Tooner Schooner (5 page)

The little man took the pipe from his mouth:

“It’s Cobb,” he said.

“You have my sympathy,” Miss Tinkham said.

“You haven’t heard the worst,” he grinned. “I write a column for one of the local papers.”

“It can only be The Corn Crib!” Miss Tinkham laughed.

“Go to the head of the class.”

“You know,” Miss Tinkham sat down beside him, “the beautiful word corn has fallen on evil days. One of the most valuable resources we have; an indigenous, indispensable plant turned into a scornful epithet!”

“Scorny trick!” He squeezed her arm. “I couldn’t let it pass. You’ve just supplied me with a column, with your permission.”

“’Tis yours to use!” Miss Tinkham cried. “And only geniuses can make puns.”

“How so?”

“The literal mind sees only one possibility to the word, whereas the genius instantly associates a dazzling number of other ideas with the sound of the word.”

“That ten dollars was a good investment,” Cobb said. “Two columns. When is the next cruise?”

“See the captain. I must go. The excitement of the music seems to have given Pepe the sniffles.” Miss Tinkham hurried over to the mainmast where Pepe was looking shamefacedly at a small puddle he had made. Miss Tinkham wiped up the puddle with a Kleenex and picked Pepe up in her arms. “His mistress has left him for another man,” she thought, “and he’s so terribly, terribly little.”

“Y
OU’RE
NOT DOIN’
another tap o’ work today.” The captain’s voice was firm. “Put on your shoregoin’ duds and meet me at the Pango Pango.” Mrs. Rasmussen looked at her friends.

“We didn’t disgrace you none?” Mrs. Feeley said.

“I couldn’t believe it,” the captain said. “You was damn near as good as an Automatic Pilot. Nobody seasick! Nobody drunk! And the grub…fust rate! They want to sail again Monday an’ guarantee me a hundred dollars. I can’t take the boat out for less.”

“Was it Mr. Cobb?” Miss Tinkham asked.

“Little feller with the pipe.”

“Don’t take any money from him, Captain,” Miss Tinkham said. “He is going to be worth a lot more than ten dollars to you. He represents the Fourth Estate.”

“I can’t afford to advertise,” the captain said. “Comes too high. Advertisin’, shipyards an’ them bloody brokers…they’ll ruin you.”

Miss Tinkham shook her head.

“I had in mind something much more effective than a paid ad. Mr. Cobb writes a widely read column of sentimental maunderings in the
Evening Star.”

“Leave it to her,” Mrs. Rasmussen murmured.

“Ayah.” Elisha Dowdy wrinkled his brow. “You don’t reckon…”

“I do.” Miss Tinkham said. “I reckon on it heavily. When he took leave of me he asked if there was anything he could do for me and I said, ‘Speak well of the ship.’”

“That Herman is a mechanic, smat as paint. Hurry up, ’cause we’re gettin’ no nearer fast.”

The Pango Pango was giving way at the seams with the Saturday night crowd. Booths were jammed and people were lined up three deep at the bar.

“Exotic! Simply divine,” Miss Tinkham murmured. She leaned back luxuriously in the padded booth and gazed at the lovely reproduction of the harbor of Pago Pago behind the bar. The gauze in front of the miniature bay and the mountains, cleverly lighted, created a startlingly realistic scene.

“You ent seen nothin’ yet,” the captain said. “Wait till the lights go down! That’s exactly how it is. There’s Rainmaker.” He pointed to one of the mountains. “Looks like George Washington lyin’ on his back sound asleep.”

“Before or after he got his false teeth?” Miss Tinkham said.

“Sh-h-h-h-h!” Mrs. Rasmussen didn’t want to miss anything. The lights went out through the rest of the bar and the Hawaiian orchestra played crashing chords of storm music.

“Gawd! Thunder an’ lightnin’.” Mrs. Feeley jumped up, almost turning over the table. Captain Dowdy put his arm in front of her.

“Take it easy! It’s all done with mirrors. Watch!” The thunder rolled and the lightning flickered. Steel guitars and ukeleles quivered gently, not to obscure the sound of the rain on the tin roof.

