Fo'castle Waltz

There were two other cabins besides the one occupied by Mush and me up under the prow deck. All their portholes opened out and looked back on the forward deck. We had the center one; on one side was Chips' store—the one on the other side was always kept locked. While the Mate was getting the key to that locked cabin from Chips, I asked the Captain—since we stood in front of our own cabin—could I pick up some cigarettes from my locker. He nodded. I grabbed my cigarettes and a book and by the time I was out in the passage again the Mate had unlocked the brig and was telling Chips he'd keep that key hereafter.

With a jerk of his head the Mate indicated—get the hell in there, you lousy little bastard. He didn't say anything—his blue eyes told me so. Isn't there a song with that line in it—a love song?

The Captain and the Mate followed me into the brig.

The sun poured through its open porthole. It was a nice, bright cabin with southern exposure; since our ship was headed due north I'd have sunshine all the way. My jailers looked around the cabin, even inspecting the overhead—I suppose to be sure there were no beams for me to hang from were I to become despondent. Then the Captain nodded to the Mate and they left me there alone.

I heard the big brass key lock me in.

With them gone the cabin looked roomier. Well, this was more like it. Within the hour I had mutinied, been put in irons, and thrown in the brig.

Now in the privacy of my own cheerful dungeon I slipped my right hand out of the shackles and lit up a cigarette. That cabin, before it had been consecrated by my presence and became the Bastille of the S.S. Hermanita, had served as a spare storeroom—it still did. There were a stack of unopened cans of paint piled up under the porthole. There were some new hawsers coiled up on the floor—they had a nice clean smell to them. A few tied-up bundles of shiny new chipping hammers and metal marling spikes lay on a box, and, best of all, three inviting large rolls of tarpaulin—good, clean canvas. Evidently they'd never been used before.

I arranged those three mattress-like tarpaulin bundles into a fine day bed, picked up my book, slipped my hand back into its dangling shackle, and settled down to suffer my duress vile in comfort.

29. In the Brig Alone I Sit

YES, THIS WAS MORE LIKE IT.

This was something to tell the Turk, Fish, and Mish about— and even old man McQuarrie—when they asked where have you been, Slobodkin? I'd just toss it off—just about six thousand five hundred miles away. On a cruise, huh? No, no, not exactly. Anything happen? Anything interesting? No, not much—nothing exciting—No-o, I just mutinied, that's all. A one-man mutiny; then I was put in irons and thrown in the brig!

And that would settle that. I might never have to travel again. I'm a homebody and I've always felt Diogenes could get all the excitement anybody needed just sitting in his barrel—as long as there were no restraints put on his flights of fancy.

As a creative artist—which I hope to be—I don't feel it's necessary to go hunting the least important of the elements which make up the thousands required for a first-rate piece of work—subject matter. The overemphasis placed on this element (a tendency prevalent more with the literati than with other creative workers) produces the same effect on the whole as any irritated disproportionate growth in a living organism, and results in a cancerous distortion that crowds out and eventually kills the commendable qualities of the work—for me, at least.

Subjects will come—and if they don't they can be found in your own back yard by looking out the window. I disagree with Ruskin's contention that in order to paint a flower you must go out into the garden and feel like one. Although in principle, I too believe you must feel and live within the subject to project it properly, you needn't go out into the garden. At most, just look out the window—that's quite enough.

With this argument I make no suggestion that an artist must hold himself aloof or remove himself from life. On the contrary, I contend what happens within his intimate environment provides more living subject matter and substance than he can digest and express through his medium were he to live to the age of Methusaleh. I just condemn the necessity of swinging off on a long safari through the trackless jungle to study the flash of a tiger's eye, when you can get a much cooler study of your problem (if you have to have a tiger) in the Bronx Zoo with a bag of peanuts; and if you can't get there because of rain or something, imagine, feel, or sense a tiger's eye—in your own back yard or your barrel.

I am prepared to argue with dissenters who maintain that the subject must be studied in its own environment to get the truth—the real juice of its emotional growth—my eye.