For the rest of the afternoon they basked in the sun on the breakwater. With its cooling they returned to the Place de la Joliette, where the group broke up to forage separately for food.
They came together again in the evening in a rendezvous bar of a somber alley, just a little bit out of the heart of the Ditch. Banjo had his instrument and was playing a little saccharine tune that he had brought over from America:
“I wanna go where you go, do what you do,
Love when you love, then I’ll be happy. …”
The souvenir of Latnah’s foot in his mouth was a warm fever in Malty’s flesh. And the red wine that he was drinking turned the fever sweet. It was a big night. The barkeeper, a thin Spanish woman, was busy setting up quart bottles of wine on the tables. Only black drinkers filled the little bar, and their wide-open, humorous, frank white eyes lighted up the place more glowingly than the dirty dim electric flare.
Senegalese, Sudanese, Somalese, Nigerians, West Indians, Americans, blacks from everywhere, crowded together, talking strange dialects, but, brought together, understanding one another by the language of wine.
“I’ll follow you, sweetheart, and share your little love-nest.
I wanna go where you go …”
Malty had managed to get next to Latnah, and put his arm round her waist so quietly that it was some moments before she became aware of it. Then she tried to remove his arm and ease away, but he pressed against her thigh.
“Don’t,” she said. “I no like.”
“What’s the matter?” murmured Malty, thickly. “Kaint you like a fellah a li’l’ bit?”
He pressed closer against her and said, “Gimmie a kiss.”
She felt his strong desire. “Cochon, no. Go away from me.” She dug him sharply in the side with her elbow.
“You’ mout’ it stink. I wouldn’t kiss a slut like you,” said Malty, and he got up and gave Latnah a hard push.
She fell off the bench and picked herself up, crying. She was not hurt by the fall, but by Malty’s sudden change of attitude. Malty glowered at her boozily. Banjo stopped playing, went up to him, and shook his fist in his face.
“Wha’s matter you messing around mah woman?”
“Go chase you’self. I knowed her long before you did, when she was running after me.”
“You’re a dawggone liar!”
“And youse another!”
“Ef it’s a fight youse looking for, come on outside.”
Banjo and Malty staggered off. At the door, Malty stumbled and nearly fell, and Banjo caught his arm and helped him into the street. All the boys crowded to the door and flowed out into the alley, to watch. The antagonists sparred. Malty hiccuped ominously, swayed forward, and, falling into Banjo’s arms, they both went down heavily, in a helpless embrace, on the paving-stones.
IV
Hard Feeding
The boys had a canny ear for the sounds of “good” ships. They knew them by the note of the horns.
They might be bunging out a barrel of wine, or picking up peanuts, or lying on the breakwater when one of the good ships (ships whose crews were friendly and gave the beach boys food) signaled its coming in. One would shout, tossing his cap into the air, “Oh, boy! That theah’s a regular broad coming in!” And it would surely be one of their ships.
Sometimes it would be a ship that one of them saw last in Pernambuco, or the ship that another had allowed to leave him in Casablanca. Three months, six months, a year, two years since any of the crew had met this beach boy. Indescribably happy surprise reunions, and stories reminiscent of how they got messed up with wine, girls, and police and missed their ships.
Ginger’s little story was brought out by one of these meetings. And for a while it made him “Lights-out” Ginger and the butt of the boys until another incident superseded it. Ginger had often mentioned that he had lost quite a bit of money in Marseilles in one night, but nobody knew just how. Then he met the pal who had been with him on the boat he had left and it all came out. In a bistro by the breakwater, over a table loaded with red wine, the story was told of Ginger’s going into one of the little houses of amusement in the Ditch. He was boozy and very happy, singing and swaying. He sang, “Money is no object. I’ll pay for anything in the place.” And he paid. He did it with great gusto, was really amusing, and all the girls and touts and the other customers were delighted.
There was a little mangy-faced white there who could make himself intelligible in English. And he said to Ginger, “The whole house is yours.”
“I know it,” Ginger grinned back, “and I’ll show it. I’ll give this here money to the boss ef she puts the lights out for five minutes.” And he waved a thousand-franc note. The patronne’s eyes popped fire.
“Why, you big stiff,” said the boy who told the story and who had been with Ginger, “that’s a whole lot a money and tha’s all youse got.”
“Don’t I know what Ise doing?” cried Ginger. “Ise one commanding nigger who’ll always pay for a show.”
“You can have you’ show, but Ise sure gwine away from here, leaving you.” And he left.
Ginger paid for his five-minute show and got all of it. Nor did he rejoin his pal, but remained on the beach to become a bum and a philosopher. Bantered as a scholar by the boys, Ginger always had a special opinion, a little ponderous, to give on topics arising among them. And whenever they were up against any trouble, he always advised taking the line of least resistance.
Ginger laughed with the rest when his story was told, and said: “There ain’t a jack man of us that ain’t got a history to him as good as any that evah was printed. And Ise one that ain’t got no case
