Islands in the Stream (35 page)

“And she is looking after Tom day and night.”

“Good,” said Thomas Hudson. “Serafín, another of these big ones, please. Do you want the happy story?”

“Yes, please,” Honest Lil said. “Please tell me the happy story. I feel sad again.”

“Pues el happy story es muy sencillo,”
Thomas Hudson said. “The first time we ever took Tom to Europe, he was only three months old and it was a very old, small, and slow liner and the sea was rough most of the time. The ship smelled of bilge and oil and the grease on the brass of portholes and of the lavabos and the disinfectant they used that was in big pink cakes in the pissoirs—”

“
Pues
, this isn’t a very happy story.”

“
Sí, mujer
. You’re wrong as hell. This is a happy story,
muy
happy. I go on. The ship also smelled of baths you had to take at regular hours or be looked down on by the bath steward and of the smell of hot salt water coming out of the brass nozzles of the bath fixtures and of the wet wooden grate on the floor and of the starched jacket of the bath steward. It also smelled of cheap English ship cooking which is a discouraging smell and of the dead butts of Woodbines, Players, and Gold Flakes in the smoking room and wherever they were dropped. It did not have one good smell, and as you know the English, both men and women, all have a peculiar odor, even to themselves, much as we have to Negroes, and so they have to bathe very often. An Englishman never smells sweet as a cow’s breath does and a pipe-smoking Englishman does not conceal his odor. He only adds something to it. Their tweeds smell good and so does the leather of their boots and all their saddlery smells good. But there is no saddlery on a ship and the tweeds are impregnated with the dead pipe smell. The only way you could get a good smell on that ship was when your nose was deep in a tall glass of dry sparkling cider from Devon. This smelled wonderful and I kept my nose in it as much as I could afford. Maybe more.”

“
Pues
, it is a little more happy now.”

“Here is the happy part. Our cabin was so low, just above the water line, that the port had to be kept closed all the time and you saw the sea racing by and then you saw it solid green as the sea went past the porthole. We had built a barricade with trunks and suitcases roped together so that Tom could not fall out of the berth and when his mother and I would come down to see how he was, every time we ever came, if he was awake, he was laughing.”

“Did he really laugh when he was three months old?”

“He laughed all the time. I never heard him cry when he was a baby.”

“¡Qué muchacho más lindo más guapo!”

“Yes,” Thomas Hudson said. “Very high-class muchacho. Want me to tell you another happy story about him?”

“Why did you leave his lovely mother?”

“A very strange combination of circumstances Do you want another happy story?”

“Yes. But without so many smells In it.”

“This frozen daiquiri, so well beaten as it is, looks like the sea where the wave falls away from the bow of a ship when she is doing thirty knots. How do you think frozen daiquiris would be if they were phosphorescent?”

“You could put phosphorus in them. But I don’t think it would be healthy. Sometimes people in Cuba commit suicide by eating phosphorus from the heads of matches.”

“And drinking
tinte rápido
. What is rapid ink?”

“It is a dye to make shoes black. But most often girls who have been crossed in love or when their fiancés have not kept their promises and done the things to them and then gone away without marrying, commit suicide by pouring alcohol on themselves and setting themselves on fire. That is the classic way.”

“I know,” Thomas Hudson said. “
Auto da fé
.”

“It’s very certain,” Honest Lil said, “They nearly always die. The burns are on the head first and usually all over the body. Rapid ink is more of a gesture. Iodine is
au fond
a gesture, too.”

“What are you two ghouls talking about?” Serafín the barman asked.

“Suicides.”

“
Hay mucho
,” Serafín said “Especially among the poor, I don’t remember a rich Cuban committing suicide Do you?”

“Yes,” Honest Lil said. “I know of several cases—good people, too.”

“You would,” Serafín said,

“Señor Tomás, do you want something to eat with those drinks?
¿Un poco de pescado? ¿Puerco frito?
Any cold meats?”

“Sí,” Thomas Hudson said. “Whatever there is.”

Serafín put a plate of bits of pork, fried brown and crisped, and a plate of red snapper fried in batter so that it wore a yellow crust over the pink-red skin and the white sweet fish inside. He was a tall boy, naturally rough spoken, and he walked roughly from the wooden shoes he wore against the wet and the spillage behind the bar.

