The good sun of the Midi was splendid outside, but it was gloomy night in Bugsy’s room. Banjo turned on the thin electric light and there he was on the dirty bed. Strange and quiet he was indeed, as the boy had said. He lay there like a macabre etched by the diabolic hand of Goya. With clenched fists and eyes wide open, as if he were going to spring at an antagonist, even if he were God himself. He finished with life as he had lived it, a belligerent, hard-fisted black boy.
Latnah tried to close his eyes, but only one would stay shut, and so she tied a handkerchief over them. He had no clothes but the rags he had died in. The boys contributed things to bury him. Goosey gave his blue Charleston pants, Ray an extra blue coat that he had, Banjo a shirt and socks. The boys got together at the African Café, and subscribed the cost of the funeral—fifth class or a class near to it. The cost was only one hundred and twenty francs, including the priest.
Latnah wanted a wreath. Ray objected. Why a wreath? It was nonsense and wasteful. Latnah insisted that it would look lovely to give what was once Bugsy a wreath of flowers. Why not a wreath? Why not, indeed? thought Ray. And he collected the money for a wreath. Nonsense and waste he had said. But nonsense was often pretty. Who shall gauge or determine the true spirit that lies between the proudest or humblest outward show and the inward feeling? And he really had no rooted objection to waste. Why not waste money on a tradition of flowers as on wine or non-utilitarian ornaments? Think of the fortunes the seamen wasted in the Ditch and the sums the beach boys bummed and spent for the pleasure of drinking, when there were even poorer people than they who might have used that money for necessary nourishment. No, he did not resent waste. He always loved to read of millionaires spending gorgeously. There was something sublime about waste. It was the grand gesture that made life awesome and wonderful. There was a magical intelligence in it that stirred his poetic mind. Perhaps more waste would diminish stupidity, which was to him the most intolerable thing about human existence.
So Bugsy had his wreath of flowers and the boys got together behind his hearse and marched to the cemetery. American, West Indian, Senegalese, British West African and East African blacks and mulattoes, a goodly gang of them, and one little brown woman.
A few days after Bugsy’s funeral Ray moved to a nice little hotel in the center of the town. He had a small, cheerful room, very clean, and a window overlooking a garden through which the morning sun poured. Just then he was beginning to do some of the scenes of the Ditch and he felt lifted out of himself with contentment to sit by a sunny open window and work and hear sparrows chirping in the garden below. It was a solitary delight of the spirit, different from and unrelated to the animal joy he felt when in company with the boys in the Ditch.
He had arrived at this state by one of those gestures that happened to spur him on at irregular periods when thought was in abeyance and he was mindlessly vegetating. A temperamental friend in Paris had sent him another life stimulant by the hand of a young American, who had decided to stay in Marseilles for awhile, and had persuaded Ray to move to a respectable quarter where they could keep in touch with each other. …
Ray had made the little move, although feeling that it would have made small difference if he had finished with the town in the Ditch. He would have to make a bigger move before long. Where, he didn’t know. Some point in Africa, perhaps, or back to Paris, or across the pond, following Banjo.
Soon Banjo and Goosey would be leaving. Two white fellows had been sent back and it was their turn next. Goosey was still rather weak, and reluctant and sad about returning. But Banjo was worried about nothing. He stayed on in the hotel and was happy to be taken care of. He ate and drank a plenty, bought wine for the gang with his extra francs, told big stories, and played the banjo.
One morning the Egyptian with whom Ray had roomed invited Goosey, Banjo, and Malty to take lunch on the ship of which he was watchman. It was an American ship and the steward was a Negro. The Egyptian had told the steward about the boys and the steward had said he would like to have them down to lunch. Goosey declined the invitation, saying that he did not feel up to walking down to the docks.
Banjo and Malty went. In the Joliette Square they met Dengel and a British West African and invited them along. But when they got to the ship an officer refused to let them go aboard and posted a man to see that they did not. The officer said to the white seaman: “Don’t let any of them niggers on here.” Calling the boys
