I got a hammock in the forecastle, like he promised. The food was not good except when it was, if you know what I mean. I had never drunk wine before, except just a sip of the Precious Blood at mass sometimes, so I did not know how bad the wine was. Or how weak it was, either. We had been loading cargo for Veracruz, a lot of it live pigs and chickens in cages, and the deck was a mess to the big. We would clean up one side, then the other, then back to the first one. We pumped water out of the harbor and squirted it out of a hose, mostly, and when we were not doing that, we pumped the ship. It leaked. Maybe there are wooden ships somewhere that do not leak, but I have never been on one.
You could go ashore when you were off watch. I did that just like the others, but I could not have gotten drunk or hired a whore even if I had wanted to. (Which I did not.) The Spanish sailors were not nearly as bad about getting drunk as some I have known since, but they were worse about women. The night we sailed they smuggled a battery girl on board and hid her. When we had gotten the anchor up and the pilot was taking us out of the harbor, the captain and Senor pulled her out of the hold and threw her over the side. I had seen something of her by then and had not liked it, but I would never have done that. It was the first thing that made me really understand what kind of a place I had landed in.
The second thing came three or four nights later. When we got off watch and went below, two guys grabbed my arms and another one pulled my jeans down. I fought-or thought I did-and yelled my head off until somebody about knocked it off. You know what happened after that. So did I, after I woke up. The only good thing that came out of it was that my old jeans got ripped so bad that I had to have new pants, and I found out you could get them from the bosun. He took care of the slop chest. He charged too much against my pay and my new canvas pants were too big, but I was so glad to get rid of those tight jeans I did not care.
About then I started going aloft, making sail and taking it in. Vasco and Simon told me I would be scared to death and dirty my new pants, but I told them they had better be scared, because I was going to grab them if I fell and take them down with me. I meant what I said, too.
The weather was calm with just a little bit of a breeze, you stood on the foot rope and held on with one hand, and I was not scared at all. Besides, you got a great view from up there. I did my work, but I sneaked looks every chance I got. There was the beautiful blue sea, and above us the beautiful blue sky with a couple of little white clouds, and I kept thinking that the earth was a beautiful woman, and the sky was her eyes-and thinking too how the sea and the sky would be there when everybody on our ship was dead and forgotten. I liked that, and I still do.
When we were down on the main deck again, I kept hoping the captain would want to take a reef in the topsail, but he did not. Only by then I knew that we furled all sail at night and lay to. (And I thought all ships did.) So I would get my chance for sure before we went off watch.
Here I ought to say that we were the starboard watch, which meant the one that Senor bossed and the one that did just about all the work. There was a larboard watch, too, which was a lot smaller. The larboard watch could sleep on deck if there was nothing for them to do, and sometimes they shot craps. Our ship was a brig, a bergantin was what we called it. It means that it had two masts the same size, both square-rigged. I was a foremast man then, not that it matters.
While I am filling you in, let me say too that in those days I knew a lot more Spanish sea talk than English, although all the other sailors knew a whole lot more than I did. They would not tell me what they meant, either, just saying that it was a comb to smooth the water or a dildo for a whale or whatever. I had to figure out everything for myself, and I got laughed at if I was even a little bit wrong.
Another thing I did not know then was that our handy bergantin was one of the kinds of ships pirates like best. The others are Bermuda sloops and Jamaica sloops. They are both bigger than most sloops, and a lot faster. The hulls are pretty much the same, and the difference is in the rigs. Everybody has his own tastes, but I always liked the Bermuda rig, myself.
When the sun was on the horizon, we went aloft again and furled the sails, the mainsail first, then the topsail. The stars were coming out and the wind picking up a little, and I remember thinking that sailors were the luckiest people in the world.
As soon we slid down to the deck, we were dismissed and went below and they jumped me again. This time they did not catch me completely off guard, and I fought. Or anyway, I would have called it fighting if anybody had asked. They beat and kicked me until I passed out and they got what they wanted. I did not know then that it was the last time.
I would not call what I did that night fighting, or what I did afterward sleeping, either. Sometimes I was conscious and sometimes I was not. I prayed that God would send me back to Our Lady of Bethlehem. I threw up a couple of times, and one time was on the deck. The larboard watch made me clean that up, although I was so bad I fell down two or three times while I was trying to do it.
The next day el capitan saw how bad I was-both my eyes were swollen just about shut, and I had to hold on to something to keep from falling over-and put me on the larboard watch myself. He did not try to find out who had beaten me or even ask me to tell him. (I think I might have.) He just said I was larboard watch until he changed it, and sent me below. It meant my old watch had to do the same work minus one man, so that was their punishment. When we came on watch about sundown, I made up my mind that they would get some more punishment from me as soon as I felt better.
(All this comes back to me with a vengeance tonight, because of what happened yesterday evening. I made four of our boys in the Youth Center quiet down, and they waited for me to come out at ten. They were all good- sized and pretty strong. Tough, too, they thought. They got in each other's way, and if there was only one of me, every kick and punch did real damage. They finally knocked me down and knocked my wind out. When they had kicked me a couple of times they beat it, practically carrying Miguel. I caught up with them after about three or four blocks.)
Larboard watch was easy, and it was a good thing it was, because I was still coughing a little blood now and then. I just rested, and slept when I could, and when we were off I stayed awake most of the time, keeping quiet in my hammock. It was nice, just a gentle rocking like a cradle, and I got to thinking I would kill everyone on board and have the whole ship to myself with nobody around anymore to do what they had done. I knew I would not really do it, and that I could not have managed the ship alone. But it was nice to think about, and I did. Later that helped me understand Jaime.
One of the things I did on larboard watch was be lookout. That was the same as starboard watch, but I had never gotten to do it on starboard watch. After I had been on larboard watch for a couple of days and my eyes were not so swollen I got tagged for it. It meant I climbed up the foremast and stood on the topsail yard, holding on to the masthead. It was a job nobody wanted, because it meant you had to stand or squat there for hours, and the roll was a lot worse at the top of the mast.
I loved it. One of the great things about my life has been that every so often I have really enjoyed something everybody else hated, and that was one of them. First off, I was all alone up there with nobody to hassle me. Another was that I could look up at the sky and way, way out to the horizon as much as I wanted. It was what I was supposed to be doing. That night there was no chop at all, just a greasy swell, and a million stars looked down at me. I saw the Angel of Death one time. (Maybe I will tell about all that later.) His robe is black, just like they say. But it is spangled all over with real stars, and when I saw it I knew that dying is really not as bad as everybody thinks. I still did not want to die, but I knew that if I did it would not be the worst thing that ever happened to me, and that afterward I would not have to worry about it anymore, ever again.
One of the pigs had died that day, so we had roast pork at supper. Whenever one of the animals died, we ate it. It was warm where we were, just like Cuba, so we ate it ASAP. Probably we would have eaten it fast anyway. The captain and the mate got the best cuts, and the rest of us got the rest. I do not think we ate the guts, but I know we ate the stomach and the head. And the heart and the liver, and all that. And hollered for more, and cussed the cook for holding out on us.
So I was a little bit sleepy up there, but naturally I could not sleep and would have fallen if I had. I would shut my eyes just for a minute, and feel myself starting to go, and grab on and wake up. About the third or fourth time I saw something way off to starboard when I woke up. There was no moon that night, but I thought I saw something white above the black bulk of it, and a dark line going up that might have been a mast. I yelled down that there was a vessel out there with no lights, and the rest of the watch woke the mate.
I expected him to be mad, and maybe he was. He asked where it was, and when I had told him, he asked eight or ten questions I could not answer. Eventually they unshipped the boat and rowed over for a look. It was a
