After delivering the papers he caught the tramcar again and stopped off at a café on the Quai d’Arenc, where his pals were waiting for him. The Irish boy was not there. He also had struck something good and had taxied off with a passenger who wanted to be shown the quartier réservé.
The boys had already emptied a few bottles of wine, and Ray had paid for them before Banjo got there.
“Wha’ you wanta blow you’self foh?” Banjo demanded. “You know I’m the best plugger of the gang all this week, hitting nothing but bull’s-eye pim on the head ehvery time.”
He gave the boys twenty-five francs apiece. Dividing up was a beach boys’ rite. It didn’t matter what share of the spoils the lucky beggar kept for himself, so long as he fortified the spirit of solidarity by sharing some of it with the gang. The boys were hungry, and, besides the general handout, Banjo paid for some food. So much and so quickly did the boys eat, that the patronne had to send out for bread. Joined together were two long green tables of sausage and ham sandwiches, bottles of red wine, filled and half-filled glasses.
“Foh making grub palatable,” said Malty, “I ain’t seen no place equal to this that c’n do so much with a piece of meat and a li’l’ vegetable, ’cep’n’ it’s way home yonder where I was bohn; but—”
“Don’t talk crap about home cooking in them monkey islands,” Banjo interrupted. “The onliest thwoat-tickling cooking like French cooking is black folks’ cooking back home in Dixie.”
“You don’t know anything about the West Indies, them, breddah,” said Malty. “Mah mudder could cook you a pot a rice and peas seasoned with the lean of corned pork that’d knock anything you got in Dixie stiff cold.”
“Chuts! Rice is coolie grub,” said Banjo. “I ain’t much on it ’cep’n when I want a change a chop suey. I would give all the rice and peas in the wul’ foh one good platter a corn pone and chicken—”
“Corn pone!” sneered Malty. “Tha’s coon feeding—”
“You said it, then,” cried Goosey, “and I wish yo-all would say corn bread instead of corn pone. Corn pone is so niggerish.”
“Mah mammy useta call it corn pone,” said Banjo, “and tha’s good enough foh me.”
“I was gwine ta say,” continued Malty, “that I had moh’n was good foh mah belly a that theah corn pone when I was way down in Charleston and Savannah, and it couldn’t hold a candle against our owna banana pone.”
“Banana-what-that?” exclaimed Banjo. “You mean banana fritters.”
“Not ef I knows it, buddy,” Malty laughed. “Banana fritters is made from ripe banana. But I said banana pone, which is made from green banana grated with coconut and spice and sugar and baked in banana leaf. I ain’t nevah find nothing moh palatable than that in any place in all the wul’. And that is black folks’ eating, too. You nevah find it on any buckra table.”
“I’ve eaten it,” said Ray. “It sure is great stuff.”
“Kuyah!” exclaimed Malty, happy to be backed up, “you eat it in Haiti, too.”
“Sure. And I ate it in Jamaica. I was there for two years when I was a kid. We had a little revolution and the President that was ousted was exiled to Jamaica with his entourage. My father was among them and that was how I happened to go.”
“Yo’-all got me ways off what I was a gwineta say at the beginning,” said Malty, “and that was that the Frenchies am A number one in the kitchen, but they ain’t gotem on the bread.”
“I like French bread,” said Goosey. “My teeth are good.”
“And my own is good, too, yaller,” said Malty, “but French bread is no good foh sandwich.”
“I don’t like French bread, anyhow,” said Bugsy. “It’s like a rotten pimp up in the Ditch—all crust and no guts to it.”
Bugsy’s witticism brought a roar of laughter and spurred Banjo to a pronunciamento on the touts of the Ditch.
“What do them poah ofay trash in the Ditch know about doing the stuff in the big-style way it’s done back home?” declared Banjo. “Why, them nothing up there can’t even bring you a change a suit outa what them gals is giving them! Why, they can’t eat a decent meal! But a man who is subsequential to a three-franc throw, says I, ain’t got no business to wear a pants. I nevah seen such a lotta mangy p.i. in all mah life. A fellah doing that back home gotta show himself a man ehvery-time. Him gotta come strutting swell and blowing big. He’s gotta show he ain’t nobody’s ah-ah business. I knowed a fellah named Jerco in Harlem. Hi‑eee! but he was one strutting fool. I remember one night I was with some white guys in a buffet flat in Harlem. But they was cheap skates and only buying beer for the house. The madam sent out to find Jerco, and when that nigger blowed in theah them cheap ofays jest woke right up. The piano-player was half asleep. Jerco brushed him one side and made that piano cry a weeping ‘blues.’ He ordered whisky and he ordered wine. It wasn’t no time before he had the whole house going and the ofays coming across the right way. There was a li’l’ dog sleeping under a table. Jerco woke him up and told the madam to feed him. And when the dog finished eating he started to dance. And that was how the ‘dog-walk’ started.”
This time the boys’ laughter shook the place so hard that it knocked
