1919

Joe Williams

Joe Williams put on the secondhand suit and dropped his uniform, with a cobblestone wrapped up in it, off the edge of the dock into the muddy water of the basin. It was noon. There was nobody around. He felt bad when he found he didn’t have the cigarbox with him. Back in the shed he found it where he’d left it. It was a box that had once held Flor de Mayo cigars he’d bought when he was drunk in Guantanamo. In the box under the goldpaper lace were Janey’s high school graduation picture, a snapshot of Alec with his motorcycle, a picture with the signatures of the coach and all the players of the whole highschool junior team that he was captain of all in baseball clothes, an old pink almost faded snapshot of his Dad’s tug, the Mary B. Sullivan, taken off the Virginia Capes with a fullrigged ship in tow, an undressed postcard picture of a girl named Antoinette he’d been with in Villefranche, some safetyrazor blades, a postcard photo of himself and two other guys, all gobs in white suits, taken against the background of a moorish arch in Malaga, a bunch of foreign stamps, a package of Merry Widows, and ten little pink and red shells he’d picked up on the beach at Santiago. With the box tucked right under his arm, feeling crummy in the baggy civies, he walked slowly out to the beacon and watched the fleet in formation steaming down the River Plate. The day was overcast; the lean cruisers soon blurred into their trailing smokesmudges.

Joe stopped looking at them and watched a rusty tramp come in. She had a heavy list to port and you could see the hull below the waterline green and slimy with weed. There was a blue and white Greek flag on the stern and a dingy yellow quarantine flag halfway up the fore.

A man who had come up behind him said something to Joe in Spanish. He was a smiling ruddy man in blue denims and was smoking a cigar, but for some reason he made Joe feel panicky. “No savvy,” Joe said and walked away and out between the warehouses into the streets back of the waterfront.

He had trouble finding Maria’s place, all the blocks looked so much alike. It was by the mechanical violin in the window that he recognized it. Once he got inside the stuffy anise-smelling dump he stood a long time at the bar with one hand round a sticky beerglass looking out at the street he could see in bright streaks through the beadcurtain that hung in the door. Any minute he expected the white uniform and yellow holster of a marine to go past.

Behind the bar a yellow youth with a crooked nose leaned against the wall looking at nothing. When Joe made up his mind he jerked his chin up. The youth came over and craned confidentially across the bar, leaning on one hand and swabbing at the oilcloth with the rag he held in the other. The flies that had been grouped on the rings left by beerglasses on the oilcloth flew up to join the buzzing mass on the ceiling. “Say, bo, tell Maria I want to see her,” Joe said out of the corner of his mouth. The youth behind the bar held up two fingers. “Dos pesos,” he said. “Hell, no, I only want to talk to her.”

Maria beckoned to him from the door in back. She was a sallow woman with big eyes set far apart in bluish sacks. Through the crumpled pink dress tight over the bulge of her breasts Joe could make out the rings of crinkled flesh round the nipples. They sat down at a table in the back room. “Gimme two beers,” Joe yelled through the door.

“Watta you wan’, iho de mi alma?” asked Maria. “You savvy Doc Sidner?” “Sure me savvy all yanki. Watta you wan’ you no go wid beeg sheep?” “No go wid beeg sheep… Fight wid beeg sonofabeech, see?”

“Ché!” Maria breasts shook like jelly when she laughed. She put a fat hand at the back of his neck and drew his face towards hers. “Poor baby… black eye.” “Sure he gave me a black eye.” Joe pulled away from her. “Petty officer. I knocked him cold, see… Navy’s no place for me after that… I’m through. Say, Doc said you knew a guy could fake A.B. certificates… able seaman savvy? Me for the Merchant Marine from now on, Maria.”

Joe drank down his beer.

She sat shaking her head saying, “Ché… pobrecito… Ché.” Then she said in a tearful voice, “’Ow much dollars you got?” “Twenty,” said Joe. “Heem want fiftee.” “I guess I’m f — d for fair then.”

Maria walked round to the back of his chair and put a fat arm around his neck, leaning over him with little clucking noises. “Wait a minute, we tink… sabes?” Her big breast pressing against his neck and shoulder made him feel itchy; he didn’t like her touching him in the morning when he was sober like this. But he sat there until she suddenly let out a parrot screech. “Paquito… ven acá.”

