It was, perhaps, the nearest that Banjo, quite unconscious of it, ever came to an aesthetic realization of his orchestra. If it had been possible to transfer him and his playing pals and dancing boys just as they were to some Metropolitan stage, he might have made a bigger thing than any of his dreams.
“I took her on a ride and she rode more than me,
I took her on a ride and she rode more than me,
Oh, I took her on a ride and she rode more than me,
Stay, Carolina, stay,
Stay, Carolina, stay. …”
Five men finishing a round of drinks at the bar went and sat at a table among the beach boys. They wore Basque caps. They applauded the playing. One of them was fat and round with a kind of rump roundness all over, but it was the compact fatness of muscle and blood and not of some pulpy fruit. He bought wine for the players and asked Banjo to play more. Glasses chinked. Goosey shook his flute, wiped the mouth of it, and started.
A troop of girls filed in from the boxes, led by Ray’s absinthe lady. They broke in among the boys and began dancing with them in their loud self-conscious way. But as soon as the music stopped they turned to the newcomers. Like sea gulls following a ship, the girls were always after the beach boys, whenever the boys had some paying business in hand. Between the sorority and the fraternity down there in the Ditch the competition was keen. The girls amused themselves with the beach boys when the beach boys had paying guests that they wanted to get at, but when the beach boys, having no money nor any potential catch, attempted, with masculine vanity, to make jolly with the girls, they were ruthlessly given a very contemptuous shoulder—especially if there were any possibility of a “prize” in sight—some white thing prejudiced against the proximity of black beach boys and envious of their joy.
The girls obtained drinks from the white seamen—enough to warm them up to work for more substantial favors. But on this occasion the seamen were limiting themselves to wine and song. However, after a little well-managed, persistent persuasion, one of them, a swarthy, thin-faced, middling type, was carried off.
His remaining companions called for more wine for Banjo and his boys. The girls, all but one, gave them their backs and went off shaking themselves disdainfully. The one who remained was the absinthe lady. Guzzling down his wine, Goosey fondled his flute again.
“I took her on a jig and she jigged more than me,
I took her on a jig and she jigged more than me,
Oh, I took her on a jig and she jigged more than me!
Stay, Carolina, stay. …”
The playing was so good that it stirred the very round sailor to get a little nearer to the musicians. And when the music stopped he put a fraternal arm round Goosey’s shoulder. Banjo grinned at them comically and drawled in rough-ripe accents: “I’m a rooting hog!”
“And I’m a dog,” said Goosey in a giggling fit, and he chanted the little fairy song:
“List to me while I sing to you
Of the Spaniard that ruined my life. …”
“Come on, git on to that theah flute,” said Banjo, affecting a rough manner with him.
“What about the ‘West Indies Blues’?” suggested Goosey.
“Why no play ‘Shake That Thing’?” said Dengel.
“ ‘Carolina’ once again,” decided Banjo. “We’ll do the whole show from start to finish and Ray’ll tell us how it was. Eh, pardner?”
Goosey took up his flute and the round sailor sat down with his forefinger posed on his lip. The tout of the absinthe girl, an undersized, mangy-faced man of dead glassy eyes, and wearing proletarian blue, looked in at the bistro and beckoned to her. She went to the entrance and he handed her something and slunk off. It was an enormous carrot, out of the fertile peasant soil of Provence, crudely carved.
The girl went back to the rear and thrust the carrot under the nose of the tight-round sailor. He reddened and, crying, “Slut!” cuffed the girl full in the face, and as she fell he drove a kick at her. The girl shrieked.
The patronne rushed quickly to the door and locked out the crowd that was gathering. In a moment the girl picked herself up and the patronne’s man, a docker who had come in during the evening, let her out and closed the door again. The crowd dispersed.
“Stay, Carolina, stay. …”
The sailor who had slapped the girl stood the beach boys some more wine.
“It’s a rough life, pardner,” Banjo said to Ray. “Got to treat ’em rough, all right, or they’ll walk all ovah you.”
“I woulda choked her to death with these black hands of mine,” said Ray.
The swarthy sailor who had gone out returned with his girl and bought her a liqueur—a Cointreau. Soon after the five men left. They had gone a few paces only up the alley when two shots barked out, precipitating the beach boys to the door of the bistro. The plump round sailor came running back.
“They have killed my comrade! They have killed my comrade!” he cried. Two bicycle policemen came sprinting from the waterfront. From out of the sinister houses and bistros the same curious crowd was gathering again, but there was not a witness who had seen the murderer nor could tell whence the shots came. The four sailors stood over their prostrate comrade, the swarthy one who had bought the girl the Cointreau. The bullets, really intended for the round one, had clean finished him.
IX
Taloufa’s Shirttail
Taloufa came from the Nigerian bush. He had attended a mission school where he learned reading, arithmetic, and writing. He was taken to Lagos by a minor British official. And when the Englishman was returning to
