1919 (7 page)

“Say, is there any way I can get anything to eat around here, Mr. Consul?” “What do you think this is, a restaurant? . . . No, we have no appropriations for any handouts. You ought to be grateful for what
we've done already.” “They never paid me off on the
Argyle
and I'm about starved in that jail, that's all.” “Well, here's a shilling but that's absolutely all I can do.” Joe looked at the coin, “Who's 'at—King George? Well, thank you, Mr. Consul.”

He was walking along the street with the agent's address in one hand and the shilling in the other. He felt sore and faint and sick in his stomach. He saw Mr. Zentner the other side of the street. He ran across through the jammed up traffic and went up to him with his hand held out.

“I got the clothes, Mr. Zentner, it was damn nice of you to send them.” Mr. Zentner was walking along with a small man in an officer's uniform. He waved a pudgy hand and said, “Glad to be of service to a fellow citizen,” and walked on.

Joe went into a fried fish shop and spent sixpence on fried fish and spent the other sixpence on a big mug of beer in a saloon where he'd hoped to find free lunch to fill up on but there wasn't any free lunch. By the time he'd found his way to the agent's office it was closed and there he was roaming round the streets in the white misty evening without any place to go. He asked several guys around the wharves if they knew where the
Tampa
was docked, but nobody did and they talked so funny he could hardly understand what they said anyway.

Then just when the streetlights were going on, and Joe was feeling pretty discouraged, he found himself walking down a side street behind three Americans. He caught up to them and asked them if they knew where the
Tampa
was. Why the hell shouldn't they know, weren't they off'n her and out to see the goddam town and he'd better come along. And if he wasn't tickled to meet some guys from home after those two months on the limejuicer and being in jail and everything. They went into a bar and drank some whiskey and he told all about the jail and how the damn bobbies had taken him off the
Argyle
and he'd never gotten his pay nor nutten and they set him up to drinks and one of the guys who was from Norfolk, Virginia, named Will Stirp pulled out a five dollar bill and said to take that and pay him back when he could.

It was like coming home to God's country running into guys like that and they all had a drink all around; they were four of 'em Americans in this lousy limejuicer town and they each set up a round because they were four of 'em Americans ready to fight the world. Olaf was a Swede but he had his first papers so he counted too and the
other feller's name was Maloney. The hatchetfaced barmaid held back on the change but they got it out of her; she'd only given 'em fifteen shillings instead of twenty for a pound, but they made her give the five shillings back. They went to another fried fish shop; couldn't seem to get a damn thing to eat in this country except fried fish and then they all had some more drinks and were the four of them Americans feeling pretty good in this lousy limejuicer town. A runner got hold of them because it was closing time on account of the war and there wasn't a damn thing open and very few streetlights and funny little hats on the streetlights on account of the zeppelins. The runner was a pale ratfaced punk and said he knowed a house where they could 'ave a bit of beer and nice girls and a quiet social time. There was a big lamp with red roses painted on it in the parlor of the house and the girls were skinny and had horseteeth and there were some bloody limejuicers there who were pretty well under way and they were the four of them Americans. The limeys began to pick on Olaf for bein' a bloody 'un. Olaf said he was a Swede but that he'd sooner be a bloody 'un than a limejuicer at that. Somebody poked somebody else and the first thing Joe knew he was fighting a guy bigger 'n he was and police whistles blew and there was a whole crowd of them piled up in the Black Maria.

Will Stirp kept saying they was the four of them Americans just havin' a pleasant social time and there was no call for the bobbies to interfere. But they were all dragged up to a desk and committed and all four of 'em Americans locked up in the same cell and the limeys in another cell. The police station was full of drunks yelling and singing. Maloney had a bloody nose. Olaf went to sleep. Joe couldn't sleep; he kept saying to Will Stirp he was scared they sure would send him to a concentration camp for the duration of the war this time and each time Will Stirp said they were the four of them Americans and wasn't he a Freeborn American Citizen and there wasn't a damn thing they could do to 'em. Freedom of the seas, God damn it.

Next morning they were in court and it was funny as hell except that Joe was scared; it was solemn as Quakermeetin' and the magistrate wore a little wig and they were everyone of 'em fined three and six and costs. It came to about a dollar a head. Darned lucky they still had some jack on them.

And the magistrate in the little wig gave 'em a hell of a talking to about how this was wartime and they had no right being drunk and
disorderly on British soil but had ought to be fighting shoulder to shoulder with their brothers, Englishmen of their own blood and to whom the Americans owed everything, even their existence as a great nation, to defend civilization and free institutions and plucky little Belgium against the invading huns who were raping women and sinking peaceful merchantmen.

When the magistrate had finished, the court attendants said, “Hear, hear,” under their breath and they all looked very savage and solemn and turned the American boys loose after they'd paid their fines and the police sergeant had looked at their papers. They held Joe after the others on account of his paper being from the consulate and not having the stamp of the proper police station on it but after a while they let him go with a warning not to come ashore again and that if he did it would be worse for him.

Joe felt relieved when he'd seen the skipper and had been taken on and had rigged up his bunk and gone ashore and gotten his bundle that he'd left with the nice flaxenhaired barmaid at the first pub he'd gone to the night before. At last he was on an American ship. She had an American flag painted on either side of the hull and her name
Tampa
, Pensacola, Florida, in white letters. There was a colored boy cooking and first thing they had cornmeal mush and karo syrup, and coffee instead of that lousy tea and the food tasted awful good. Joe felt better than any time since he'd left home. The bunks were clean and a fine feeling it was when the
Tampa
left the dock with her whistle blowing and started easing down the slatecolored stream of the Mersey towards the sea.

 

Fifteen days to Hampton Roads, with sunny weather and a sea like glass every day up to the last two days and then a stiff northwesterly wind that kicked up considerable chop off the Capes. They landed the few bundles of cotton print goods that made up the cargo at the Union Terminal in Norfolk. It was a big day for Joe when he went ashore with his pay in his pocket to take a look around the town with Will Stirp, who belonged there.

They went to see Will Stirp's folks and took in a ball game and after that hopped the trolley down to Virginia Beach with some girls Will Stirp knew. One of the girls' names was Della; and she was very dark and Joe fell for her, kind of. When they were putting on their bathing suits in the bathhouse he asked Will would she. . . ? And Will got sore
and said, “Ain't you got the sense to tell a good girl from a hooker?” And Joe said well, you never could tell nowadays.

They went in swimming and fooled around the beach in their bathing suits and built a fire and toasted marshmallows and then they took the girls home. Della let Joe kiss her when they said good night and he began kinder planning that she'd be his steady girl.

Back in town they didn't know just what to do. They wanted some drinks and a couple of frails but they were afraid of getting tanked up and spending all their money. They went to a poolroom Will knew and shot some pool and Joe was pretty good and cleaned up the local boys. After that they went and Joe set up a drink but it was closing time and right away they were out on the street again. They couldn't find any hookers; Will said he knew a house but they soaked you too damn much, and they were just about going home to turn in when they ran into two high yellers who gave 'em the eye. They followed 'em down the street a long way and into a cross street where there weren't many lights. The girls were hot stuff but they were scared and nervous for fear somebody might see 'em. They found an empty house with a back porch where it was black as pitch and took 'em up there and afterwards they went back and slept at Will Stirp's folks' house.

The
Tampa
had gone into drydock at Newport News for repairs on a started plate. Joe and Will Stirp were paid off and hung round Norfolk all day without knowing what to do with themselves. Saturday afternoons and Sundays, Joe played a little baseball with a scratch team of boys who worked in the Navy Yard, evenings he went out with Della Matthews. She was a stenographer in the First National Bank and used to say she'd never marry a boy who went to sea, you couldn't trust 'em and that it was a rough kind of a life and didn't have any advancement in it. Joe said she was right but you were only young once and what the hell things didn't matter so much anyway. She used to ask him about his folks and why he didn't go up to Washington to see them especially as his dad was ill. He said the old man could choke for all he cared, he hated him, that was about the size of it. She said she thought he was terrible. That time he was setting her up to a soda after the movies. She looked cute and plump in a fluffy pink dress and her little black eyes all excited and flashing. Joe said not to talk about that stuff, it didn't matter, but she looked at him awful mean and mad and said she'd like to shake him and that every
thing mattered terribly and it was wicked to talk like that and that he was a nice boy and came from nice people and had been nicely raised and ought to be thinking of getting ahead in the world instead of being a bum and a loafer. Joe got sore and said was that so? and left her at her folks' house without saying another word. He didn't see her for four or five days after that.

