Document text
011-44
Forms to be Filled out for Each Interview
FORM A
Circumstances of Interview
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
STATE New York
Nam OF WORKER Herman Partnow
ADDRESS 557 West 114th St.
DATE June 7, 1939
SUBJECT TIME, 0 TIME, TURN BACK IN THY FLIGHT
1. Date and time of interview
June 1st, 1939
2. Place of interview
Central Park Meadow
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
JUN 1 9 1939
6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.
Sunning unemployed, thick damp grass, cops' whistles.
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, for any of the forms,
each bearing the proper headint and the number to which the material
refers.)
FORM C
STATE
NAVE OP. WOESER,'
ADDRESS
DUI
SMJECT
MENECK
TEXT OF INTERVIEW (Unedited)
INKONOW
New York
Herman Partnow
557 West 114th St.
June 7, 1939
Fringe folklore
P'OLICIARE
NEW YORK
TIME, 0 TIME, TURN BACK IN THY FLIGHT
He who shuns wine, women and song is just a
fool his whole life long. Omar Kayyam wuz right. I feel
like a fool. Here World's Fair broads passin up and down,
real blousers, and I gotta lay on the grass an watch them.
I oughta take a stroll ta Wall Street and draw some dough
but it's too damm far. I tried to hock the Chrysler Buildin
but they wouldn't take it. Then I sold the Essex House but
I couldn't. collect. Now all I got is this dime and I'm
lookin for its brother. If I don't find it before tonight,
I'll just hafta go up and sit down by the window and listen
ta the radio. I ain't used to' furnished rooms, not since
that taste of heaven my wife gimme. Player piano, books,
radio. Full icebox steaks, chops, the best. All she
asked me to do was stay home and take aare of the house.
When she come home at night she, always threw a coupla packs
of cigarettes on the table. Hell, I_couldn't stand it. I
felt like a housemaid, a goddam domestic. One mornin she
left ninety cents. For my lunch and the kid's, crackers
when she come home from school, and a show. Well, I hocked
the radio and bought a quart for the boys and we went to
-2
work on that bottle when I woke up next mornin they wuz gone.
I like layin on the crass too much. Tough work an long hours gets you
an early grave, don't it? Like my old man layin under the ground.
He's layin down an rest. I didn't even give im a Fathers Day present
week before he died. I figured it's commercialism, anyway, it don't
matter. If you ain't got the guts to remember your mother and fat#er
every day in the year and ya gotta depend on phoney commercialism
ya don't deserve a mother, ya deserve ta be born from a pig, a whole
litter, goddam it, a whole goddam litter. If my daughter ever tries
bringin me candy on Fathers Day I'll kick er in the can. If she an
her mother come back, I mean. I keep my soul full of hope. I ain't
layin down like my old man an take a rest. I read in the papers some
idle rich guy shut himself up in his room, it wuz the Essex House, and
stuffed up the windows and the door and got imself gassed up. Must of
been too dark so he decided to find his way out and he lit a cigarette.
He found his way out all right. Him and the whole room there blew outa
the window 0 time, 0 time, turn back in thy flight and make me a
kid aipin just for tonight If I ever decided ta sort of take
a rest ya know what I'd.do? Take a long swim out in the ocean. After
a while I'd get tired but I'd keep on swimmin and Then I'd get so
tired I couldn't lif*Lmy arms at all. Then I'd get scared and turn
around and 'vim for shore but I'd never reach it, see? I'd try like
hell ta get back but I'd go under tryin. It'd be like life that way,
ya wanna live but ya gotta die...Talkin gets ya nowhere fast, I gotta
Amscray outa here. This grass city is only a paradise felt pigeons.
YA sure ya can't gimme the brother ta this dime? Or do I hafta go
down to the river bank and draw a coupla breaths of air?