Document text
2.UALILEIRICAN SPINE WITH A HEART FROM THE OLD WORLD
"What will you say and where will
you turn?
What will you do? What will you
do? What will you do?"
An aging Bronx Jew whom un—
employment has robbed of status
as father, husband, lover and
breadwinner. He married young
and worked hard, filling his
household with squawks and rages,
although fulfilling all his
duties and satisfying all his
appetites. When his wife took
over his place as breadwinner,
he embarked on a frustrated
career as vagabond. Now he finds
he hasn't either the health or
inclination. He is only a tired
old man. His narrow brown eyes are
inflamed, and his lips, although
still thick and red, smack with
an emptj hopeless sound as he
Forms to be Filled out for Each Interview
STATE
NAME OF WORKER
ADDRESS
DATE
SUBJECT
FORM A
Circumstances of Interview
Herman Partnow
557 West 144 Street
May 10, 1939
UNEMPLOYED FRINGE
1. Date and time of interview
April 25, 1939
2. Place of interview
Madison Square Park
3. Name and address of informant
Anonymous
4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in
touch with informant.
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
It,
5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you
6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, for any of the forms,
each bearing the proper TheadinL. and the number to which the material
refers.)
FORM C
Text of Interview (Unedited)
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
STATE
NAME OFIKRKER Herman Partnow
ADDRESS 557 West 144 Street
DATE May 10, 1939
FebrA.,
SUBJECT 4CriTAN AMERICAN SPINE WITH A HEART YU TI E OLD WORLD
Realm'
AN AMERICAN SPINE WITH A H EART Jr* THE awe) WORLD.
Go hang yourself with your own necktie. When I'm
fifty years, an old man, I'm strolling around with my
hands in my packets. I'm suddeni 1 vagabond.. I'm telling
you I got specks imatmelnismlof my a Iva
more.
After all, human nature is four things, ain't it?
Clothing, food, shelter and recreation. In the morning you
wake up, the first thing you put on your clothes, the second
the belly starts in to talk, so you gotta eat. The third
thing you want recreation. So you get tired out, then you
gotta 141, down. But where is the bed? We ain't animals,
they can sleep in a hole in the ground, nature gave them
their own clothing. ffillain't talkin sout insec4neither
_
bedbugs and mosquitoes their whole life is recreation.
What shall I do? I. scrluaag..lx_mg..alacke
-iu1 -t I ain't a tub of wisdom, I'm
a plain old man, 1.4401' pb" AAmmA010-601616..althmlbm44.6.16"1"
INOMMOMOMOW,M4 Like they say around here, I ain't a thorough-
bred. Suddenly it's a different world. Yesterday I'm sure
a thing is wrong, today somebody is doing it. So if somebody
I? completely
is doing it already, it can't be wrong? I'm/turned around,
I'm a not, a N -O -T. It's the world of the doughnut and the
hot dog. Nothing balancesPln old man was asking them for
2
a blanke I saw it with my own eyes, they sent him to he
hospital. First they kill you, then they are putting a
pillow under your head.
Look, my face. Such a face you don't get laying in
the lap of lady luck. It's three years already I come home
three o'clock in the morning the kids are in bed but my
wife she's dressed up to kill. Sarah, what's the mittter? I
micxxx ask. She says: I'm going out. What out? I say. In
the middle of the night, out? Go to bed, Sarah. She says:
You go to bed, I'm going out. So a whole month I worried
a nd complained and talked and finally she threw me out
altagakklum of the house altogether. What could I do?
It was her property, I was depending on her. Twerf
roismaricoriesimppoloiell I was no more a m n, you understand,
ftwf fs i1 kica h-vaw
I not human, so she threw me out Th Bible tells you when
Abraham was an old man the peopled)they sent him in a young
girl she should make him young again. But am I Abraham they
Impossible!
should do this with me? Go get born all over again!
A question: was I really born? Or Maybe God
dropped me through a hole in the sky and I ain't born yet.
Dead I ain't neither. I'm like stuck in a sewer pa pipe.
I'm in it, I'm stuffing it up and they're pushing me down
in the river, the East River or the Hudson River, I got
no choice.
Back I can't go.mummaxxx It's too late. Like
yesterday I was standing on the breadline. Was it yesterday?
What is it today? Tuesday? That's right, yesterdaAI was
3
standing there and suddenly a cop hollers: Back up. Two
hundred people on the line, he says to them back up. So
he started in to shove, in two minutes there was a fight
with three broken heads. You can't back up no more.
&Nits.= thing I'm finished with living and
lyint, like they say here. The whole life ti it's like a
cough, and when you're living it's like sucking a cough
of course
drops it don't help the poor people. And/the rich peoplef
nothing helps no more it's like a lot of pigs eating
pigs' knuckles.
WhAt :1":
tuM,
k ca. 4
ot Opkz I cr4441 spl-tAt
°tot 14)6):64/
The only thing it's a good God, a wise God,
he won't let me live long. That's all.