“My heart is pounding its way right out of my breast,” Miss Tinkham murmured. “It’s the most moving spectacle…”

“Just you wait.” The captain was holding Mrs. Rasmussen’s hand on top of the table. The ladies stared at the scene in wonder as the rain on the roof made the full cycle of tropical downpour and achieved a perfect trailing off into silence. Slowly and naturally the lights came up to create the effect of blazing sun on the blue water and lush greenery. The blue green turned yellow green under the sunlight. There was not a sound in the bar.

“Sure swell,” Mrs. Rasmussen murmured.

“You should see the real thing,” he said. “And hear Samoans sing! Lots of the
palanggys
—that’s foreigners—complain about how loud an’ how long they sing, but me, I love it. They come down to the dock when you leave an’ sing
‘Tofà, Palanggy!’
That means ‘Goodbye, Foreigner, I hate to see you go.’ They don’t do it for everybody.”

“They did for you,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

“Ayah, they did.” The captain looked up as a middle-aged woman with closely cropped gray hair came up smoking a small Spanish cigar. “This here’s Velma. She owns the joint. Meet my friends.”

“Treating you right, skipper?” she said.

“Never better.” He shoved over in the booth to make room for her. “How’s things?”

“Right straight out,” Velma said. “Known him long?” She addressed the ladies as one.

“Long enough,” Mrs. Feeley said warily. Mrs. Rasmussen eyed Velma’s good gray flannel suit and handsome linen blouse with the concentration of a general estimating the number of troops over the ridge. She flicked a nonexistent bit of lint off her own dark blue shirtmaker.

“An ingenious contrivance.” Miss Tinkham gestured towards the harbor scene.

“Has one thing to recommend it.” Velma smiled. “It brings this lug in here once in a while.” The captain looked embarrassed.

“‘Scuse me. The bilges need pumpin’.” He shoved back the table and left the four women to fight it out.

“You married?” Mrs. Feeley believed that the best defense is a strong attack. Velma nodded.

“He here?” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

Velma shook her head. “Alcatraz.”

“What for?” Mrs. Feeley was impressed.

“Life,” Velma said. “Did a Brink’s.”

“You’re doin’ okay,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

“Surely an attractive woman like you will marry again?” Miss Tinkham inquired.

“A scalded cat runs from even cold water.” Velma put out her cigar. “I’d always be uncertain in my mind whether it was me or the Pango Pango Club he loved.”

Mrs. Rasmussen breathed again.

“You know his wife?” she said.

“Do you?” Velma said. Mrs. Rasmussen shook her head. “You will,” Velma said. “You will. Chartreuse will be down on you like a brick smokehouse.”

“What for?” Mrs. Feeley demanded.

“Dog in the manger,” Velma said. “She don’t want him, but she won’t let anybody else have him.” Velma got up as she saw the captain coming through the crowd.

“Our interest in the captain is a comradely one,” Miss Tinkham said coolly. Velma looked at Mrs. Rasmussen.

“Ayah?” She leaned forward. “Maybe yes. Maybe no. Anyhow, I hate that woman’s guts.” She smiled pleasantly at the captain. “Glad you brought ’em in, Tooner.”

“She’s settin’ ’em up,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

“She’s a gentleman, Velma is,” he said. Miss Tinkham studied Velma’s stocky back as it disappeared behind a red leather door marked
OFFICE.

“I don’t know but what you’re right,” she said. “She would give a good account of herself in Buckingham Palace or in a barroom brawl.”

The waiter placed large steins of beer on the table. “Compliments of the house.”

Mrs. Feeley hoisted hers.

“Drink, boys, drink!

Drownd all sorrow!

Git drunk today!

Sober tomorrow!”

“G’luck!” The captain set his mug down empty. “One little matter before we settle down to the serious business of the evenin’…” He laid three twenty-dollar bills on the table. “My expenses was next to nothin’. I’m beholden to you. Is this square?”

Mrs. Feeley looked at Mrs. Rasmussen’s stricken face. Miss Tinkham retreated into glacial aloofness.

“I can raise it,” he said.

“Do you think we done it for money?” Mrs. Feeley said.

The slow red crept into Elisha Dowdy’s face and he picked up the money.

“Save it for Chartreuse.” Mrs. Rasmussen’s voice was the thin dry scrape of an empty pen.

