Joe could have danced all night and we'd have been happy to watch him, but Slim, the Georgia Boy, had begun one of his low blues songs off at one end and a circle had gathered around to watch him work up his shuffle dance. He was a lean, thin-chested boy and his wind wasn't much good. Soon he gave up trying to play his harmonica as he danced and persuaded Scotty to accompany him.
Scotty learned the lazy Southern songs quickly, but when he blew into his instrument they came out Scotch and brisk. Slim tried to correct his tempo—he'd hum his song and beat the slow measure with his hand. Scotty's head nodded solemnly up and down, but when he brought his harmonica to his mouth, Slim's rhythm—"Seven years with the wrong woman"—came out sounding like "The Campbells are coming." He couldn't get the languorous magnolia quality Slim got in his stuff. It was all thorny. Highland brier.
Slim finally gave it up and tried to play a few flings for Scotty, but he couldn't blow hard or fast enough. Then, after a few more drinks, they both tried to make music for Joe's hulas, but that didn't work either.
At last they all asked Chips to play music—none of their own music—he'd concede nothing. He played his long repetitious march and he played it the rest of the night over and over again. They tried their own dancing to his music but none of it worked. We finally settled for a fo'castle waltz to Chips' music.
The fo'castle was long and narrow and only two couples could dance at a time. When they passed there was a lot of swearing and butt bumping.
I sat with the wallflowers at one end of the fo'castle. Pat, the oiler, the old guy with the pink lids, and I sat on a bench. The old guy was having a swell time. He'd wave his cup and tap his foot to the music and he kept pulling his upper lip down to keep from laughing out with no control. He hadn't been allowed ashore by the Medical Officer and I guess evenings aboard while the crew was out helling around must have been lonesome. This busy hilarious party was a great treat. To Pat the party was just another drink. He sat with us because the bottles were stacked under our bench, and he tanked up.
The bullet-headed guy, the athlete, came down to the fo'castle after his evening's exercise. He didn't miss a night even in port to perfect those beautiful, useless muscles. He sat down at the end of our bench and poured himself a drink. Nobody had invited him and he hadn't chipped in—he didn't rate. After gulping a few cups of wine he sat there morosely squinting at the dancers and grinding his teeth.
Chips with no warning stopped playing his accordion. The dancers Scotty and Al, Birdneck (who was a good waltzer) and Joe, looked rather silly with their arms around each other as they turned to watch Chips unstrap his accordion and stand up and stretch. He was thirsty and wanted a drink of wine.
We all got off the bench to let Chips get at the bottles underneath—all except Pat. He couldn't. He sat carefully erect, sweating and glowing as he mumbled something about "Shure, give all the boys in the orchestra a drink." Then he tapped his foot, tossed his head, and winked as he deedle-dum-dummed a fragment from an Irish jig.
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.