Fo'castle Waltz

The fo'castle was warm and the air was getting thick with the smell of smoke, sweat, and wine. A few of us stood around listening to Scotty crack wise with Al in the center of the fo'castle. The bullet-headed guy seemed disturbed. He was standing at Scotty's side grinding his teeth and squinting viciously at him.

Al, without turning his head, said quietly, "Careful, Scotty, something's eating this guy."

Scotty didn't turn but I heard him murmur, "Yeah—so I notice. I'm watchin' 'im. I'm watchin' the pink bastard."

Bullet-head kept thrusting his face forward until he must have been breathing into Scotty's ear. Suddenly, he swung and clipped the good-natured, inoffensive Brooklyn boy on the side of the head. For all his fancy muscles he didn't have much of a wallop. Scotty rolled with the punch and brought up his fist and clouted that dope full on the mouth. A spot of blood showed on his under lip.

Big Joe took charge. "Hey, take it easy. O.K. Stop. We all frien'. No?" and he threw his big arms around the bullet-headed trouble-maker from behind and very efficiently pinned him.

Chips appeared from somewhere. He had taken off his straw hat and stood with his bludgeon of a fist held high as he very deliberately rolled his shirt sleeve down his arm.

"Dis mus' be fair and square fight. You hear—dot fella mine countryman. One man fights one—dot's all."

That seemed curious to me. I mean, Chips and this bullet-head who were never seen talking together; but they were landsmen—a couple of Litvaks tied in an invisible silent bond—and Chips intended to back the dope up with a "my countryman, right or wrong, my countryman" attitude.

Joe, like a smart cop, had already lifted Chips' landsman clear off the deck and holding him in that bear hug was carrying him to the other end of the f o'castle. He turned his head and grinned at Chips.

"I'm no gonna hurt him. Just he'll go to sleep and cool down."

He lifted the bullet-head up into his own bunk, stretched him out, then holding him with one arm, he wrapped him up with blankets with the other. Quicker than I can tell it, he tied the ends of the top blanket down around the bottom of the bunk and he took a few turns with a line around the whole job. That cantankerous bug, the bullet-head, was now a neat cocoon, but his head was loose and he kept squirming it around, his mean snake eyes flashing hate, and spitting viciously all through the rest of the evening. We all stayed away from that end of the fo'castle.

The party started whirling again and gathered momentum.

Birdneck chose me from the bench of wallflowers and with a gypsyish come-and-join-the-dance gesture invited me to join the dizzy madness of the fo'castle waltz.

It was an honor to be chosen by Birdneck—since he was admittedly the best waltzer aboard—but one I felt I could very well do without. Birdneck wouldn't listen to my protestations—I couldn't dance a step, didn't know one foot from the other. He'd lead me.

He had been a part-time dancing master over in Jersey City for about a year while he was beached—getting a cure. Had a regular studio, he said, and he taught ballroom dancing, waltz, two-step, hesitation, tango and all the popular dances of the period, to the dock wallopers along that shore. He led me with the conciliatory dance-or-I'll-break-your-arm iron grip of the professional dancing teacher.

Back in my sticky youth up in Albany, I remember my Uncles Willie and Joe had opened a dancing class during the slow season. That as an irregular avocation. Regularly, they were employed in Uncle Louie's pants factory. Every Tuesday and Thursday evenings their class had met in Eintraeck Hall on South Pearl Street. They taught the same dances that Bird-neck had specialized in, and dimly I recall at Uncle Willie's wedding (a swell, catered affair at Eintraeck Hall, too) as I, along with a few dozen of my kid cousins, slid wildly back and forth through the spilt beer on that varnished floor screaming, "Look, Uncle Willie, look, we're dancing," he, in his rented tuxedo, with tender solicitude was teaching his bride the intricacies of the latest dance measures. He, too, had used the same rounded iron grip Birdneck had on me.

But I hadn't inherited Uncle Willie's great talent or even the lesser genius of Uncle Joe. I couldn't dance ballroom stuff and I resented being led.

For all his "Atta kid—take it easy—now one an'a two, an'a one an'a two," Birdneck and I didn't get anywhere. And we were bumped, stepped on, and sworn at until he, all asweat and puffing hard, admitted the floor was too crowded—we'd try again later. And for all his assurance that it'd take me no time at all to learn to dance—because he knew fat guys who were light as a feather on their feet, regular sharks on the floor— I knew I wasn't and never would be.

After I dug my way back into the bench of wallflowers, I sat there morosely wishing I'd soon get old enough, fat enough, and gray so that I'd not be expected to dance, play tennis, or go on brisk hikes.