Go to the Widow-Maker (96 page)

And apparently—unbelievably, incredibly—they did. “‘Course Ferd aways tiips them good. An’ he paays the steeel ban’ double wheneveh they play,” Suzanne smiled. “’Couse they won’ haave a reaal codlock on thiis plaace, anymoare, when the new
hotel
opens uup in a month or so. It’s too baad. It’s a reaal shaame for uus.”

One of Ferd’s guests (called Bert), hearing the calypso band being mentioned, said, “The ban’? The steel ban’? Sho!” and strode to the ship’s rail and shoved his own larded paunch (though not as larded, and not as paunchy, as Ferd’s) against the lifeline. “Hey, boa!” he called at a small Negro boy who was sitting against one of the jetty buildings back on the shore with his knees drawn up, watching the ‘party’ with large white eyes. “Hey, boa! Hey, nigga!” Bert didn’t even say ‘nigger.’ “Heah’s a quarter!” He flipped it ashore. “Run up an’ tell that nigga steel ban’ get theah black ass down heah play some music.”

The boy ran off.

“You call them all nigger like that?” Grant asked him curiously.

“What? Sho! Why not? They ahr niggas, ain’t they?”

“Don’t they mind it?”

“Why should a nigga min’ bein called a nigga?” Bert wanted to know.

That set the tone. Pretty soon a straggling group of Greens straggled out onto the dock dragging their straggly looking instruments and began to play some very bad calypso music. —“Hey!” Bert called. “You niggas come awn up hea closeh. We ca-yunt even hea you with the noise f’om this hea damned party.” The group of Greens straggled in closer and straggled off some more bad calypso. “Thas enuf,” Harry, who was the other guest, said finally, “Ca-yunt heah yo’self think! Ferd?” Ferd distributed largesse happily amongst the band, and they straggled off smiling just as happily.

Grant could hardly believe it.— “They rially do just lo-ve us!” Suzanne said from beside him on the hatch, and then put her hand kindly on his knee. “Don’t you jest lak uus a lil too?” she added.— “Hey!” Grant grinned. “Cut that out! My old lady’ll beat me up!”— “I jest bet she would,” Suzanne purred.— “And what about your old man?” Grant asked. “Oah, they’ull awl be deaad drunk and aslee-up ’for very long,” Suzanne smiled, and then gave him an openly suggestive look.

It was quite true that everybody was swiftly getting drunk. Grant was himself. For quite a few days now, since René’s farewell dinner, and even before, he had been drinking fairly heavily all through the day, and even more heavily in the night, and after that night—that first night out—when he had stood in the open saloon hatchway looking at the stars and had decided, had become convinced, that Lucky actually had done it with Jim Grointon, had actually
fucked
him, that crazy night, since then he had been drinking even more heavily, daily
and
nightly, and why not? Most of the time—sailing or diving—he had not had to think about that, but now he did think about it. And why not? Why not drink? Damn them. God damn them. All of them. And God damn this miserable lousy cruise. Even that wasn’t any good, like all the rest. He carefully removed Suzanne’s hand from his knee, and got up to get another drink. Somebody had decided that they must, they
must,
all eat together in Georgetown’s single restaurant. In the Greans’ restaurant.

The ensemble dinner in the restaurant was a catastrophe. A further catastrophe. But even worse was to follow. But at the dinner, Lucky finally blew up. There was a good deal of that Nothren-Suthren talk, at the dinner. It wasn’t really all that bad really, either. Grant had lived in the South, half of his blood had come from there, up into Indiana, though it was back before “The War,” and in fact he had two great-uncles buried at Gettysburg, one with the 19th Indiana and one with the 47th Virginia. He had always been proud of that, and Texas accents—any Southern accents—had never bothered him. On the contrary he rather liked them. But then, with his ear, he liked all accents. But when Harry (which was the name of Ferd’s other guest; he was the husband of Lois; Bert’s wife’s name was Betty-Lou) began to feel he had not been served fast enough, and hollered, “Hey, boa! Hey, nigga! Git that damn nigga wayteh ova hea, hea’? Ah’m
hongry
!”, even Grant was embarrassed. The Greens apparently, though, were not embarrassed at all. The waiter came. But Lucky was more than embarrassed.

“Can’t you say Negro?” she demanded crisply. “Or say colored? Or, even better yet just say waiter?”

“Whut the heull?” Harry said. “So whut if Ah do say nigra—”

“Not ‘nigra’,
Negro
,” Lucky interrupted crisply.

