His own hair, though cut short, remained nappy. His skin—he looked down at the backs of his hands—was dark, dark brown. But would he have found Bathsheba so attractive if she’d been his own color and not a rather light-skinned mulatto? He was damned if he knew.
After a few paces, he shook his head in a mixture of guilt and self-disgust. He did know. He just didn’t want to admit it to himself. Whites had shaped his tastes, too, so that he judged Negro women’s attractiveness by how closely they approached their white sisters’ looks.
There were black men who’d been warped more than he had, who craved the genuine article, not the approximation. Things seldom ended well for the few who tried to satisfy their cravings. In the right circumstances, white male Confederates might put up with some surprising things from blacks. They never put up with that, not when they found out about it.
When he heard footsteps coming up an alley, he shrank back into the deeper shadow of a fence and did his best to stop breathing. One . . . two . . . three young black men crossed the street in front of him. They had no idea he was there. Starlight glittered off the foot-long knife the biggest one carried.
“Slim pickin’s tonight,” the trailing man grumbled.
“We gits somebody,” the one with the knife said. “We gits somebody, all right. Oh, hell, yes.” On down the alley they padded, beasts of prey on the prowl.
Scipio waited till he couldn’t hear their footfalls any more. Then he waited a little longer. Their ears were younger than his, and likely to be keener. The three didn’t come running back toward him when he crossed the alley, so he’d waited long enough.
He hated them. He despised them. But next to the Freedom Party stalwarts—and especially next to the better disciplined Freedom Party guards—what were they? Stray dogs next to a pride of lions. And the Freedom Party men were always hungry for blood.
He got to his apartment building without incident. The front door was locked. Up till a little while before, it hadn’t been. Then a woman got robbed and stabbed in the lobby. That changed the manager’s mind about what was needed to make the building stay livable. Scipio went in quickly, and locked the door behind him again.
Climbing the stairs to his flat was always the hardest part of the day. There seemed to be a thousand of them. He’d been on his feet forever at the Huntsman’s Lodge—it felt that way, anyhow. His bones creaked. He carried the weight of all his years on his shoulders.
I was born a slave, he thought; he’d been a boy when the Confederate States manumitted their Negroes in the 1880s. Am I anything but a slave nowadays? Most of the time, he had no use for the Red rhetoric that had powered the Negro uprisings during the Great War. He’d thought them doomed to fail, and he’d been bloodily proved right. But when he ached, when he panted, when the world was too much with him, Marx and revolution held a wild temptation. Like cheap booze for a drunk, he thought wearily, except revolutions make people do even stupider things.
The apartment was dark. It still smelled of the ham hocks and greens his family had eaten for supper. His children’s snores, and Bathsheba’s, floated through the night. He sighed with pleasure as he undid his cravat and freed his neck from the high, tight, hot wing collar that had imprisoned him for so long.
Bathsheba stirred when he walked into their bedroom to finish undressing. “How’d it go?” she asked sleepily.
“Tolerable,” he answered. “Sorry I bother you.”
“Ain’t no bother,” his wife said. “Don’t hardly see each other when we’s both awake.”
She wasn’t wrong. He hung his clothes on the chair by the bed. He could wear the trousers and jacket another day. The shirt had to go to the laundry. He’d put on his older one tomorrow. If Jerry Dover grumbled, he wouldn’t do any more than grumble.
Scipio asked, “How you is?” He let his cotton nightshirt fall down over his head.
Around a yawn, Bathsheba answered, “Tolerable, like you say.” She yawned again. “Miz Finley, she tip me half a dollar—more’n I usually gits. But she make me listen to her go on and on about the war while I work. Ain’t hardly worth it.”
“No, I reckons not,” Scipio said. “Could be worse, though. Buckra at the restaurant, he go on about de niggers to his lady friend—only she ain’t no lady. He talk like I’s nothin’ but a brick in de wall.”
“You mean you ain’t?” Bathsheba said. Scipio laughed, not that it was really funny. If you didn’t laugh, you’d scream, and that was—he supposed—worse. His wife went on, “Why don’t you come to bed now, you ol’ brick, you?” Laughing again, Scipio did.
