AMERICAN OBITUARY
Nelson Algren
The highways of America are white with summer now, and
through the dust go the homeless. Till one thinks of America
as a long dust road leading to nowhere. The road curves by the
wharves of New Orleans, where merchant ships wait high in
dry-dock; past the freight yards in Council Bluffs, where the
box-cars rot on the sidings. This is America, the vast heart of
her, with grey boy-faces pressed to the cold blue bars.
On Madison street in Chicago the boys stand on corners,
waiting.
Down at the morgue I saw Frank Mears, address unknown,
lying on his back with his eyes still wide and his belly still blue
from the water. The ticket on the box said, Frank .
J.
Mears,
no address, cause unknown. This is the American thing, the
unknown death in the heat of midday, and the country boy
in
the long ice-box.
'
Say this is how it happened; say this is how it was.
Frank Mears turned south down Dearborn Street, and no
face turned to follow. He went into a tavern where music was,
and he'd been drinking four straight days. He banged on a
table till they threw him out, and he walked back south down
Dearborn. On Harrison street he stood and swayed: a dollar
bill was all he possessed, and he waved it like a flag. Two lean
men saw him doing that, and when he walked on they followed.
Frank Mears turned into a dime burlesque, and he watched till
they threw him out.
Frank Mears, no address, slugged for ninety cents.
The lean one said, "Let me help you, friend," and Frank
Mears leaned on his arm. The other one said, "This way, kid,"
and Frank Mears followed, swaying.
American youth, as a boy you sat on a barrel in front of the
general store in Sangarnon county, watching the farm-carts
coming into town. Dust rose uneasily from between their wheels,
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