Fo'castle Waltz

"Priest already, everytin' fine . . . she kneel down ... I kneel down in front of priest. Everytin' quiet. Priest begin talkin'." He rumbled down his throat in respectful imitation of a priest performing the holy rites of matrimony. "Den de priest say something to me ... I look up . . . den I fall over flat on my moosh. Two beeg full whiskey bottle roll out of my pocket. Well, we don' get marry again. . . . Some day I'll marry dis girl—she's nice girl. ..."

"But, Joe, how come you're on this ship? How come you're not going to Australia again?"

"Dunno. De girl she got mad. . . . Well, I wanna go see Paris anyhow. After all, I'm Frenchmen, no?"

"Yes."

"An' m'modder tells me how beautiful is Paris. Her gran'-modder tol' her. I come 'long to get ship for France. Shipping Board man says what d'hell you wanna take short run like dat for. Here's fine ship going to Argentine. Swell grub. ... So I says hokay. I'll go to Argentine. . . ."

We sat around in silence for a little while. I tried to get him talking again.

"Did you ever get back to the Island again?"

"No—sometime I'll ship dere. Dose Island is beautiful. Always nice, nevaire 'ot, like 'ere, dan col'—always nice." And Joe smiled. "Always same tampeture. Can swim all de time. Swim ever' day, ever' night. I used to swim wit de girls by night—dat's nice. No clo's—"

"What about sharks? Ain't there sharks, especially at night?"

"Sharks—roun' my Island? Naw, sir." Joe shook his head with indignation. "No sharks."

And then as he thought of something else he quietly added, "And no snakes, either."

"No snakes! Hell, Joe, wasn't there any foliage on that Island of yours? There's always snakes if you got foliage— trees, bushes, and things like that."

"Sure—dere's trees, wanderful big trees and prettee bushes, big red and gold flowers—but no snakes. No, sir, dere's no snakes, no sharks, nevaire 'ot, nevaire col', and you know dere's no storms. . . . An' it's fonny dere's no poison ivory or any-ting like dat. You don't have to work on de Island—just pick fruit off de tree. . . . Same when you're hungry for girl. . . . She's laugh and go wit you—no charge. An' all de girls is beautiful on de Island—and all de girls is vierge —all de time."

"Aw, Joe—that's impossible. That's biologically impossible. They can't be I'z'erg'e all the time. . . . Even after?"

The big dope nodded his head solemnly.

"Yep, vierge ... all de time . . . even after. . , ,"

And big Joe lay back on the hatch, closed his eyes, and smiled a gentle reminiscing smile as he thought of his perfect Island where the girls were vierge —all the time.

Well, it looked as if he wasn't going to get up again, and I quit drawing. For the past few nights we'd been headed into the wind. The poopdeck was no place to sit with the soot from the funnel sprinkling down on you. Some of the crew had bellyached that we should ought to have had an awning, like they have on good ships.

The evening before I got Al to sit for a drawing. Then Mush volunteered to sit for me. They liked the drawings I'd made and told everybody about them. We'd sat on this forward hatch, and this evening when Joe had come off watch he asked me to make a picture of him, too. As I drew, he talked and I egged him on. I remember when I was at the art school. One of the old academic sculptors who was instructor there then (forgot his name . . . some kind of a fishy name . . . but it doesn't matter—if everyone hasn't already forgotten him they soon will)—this stodgy old academician once took the class aside and said:

"Fellas"—he was the he-man type of artist and always kept a damp, dead cigar clutched in his teeth—"Fellas, I'm gonna tell you something important, something that relates to your profession as sculptors. Of course, you know sculpture isn't all just working from the model and drawing and doing composition in school—heh, heh."

And he looked at us over the rims of his glasses, circling his eyes at us all. We "heh-hehed" politely.

"Sculptors eat off their sculpture. They get commissioned to do sculpture, they get paid for doing it and they eat."

He paused to let that sink in.

"Y'see, the people that commission you and pay you are called clients. Now, that's what I'm gonna talk about."

Well—all the students gasped and looked at each other. What's happening here? Could old Fishname really be going to tell this bunch who spent their days or nights in factories, elevator shafts, dishwashing, or having their blocks knocked off as sparring partners to ham and beaners so that they could afford the luxury of doing a few hours sculpture a day or night —was he really going to let down the bars and let us know how a sculptor earns his living at sculpture? That was unheard of. Sculpture was a closed corporation. None of the young artists who could do much finer work than that old Fishname had any idea how they could ever break in.