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1i...64p awl 6.4A4ips64)- _
Parma to be Filled out for Each Interview
STATE
NAME OF WORKER
ADDRESS
DATE
SUBJECT
FORM A
Circumstances of Interview
New York
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.
5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you
6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, for any of the forms,
each bearin*,the proper headini_ and the number to which the material
refers.)
STATE
NAME OF WORKER
ADDRESS
DATE
SUBJECT
FORM C
Text of Interview (Unedited)
AC: a,.
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
New York
Herman Partnow
557 West 144 Street
May 10, 1939
AN AMERICAN SPINE WITH A HEART IN THE OLDWORLD
Go hang yourself with your own nectie. When I'm
fifty years, an old man, I'm strolling around with my
hands in my pockets. I'm suddenly a vagabond. I'm telling
you I got specks in front of my eyes. I ain't human no
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 to talk, so you gotta eat. The third thing
you want recreation. So you get tired out, then you gotta
lay down. But where is the bed? We ain't animals, they can
slepp in a hole in the ground, nature gave them their own
clothing. We ain't talking about insects neither bedbugs
and mosquitos* their whole life is recreation.
What shall I do? I'm screaming in my sleep like my
poppa, may he rest in peace. I ain't a tub of wisdom, I'm
a plain old man, I got an American spine with a heart from
the old world. Like they say around here, I ain't a thorough-
bred. Su4denly it's a different world. Yesterday I'm sure
2.
a thing is wrong, today somebody is doing it. So if some-
body is doing it already, it can't be wrong? I'm completely
turned around. I'm a not, a N. -O -T. It's the world of the
doughnut and the hot dog. Nothing balances. An old man
was asking them for a blanket, I saw it with my own eyes,
they sent him to the 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
tthe lap of lady luck. It's three years already I came
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 matter
I 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 tp bed, I'm going out. So a whole month I worried and
complained and talked and finally she threw me out of the
house altogether. What could I do? It was her property,
I -was depending on her. Twenty six years we. married,
I was no more a man, you understand, not human, so she threw
me out. The Bible tells you when Abraham was an old man the
people they sent him in a young girl she should make him young
again. But am I Abraham they should do this with me. Im-
possiblet Go get born all over againt
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 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.
3.
Back I can't go. It's too late. Like yesterday
I was standing on the breadline. Was it yesterday? What
is it today? ,Tuesday? That's right, yesterday. I was
standing there and suddenly a cop/ hollers: Back up. Two
hundred people on the line, and 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.
But one thing I'm finished with livin' and lyinl,
like they say here. The whole life it's like a cough, and
when you're living it's like sucking cough drops it don't
help the poor people. And of course the rich people nothing
helps no more it's like a lot of pigs eating pigs' knuckles
I wish only I was a woman, I wouldn't starve. I mean
it.
The only thing it's a good God, a wise God, he won't
let me live long! That's all.