href="#ulink_1d10a644-2b7e-53f0-aee3-63398a4ffe83">Chapter 2
WHAT POVERTY THREATENED—OF GRANITE AND BRASS
Minnie’s flat, as the one-floor resident apartments were then being called, was in a part of West Van Buren Street inhabited by families of laborers and clerks, men who had come, and were still coming, with the rush of population pouring in at the rate of 50,000 a year. Danger, girl. Do not move into a neighborhood named after eighth president, Martin “van Ruin,” the purveyor of such gems as the Trail of Tears and one of the costliest American Indian wars. It was on the third floor, the front windows looking down into the street, where, at night, the lights of grocery stores were shining and children were playing. To Carrie, the sound of the little bells upon the horse-cars, as they tinkled in and out of hearing, was as pleasing as it was novel. God bless old-timey folks. They got shits and giggles from the sound of tinkling bells, while we’re out here injecting heroin into our eyeballs just to feel something. She gazed into the lighted street when Minnie brought her into the front room, and wondered at the sounds, the movement, the murmur of the vast city which stretched for miles and miles in every direction.
Mrs. Hanson, after the first greetings were over, gave Carrie the baby and proceeded to get supper. Her husband asked a few questions and sat down to read the evening paper. He was a silent man, American born, of a Swede father, and now employed as a cleaner of refrigerator cars at the stockyards. To him the presence or absence of his wife’s sister was a matter of indifference. Her personal appearance did not affect him one way or the other. His one observation to the point was concerning the chances of work in Chicago.
“It’s a big place,” he said. “You can get in somewhere in a few days. Everybody does.” Damn. Is anyone else’s quills getting all hot and bothered? I like him. No bullshit. Just strong, silent Swedish testosterone . . .. You can have your namby pamby fops in emerald pantaloons with rolls of greenbacks. Give me a turn-of-the-century lumberjack any day.
It had been tacitly understood beforehand that she was to get work and pay her board. He was of a clean, saving disposition, and had already paid a number of monthly installments on two lots far out on the West Side. His ambition was some day to build a house on them.
In the interval which marked the preparation of the meal Carrie found time to study the flat. She had some slight gift of observation and that sense, so rich in every woman—intuition.
She felt the drag of a lean and narrow life. The walls of the rooms were discordantly papered. The floors were covered with matting and the hall laid with a thin rag carpet. One could see that the furniture was of that poor, hurriedly patched together quality sold by the installment houses.
She sat with Minnie, in the kitchen, holding the baby until it began to cry. Then she walked and sang to it, until Hanson, disturbed in his reading, came and took it. A pleasant side to his nature came out here. He was patient. One could see that he was very much wrapped up in his offspring. Goddammit. Way to ruin the beefcake for me, Dreiser. You’ll never see a caring hedgehog father, let me tell you. They’re terrified of children and of hedgehog mothers, who will occasionally attack the father if he comes too close to her kin. Or as she sometimes calls it, dinner.
“Now, now,” he said, walking. “There, there,” and there was a certain Swedish accent noticeable in his voice.
“You’ll want to see the city first, won’t you?” said Minnie, when they were eating. “Well, we’ll go out Sunday and see Lincoln Park.”
Carrie noticed that Hanson had said nothing to this. He seemed to be thinking of something else.
“Well,” she said, “I think I’ll look around tomorrow. I’ve got Friday and Saturday, and it won’t be any trouble. Which way is the business part?”
Minnie began to explain, but her husband took this part of the conversation to himself.
“It’s that way,” he said, pointing east. “That’s east.” Then he went off into the longest speech he had yet indulged in, concerning the lay of Chicago. “You’d better look in those big manufacturing houses along Franklin Street and just the other side of the river,” he concluded. “Lots of girls work there. You could get home easy, too. It isn’t very far.”
Carrie nodded and asked her sister about the neighborhood. The latter talked in a subdued tone, telling the little she knew about it, while Hanson concerned himself with the baby. Finally he jumped up and handed the child to his wife.
“I’ve got to get up early in the morning, so I’ll go to bed,” and off he went, disappearing into the dark little bedroom off the hall, for the night.
“He works way down at the stockyards,” explained Minnie, “so he’s got to get up at half-past five.”
“What time do you get up to get breakfast?” asked Carrie.
“At about twenty minutes of five.”
Together they finished the labor of the day, Carrie washing the dishes while Minnie undressed the baby and put it to bed. Minnie’s manner was one of trained industry, and Carrie could see that it was a steady round of toil with her.
She began to see that her relations with Drouet would have to be abandoned. He could not come here. She read from the manner of Hanson, in the subdued air of Minnie, and, indeed, the whole atmosphere of the flat, a settled opposition to anything save a conservative round of toil. I know she’s only 18 and wants to live a gangsta’s life of bitches and hos, but first she needs to calm the fuck down. I thought everyone born at this time was instilled with an acceptance that life would be nothing but babies and ebola. Not our little ingrate Carrie. If Hanson sat every evening in the front room and read his paper, if he went to bed at nine, and Minnie a little later, what would they expect of her? She saw that she would first need to get work and establish herself on a paying basis before she could think of having company of any sort. Her little flirtation with Drouet seemed now an extraordinary thing.
“No,” she said to herself, “he can’t come here.”
She asked Minnie for ink and paper, which were upon the mantel in the dining-room, and when the latter had gone to bed at ten, got out Drouet’s card and wrote him.
“I cannot have you call on me here. You will have to wait until you hear from me again. My sister’s place is so small.”
She troubled herself over what else to put in the letter. She wanted to make some reference to their relations upon the train, but was too timid. She concluded by thanking him for his kindness in a crude way, then puzzled over the formality of signing her name, and finally decided upon the severe, winding up with a “Very truly,” which she subsequently changed to “Sincerely.” Keep in mind this was before white-out, much less the Delete key. So old Drouet could see the entire process of her shitting bricks. Back then, neurosis wasn’t cute. It usually meant you were a witch. She sealed and addressed the letter, and going in the front room, the alcove of which contained her bed, drew the one small rocking-chair up to the open window, and sat looking out upon the night and streets in silent wonder. Finally, wearied by her own reflections, she began to grow dull in her chair, and feeling the need of sleep, arranged her clothing for the night and went to bed.
When she awoke at eight the next morning, Hanson had gone. Half the fucking day is gone! That’s some serious slacking by 19th-century standards. Her sister was busy in the dining-room, which was also the sitting-room, sewing. She worked, after dressing, to arrange a little breakfast for herself,
