Oscar Hijuelos - Twain & Stanley Enter Paradise

Even though she was a Mrs., I never saw her husband around: Perhaps she was widowed — I did not know and never thought to ask her, but in any case she seemed quite self-sufficient. Often as her last act of the day, around ten at night, after she’d served supper and cleared off the dining table, Mrs. Williams took out a money box, and, figuring out her expenses, put a few dollars into a envelope — I supposed to send to relatives. Altogether, aside from liking her, I was very impressed by what she had done with her “free” status in that city known for its commerce in slaves, as her humble prosperity seemed to me further evidence of the equity of American life.

WITHIN A SHORT TIME at the firm, my trial period passed, and I was hired permanently at the rate of twenty-five dollars a month. Evidently my efforts to reorganize the warehouse had impressed Mr. Speake, who day by day began to notice the subtle changes and new order of the place. Shortly my direct dealings with Dan and Samuel ended, which is to say I no longer loaded drays with them. And while I remained just a junior clerk, I had been given, with my promotion, many other duties, including bookkeeping. Few things escaped my attention: if I saw a leaking coffee sack, I sewed it shut myself; or if a bottle of wine shattered on the floor, I thought nothing about mopping it up.

Certain of my fellow clerks began to fear me, or, I should say, they became wary of my alert presence. A few, such as the bookkeeper, Mr. Kennicy, were secret drinkers. He was also disdainful of my friendliness with the slaves. About his drinking addiction I did not care, though some sloppy, miscalculated invoices I attributed to his inebriation. But as to my doings with Dan and Samuel, I thought him clearly wrong. After all, this was America, the land of free speech, of a Constitution that protected personal rights, a country founded on the aspirations of men seeking a society that would be free of the class restrictions of a monarchy like England. The soundness of the slave system itself I did not, in my youthful ignorance of slaves’ sufferings, question: I believed it was part of a greater design, and surely, supernatural reasoning aside, it was of indeterminable practical value to the economy of the South. What I objected to was the unfair treatment of such slaves and the cruelties I had heard were rendered to them. Needless to say, a strained relationship, if not an enmity, existed between me and the bookkeeper, but I was not worried, as Mr. Kennicy, in his pickled state, could do little more than insult me behind my back.

AS I HAD A WAY of quickly forming attachments to a place, my attic room at Mrs. Williams’s became my refuge. With my monthly upkeep at ten dollars or so, out of my surplus of fifteen — minus what I would pay in increments to Mr. Speake for a loan — I put a certain portion, fifteen percent, into the acquisition of books. What I had already read I wanted to expand upon, particularly in the realm of imaginary writings, that of novels and poetry, in which I was greatly wanting. My initial purchase, I remember, was a crumbling copy of Milton’s Paradise Lost , the opening lines of which—

Of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit

Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste

Brought death into the world, and all our woe…

— I strongly took as the essential truth of our fleeting existence. Enthralled by my elevation into the poet’s mind, much greater than my own, I spent one entire evening reading that volume by the light of a kerosene lamp from beginning to end, until my eyes ached: I did not care if I felt a little tired in the morning — I had endless amounts of energy then, and no illnesses had laid me low. Besides, I did not like to sleep; or, to put it differently, I did not like the nightmares that often came to me. Nonetheless I had the solace of my books: If some men went after women or became rhapsodic with alcohol, my addictions, I discovered, were to work and to read what I construed as literature.

It wasn’t long, flush with surplus funds, before I acquired other volumes: Gibbon’s Decline and Fall , Spenser’s Faerie Queene , Pope’s translation of Homer, Plutarch’s Lives , and Simplicius on Epictetus, among others: and as I was very ignorant about America, a great many volumes on its history as well. (As a matter of interest to my readers, regarding my future African exploits, I also happened upon a copy of David Livingstone’s Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa , which I read over a period of several days, little knowing how this man, the so-called apostle of Africa, would later figure in my own life.)

Soon, within that little attic room, my world was contained — I had no need for anything else. During such evenings I forgot myself and became a creature of words. I, who had always learned by mimicry and observation, found myself dreaming of sonnets, couplets, and of great histories of my own.

AT THE END OF THAT first month, Mr. Stanley returned to the warehouse from his travels, and, learning of my contributions to the running of that place, was deeply pleased.

One afternoon, a small crisis — a discrepancy involving some jugs of sweet white Malmsey wine — arose. It was a Saturday. I had overheard Dan speaking about a birthday party for his little girl, to be held at his place the next day.

During his lunch hour, Dan sat in front of the warehouse inviting just about every black man and woman who went by to his party—“It’ll be an all-out joy of joys!” he declared. He even invited me, and I planned on going, along with Mrs. Williams.

The day before I had inspected every single jug of Malmsey wine and judged most of them full: My chalked X on the side marked them so. Nevertheless, several jugs were now appreciably depleted. I had no choice but to look around. Knowing the slaves’ habits — they tended to linger in the unseen recesses of the upper lofts, where, I already knew, they opened cases of licorices and candies and took a few things now and then — I asked Dan to hold steady a ladder as I climbed up into the lofts to investigate: He seemed somewhat apprehensive at my ascent.

“Why you going up there, Little Boss?” Dan asked. “Ain’t nothing there,” he kept on saying. But once I set my feet down on the floor of that low-ceilinged loft — you had to crouch to go anywhere — I began to look around. It was in a broom closet that I made the unpleasant discovery of one of their lunch buckets, filled to the brim with the sweet wine. I also found a cache of tinned sardines and biscuits and jellies stashed beside it.

“Dan,” I called down to him. “Come here.” And when he climbed up and I showed him the evidence of their theft, I asked: “What could you have been thinking?”

“Mr. Kennicy put us up to it at first. He said, ‘Give me half — you take the other half.’ A lot of Scotch and rye bottles are low, too. I didn’t want to, Mr. John, but I swear, we were put up to it.”

“Well, then,” I asked, “if you were me, what would you do?”

“I don’t know. But I’m asking myself, what’s a few ounces of such and such a cheap wine to a business with so many thousands of things all around? Heck, they’ll make the money anyways — they wouldn’t be doing this otherwise — and Mr. Kennicy, he steals more from this place than any poor Negro ever could.” Then: “Mr. John, what will you do?”

In their defense, I thought to propose that it was a lapse of judgment that provoked such an action. Finally, seeing how frightened and contrite Dan seemed to be, I resolved to drop the matter, but no sooner did I think this than I heard someone else climbing the ladder: It was Mr. Kennicy himself, who, finding the evidence, slapped poor Dan across the face and, calling out into the store, declared: “I’ve found the thief!”