“Thas whut Ah said,” Harry said. “But whut the heull? Nigra, nigga, it’s awl the sa-ume thang, fo’ Chrast’s saike!”

“Harry, don’t sweah!” Lois his wife demanded.

“Yeaus, lo-ove,” Harry said without pausing for breath and continued. “A nigga’s a nigga, Mrs Gra-unt. He’ull aways be black. Bean black is bean a nigga.”

“I won’t sit and eat with people like this,” Lucky said and got up.

“Sit down, for God’s sake,” Grant said. He was already drunk-mad at her anyway. Jim Grointon!

The situation was saved by lady Suzanne. “Aw, come on, honey. Siit dowwn. Eaat, we all lo-ove ouur niggas,
nigros.
We lo-ove the Greans, and the Greans lo-ove uus. It’s awl raat. The Wa-ah’s oveh. I was only kiddin yiou abaat all thaat. Say, what ahre yawl? A bunch of New York Jee-ews?”

“Yes,” said Lucky. “And please don’t you forget we have a rabbi with us!” She indicated Ben. This impressed the Texans. And it wasn’t so far from the truth at that, Grant thought with an interior giggle, remembering Ben’s earlier rabbinical studies. Only where the hell was the happy rabbi when he had needed him back in Kingston? Jim Grointon!

Dinner was resumed, but at considerable nervous expense. Lucky was a dyed-in-the-wool New York liberal if she was anything, and she spoke not a further word. But it was the Greens that Grant couldn’t understand. They obviously must hate these people’s guts, and were only taking it because they wanted their money and to hell with them, was the only way he could figure it. But later he was disabused of even this theory, or partially disabused of it. Later when the Great Diving Contest arrived.

A lot of space, and a lot of time, came and went before that. And most of it he couldn’t remember. He was really very drunk by now. So was everybody else. After the dinner, outside on the cool walk, Lucky got him together with Ben and Irma privately, and suggested that they all just fade away and go to bed. “I can’t stand another minute with those drunks, those
people
!” she said.— “Yeah,” said Ben in his so-Midwest accent. “I guess me’n Irm’ll hit the old sack.” He was subdued. They had already inspected their rooms in the rickety hotel, taken in whatever they would need in the way of luggage and equipment to bathe, get clean, and change clothes. All they had to do was disappear and use their keys.

“Well, I’m not!” Grant raged, suddenly. He
was
raging. Jim Grointon! “A’m gonna git mase’f darunnk,” he added in his best Southern accent. “Wif ma frien’s theah, and wif ma ol’ paal, Bunnum. You guys do whatever you want to do.”

He did not remember when they left him. There seemed to have been a bit more argument, mostly from Lucky, before that occurred. He ran into, literally ran into, Bonham some yards farther on down the walk to the wharf. He did not remember getting there.

“They’ve all went to bed,” he said. Strangely enough, his head was clear as a bell.

“So’s Cathie,” Bonham said noncommittally. He had hardly spoken a word throughout the catastrophic dinner, trying mainly to keep people from attacking, fighting each other. A 320-pound peacemaker.

“Well, I’m goin back to our boat,” Grant said, “and get drunk.
Really
drunk. I don’t care if I never see those asshole Texans again.”

Bonham grinned his big stormcloud grin. “Well, I could always use a couple drinks more myself. I’ll come with you. They’re really something, those Texans, hunh?”

“They’re rich,” Grant said, apropos of nothing. “I can’t stand them.”

But it was not to be. Since they would not go on board the Texans’ lovely yacht, the Texans came on their own crummy one. Poor old
Naiad.
A lot of time got lost here too. He seemed to remember some horrible thing about the Texas women, one or more, more he thought, going down belowdecks in the
Naiad
ostensibly to use the head but in fact sitting there on the yachtsman’s seagoing pump-up john and inviting them, the strangers, himself, Bonham, Orloffski, to come down and see them,
do
them. He was shocked and then horrified. One of them sat there with her skirt up around her waist, her legs spread wide, on that john in the head, motioning. At least one of them. As Suzanne had told him earlier—and truthfully—the Texan men would soon be dead drunk and asleep. However, while they
were
dead drunk, they were not asleep. They were standing there on board the
Naiad
discussing something loudly, between themselves. Skindiving, he thought. And down below the woman, whichever one it was, was motioning. Grant did not go. His self-imposed condition never to step out on his wife was still in effect despite Jim Grointon, apparently. Bonham did not go either. Orloffski went. Then some more time was lost somewhere, and then with a totally clear head again he found himself already engaged in the Great Diving Contest.

