Document text
ORIGINAL MSS OR FIELD NOTES (CHECK
ONE)
PUB. WE TIORK ON THE WA
TITLE DONALD M. CURRIER
WRITER
SEYMOUR BUCK
DATE JULY 16 1939 yips. pp 13
CHECKER
SOURCES GIVEN
COMMENTS
July 16, 1939.
Submitted by: Seymour D. Buck Newburyport, Mass.
Name of WPA Worker Interviewed: Donald M. Currier.
WPA Occupation: Laborer -tree climber, on Tree Repair
Project, Local.
Sketch: Age 34, married, (wife 28); three children,
Carlene, six; Wilma, age four; Beryl, age 2. Mother
pregnant; father supplements WPA work with painting,
amateur carpentering, etc., odd -job work.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTION
This call was made on Sunday, ]ate afternoon.
The family had partaken of their evening meal.
(Youngsters in back yard finishing their minced ham
sandwiches, dipping occasionally into a large sause-
pan of Za-Rex orange syruix.and lukewarm water with
their glasses. Immediateoccupation consisted of
carting a live rabbit around in a broken-down doll
carriage, feeding it an occasional piece of carrot
for amusement.)
r On
"Hi, there. What the Hell you doing around here
this time of day Well, come 6n in. Don't stand
out there looking at all the junk. Christ, I'll never
get this place looking like anything. If Donld do half
At the sudden clamor in the yard, she darted to
the door, leaned her head out, and bellowed, "Don't
you kids know it's Sunday? Carlene, leave go the
baby's hand. CARLENE, Oh, for Christ's sakoV
H E Y, you, get in here!
A back -hand slap across the oldest girl's shoulders
sent her spinning into the living room. "You park your
little fanny in that chair, and God help you if you
move until I tell
"Make na-na,
the door.
"For Christ
"Carlene Whimpered, sliding toward
OD OD
go on, get going. DON, undo
her pants, and come on, this guy's sick of waiting -7-"
MO
"Well, look who's here." Currier nodded amiably,
and went to the sink. "Shove some to these dishes over,
will you, baby, so's I cna clean up?" Tanned elbows
and arms held out from his sides, be turned toward his
wife.
"Shove 'em yourself," came her swift retort. "If
you'd washed 'em before you started in down cellar, they
wouldn't be in your way, now. All I got to do around
here all the time, and you
"Skip it," he said curtly. A slow flush mounted to
his temples, and as he rubbed his arms briskly with the
cold water, he said to his visitor, "Got your 403 yet?
I guess we're done, aren't we? Mike Carey was telling
us we'd be lucky if we didn't lose out altogether, the
way it looks to hi*
Wiping his hands on the roller towel be swung
around, and said, slowly, "You know, this thing is
getting tougher every day. It's one thing to plug like
Hell and know you're going to get enough to pay most
of your bills, but the way it si now
"Don where the Hell'd you put my crochet patterns?
DON, seen my patterns? You musta got 'em mixed up
with the funnies. I'll bet you tooj 'em down cellar
when you took you "daily" DON
Currier glanced quickly around the kitchen and
spotted the flimsy papers beneath the kitchen table.
Slapping them against his overalls he removed the crumbs
and dirt. He walked slowly across the kitchen and placed
them in his wife's hands. Without a word he returned
to his seat at the kitc#on and resumed.
"I'm so damned sick and tired of all this being
upset all the time, it seems like I'd give anything
just to be able to lie down and go to sleep for keeps
"Listen," the voice from the adjoining roam interrupted
caustically, "when you lay down and go to sleep it's because
you aint got me around to keep you momine Jesus Christ,
tfhear you talk anybodyfd think this was the life of
Reilly I'm leadinf here, with three little bastards
fighting and yellinf all day long, and never gettinf
out around tfsee or tfdo anything anymore who the
Hell you think you are, anyway? Whynft you tell him
how you had to marry me, nf how if it hadn't been
for me you'd been a officer or some goddam thing in the
Coast Guard bfnow, hula?*
"Beefs not feeling well, these days," Currier said
gently. "Doctor thinks it may be her kidneys. Some days
it'll be ofk, fn then there's blood fn stuff comes out.
I don't know, I only wish I could take her simewhere
his voice trailed off and he rapped a silver knife
gently against an empty glass, listening with absorbed
attention to the clear tone which filled the room.
"Say, I meant to ask you *hen I saw you again, did
you ever hear *hat happened to Tim Murphy? Somebody told
me they sent him up for three years, but I never got it
straight."
