From the day
Perspective: The Anxious Local · Sound
The newsboys are shouting themselves hoarse about Carranza and those Mexican chiefs again, and I can practically hear the boots marching closer every time I pay six cents for a lousy loaf of bread. The streets are a cacophony of screeching Ford tires and that infernal whistling of "I Didn't Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier" from every storefront phonograph, a tune that tastes like copper in my mouth while the world goes mad. I tried to drown out the dread by ducking into the movies, but even the flicker of the screen can't quiet the talk of these new transcontinental telephone wires or the price of gas hitting fifteen cents. My hands won't stop shaking as I adjust my collar; it feels like the whole city is just waiting for a spark to light the fuse.