“Do you want cold meats?”

“No. This is enough.”

“Take anything they will give you, Tom,” Honest Lil said. “You know this place.”

The bar had a reputation for never buying a drink. But actually it gave an uncounted number of plates of hot free lunch each day; not only the fried fish and pork, but plates of little hot meat fritters and sandwiches of French-fried bread with toasted cheese and ham. The bartenders also mixed the daiquiris in a huge shaker and there was always at least a drink and a half left in the shaker after the drinks were poured.

“Are you less sad now?” Honest Lil asked

“Yes.”

“Tell me, Tom. What are you sad about?”

“
El mundo entero
.”

“Who isn’t sad about the whole world? It goes worse all the time. But you can’t spend your time being sad about that.”

“There isn’t any law against it.”

“There doesn’t have to be a law against things for them to be wrong.”

Ethical discussions with Honest Lil are not what I need, Thomas Hudson thought. What do you need, you bastard? You needed to get drunk which you are probably doing even though it does not seem so to you. There is no way for you to get what you need and you will never have what you want again. But there are various palliative measures you should take. Go ahead. Take one.

“
Voy a tomar otro de estos grandes sin azúcar
,” he said to Serafín.

“
En seguida, Don Tomás
,” Serafín said. “Are you going to try to beat the record?”

“No. I’m just drinking with calmness.”

“You were drinking with calmness when you set the record,” Serafín said. “With calmness and fortitude from morning until night. And you walked out on your own feet.”

“The hell with the record.”

“You’ve got a chance to break it,” Serafín told him. “Drinking as you are now and eating a little as you go along, you have an excellent chance.”

“Tom, try to break the record,” Honest Lil said. “I’m here as a witness.”

“He doesn’t need any witness,” Serafín said. “I’m the witness. When I go off I’ll give the count to Constante. You’re further along right now than you were the day you set the record.”

“The hell with the record.”

“You’re in good form. You’re drinking well and steady and they’re not having any effect on you.”

“Fuck the record.”

“All right.
Como usted quiere
. I’m keeping count just in case you change your mind.”

“He’ll keep count all right,” Honest Lil said. “He has the duplicate tickets.”

“What do you want, woman? Do you want a real record or a phony record?”

“Neither. I want a
highbalito
with
agua mineral
.”

“
Como siempre
,” Serafín said.

“I drink brandy, too.”

“I don’t want to be here when you drink brandy.”

“Tom, did you know I fell down trying to get onto a streetcar and was nearly killed?”

“Poor Honest Lil,” Serafín said. “A dangerous and adventurous life.”

“Better than yours standing all day in wooden shoes behind a bar and serving rummies.”

“That’s my trade,” Serafín said. “It’s a privilege to serve such distinguished rummies as you.”

Henry Wood came over. He stood, tall and sweating and newly excited by a change of plans. There was nothing that pleased him, Thomas Hudson thought, like a sudden change of plans.

“We’re going over to Alfred’s Sin House,” he said. “Do you want to come, Tom?”

“Willie’s waiting for you at the Bar Basque.”

“I don’t believe we really want Willie on this one.”

“You ought to tell him, then.”

“I’ll call him up. Don’t you want to come? This is going to be very good.”

“You ought to eat something.”

“I’ll eat a good big dinner. How are you doing?”

“I’m doing fine,” Thomas Hudson said. “Really fine.”

“Are you going to try for the record?”

“No.”

“Will I see you tonight?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I’ll come out and sleep at the house if you like.”

“No. Have fun. But eat something.”

“I’ll eat an excellent dinner. Word of honor.”

“Be sure and call Willie.”

“I’ll call Willie. You can be quite sure.”

“Where’s Alfred’s Sin House?”

“It’s an absolutely beautiful place. It overlooks the harbor and it’s well furnished and really delightful.”

“I mean what is the address.”

“I don’t know but I’ll tell Willie.”

“You don’t think Willie will be hurt?”