Connie Enos clung to George. “I don’t want you to go down to T Wharf,” she said, tears in her voice.
For how many years had Boston fishermen’s wives been saying that to the men they loved? It took on special urgency when George was going out again after coming home aboard the shot-up Sweet Sue. He had no really good answer for Connie, and gave the only one he could: “We got to eat, sweetie. Going to sea is the only thing I know how to do. We were lucky when the company paid us off for the last run. I don’t suppose they would have if the Globe hadn’t raised a stink.”
He hadn’t expected the company to pay off even with the stink. But next to the cost of repairing the boat, giving the surviving crewmen what they would have got after an average trip was small change. There were times when George understood why so many people voted Socialist, though he was a Democrat himself.
“Do you think the company will pay me blood money after the goddamn limeys sink your boat? Do you think I’d want it if they did?” Connie, born McGillicuddy, hardly ever swore, but made an exception for the British.
George shrugged helplessly. “Lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place,” he said, knowing he was lying. Lightning hit wherever something tall stuck up, and hit again and again. But the Sweet Sue wasn’t an especially remarkable boat. She’d been unlucky once. Why would she be again? Because there’s a war on, he told himself, and wished he hadn’t.
“Why don’t you get a job in a war plant?” Connie demanded. “They’re hiring every warm body they can get their hands on.”
“I know they are.” George tried to leave it at that.
Connie wouldn’t let him. “Well, then, why don’t you? War work pays better than going to sea, and you’d be home with your family. You’d be able to watch your kids grow up. They wouldn’t be strangers to you. What’s so bad about that?”
Nothing was bad about any of it. George’s father would have been a stranger to him even if his destroyer hadn’t been torpedoed at—after—the end of the Great War. Fishermen were strangers to their families, those who had families. That was part of what went into their being fishermen.
George knew that, felt that, but had no idea how to say it. The best he could manage was, “That isn’t what I want to do.”
His wife exhaled angrily. She put her hands on her hips, something she did only when truly provoked. She played her trump card: “And what about me? Do you want to end up being a stranger to your own wife?”
Wearily, George shook his head. He said, “Connie, I’m a fisherman. This is what I do. It’s all I ever wanted to do. You knew that when you married me. Your old man’s been going to sea longer than I’ve been alive. You know what it’s like.”
“Yeah, I know what it’s like. Wondering when you’re coming home. Wondering if you’re coming home, especially now with the war. Wondering if you’ll bring back any money. Wondering why I married you when all I’ve got is a shack job every two weeks or a month. You call that a marriage? You call that a life?” She burst into tears.
“Oh, for God’s sake.” George didn’t know what to do with explosions like that. Connie had them every so often. If he’d accused her of acting Irish, she would have hit the ceiling and him, not necessarily in that order. He said, “Look, I’ve got to go. The boat’s not gonna wait forever. This is what I do. This is what I am.” That came as close to what he really meant as anything he could put into
words.
It wasn’t close enough. He could see that in Connie’s blazing eyes. Shaking his head, he turned away, slung his duffel over his shoulder, and started down the hall to the stairs. Connie slammed the door behind him. Three people stuck their heads out of their apartments to see if a bomb had hit the building. George gave them a sickly smile and kept walking.
T Wharf was a relief. T Wharf was home, in many ways much more than the apartment was. This was where he wanted to be. This was where his friends were. This was where his world was, with the smells of fish and the sea and tobacco smoke and diesel fuel and exhaust, with the gulls skrawking overhead and the first officers cursing the company buyers in half a dozen languages when the prices were low, with the rumble of carts full of fish and ice, with the waving, sinuous tails of optimistic cats, with the scaly tails of the rats that weren’t supposed to be there but hadn’t got the news, with . . . with everything. He started smiling. He couldn’t help it.
The Sweet Sue had a fresh coat of paint. She had new glass. You could hardly see the holes the bullets had made in her—but George knew. Oh, yes. He knew. He’d never be able to go into the galley again without thinking of the Cookie dead on the floor, his pipe beside him. They’d have a new Cookie now, and it wouldn’t be the same.
