War, pestilence, starvation, violent struggle, and like subject matter need not necessarily be endured before an artist interprets his aesthetic reaction or expression in his chosen medium, or for argument's sake—any more than this, this sitting on a couple of bundles of tarpaulin locked (though loosely) in irons in the brig aboard that tub the S.S. Hermanita. And besides that, I was getting a headache.
The sun beating down on that iron deck overhead and shooting the glare of its full rays through the porthole—my flaunted southern exposure—had baked that cabin hot; that, along with the fumes of paint from one of those leaky cans, mixed with what had been a sweet smell of hemp from the hawser, was building up one of those skull splitters I sometimes get. Then, too, since I'd fought for the liberty of smoking and singing, I had chain-smoked myself groggy. I didn't sing. Anyone out on deck would have thought I'd gone stir-nutty from that half-hour of solitary confinement if I let out with a few ringing solos. And I didn't feel like singing. My head was throbbing.
The book I'd grabbed from my locker was Emerson's Essays—Second Series. I hadn't intended to take that; it was the First Series which included the cool bloodless dissertation named, with simple dignity, "Heroism," I wanted to read as I sat in chains bowed down but unbroken. Perhaps the profundities that Plato put into the mouth of Socrates in the Apology would have been more fitting. Incidentally, it's not commonly known—and since my readers are a rare and uncommon people I'll tell it: Socrates was also a sculptor, or rather a stone carver, in the studio of Phidias and was fired for shooting off his mouth; and he, too, was in and out of clink a few times before that final nightcap of hemlock—I had precedent. But I'd none of the Dialogues; I had shipped out with only Emerson and Montaigne.
I'd bought those books for ninety cents from one of those lower Fourth Avenue bookstalls—fifty cents for the two Emersons and forty for the Montaigne. I seldom buy books. I usually borrow them, but these were a bargain—particularly that fat Montaigne, even though it was cheaply bound and printed in tiny type—it was a collection of his life's work. A wealth of profundities for forty cents.
My bed of tarpaulin developed lumps. I sat on the paint cans looking out the porthole. There was no one out on the open bridge, and no one on the forward deck. I waited for somebody to come along so I could ask them to get that First Series of Emerson for me. It was cooler sitting there, and as the sun beat down on my hands, I figured out a little project to while away the three days I might spend in the brig before we docked.
I'd let the sun tan my hands and forearms. Then when I was released, which I surely would be by then, if not sooner, I'd have the evidence of this injustice done me stamped on my wrists. Then when Captain Brandt and his damned Swede Mate (and old One-Ton too—he couldn't deny his indirect responsibility) tried to pass this off, I'd push back my cuffs exposing the untanned dead-white rings on my wrists and say, "Gentlemen, can you explain these?"
But I don't imagine they'd have the effrontery to let this l'affaire Slobodkin reach that stage. I'd not be surprised if they came crawling before the day was out with some song and dance—one of those now-listen-feller type of cringing apologies. The cabin was getting hot. My head ached worse. All right, I'd forget it, but I'd stick to my guns. I'd be a damn fool having suffered and bled (spiritually, that is) for something, to be swayed by a dinner in the officers' mess—which naturally would accompany their overtures and a few properly conciliatory phrases. I'd fought for and I'd demand a written statement guaranteeing me and all the members of the crew—they were my buddies, the sort of guys that would back me up, and it was for them too I'd been martyred, for mine was not a puny self-interest—the liberty to smoke and sing any place, and under any circumstances, aboard this tub, the S.S. Hermanita.
So after the Captain and his cohorts had made some arrangement to compensate me for the damage done my good shoes—
My shoes!—I'd forgotten about them. Hell, those shoes were out on that broiling deck alongside the kerosene drum. The sun would burn them to a crisp and curl them up so I'd land in New York barefoot.
I frantically stuck my head out the porthole.
Where is everybody—?
It must have been dinnertime. I had heard Chips in his store whistling the march he played on his concertina—over and over again—till I felt it in my back teeth, but his whistling had died some time back. He must have gone off to eat.
Mush's yellow coconut of a head appeared out of the darkness of the shelter deck and he came up the deck with eyes down and a purposeful tread. Anyone up on the bridge could see this young deckhand was seriously going about his own business. As he neared my porthole I hissed at him.
"P-sss, say, Mu-ssh, ya s-see my shoe-s—?"
That guy Mush must have heard me. His stride broke, but he kept coming right along, his head bent, eyes to the hot deck.
"Mus-s-sh," I tried again a little louder, but that guy had turned deaf, dumb and blind; as far as he was concerned I was a sound in the rigging. He swung into the door under the prow deck without giving me a flicker of recognition. Well, how d'you like that? My buddy—
I heard him in our cabin next door clanking open a locker door. I hoped it was his own. Then after a while the sound of his slamming it shut—then silence. After an endless minute, I heard a gentle rap on the door of my brig.
"Hey, Lou. Listen, Lou—"
It was my pal, Mush, whispering through the keyhole.
"Lou—listen, Lou— The Mate said I should keep away from the prisoner—"
"The prisoner?"
"Yeah—you—the prisoner. I'm sorry, Lou—"
And I could hear him as he started getting up out of his crouch at the keyhole.
"Wait a second. Mush—"
"I can't, Lou—"
I talked fast.
"Mush, wait—all I wanted—would you do me a favor? I left my good shoes up near that number two hatch—they're my last shoes—would you throw 'em in my locker? And there's a book in my locker—see—a red one, Emerson's Essays, First Series. That's all—just get it and toss it in my porthole, will ya—?"
He was still for a few seconds. Then his voice came through again.
"Jeezus, Lou—I'm sorry—I can't. The Mate said keep away from the prisoner."
"For Christ sake. Mush—hey, MUSH—"
But he was gone. I stuck my head out the porthole—he had just climbed out on deck. With long, walk-don't-run strides Mush hurried away from me, my porthole, and his conscience. I blistered his back with my expletives, until he escaped into the cool shadows of the shelter deck.
I sat down again on my tarpaulin feeling a little dizzy—the shouting, the smoking, the heat, my headache and all. No question about it, I was on a spot. There was no use trying to rationalize my way out of this one.
If this guy, my pal Mush, my shipmate, my chief witness, was backing down, terrorized by that Swede Mate—and I still didn't trust Al's short upper lip and the old fat Sailing Man— why, if Mush indicated the hands-off policy of this crew, I sure was on a spot—and it was a very black one.
It all had been so obviously simple. They wouldn't have dared bring charges against me. Why, if the crew stuck with me—and this thing reached the law courts—the Captain, the Mate, and the Chief Engineer would have been blackballed off the open sea, and they couldn't have got a berth on a garbage scow.