“I can’t help it if he is, Tom. I really can’t ask Willie on this. You know how fond I am of Willie. But there are things I simply can’t ask him on. You know that as well as I do.”

“All right. But call him up.”

“Word of honor I’ll call him. And word of honor I’ll eat a first-rate dinner.”

He smiled, patted Honest Lil on the shoulder, and was gone. He moved very beautifully for such a big man.

“What about the girls at his place?” Thomas Hudson asked Honest Lil.

“They’re gone by now,” Honest Lil said. “There’s nothing to eat there. And I don’t think there is much to drink. Do you want to go around there or would you rather come to my place?”

“Your place,” Thomas Hudson said. “But later on.”

“Tell me another happy story.”

“All right. What about?”

“Serafín,” Lil said. “Give Tomás another double frozen without sugar.
Tengo todavía mi highbalito
.”
Then to Thomas Hudson, “About the happiest time you remember. And not with smells.”

“It has to have smells,” Thomas Hudson said. He watched Henry Wood across the square getting into the sport car of the very rich sugar planter named Alfred. Henry Wood was too big for the car. He was too big for almost anything, he thought. But he knew three or four things he was not too big for. No, he said to himself. This is your day off. Take your day off.

“What do you want the story to be about?”

“What I asked you.”

He watched Serafín pour the drink from the shaker into the tall glass and saw the top of it curl over the edge and onto the bar. Serafín pushed the base of the glass into the slit in a cardboard protector and Thomas Hudson lifted it, heavy and cold above the thin stem he held in his ringers, and took a long sip and held it in his mouth, cold against his tongue and teeth, before he swallowed it.

“All right,” he said. “The happiest day I ever had was any day when I woke in the morning when I was a boy and I did not have to go to school or to work. In the morning I was always hungry when I woke and I could smell the dew in the grass and hear the wind in the high branches of the hemlock trees, if there was a wind, and if there was no wind I could hear the quietness of the forest and the calmness of the lake and I would listen for the first noises of morning. Sometimes the first noise would be a kingfisher flying over the water that was so calm it mirrored his reflection and he made a clattering cry as he flew. Sometimes it would be a squirrel chittering in one of the trees outside the house, his tail jerking each time he made a noise. Often it would be the plover calling on the hillside. But whenever I woke and heard the first morning noises and felt hungry and knew I would not have to go to school nor have to work, I was happier than I have ever been.”

“Even than with women?”

“I’ve been very happy with women. Desperately happy. Unbearably happy. So happy that I could not believe it; that it was like being drunk or crazy. But never as happy as with my children when we were all happy together or the way I was early in the morning.”

“But how could you be as happy by yourself as with someone?”

“This is all silly. You asked me to tell you whatever came in my mind.”

“No, I didn’t. I said to tell me a happy story about the happiest time you remember. That wasn’t a story. You just woke up and were happy. Tell me a real story.”

“What about?”

“Put some love in it.”

“What kind of love? Sacred or profane?”

“No. Just good love with fun.”

“I know a good story about that.”

“Tell it to me then. Do you want another drink?”

“Not till I finish this one. All right. At this time I was in Hong Kong which is a very wonderful city where I was very happy and had a crazy life. There is a beautiful bay and on the mainland side of the bay is the city of Kowloon. Hong Kong itself is on a hilly island that is beautifully wooded and there are winding roads up to the top of the hills and houses built high up in the hills and the city is at the base of the hills facing Kowloon. You go back and forth by fast, modern ferryboats. This Kowloon is a fine city and you would like it very much. It is clean and well laid-out and the forest comes to the edge of the city and there is very fine wood pigeon shooting just outside of the compound of the Women’s Prison. We used to shoot the pigeons, which were large and handsome with lovely purple shading feathers on their necks, and a strong swift way of flying, when they would come in to roost just at twilight in a huge laurel tree that grew just outside the white-washed wall of the prison compound. Sometimes I would take a high incomer, coming very fast with the wind behind him, directly overhead and the pigeon would fall inside the compound of the prison and you would hear the women shouting and squealing with delight as they fought over the bird and then squealing and shrieking as the Sikh guard drove them off and retrieved the bird which he then brought dutifully out to us through the sentry’s gate of the prison.