On the other hand . . . There was Johnny O’Shea, leaning over the rail heaving his guts out. He drank like a fish whenever he was ashore, and caught fish when he went to sea. He wasn’t seasick now, just getting rid of his last bender. He did that whenever he came aboard. Once he dried out, he’d be fine. Till he did, he’d go through hell.
I don’t do that, George thought. I never will—well, only once in a while. So what does Connie want from me, anyway?
“Welcome back, George,” Captain Albert called from his station at the bow.
“Thanks, Skipper,” George said.
“Wasn’t sure the little woman’d let you come out again.”
“Well, she did.” George didn’t want anybody thinking he was henpecked. He went below, tossed the duffel bag in one of the tiny, dark cabins below the skipper’s station, and stretched out on the bunk. When he got out of it, he almost banged his head on the planks not nearly far enough above it. He’d get used to this cramped womb again before long. He always did.
After stowing the duffel, George went back up on deck. But for the skipper and Johnny O’Shea, it was going to be a crew full of strangers. The old Cookie was dead, Chris Agganis was still getting over his wound, and the rest of the fishermen who’d been aboard on the last run didn’t aim to come back.
A round man in dungarees, a ratty wool sweater, and an even rattier cloth cap approached the Sweet Sue. He’d slung a patched blue-denim duffel over his left shoulder. Waving to George, he called, “Can I come aboard?”
“You the new cook?” George asked.
“Sure as hell am,” the newcomer answered. “How’d you know?” The gangplank rattled and boomed as his clodhoppers thumped on it.
Shrugging, George said, “You’ve got the look—know what I mean?” The other man nodded. George stuck out his hand and gave his name.
“Pleased t’meetcha.” The new cook shook hands with him, then jabbed a thumb at his own broad chest. “I’m Horton Everett. Folks mostly call me Ev.” He pointed to Johnny O’Shea. “Who’s that sorry son of a bitch?”
“I heard that,” O’Shea said. “Fuck you.” He leaned over the rail to retch again, then spat and added, “Nothing personal.”
“Johnny’ll be fine when he sobers up and dries out,” George said. “He’s always like this when we’re setting out.”
Horton Everett nodded. He took a little cardboard box of cheap cigars from a trouser pocket, stuck one in his mouth, and offered George the box. George took one. Everett scraped a match alight on the sole of one big shoe, then lit both cigars. He liked a honey-flavored blend, George discovered. That made the smoke smooth and sweet, and helped disguise how lousy the tobacco was. And, with the Confederates shooting instead of trading, it would only get worse.
Other new hires came aboard. One of them, a skinny oldster who talked as if he wore ill-fitting dentures, joined Johnny O’Shea in misery by the rail. Terrific, George thought. We’ve got two lushes aboard, not just one. The skipper better keep an eye on the medicinal brandy.
After they pulled away from the wharf, the Sweet Sue had to join a gaggle of other fishing boats going out to sea. Actually, the skipper could have taken her out alone. But the fast little patrol boat shepherding his charges along had a crew who knew the route through the minefields intended to keep Confederate raiders away from Boston harbor. George suspected that was snapping fingers to keep the elephants away. Nobody much worried about his suspicions.
The Sweet Sue’s diesel sounded just the way it was supposed to. George remained amazed that the British fighter could have shot up the boat so thoroughly without doing the engine much harm, but that was how things had turned out. Luck. All luck. Nothing but luck. If the fighter pilot had aimed his nose a little differently, he would have shot George and not the Cookie. George shivered, though summer heat clogged the air.
He shivered again when, after the Sweet Sue had threaded her way through the minefields, he went into the galley. Horton Everett had a pot of coffee going. “You want a cup?” he asked.
“Sure, Ev,” George said. “Thanks.” The new Cookie’s cigar smoke gave the place a smell different from the one Davey Hatton’s pipe tobacco had imparted. The coffee was hot and strong. George sipped thoughtfully. “Not bad.”
“Glad you like it.” Everett puffed on a new cigar. “You and the skipper and what’s-his-name—the sot—are gonna measure every goddamn thing I do against what the other Cookie did, ain’t you?”