A dirty pearshaped man with a red face and neck came in from the back. They talked Spanish over Joe’s head. At last she patted his cheek and said, “Awright Paquito sabe where heem live… maybe heem take twenty, sabes?”

Joe got to his feet. Paquito took off the smudged cook’s apron and lit a cigarette. “You savvy A.B. papers?” said Joe walking up and facing him. He nodded, “Awright,” Joe gave Maria a hug and a little pinch. “You’re a good girl, Maria.” She followed them grinning to the door of the bar.

Outside Joe looked sharply up and down the street. Not a uniform. At the end of the street a crane tilted black above the cement warehouse buildings. They got on a streetcar and rode a long time without saying anything. Joe sat staring at the floor with his hands dangling between his knees until Paquito poked him. They got out in a cheaplooking suburban section of new cement houses already dingy. Paquito rang at a door like all the other doors and after a while a man with redrimmed eyes and big teeth like a horse came and opened it. He and Paquito talked Spanish a long while through the halfopen door. Joe stood first on one foot and then on the other. He could tell that they were sizing up how much they could get out of him by the way they looked at him sideways as they talked.

He was just about to break in when the man in the door spoke to him in cracked cockney. “You give the blighter five pesos for his trouble, mytey, an’ we’ll settle this hup between wahte men.” Joe shelled out what silver he had in his pocket and Paquito went.

Joe followed the limey into the front hall that smelt of cabbage and frying grease and wash day. When he got inside he put his hand on Joe’s shoulder and said, blowing stale whiskybreath in his face, “Well, mytey, ’ow much can you afford?” Joe drew away. “Twenty American dollars’s all I got,” he said through his teeth. The limey shook his head, “Only four quid… well, there’s no ’arm in seein’ what we can do, is there, mytey? Let’s see it.” While the limey stood looking at him Joe took off his belt, picked out a couple of stitches with the small blade of his jackknife and pulled out two orangebacked American bills folded long. He unfolded them carefully and was about to hand them over when he thought better of it and put them in his pocket. “Now let’s take a look at the paper,” he said grinning.

The limey’s redrimmed eyes looked tearful; he said we ought to be ’elpful one to another and gryteful when a bloke risked a forger’s hend to ’elp ’is fellow creatures. Then he asked Joe his name, age and birthplace, how long he’d been to sea and all that and went into an inside room, carefully locking the door after him.

Joe stood in the hall. There was a clock ticking somewhere. The ticks dragged slower and slower. At last Joe heard the key turn in the lock and the limey came out with two papers in his hand. “You oughter realize what I’m doin’ for yez, mytey….” Joe took the paper. He wrinkled his forehead and studied it; looked all right to him. The other paper was a note authorizing Titterton’s Marine Agency to garnishee Joe’s pay monthly until the sum of ten pounds had been collected. “But look here you,” he said, “that makes seventy dollars I’m shelling out.” The limey said think of the risk he was tyking and ’ow times was ’ard and that arfter all he could tyke it or leave it. Joe followed him into the paperlittered inside room and leaned over the desk and signed with a fountain pen.

They went downtown on the streetcar and got off at Rivadavia Street. Joe followed the limey into a small office back of a warehouse. “’Ere’s a smart young ’and for you, Mr. McGregor,” the limey said to a biliouslooking Scotchman who was walking up and down chewing his nails.

Joe and Mr. McGregor looked at each other. “American?” “Yes.” “You’re not expectin’ American pay I’m supposin’?”

The limey went up to him and whispered something; McGregor looked at the certificate and seemed satisfied. “All right, sign in the book…. Sign under the last name.” Joe signed and handed the limey the twenty dollars. That left him flat. “Well, cheeryoh, mytey.” Joe hesitated a moment before he took the limey’s hand. “So long,” he said.

“Go get your dunnage and be back here in an hour,” said McGregor in a rasping voice. “Haven’t got any dunnage. I’ve been on the beach,” said Joe, weighing the cigarbox in his hand. “Wait outside then and I’ll take you aboard the Argyle by and by.” Joe stood for a while in the warehouse door looking out into the street. Hell, he’d seen enough of B.A. He sat on a packingcase marked Tibbett & Tibbett, Enameled Ware, Blackpool, to wait for Mr. McGregor, wondering if he was the skipper or the mate. Time sure would drag all right till he got out of B.A.