Scotty the wiper would join us. He climbed out the door that led to the black gang's quarters. Scotty, Pat the oiler, and the bird-necked guy were the only members of the black gang the deck crew would mix with. The rest of them would stay over on their side of the ship. Scotty was a cheerful, gay guy, in spite of his job: day man for the black gang—clean-up guy, handy man, scullion—our own equivalent down below in the engine room. Nothing could be lower.
Scotty was a curly-headed Brooklynite who had been raised by an uncle in Scotland. He came back with a burr as thick and tangled as heather. It was pleasant to listen to him talk and sing, and he danced a fine Highland fling. We looked forward to his hopping out of the black gang's passageway in the evening. He'd pop out with some funny Scotch song, do a few dance steps, and then sit down on the hatch. I remember the "Gud or Duke of York" and "I Love my Wife, I Love her Dear-r-ly" and some hymns, but they should be sung, not written. Seems that though he bathed himself daily, as did all the black gang, his eyes, like theirs, were always rimmed with black fuel oil, and the hollows of his head, neck, and arms always had hints of dark smudge, like the effect you try to get in patining a piece of sculpture.
The cockeyed A.B. would usually join us next. No one called him cockeyed. He was a Portuguese guy called Perry or Portuguese Perry. His cross eyes seemed to set the motive for all his movement—when he'd sit down, he'd cross his legs, cross his arms, one over the other at the elbow, and then, in addition to his cross eyes, the heavy flat cloth cap he wore was set on his head with the broken peak of it always askew. I never saw him standing with his legs straight. They were always crossed at the ankles or the knees. His shoulders and hips were never parallel but always at contrasting angles to one another—an exaggerated living example of Michelangelo's counteracting planes theory, not so much like the master's interpretation, more like an imitator: Sansovino or perhaps Giovanni da Bologna or one of the lesser lights of the Baroque period. As Perry walked, his feet seemed to cross the path of each other. A completely cockeyed guy.
Chips would come along with his straw hat on straight and sit down quietly. He always had a quiet Slavic dignity. Washed up and wearing a clean undershirt always made him feel dressed up. He'd smile at Scotty's wisecracks, though I'm sure he couldn't understand them—we all had some difficulty getting the sense of the King's English through the thicket of Scotty's burr.
The young Polack would climb out of the fo'castle door blinking like a sheep dog through the two long strands of blond hair that always seemed to fall forward from his pompadour. He'd usually sleep for an hour or so before supper and he'd look bleary. He was a shy young guy with a clumsy sense of humor. If Scotty hit something the Polack thought was funny, he'd smack his big open palm down on Scotty's back as lie held his shoulder and sock him again and again. And a laugh he could not hold back would come up from deep inside, as if it hurt him on its way out—a hard, har-har sound.
Other guys would come along soon. The black gang sat on the other side of the hatch near their own fo'castle door; they'd grin over our way but they kept their place.
Having eaten an early supper, sometimes the Georgia Boy would appear on the messdeck taking the long way around to relieve Joe at the wheel. He'd pull a small harmonica from his back pocket and, softly playing some Southern song, shuffle-dance across to the other side of the ship to the applause of the appreciative audience on the hatches until he disappeared around the other side. The Swede Mate up on the bridge, looking down on us, never could see him and never understood our applause.
If Joe had his dinner first, he'd sometimes come around that way and to a high-pitched gurgling Tahitian song he'd wiggle a hula across the same stretch of deck. He danced beautifully. His big arms—almost as big and round as his long torso— palms turned out, wrists resting on his hip pockets, and his head thrown back on his heavy neck—Joe was a handsome guy.
But it wasn't only all these nice guys in the sun's glow that made that half-hour between bucket bath and supper such a golden half-hour. The sea seemed richer and deeper in color, the sky more delicate and transparent, and there was a fine mood over everything. Even the Fat Man coming out on deck with his hair matted and sticky-looking—though he was bathed, still messy and dirty-looking like an old wet mattress—he and his noisy nasal voice couldn't spoil the fine feeling there was about everything.
It would break up when Flip would appear on the messdeck and holler:
"Come an' get it—soppa."
Although we'd take our time getting up to the mess, we'd hurry through our supper. The sun had baked the place uncomfortably warm and the heat and smell from the galley did not enhance the food Flip slapped down in front of us.
When we'd rush him, Flip's stock retort was "Watsa matta, you hurry? Where ya goin'? Is woman waiting for you? Gonna take walk?"
"Yeh," Mush would reply. "Gonna take walk. I'm gonna walk back to that poop and have me a lay. I'm gonna lay down flat—like a millionaire."
He expressed the sentiment of our whole gang. We had clicked together, Al, Mush, Scotty, Portuguese Perry, big Joe, the slim Georgia Boy, and I. The Polack and the bird-necked guy from the black gang stuck around on the outer fringe. So did the Filipino, Philip, the Captain's messboy. The mess gang had a clique of their own—drawn together, I imagine, by their work and language.
The black gang also had their own loosely formed group. The officers were all a lot of isolated and lonely guys, though their work tied them together a bit. Sparks, the radio man, chatted over his instruments all day long with other radio men on distant and passing ships and now and then would join the outer fringe of our gang of an evening.
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."