“Well . . .” George felt a dull embarrassment at being so transparent. “I guess maybe we are. I don’t see how we can help it. Do you?”
The new Cookie took off his cap and scratched tousled gray hair. “Mm, maybe not. All right. Fair enough. I’ll do the best I can. Don’t cuss me out too hard if it ain’t quite the same.”
For lunch, he fried up a big mess of roast-beef hash, with eggs over easy on top and hash browns on the side. Neither Johnny O’Shea nor the other drunk was in any shape to eat, which only meant there was more for everybody else. It wasn’t a meal Davey Hatton would have made, but it was a long way from bad.
The skipper ate slowly, with a thoughtful air. He caught George’s eye and raised an eyebrow ever so slightly: a silent question. George gave back a tiny nod: an answer. Captain Albert nodded in turn: agreement. Then he spoke up: “Pretty damn good chow, Cookie.”
“Thanks, Skipper,” Everett answered. “Glad you like it. Of course, you’d be just as much stuck with it if you didn’t.”
“Don’t remind me,” the skipper said. “Don’t make me wish another British fighter’d come calling, either.”
Horton Everett mimed getting shot. He was a pretty good actor. He got the skipper and the new fishermen laughing. George managed to plaster a smile on his face, too, but it wasn’t easy. He’d been right here when the old Cookie really did take a bullet in the chest. The one good thing was, he’d died so fast, he’d hardly known what hit him.
Everett said, “You guys better like the hash and eggs now, on account of it’s gonna be tuna all the goddamn way home.”
They cursed him good-naturedly. They knew he was right. Maybe he could even keep tuna interesting. That would make him a fine Cookie indeed. And, with any luck, they’d never see a British airplane. Lightning doesn’t strike twice. George tried to make himself believe the lie.
Sometimes the simplest things could bring pleasure. Hipolito Rodriguez had never imagined how much enjoyment he could get just by opening the refrigerator door. An electric light inside the cold box came on as if by magic, so he could see what was inside even in the middle of the night. Vegetables and meat stayed fresh a very long time in there.
And he could have a cold bottle of beer whenever he wanted to. He
didn’t need to go to La Culebra Verde. He could buy his cerveza at the general store, bring it home, and drink it as cold as if it were at the cantina—and save money doing it. Not only that, he could drink a cold beer with Magdalena, and his esposa would not have been caught dead in La Culebra Verde.
Such thoughts all flowed from opening a refrigerator door. If that wasn’t a miracle of this modern age, what would be? As soon as the question formed in his mind, so did an answer. What about the new wireless set? He’d left the valley in which Baroyeca sat only twice in his life: once to go to war and once to go to Hermosillo, the capital of Sonora, to agitate for a second term for Jake Featherston. But the wireless set brought the wider world here.
Magdalena came into the kitchen. She wasn’t thinking about miracles. She said, “Why are you standing there in front of the refrigerator letting all the cold air out?”
“I don’t know,” he answered, feeling foolish. “Probably because I’m an idiot. I can’t think of any other reason.” Watching the light come on didn’t seem reason enough, that was for sure.
By the way his wife smiled, she had her suspicions. She said, “Well, whatever the reason is, come into the front room. It’s just about time for the news.”
The wireless set wasn’t a big, fancy one, a piece of furniture in its own right. It sat on a small table. But the room centered on it. Chairs and the old, tired sofa all faced it, as if you could actually see the pictures the announcer painted with his words.
Magdalena turned the knob. The dial began to glow—another little electric light in there. After half a minute or so of warming up, music started to play: it wasn’t quite time for the news. Some people had had wind-up phonographs before electricity came to Baroyeca. Those were fine, but this was even better. Any sort of sound could come out of a wireless set, any sound at all.
“This is radio station CSON, telling you the truth from Hermosillo,” the announcer said in a mixture of Spanish and English almost anyone from Sonora and Chihuahua—and a lot of people in Texas, U.S. New Mexico and California, and several of the Empire of Mexico’s northern provinces—could understand. The announcer went on, “One more song to bring us up to the top of the hour, and then the news.”
Settling Accounts Return Engagement: Book One of the Settling Accounts Trilogy Page 20
