress.