Conrad Aiken - Blue Voyage

“It was Friday the thirteenth. I don’t like Friday the thirteenth. We were all scared — every man on the ship. Waves coming right over the old tanker — they’re low in the water you know — only about that high out of the water. You hear them going right over. Gosh, it’s a terrible sound in the middle of the night when you’re lying in your bunk. But no sleep that night. We were on our feet all night …”

“—is that so—”

“—is that so—”

“Friday the thirteenth. Who was it, Tom Lawson, wrote that book—”

“But the sound of the water on one of those iron tankers! Gee whiz, man, you think you’re going down … It was a long trip, a long long trip — all the way from Tampico to New York, wallowing along in the old Gulf Stream day after day. Playing cards all day and half the night, new partners with every change of watch. Good God I got sick of the sight of a bloody card. And no smoking either — on the American tankers they let you, but not on the British, no sir.”

“… cockfighting — Havana …”

“Hello there, little Johnny Cagny! You looking for a fight, are you? You want to fight me, do you? Now don’t you be climbing up on the back of that seat — you’ll be getting a fall … There! Now you’ve been and gone and done it!”

“In Havana, sure. And all those places. Guatemala City, too, I’ve seen them.”

“Long, you know, knives — little thin steel knives — fastened on to those what-you-call-’ems—”

“Spurs—”

“Yes, spurs … and one eye only he had, one little red burning eye.”

“Yes, but the food’s good on a tanker — better than this is, by God!”

“… then she comes into the ring with a fine strapping black son-of-a-gun of a Tom cat. And he had a cock, of course, in his corner, holding it in his hands — and a beauty it was, too! And she says, ‘I’ll fight my puss against your cock,’ she says, ‘five dollars to the winner!’”

“… ha ha ha ha …”

“What the hell’s the matter with these hands?”

“It’s the jinx.”

“Ah, it’s a great sight is a good cockfight. How they will fight! I saw one once in Mexico City. It was a fight to a finish in every sense of the word. Both of them covered with blood, getting groggier and groggier, falling down and staggering up again for more, finally one of them flopped over, dead. The other one stretched up his neck and gave a little rusty crack of a crow — and keeled over, dead too. That’s the fighting spirit for you! You can’t beat it …”

“I’ll fight you! I’ll fight you!”

“I tell your popper on you.”

“No, you won’t!”

“I will too! And the policeman, that fellow with the red face, will get you. He told me he was looking for you.”

“Ah, he was not.”

“They don’t like little boys that come into smoking rooms. Those big fishes will get you — those fishes with great big mouths. They’ve had four little boys already this morning. They’d have been up again before this, only for the rain.”

“Ah, they wouldn’t.”

“Here’s the policeman now!”

“Sure — you look out for my badge!”

“No, he isn’t either!”

“—a pair of sevens. Good little sevens! Come to mommer.”

“Did you hear about that wild Irishman in the steerage?”

“No, what?”

“He came aboard blind to the world and put away whisky all the first night and all yesterday morning till he begun seein’ things. I guess he was seein’ every color of snake there is, from what they said. Then he beat up another feller so bad they had to put him in the ship hospital, at the back. Wild as a cockoo! Then a couple o’ friends of this other chap beat him up so bad they had to put him in the hospital. And in the middle of the night he leap’ out o’ bed in a franzy and took all his clothes and tore ’em to smithereens and run out on deck and slung ’em all overboard. Well, now he’s sobered up a little, and remembers that all the money he had, and his passport, and everything, was in the clothes he flung overboard … Too bad! He’s got a wife and five kids in Brooklyn, and he had all his savin’s with him to buy a farm in Ireland.”

“—is that so!”

“Yeah. Will they let him in, I wonder. I hear they’re passin’ the hat fer ’im.”

“For Gosh sake.”

“Old Paddy over there is pretty near as bad. He’s done nothing but souse since he come on. Whisky and a beer chaser. Them was the days, boys! Pawin’ the rail with a blind foot!..”

“Was you speakin’ to me?”

“No, sir.”

“Yes you was too!.. When you get through with that damn cigarette, come over here, and I’ll fool you.”

“What’s that?”

“Come over here and I’ll fool you! Write your name on this paper! I’m the immigration inspector.”

“He’s stewed to the eyeballs.”

“You think I’m drunk?… I’ll fool you … It’s an awful thing to say — and I don’t want to insult anyone that’s present in this room — but what I’m telling you is facts and figures ! There was an Irishman come to New York, and I knew him well. He went to stay with a Mrs. McCarty, who kept a boardin’-house. A widow, I think she was … And he was lookin’ for a job. So we got him a job, over on Avenue A I think it was, where they was buildin’ a buildin’. We got him a job screenin’ sand … And when he come home at night, Mrs. McCarty says to him, ‘Well Pat, what kind of a job you got?’ and Pat says, ‘Ah, I been foolin’ the public all day! I been throwin’ sand through a gate!’”

“… ha ha ha ha …”

“Who drew number nine, please, in the sweepstakes? Did any gentleman here draw the NINE please in the sweepstakes? There was an error.”

“Hell, I drew the eight.”

“ I wonder — who’s kissing — her now … I wonder — who’s telling — her how —”

“Did anyone see the sunrise this morning? It had a black mark on it like an arrow.”

“If you saw any sunrise I’ll eat my hat. Black mark on it like an arrow! Like a poached egg, you mean. Put up your ante.”

“I have anted.”

(How can there be any doubt about it? She looked right at me. “Do you know that lady?” I said to Purington. “That’s Mrs. Battiloro, sister of A. B. Mandell, the novelist. She has just cut me. Walk around the deck with me again — I want to make sure that it was deliberate …” And it was. She came coolly toward me, talking with that tall fair girl — she looked at me coolly, still lightly talking — she shot me through with a blue eye. Why? It couldn’t have been because of that business this morning, when I pretended not to see Cynthia and her friend? No. I’m sure they didn’t guess that I saw them. My damned, absurd, diffidence. Of course it would have been awkward — I was so far away from them, there on the lower deck, and I would have had to shout, or wave a hand, or perform some other such horribly public action, and then go trotting, like a tractable little dog, to the foot of the companionway: to talk with them through the bars of my cage! No — it was a mistake; but I’m sure they didn’t guess it. Why, then? Why?… I am blushing angrily and hotly at the recollection, while I keep a look-out through the open smoking-room window to see if she comes round by the sun parlor. Is it barely possible that her mother doesn’t remember me, didn’t get a good look at me last night on the dark deck? No. She cut me. It was a cool and conscious cut if there ever was one. She disapproves of me, and has always disapproved of me. Scheming for a “good” marriage! Cutting the throats of such outsiders as me! “ I know thee not, old man .” Was there something I did or said last night? My overexcited greeting? And does it mean that Cynthia, too, will cut me? Of course. It’s all been decided. It was talked over last night, and again this morning, with laughter — gay feminine laughter. My name looked for in vain on the passenger list — and the white-and-gold breakfast room scanned in vain. No Demarest to be seen. Where is Demarest, the laughing goldfish? He must be in the second cabin? But how odd! How funny! Now, Cynthia, take my advice, and drop him at once . He is not our sort. Those ridiculous letters he wrote to you last winter — and that awful book—)