Fo'castle Waltz

The little Bos'n's Mate was the lonesomest man aboard ship. He ate with us and worked with us, but he couldn't mix. He had a cabin of his own in the officers' quarters. In the evening he'd linger in the mess smoking cigarettes, taking no part in the dull talk of the black gang and the older guys, until Flip was ready to lock up. Then he'd disappear into his cabin, close the door, even on the hottest nights, and we wouldn't see him again till we turned to the next morning.

Supper done with, we'd get back to the poop and pick a choice spot on which to stretch out. Since that poopdeck wasn't very large and good spots few, we'd move back quietly but quickly lest the firemen or some of the old guys got there before we did. There were a couple of wooden gratings back there on which we'd coiled the big hawsers to dry them out before we stowed them away. They were good to lie on. Then there were a couple of large canvas-covered boxes where life jackets and sounding instruments were kept.

Sounding instruments were explained to me, and I'm not passing it on. I'm not looking for any argument from any sneering old salt who might read this book and throw it back in my face with my explanation of "sounding." And that goes for any other sloppy nautical interpretation I may give. In any case, the contents of the box were not important to me—only the smooth canvas cover of it—and I just wanted to lie down.

So we'd stretch out and talk or sing.

The first few nights out all talk centered on women. The deck crew talked gleefully among themselves and over to some of the black gang about the waterfront floozies of Manhattan and Brooklyn.

They mentioned streets down around the docks I'd never heard of—sections of New York I'd never been in, though I thought I knew the city pretty well.

One evening Birdneck, sitting with us, said quietly, "Ya, they're talkin'. It's always the same on a long trip like this. The first half of the hitch out they talk about the dames they had in the port they left. And the last half they talk about the dames they're gonna get in the port they're headin' for. A lot of talk. Dames in New York is expensive—two dollar to five dollar for a short time. Christ, none of them had money enough to have all the women they says they had."

"Where's Cherry Street?" I asked. "The place that fireman mentioned."

"Jeez, don't you know Cherry Street? Tought you said you wuz from New York."

Al and Mush turned and looked at me.

"Yeh, I lived there for the past five or six years, but I don't know Cherry Street."

"You don't know Cherry Street! Well, where do you hang out?"

Scotty had whipped his harmonica out of his back pocket and with a grandiose gesture brought it up and around to his mouth and began playing something gay and Scotch. Everything Scotty played sounded Scottish, no matter what the song was. So I didn't have to account for my hangouts in New York.

One of those evenings, the third or fourth night out, Chips came up on the poop, in one hand balancing one of the long benches from the fo'castle and in the other carrying a large handsome leather case. He put the bench down, sat on it, then gently placed the large leather case in front of him. He snapped the lock and lifted out a squarish object carefully wrapped in green flannel. Tenderly, he removed the green flannel and revealed the largest, most gorgeous accordion I ever saw. It was filigreed in silver with pearl inlays, with assorted doodads and buttons and stops along one side—the other side held a regular piano keyboard.

When the last fold of the green flannel had fallen away. Chips held the instrument up in front of him, resting it on his knee. The rays of the setting sun caught the glitter of it and flecked the whirligigs on its silver trappings. It was beautiful.

"Gosh," burst from Mush, who went Hoosier under stress. "Chips, where'd you get that?"

"Dot's mine," said Chips, in his deep voice—deep and reverent.

"Gosh. That's beautiful."

"Costs four hundred dolla'," Chips added solemnly.

The rest of the crew mumbled their admiration. Four hundred dollars seemed not a cent too much for anything so handsome. It was a bargain at that—though no one seemed to wonder, as I did, how he'd paid for it out of the sixty-five dollars a month he earned.

"Kin ya play it, Chips?"

"Sure."

Chips had been waiting for someone to ask that. He carefully adjusted a strap around his shoulders to hold the accordion to his chest. If he'd been a smaller man, he would have had to stand up to play. And as he swung the strap over his head, I noticed he wasn't wearing his perennial hard straw hat. His hair was carefully parted and plastered down—this was an occasion, and he'd come prepared for it!