Bonham was already collecting the money. They had apparently been able to get up eighty dollars cash between them, and Ferd the owner of the
Lazy Suzanne
matched it, in cash. Bert, who was perhaps the most aggressive of the Texans (if such a word could even be applied to them, after their women), fancied himself as a springboard diver. In his youth, of course, he pointed out. He was perhaps a year or two older than Grant. The bet was who could do the best back flip off the side of the
Naiad.
Bonham was holding the stakes. One of the younger Greens, the boss of the restaurant in fact had been selected to be the judge, apparently after great argument Grant did not at all remember. Bonham knew how good a springboard diver he was, had seen him dive in GaBay once, and gave him a wink: it was a cinch bet. Of course, Grant realized that the Texans thought that he was drunk. But at the moment he was in fact not drunk at all. His head was again clear as a bell. On the outskirts of the murmuring mob, which now—on the dock—included a raft of Greens, he saw Irma standing in the background, realized instantly that Lucky had certainly sent her down as a spy. He waved at her. Then the Great Diving Contest began.

Grant was first. Bert had demurred about going first, so Grant offered. Bert, quite obviously, slyly wanted to watch the competition and see what he was up against. Grant on the other hand, was not worried at all. So he offered. “Sure. I’ll be glad to go first.”

When he went off the rail outside the lifeline and into the air, the free air only springboard divers and trampoline artists ever really know, he went up straight, remembering to lean back just a little and flatten his arc. Unlike a springboard, the side of the ship ran straight down to the water, even bulged out a little. A tight backflip could throw him into the side of the ship. At the top he pulled up, his legs together and against his chest, feet pointed, made the head throw, and calmly watched the starry sky, the lights of the hotel then the water itself under him, all rotate around his open eyes. When the water’s edge of the ship appeared he made the snapout, hands straight at sides, feet together, then shut his eyes and blew out through his nose as he went under. It was a good dive, but it wasn’t perfect because he went in at a slight angle leaning a little backward. That was because he had flattened his arc that little bit to avoid hitting the ship. But it was a good dive. Then he surfaced and swam off a ways to wait for Bert, treading water. The Texans were obviously impressed.

Then Bert made his dive, and it was a pretty bad one. He did not get his knees more than halfway up to his chest. His feet were at least a foot apart. And at his entry his right arm flailed out as if for balance before he was fully under. He went under almost sitting down.

Grant swam lazily back to the boat pleased with himself, knowing he had won, the water feeling freshening and sobering. He climbed up the ladder, feeling good, to a lot of noise going on on board—and to find to his disbelief that the young Negro Green had already awarded the prize, the bet, to Bert. Bert, Ferd’s guest aboard the
Lady Suzanne.
Ferd was chortling. At first Grant couldn’t really believe it. He knew he had won it, and won it hands down. But the young Negro Green insisted the man from
Lady Suzanne
had made the better dive. And he was the judge. And he remained adamant. A great deal of argument began. Grant got himself another drink, and after a while—though the argument seemed to go on a long time—he lost some more time somewhere. To hell with it. Finally he left. As he walked up the wharf toward the hotel, all his for-a-while-forgotten misery about Jim Grointon coming back on him, Bonham was just in process of throwing the wadded $160 over the side into the water. “You want it, you pricks, you go and get it,” Bonham was saying blazingly. “You’re all a bunch of fucking thieves. And rich thieves at that! You obviously paid that punk kid off to say what he did. Now get off my ship. All of you! Now!” Not even a raft of Greens, plus all the Texans, were about to dispute with Bonham. It must be great to be a really
big
man, a really
big
man physically, sometimes. Well, he wasn’t. And he would never be. He listened to the feet of the crowd on the wharf behind him.

The hotel room door was locked when he got to it and tried to open it, though the light was on. He knocked. “Go away,” Lucky said from inside. “Go away forever.” Grant threw his shoulder against the door, shaking most of the rickety, jerry-built hotel.— “Open this door, or I’ll break it in,” he said, and meant it.

This apparently influenced her. Lucky opened it. She was in her robe, a bottle of scotch and a half-filled glass were on the bed table. A book lay opened up and turned face down on the bed. She was pretty drunk herself, her eyes having that strange, mean, concentrated look they got when she was loaded. “You fool! You poor slobbering idiot fool! I’m ashamed to know you! I’m ashamed to be seen as your wife! You might have known those Texas bastards would cheat you, try to cheat you!”