“I didn’t go to insult you,” Captain Dowdy said.

“With your experience of women,” Miss Tinkham said, “it is hard for you to believe that there are people alive who believe that love is the supreme duty and good.”

“But you gotta live, same as me…or her, for that matter.”

“We’re livin’, ain’t we?” Mrs. Feeley said. “An’ eatin’ pretty high up on the hog, if you ask me! Sailin’ round the bay on a yacht in the daytime! Classy joint like this at night!”

“But you scarcely know me.”

“I may be a stranger to you, but you ain’t no stranger to me,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

“I don’t get it.”

“Don’t be stuffy!” Miss Tinkham said. “You know

very well that some people can bridge the gap of a lifetime in thirty minutes.”

“Maybe you’re right, I’m sorry about the money. I was hopin’ you could work along with me.”

“Any time, boy, any time!” Mrs. Feeley slapped him on the back. “The reason she was weepy was ’cause she was bettin’ her kidneys against the brewery. C’mon!” Mrs. Feeley dragged Mrs. Rasmussen off to the ladies’ room to repair her damaged face.

“I can’t figure you women out,” the captain said. “A fellah can say anythin’ he’s a mind to around you an’ you never bat an eye. Mrs. Feeley comes out with some ah…thumpahs now an’ then.”

“Wait till you know her better,” Miss Tinkham laughed.

“Anybody can see you’re a refined woman, somethin’ kinda im-physical in your face, an’ still rough sailor’s talk don’t upset you.”

“It’s part of life. Swearing is the seamy side of prayer,” Miss Tinkham said. “Realism and truth we must have. Honesty, purity and nudity. Dear me! The beer’s getting to me, too!”

“Chartreuse, now…You wanta hear somethin’ funny? She thinks the Bible’s vulgar!”

“She probably thinks Shakespeare is, too. She has never heard,” Miss Tinkham said, “that vulgarity, like beauty, lies in the eye of the beholder. I am sure that your wife’s dressing table does not lack mirrors.”

“Velma’s real nice,” Mrs. Rasmussen said when she came back.

“The cook’s making Chinese fried shrimp for us,” Velma said. “Nothing much doing tonight.”

“Nothing much doing?” Miss Tinkham looked about the crowded bar.

“No trouble or fights.”

“I thought you meant holy Joes at a convention,” Mrs. Feeley said, “a ten-dollar bill in one hand and the Ten Commandments in the other an’ ain’t about to break either one of ’em.”

The captain lifted his glass:

“Down the gulch.”

“Oooh,” Mrs. Feeley squealed blissfully as the lights went down and the rain on the tin roof started again. “Ain’t it lovely an’ shivery?”

Tooner Schooner sat back and put an arm around a pair of women on either side of him.

“What’s a fellah gonna do, ennahow, with four dolls?”

“Cheer up!” Mrs. Feeley banged him on the back. “Plenty for all of us!”

A
BOUT
FIVE O’CLOCK
Sunday afternoon Miss Tinkham stuck her head out of her bunk and quickly pulled it back in again.

“Tooner’s out there with that damn guitar!” Mrs. Feeley stuck her head in a pail of water and swished her white curls around in it.

“Old-Timer and the jug!” Miss Tinkham moaned.

“They got beer out there,” Mrs. Feeley said. “An’ it ain’t their neighbors that needs it!”

“I haven’t heard ‘The Chandler’s Wife’ since I was in college,” Miss Tinkham said. “The longer he sings the more colorful the verses get.” She followed Mrs. Feeley out of the trailer to join the group sitting in the shade on empty boxes. Mrs. Rasmussen and Velma listened respectfully as Captain Dowdy sang to his own accompaniment and Old-Timer provided the bass by hooping into an empty clay jug.

“Anybody remember where we buried the body?” Mrs. Feeley said.

“It was worth it,” Velma said.

“Somethin’ cookin’ over at Darleen’s,” Mrs. Feeley said. “Ain’t that Oscar’s car?”

“Who’s Darleen?” the captain said.

“She’s a gal we fixed up. Oscar boarded with us durin’ the war, him an’ five other guys. Good spud,” Mrs. Feeley said. “B’lieve I’ll live after all. Open up some Nervine for Miss Tinkham.”