Fo'castle Waltz

Somewhere, sometime that day I had been given a physical examination, for I found that card in my hand which said I was guaranteed free from venereal infection for forty-eight hours! I had sat in one of those rickety little photographic studios against a blue-gray canvas backdrop, decorated with baroque painted urns, a balustrade, and cloudy, shapeless trees, while a little man snapped my picture—and the heat of mercury lamps added to the heat of the day gave me a headache that gnawed down the side of my head until my whole jaw ached. The result—an interesting photograph of a very intense, determined-looking young man, I thought.

The clerk who had disappeared to get to the office for a moment while I waited for the quickie to be developed and printed, evidently had had a quickie of his own on the way back—there was a distinct beery smell to him as he piloted me with my latest picture and a handful of documents to the passport office.

Things went smoothly there until the question arose as to whether I was ever born.

"When" they accepted. But "where" left doubt in their minds. With a name like mine—though Van Goosenbeck, Vanderhofen, Rujuenthaler or something similar could readily be accepted as the name of someone born in upper New York State—a Slobodkin could come only from the steppes of Russia or worse.

My clerk (and I chimed in) argued I had to join my ship. I was a very essential cog in the wheels that made it go—a little cog, but important. The Tammany Hall politician behind that passport-office desk was adamant; I must get a copy of my birth certificate in Albany.

That was the first shoal we'd struck in our whirling cruise that day. The clerk, a bit crumpled and with his stiff collar wilted, led me off to one of those old chop houses that dot lower Manhattan. I told him I couldn't eat a thing—but I wasn't there to eat. I was led to a table where Captain Brandt, a snowy napkin tucked in his collar, was champing his store teeth over a huge grilled steak.

His attitude toward me had softened completely. We were greeted with a smile, and he asked how everything was going. Before I could answer, he turned and said proudly to the man with whom he was lunching, "Mister, this is the type of young man that is going to sea now-a-day. Mind you, a talented young artist giving up his art career to devote his life to the sea—he's starting at the bottom to work up. Yes, sir, I'm signing him as a deck boy on the old S.S. Hermanita."

He turned and beamed up at me so proudly that I didn't have the courage to disillusion him and I weakly said, "Yes, sir!"

He then turned his attention to the clerk who had been fidgeting alongside. "Are the decks all clear now. Mister?"

The clerk blurted out our difficulty—no birth certificate, no passport; no passport, no sign-on; no sign-on, no deck boy. 

Captain Brandt yanked his napkin from his collar, leaned back, and took command.

"H-m-m . . . Where were you born, son?"

"Up in Albany, sir."

"H-m-m . . . Albany, huh?"

The Captain gave me a sidelong glance and seemed to study me for a full half minute—good God, wouldn't anyone believe me?

But evidently he did. He'd just been working a shred of meat that stuck in his uppers on the larboard side. He sucked his teeth, smacked his lips.

"Got any relatives up there?"

Did I have relatives up in Albany! In those days that place was fairly crawling with my own flesh and blood. Why, every second person on the street was either my kissin' kin, or a kissin' kin to my kissin' kin. Modestly I replied, "Yes, sir, a few."

"Well, that's simple; telegraph at once. I'll expect you aboard the S.S. Hermanita the day after tomorrow."

Having solved our problem with dispatch, he turned back to his steak. We were dismissed.

I chased after my clerk again, still worried. I couldn't ever get a relative to do anything for me. Which of them should I telegraph? Then I brightened with a thought. My mother had gone up to Albany for a bit of vacation. Now, I could depend upon my mother, though I never could understand why she would go up to Albany in the middle of summer. New York is hot, but Albany—why, it's said there that people living up on Schuyler Street hill have a late Sunday breakfast en plein air, and fry their eggs on their sizzling front walks while they wait for the coffee to perc on the curb—at least that's what they say.

Well, I telegraphed Albany and, miracle of miracles, two days later I received my birth certificate, fully made out and legal, except for the date of my birth. I'd always believed—in fact, I'd always celebrated my birthday on February twelfth along with Lincoln, Darwin, and some others; but this certificate said February nineteenth, and, worse than that, my surname—with which I'd had difficulty enough—on this certificate was SLOPOTZWKYI.

As I worried over to the passport office, a thought struck me that almost turned me back—and would have turned me if I had not already paid my nickel for the subway ride downtown.