"Well," Currier laughed grimly, !he won't have to
worry about lay-offs and stuff, anyway. I want down to
the Cbmmissary day before yesterday and they were all out
of everything but flour. If I went down there three
times a week they'd have lust got rid of the last of the
butter and oranges. It beats Hell how they never have
stuff in down here and up in Haverhill they get every
damned thing you can think of, almost. Well, Hell, I
guess we're lucky to get any thing, come right down to
it. Believe me, the way some of them guys from Joppa
hang around the place, they're not missing a bit, I'll
tell you now. Beals mother saw a couple of old maids
from up High Street, mind you, they drove down in
their car and parked it over behind the Library and
sent the chauffeur in for flour and butter and eggs.
Can you beat it?
Currier shrugged his broad shoulders and pushed his
hands deep into his overalls pockets. Stretching his long
legs out before him, he said, laughing deep in his chest,
"I wish I could wait on 'em just one day. Boy, would
some of 'em squawk, though. Tell old lady Nugent,
flrinstince, if she wanted the butter she'd have to
take all the era like the cereals and dried milk, too.
Watch her amble up the street huggin' a big bag of that
there wheat flour up to her chest, boy, would she have
kittens, huh?"
"That's how it is with the whole thing, though. The
ones ought to be gettint the most aren't gettint half
enough. Why, only last month I got off WPA on my own
hook. I been picking up quite a little on the side odd-
jobs and painting and the like. When it folded up on
me I got right on, because I'd been willing to:get off
without being made to. But now they tell me the quota's
full up and it don't matter how you got off, you're off
until some son -of -a- bitch down to Boston gets ready to
"WK." your name.
"How'd I ever come to get on in the first place?"
That's easy. They got sick of givint me relief checks,
that's why. I been working ofr Uncle Sam ever since the
first CWA project, up at the overhead. Christ, look
at my landlord. He was on the City Council. You bet
your ass he wasn't going to let me owe rent, not him.
I got a relief slip and he got his rent. Theft, when I
got on CWA and the kid took down with scarlet fever,
he had me moved out damned quick when I couldn't dig up
the five bucks a week for him!
"I put in for the dredging project, if it ever goes
through. Boy, that's a honey. I'm the only guy in New-
buryport listed down to the Unemployment Bureau with a
Seaman's rating! Bea says she won't let me take the
job if it means I got to sleep on the boat, though.
She couldn't get along alone, here, with the kids In
everything. Her ma said something abouttaking them with
her, but
"Listen, Don, You aint got to go into your life's
What they going to do if you just walk in and pick what
you want right up, and walk out agAin? Boy, they
better not leave whole chickens and hams and stuff in the
windows Saturday nights, Ittm telling you, now.
*Arrested?* Haw you going to pinch fifty a hundred
guys, all hungry and afraid of nothing? Like Hell, brother,
like Hell.
*What's the sense of our talking like that? Things
aren't going to get that bad, not much. Maybe these birds
around here do think there's jobs for us. and maybe
there are. Maybe we can make as much on our own as WPA
*Look who's talking,* his wife shouted shrilly, mov-
ing to stand in the kitchen doorway. *You boys been yappint
for damn near and hour. Come on, you get your kids in bed,
and then you can yap until morning for all of W. I'm
going over to ma's. I got to have some help measuring this
flannel. Listen, Don, you keep to Hell out of the baby's
bank, you hear? You aint goint out calloopint just
because one ofoyour WPA friends drops in for an evening,
hear?"
"It's Sunday, honey," Currier advised gently.
*Besides, we aren't in the need of such stimulants?
We got enough to keep* us excited without booze. Carlene
Wilma Baby Come in, now, time to get your shut -eye.
Come on, now."
OM
"That's done, thank the Lord. Jesus, is there
anything worse than trying to stick kids into hot
beds with the wan still pouring into the room and not
a breath of air stirring? Christ, I don't blame 'am
for walking around and hiding under the beds, but it
sure gets Bea all upset. I wish I could get somebody
to look at her. The city Doctor was up a couple of
weeks ago and all he did was give her some pills and tell
her she ought to drink more water and be out in the
air more. Maybe a trip up to the Mountains, or a
week at the Beach wouldn't hurt, his laugh was
bitter, and in his eyes the gleam was hard and cold,
"Fed up" who, me?" He laughed. "Hell, that's
life, guy. Maybe some people get a kick out of thinking
they run their own business and know what's going to
happen to 'em, but they're wrong. It's all doped out,
what the Hell's the use of killing youself trying to
get somewhere, be somebody, if it's all on the books
that you're going to work when there's work and loaf
when there isn't, pay your bills when, as and if you
can, and some day they'll look at you and say, "He
looks pretty good, at that, but I don't remember them
lines on his face." Get it? I'm sorry I got the kids,
that's all. They keep Bea all upset all the time,
and what the Hell they got ahead of them? Marry,
have kids anyway, and watch some other guy hang around
the house all day until everything busts up, or they
just go out and croak themselves? Hell, look at me.
