“No.”
“I guess you hadn’t. Well, I seen one down in Dixie. And it was mah own li’l’ brother. Jest when he was a-growing out of a boy into a man and the juice of life was ripening a pink temptation kept right on after him and wouldn’t let be until he was got and pulled the way of the rope. You didn’t go through the war, neither?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“I knowed. Because you was too young. I did because I was jest young enough. I was in Kenada when I joined up and I remember a buddy a mine calling me a fool for it. I remember he said that he would only wanta fight if they was calling him to go to Dixie to clean up foh them crackers. But I joined up all the same, and went through that war, for I was just crazy for a change. And the wul’ did, too. And one half of it done murdered the other half to death. But the wul’ ain’t gone a-mourning forevah because a that. Nosah. The wul’ is jazzing to fohgit.”
“Except the bloody politicians,” said Ray.
“They ain’t in our class, pardner. Yessah. The wul’ is just keeping right on with that nacheral sweet jazzing of life. And Ise jest gwine on right along jazzing with the wul’. The wul’ goes round and round and I keeps right on gwine around with it. I ain’t swore off nothing like you. United Snakes nor You-whited Snakes that a nigger jest gotta stand up to everywhere in this wul’, even in the thickest thicket in the Congo. I know that theah’s a mighty mountain a white divilment on this heah Gawd’s big ball. And niggers will find that mountain on every foot a land that the white man done step on. But we niggers am no angels, neither. And I guess that if evah I went down in the bushes in the Congo, even the cannibnals them would wanta mess with mah moon if I leave me careless, and if I runned away to the Nothanmost pole, the icebugs would squash me frozen stiff if I couldn’t prohect mahself. I ain’t one accident-made nigger like you, Goosey. Ise a true-blue traveling-bohn nigger and I know life, and I knows how to take it nacheral. I fight when I got to and I works when I must and I lays off when I feel lazy, and I loves all the time becausen the honeypot a life is mah middle name.
“You got a li’l’ book larnin’, Goosey, but it jest make you that much a bigger bonehead. You don’t know nothing when to use it right from when you should fold it up and put it away like you does a dress suit after a dickty party. You got a tall lot yet to larn, Goosey boy. You go right on back to them theah United Snakes and makem shoot a li’l’ snakebite wisdom into you’ and take somathat theah goosiness outa you’ moon.”
The noisy honk-honking of a horn dispersed an idly-gossiping group in the middle of the streets as a taxicab dashed through them and swerved to a stop before the hotel. Out of it jumped Jake.
“I done took it in mah haid to come and get you fellahs,” he said. “Because after that theah goodest of time last night, I got to thinking you-all might be feeling too sweet in you’ skin to get outa it for that unrighteous sea change. So here I is with taxi and everything to make sure you-all don’t get left.”
“Youse one most faithfully buddy,” Banjo grinned. “But Ise jest finish explaining to Goosey heah that Ise most gratiate to the consul foh hulpming me this far along, but I ain’t gwine no further. And I was a-telling him like a wise old-timer to dust his feets and make that boat alone befoh it miss him, foh this nigger ain’t gwine no place.”
“Ain’t going!”
Jake grinned. Banjo grinned. Ray grinned. Goosey only was glum. Jake understood Banjo too thoroughly to ask any questions. He enjoyed the situation. For a moment he felt strangely moved to throw himself in with Banjo and send Goosey back alone to the ship. But the next moment he reflected that he was no longer a wild stallion, but a draft horse in harness now with the bit in his mouth and the crupper under his tail, and—that he liked it.
The taxicab slowly trailing them, the boys crossed down the street and into the Seamen’s Bar, where they stood at the counter, à l’Américaine, for the final drink together.
“When is you coming back to look us over?” Jake asked Ray.
“When the train puts me off,” said Ray. “I like this rolling along, stopping anywhere I’m put off or thrown off. Like Banjo. I may get off to see you one a these days if the train pass your way.”
“Well, when youse tired a rowling, if evah a broad evacuate you on any a them Gawd’s own beach, you point you’ nose straight foh Harlem. And if it is even in the middle of the night you get theah, we’ll put out that elevator runner that lodging with us and make room to take you on.”
They drove from the Joliette square down the docks to the ship, where they said goodbye. As Goosey went up the gangplank after Jake, Banjo called out again:
“Go’-by, Gawd blimey you, Goosey, and don’t fohgit what I done told you. Put it in you’ flute and blow it.”
Banjo and Ray wandered casually along the docks. Workmen were busy completing the big new American warehouse. The hand trucks were noisy on the paving stones with the shifting of boxes and barrels and the loading and unloading of ships. The eternal harvest of the world on the docks. African hard wood, African rubber, African ivory, African skins. Asia’s gifts of crisp fragrant leaves and the fabled old spices with grain
