Free So Little Time by John P. Marquand Page B

that. You know I’m just a fool, Jeff, but there’s one thing I thank God for. It looks as though we’re out of the mess, this time. Thank God we’re here in America.”
    He did not spoil it by going on. Jeffrey held out his hand.
    â€œYes,” he said, “thank God for that. You see—I’ve got a son—”
    When he thought of it afterwards, it sounded a little like Irving Berlin.
    When Jeffrey stood on the corner of Park Avenue, he felt as though he had been on an ocean voyage. He could see the city in the detached way one sometimes sees it after finishing with the customs. He had that same feeling of gratitude that he was permitted to see it again. He had the same impression of its vitality, the same astonishment at its beauty. The air was soft with spring and a clean west breeze was blowing and the sun was dropping low. The sun made the façades of the buildings near him warm and glowing, and it made the Grand Central tower shadowy. They were selling gardenias and violets at the street corner. The traffic lights had turned red, so that the avenue was choked with yellow and orange taxicabs, and with blue and gray private cars, all absolutely motionless, shining in the sun. Then the lights turned and they all moved by him like a stream. There was nothing in the world just like it. The whole Avenue was gay in the sunlight.
    The dogwood blossoms in the florists’ windows were too big. They were as artificially cultivated as the dogs themselves that paraded down the Avenue: cinnamon poodles, waddling dachshunds, and freshly plucked wire-haired terriers, moving like mechanical toys. The taxi starter at the Waldorf was too big and he had too many buttons. There were too many apartment houses on the avenue and there were too many taxicabs. Westward on Broadway when dusk came, there would be too many people at Times Square and too many lights and too many tropical fishes on the electric signs. There would be too many people trying to be like Hedy Lamarr and Ronald Colman and too many girls trying to look like debutantes and too many debutantes trying not to look that way. In the windows of the steak houses there would be too many steaks. There would be too many orange drinks and too many copies of Life magazine and too many hamburgers and too many people who did not have the price of a hamburger. There was too much of everything, and he certainly could not tell what it added up to and no one else could either, but it was the greatest city in the world.
    It was time he was getting home, and he took a taxicab when he came to St. Bartholomew’s Church, which resembled a model in the Metropolitan Museum, now that so many high buildings rose around it. The driver of the cab had been reading a tabloid and listening to his radio, but when Jeffrey approached he gave a galvanic jerk, and reached to open the door, like a fisherman who feels a bite.
    Nearly everyone Jeffrey knew had interesting experiences with taxi drivers. There were always stories at dinner parties that revealed their wit and salty wisdom. Taxi drivers left other people with a glow of democratic comfort because they had talked to them confidentially through the window just as though they were like anybody else. Jeffrey wondered whether there might be something wrong with him, for taxi drivers never gave him any new ideas, and this one was no exception. His collar was frayed and the back of his neck was dirty. As he crossed Lexington Avenue, he swore softly at the traffic cop.
    â€œYou see that cop?” he asked. “Smile at him, and he gives you a ticket. That’s the kind he is.”
    â€œYes,” Jeffrey said, “cops are all like that.”
    â€œYes,” the driver said, “cops are all like that.”
    The conversation ended. It was nothing you could talk about at a dinner party. It would be impossible to say that you saw the funniest taxi driver today, and what do you think he said? “Cops