Fo'castle Waltz

Perry threw himself back in his chair with the violent way he always moved and turned toward our host leaning there on his elbows at the bar. He had lit up a sawed-off cheroot which dangled from his mouth now. He too was satisfied with his business acumen.

After a few minutes of give and take in Spanish, Perry turned back to us, banged the table with his fist, and said, "That's it—dat's fine. Oh boy, oh boy. How's about some steak Caballero and a couple of liter of swell Argentine wine, de rojo —some good bread and some fr-e-sh butta—?" And he switched his head back and forth from Joe to me with such a delighted anticipating grin, his mouth open and drooling, we said sure, swell—promptly.

Perry straightened up, and with a straight-armed wave of the hand gave our host the go-ahead signal. Whereupon he disappeared into that door and returned with a fistful of bone-handled assorted cutlery which he dropped on the table in a heap, a long loaf of bread, and with his fingers gripped into three heavy glasses. Then from under his arm he plucked a large, dark, unlabeled bottle and banged it down in the center of our table and shuffled back into the little room.

Perry grabbed the bottle, held it high for our inspection, then worked the cork loose and sniffed its contents with his eyes blissfully closed.

"Boy—d'bouquet, d'aroma—here, smell it," and he thrust the bottle at my nose.

"Come on, come on, set 'em up." Joe was impatient.

Perry flourished the bottle and carefully filled our glasses to the brim. We all raised our glasses to each other. I took my first mouthful. It tasted exactly like the red wine—the red ink —I'd been drinking in the Italian speakeasies in New York for the past five years.

After his first gulp Perry sniff'ed the remaining wine in his glass, sampled it gently, and rolled the taste of it around on his tongue. Again he went through a spiel on its excellence. Joe had taken his drink in one swallow.

"Feenish up—pour anudder. Dees good for de tonsil."

Perry poured and midway he stopped and sniffed the air around us.

"Get dat. Dat's dem."

There was the distinct smell of meat being scorched and a thin cloud of bluish smoke began to seep out from the door with the cretonne curtains.

"Yeah. That smells good." Joe grinned, nodded his head, and emptied his glass again.

It wasn't long before the unsmiling proprietor, bartender, and cook of the Chicago Bar backed into the room with three smoking plates. He silently set them down in front of us and gave no response to Perry's enthusiasm.

"Bueno, bueno — muy bueno."

"Look at them," he directed us. "Look at them. Dere's food for ya—no galley slops—steak Caballero."

They did look good and Joe's gurgling laugh and his quick attack indicated he thought so. And they lived up to their looks. I was tempted to ask—since steak Caballero is a broiled steak with a fried egg riding on top. Why, since egg and steak were good in themselves—and alone. According to Perry, who talked with egg yolk and steak juice dribbling down his chin, "Dese steaks is prime—yeah, prime Argentine beef—dere's none better. And d'eggs—dere fried in butta," he told us confidentially, his eyes rolling back and forth from Joe to me. "Yes, butta, fresh butta. D'ya taste it?"

Why mix them up? They could both stand on their own merits. But I remembered hearing of some Europeans visiting in the States who on being served our national concoction— the sacred ice-cream soda—questioned the logic of combining an ice (as they called it) with flavored carbonated waters, and damn near brought on a diplomatic incident by their indiscretion.

So I swallowed my curiosity with my steak Caballero and drank my share of the second and third liter of wine Perry ordered with his magnanimous gestures. When he called for a fourth bottle, the proprietor shook his head and brought a slip of paper scribbled in Spanish to the table. After Perry and he pored over it a few minutes, Perry was convinced there was no more coming to us on that deal he'd managed and we'd get no more wine. We sat there munching the crisp white bread smeared with butter.

"Did ya notice dis butta—unsaltered butta," Perry gourmandized as he sprinkled his hunk of bread and butter liberally from a salt cellar. "Yeah, dat's strictly fresh unsaltered butta—regular Jew butta. Tastes good, huh?"

When there was nothing more to eat or drink or enthuse over we happily strolled back to the ship.

The crew was standing around waiting for an immense derrick on a slow-moving flatboat to edge up alongside and lift the iron boilers we had brought down up off our decks. Joe, Perry, and I kept our mouths shut. We weren't talking. We had made a pact to stick together that evening and do this port right. Perry knew every bar, every dive, every dark crevice in it, and would lead us right.