I started out to be somebodypin the Coast Guard. I
wasn't running around more than two years before I met
up with Bea, Christ, the first thing I knew she was
in trouble, and that ended me, too. Ever since, it
seems like I've just got a little older and been a little
worse off, that's all.
was thinking not over two months ago, why the
heck shouldn't I get in a bid on this painting there
doing in City Hall? There's Perkins, in the Council,
he's a painter and he bid in and got three rooms. Christ,
for the money he painted them offical I could have done
the job, O.K. too, and paid for the paint myself, and
made a good thing out of it. When I went to see the
Mayor* he told me, "Sure, Currier. I'd like to see a
young fellow get ahead. Give Pat Welch your bid, but
make it fair, boy, make tt fair."
"Know what he wanted? Pat Welch's wife's Perkins'
sister. Pat would have had my bid, and then Perkins'
bid would havebeen about five bucks below mine. Fine
chance you got, these days, trying to get anyvigere
honestly, I'm telling you.
!Maybe if Bea wasn't sick all the time, I could get
along better. Seems like every night I got to spend most
of my time getting the house straightened out. She
tries hard, I know, Hell, they got a WPA Hausekeppers'
Project, but the doctor wouldn't give her an 00K. as
needing one, she thinks because he's afraid she'll
think she's got some fatal disease or something. It's
only when her ma invites her to ride in to Marlborough
week -ends, or up to Lake Winnepesaukee or something
that she feels good at all. Then when she gets home
she's all done up. I don't know, I'm afraid maybe she's
got aomething pretty awful, but I don't know. I try not
to bother her, nights, but Jesus you'd think once out
of thirty days she'd want me to mug her up a little,
waomen are funny, though, aren't they?
"Afraid of getting caught? Hell, brother, I've
never stayed with her, since the Christ only knows
when. Still, there's the baby, so I don't know.
It's just one of those things, I guess.
"You were asking how did I feel about getting a job
again. Sure I'm all for it. But where are they? If
I had the money to get the right tools and stuff and
pay for my rigger's license and all, I know I could make
damned good dough summer's painting and such like. Every
way you turn you got to have a license, and you got to
look like something before you can get the work to do.
Then, when it gets colder weather, where do you get off?
Boy, I hate to think of this winter. We got a ratio,
now, and an oil burner in the kitchen stove. I'll bet
old man Creeden expects me to sell the radio before he
gives me a slip, come need for an order, again.
!Beals got the right dope, you know Marshall, the
insurance man? He's on the Welfare Board, now, you know.
She says tell him we got to let the insurance go unless
we can get a grocery orders I hate to do like that,
but Jesus what you going to do? Any racket that works
is a good one. Guys don't make money without there's
some kind of a racket behind it, you know that, brother.
*What's the best job I ever had? Boy, back in the
days when prohibition had 'em all panting. Boy, I made
the dough, then. I knew every creek and inlet between
here and Portland..That was how come I lost my job with
Uncle Sam. They mover pinned anything on me, and the
mistake I made was in not getting cozy with the skipper,
so I could make some real dough.
"After that, mostly shipping as a deck hand. Then
when Bea got K.Ofd I had to find something here in town.
Usher in the local theatre, our famous °Premier Theater* i‘
keepint couples from doing too much heavy necking up in
nigger Heaven, and showing excited old maids the way
to the Ladies' Room. It's funny, the way those dames
have to take a leak every time there's a "hot" romance
11•11,
on, you know it?
"Hell, now I'm lust hanging on. Take it a day at
a time, that's me. I'm not asking anything but a roof
over my head and two squares a day, excepting it's
maybe to get Bea so she doesn't ride me all the time*
I'm not blaming her," he added hastily, "but it sure
makes it awful tough sometimes.
"Well, see you in church. Hope you don't get
fired me either, but I'll bet you a buck we see
City Hall before snow flies? And if we do, you can
bet your sweet neck I'm getting all's coming to MA
including the rent! They're not playing me for a
sucker, again. Glnight, now. Take it easy, you don't
trip on some of the kids' stuff out there near the
gate. Well, so long, now."