Then he went by where Della worked, and waited for her to come out one evening. He'd been thinking about her more than he wanted to and what she'd said. First, she tried to walk past him but he grinned at her and she couldn't help smiling back. He was pretty broke by that tome but he took her and bought her a box of candy. They talked about how hot it was and he said they'd go to the ball game next week. He told her how the
Tampa
was pulling out for Pensacola to load lumber and then across to the other side.

They were waiting for the trolley to go to Virginia Beach, walking up and down fighting the mosquitoes. She looked all upset when he said he was going to the other side. Before Joe knew what he was doing he was saying that he wouldn't ship on the
Tampa
again, but that he'd get a job right here in Norfolk.

That night was full moon. They fooled around in their bathing suits a long while on the beach beside a little smudgefire Joe made to keep the mosquitoes off. He was sitting crosslegged and she lay with her head on his knees and all the time he was stroking her hair and leaning over and kissing her; she said how funny his face looked upside down when he kissed her like that. She said they'd get married as soon as he got a steady job and between the two of them they'd amount to something. Ever since she'd graduated from high school at the head of her class she'd felt she ought to work hard and amount to something. “The folks round here are awful no-account, Joe, don't know they're alive half the time.”

“D'you know it, Del, you kinda remind me o' my sister Janey, honest you do. Dod gast it, she's amounting to something all right. . . . She's awful pretty too. . . .”

Della said she hoped she could see her some day and Joe said sure she would and he pulled her to her feet and drew her to him tight and hugged her and kissed her. It was late, and the beach was chilly and lonely under the big moon. Della got atrembling and said she'd have to get her clothes on or she'd catch her death. They had to run not to lose the last car.

The rails twanged as the car lurched through the moonlit pine-barrens full of tambourining dryflies and katydids. Della suddenly crumpled up and began to cry. Joe kept asking her what the matter was but she wouldn't answer, only cried and cried. It was kind of a relief to leave her at her folks' house and walk alone through the empty airless streets to the boarding house where he had a room.

All the next week he hoofed it around Norfolk and Portsmouth looking for a job that had a future to it. He even went over to Newport News. Coming back on the ferry, he didn't have enough jack to pay his fare and had to get the guy who took tickets to let him work his way over sweeping up. The landlady began to ask for next week's rent. All the jobs Joe applied for needed experience or training or you'd ought to have finished high school and there weren't many jobs anyway, so in the end he had to go boating again, on a seagoing barge that was waiting for a towboat to take her down east to Rockport with a load of coal.

There were five barges in the tow; it wasn't such a bad trip, just him and an old man named Gaskin and his boy, a kid of about fifteen whose name was Joe too. The only trouble they had was in a squall off Cape Cod when the tow rope parted, but the towboat captain was right up on his toes and managed to get a new cable on board 'em before they'd straightened out on their anchor.

Up in Rockport they unloaded their coal and anchored out in the harbor waiting to be towed to another wharf to load granite blocks for the trip back. One night when Gaskin and his boy had gone ashore and Joe was on watch the second engineer of the tug, a thinfaced guy named Hart came under the stern in a skiff and whispered to Joe did he want some c—t. Joe was stretched out on the house smoking a pipe and thinking about Della. The hills and the harbor and the rocky shore were fading into a warm pink twilight. Hart had a nervous stuttering manner. Joe held off at first but after a while he said, “Bring 'em along.” “Got any cards?” said Hart. “Yare I got a pack.”