The Drifters Read Online Free PDF

beautiful country, from the Golden Gate to Brooklyn Bridge,’ one of the drivers said reverently, ‘and don’t you ever forget it.’
    This note of patriotism induced a different mood, and one of the drivers said, ‘They’re sure gonna cut hell out of that hair when you join the army, son. You’ll be better for it.’
    The drivers agreed that Joe would profit from the discipline of army life, and as he listened to them extolling its benefits he thought how cowardly he was to allow them to think that he was about to follow in their steps when in fact he was using their hospitality to escape. He swallowedhis ignominy and thought: If I told them I was dodging the draft they’d probably stomp me to death.
    Ashamed of such duplicity, he left the diner and walked into the storm, where headlights from cars pulling off the road cast strange beams into the snowy night. At times his universe seemed minute, no larger than the circle formed by the flakes, but at other times, when the lights had vanished, it broadened out to an infinite prairie, silent and of enormous dimension. As he stood in the storm, caught within the circle of light, yet thrust outward to the horizon, he gained a sense of the world, that never-known miracle of which he would henceforth be a sentient part.
    At the same time he achieved his first appreciation of America, vast and inchoate in the darkness which engulfed it. ‘This is a land worth fighting for,’ he muttered, feeling no contradiction in being a man running away from the draft yet inspired to fight for a land which he sensed was good. So far as he could judge, the most notable patriot he had met in the last four years had been Mrs. Rubin, a Jewish housewife perched in the basement of a Presbyterian church, trying to bring some kind of order out of the chaos her country had fallen into.
    As soon as he hit New York he headed for Washington Square, where the church he sought looked exactly like the one he had left in California and where the Quaker woman counseling him could have been Mrs. Rubin’s sister. She assured him that jobs were available, but that he’d have to be careful in seeking them: ‘You’ve got to avoid places where the owner might want to see your draft card. And watch out for the older men in the construction unions. They’re very patriotic and they’ll insist that you be patriotic too … in their way. But here’s an address that might work. They’re tearing down an old building and they’ll be happy to have anyone with a strong back.’
    He reported to a site near Gramercy Park, where there was a huge hole in the ground next to a large private house that was being demolished. The foreman explained: ‘The hitch is that some nuts want to save the ceilings. Seems they were carved a hundred years ago. Your job is to get them down without pulverizing them.’ Before Joe could say anything, the foreman thrust a crowbar in his hands,shouting, ‘Remember, if we wanted them goddamn ceilings torn apart we’d use the wrecking ball. We want ’em in one piece.’ A little later an assistant came into the room where Joe was working from a scaffold and whispered, ‘If anyone asks about your union card, you’re a private artist saving the ceiling for a museum.’
    ‘What museum?’
    ‘New York Museum of Architecture and Design,’ the man said promptly. ‘There ain’t none with that name and it’ll keep the union guy busy till next week figurin’ it out.’
    The work was dusty and back-breaking, but when Joe climbed down for a rest, the assistant said, ‘Imagine you’re Michelangelo. He worked up there twenty years, I saw it in the movies. “You’ll work there if I say so!” ’ He continued bellowing in a theatrical voice, ‘ “I’m the Pope. Get the hell back to work.” ’
    At night Joe slept in a flophouse recommended to him by the woman at the church, and he was so tired that he dropped off to sleep immediately. His neighborhood was a lively one, and