The_Sea_is_My_Brother_-_Jack_Kerouac

Table of Contents

Title Page

Introduction

CHAPTER ONE - The Broken Bottle

CHAPTER TWO - New Morning

CHAPTER THREE - We Are Brothers, Laughing

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

Copyright Page

Introduction

The first major work by Jack Kerouac, The Sea Is My Brother was written in the spring of 1943 and until now has never been published in its entirety. The novel offers the reader a glimpse of a Jack who is at odds with his own youthful idealism and the harsh realities of a nation at war. His character studies reveal much of what we expect from Jack’s observational style providing many glimpses into his early writing experiments while presenting us with an introspective view of Jack as a young man played out in the two main characters. Everhart who is encouraged by his new friend, the reckless and high-spirited Martin, to hitchhike to Boston and sign up as a Merchant Marine, finds himself taking risks that he never would have considered before meeting Martin. This contradiction, embodied in the two main characters, Bill Everhart and Wesley Martin, is exemplified in their first meeting: “Everhart studied the stranger; once, when Wesley glanced at Everhart and found him ogling from behind the fantastic spectacles, their eyes locked in combat, Wesley’s cool and non-committal, Everhart’s a searching challenge, the look of the brazen skeptic.”

Jack began several stories based on his adventures at sea with different titles and characters. He did make a few starts on the first chapter of this story as well which contains some enlightening notes by Jack concerning the development of the novel’s characters around what he felt was his own dual personality.

Soon, I knew I was too old to persist in my boyhood ways. Reluctantly, I gave it up. (Someday, I’ll explain to you the details of this world—they are enormous in number and complex to a point of maturity.)

Thus on the one side, the solitary boy brooding over his “rich inner life”; and on the other, the neighborhood champ shooting pool down at the club. I’m convinced I shouldn’t have picked up both these personalities had I not been an immense success in the two divergent personality-worlds. It is a rare enough occurrence . . . and none of the Prometheans¹ seem to have these two temperaments, save, perhaps, [George] Constantinides.

Naturally enough, my worldly side will wink at the wenches, blow foam off a tankard, and fight at the drop of a chip. My schzoid self, on another occasion, will sneer, slink away, and brood in some dark place.

I’ve gone to all this trouble, outlining my dual personality, for a purpose besides egocentricity. In my novel, you see, Everhart is my schzoid self, Martin the other; the two combined run the parallel gamut of my experience. And in both cases, the schzoid will recommend Prometheanisms (if I may coin the phrase), and the other self (Wesley Martin) will act as the agent of stimulus—And as in all my other works, “The Sea Is My Brother” will Assert the presence of beauty in life, beauty, drama, and meaning. . . .

The majority of Everhart’s character is derived from Jack’s own experiences. Everhart’s intellectual pursuits, for example, can be achieved with very little risk, for he lives with his father, brother, and sister much like Jack. Everhart’s desire to experience something more real and stimulating, echoes Jack’s recent rebellious voyage on the Dorchester and his dropping out of Columbia. Therefore Everhart’s decision to take a leap-of-faith symbolizes in many ways Jack’s desire to turn away momentarily from his intellectual self and use his perceptive nature to inspire his work. Jack noted this need for real experiences in his journal: “My mother is very worried over my having joined the Merchant Marine, but I need money for college, I need adventure, of a sort (the real adventure of rotting wharves and seagulls, winey waters and ships, ports, cities, and faces & voices); and I want to study more of the earth, not out of books, but from direct experience” (July 20, 1942).

The character Martin on the other hand is free of any intellectual burdens; this is Jack’s “worldly side,” is free to come and go with no strings attached. A wanderer of the world, Martin goes from port to port taking in the experiences without fear or commitment. In a letter to Jack’s friend Sebastian Sampas in November 1942, he tries to convince him to ship out with him in the Merchant Marines: “But I believe that I want to go back to sea . . . for the money, for the leisure and study, for the heart-rending romance, and for the pith of the moment.” Jack’s notes on another working copy of the novel reinforce his intention to include every aspect of his worldly experience: “Into this book, ‘The Sea Is My Brother’, I shall weave all the passion and glory of living, its restlessness and peace, its fever and ennui, its mornings, noons and nights of desire, frustration, fear, triumph, and death. . . .”

In the same letter to Sebastian Jack laid out the internal soul-searching dilemma that The Sea Is My Brother is attempting to resolve:

I am wasting my money and my health here at Columbia . . . it’s been one huge debauchery. I hear of American and Russian victories, and I insist on celebrating. In other words, I am more interested in the pith of our great times than in dissecting “Romeo and Juliet” . . . . at the present, understand. . . . Don’t you want to travel to the Mediterranean ports, perhaps Algiers, to Morocco, Fez, the Persian Gulf, Calcutta, Alexandria, perhaps the old ports of Spain; and Belfast, Glasgow, Manchester, Sidney, New Zealand; and Rio and Trinidad and Barbados and the Cape; and Panama and Honolulu and the far-flung Polynesians . . . I don’t want to go alone this time. I want my friend with me . . . my mad poet brother. The references about wasting money at Columbia parallel Everhart’s internal questioning “What was he doing with his life?” and become his impetus for shipping out with Martin. Amongst Jack and his friends from Lowell there was much correspondence during this time. They wrote of comrades and brotherhood, topics which are an integral part of this novel and help to resolve Jack’s battle with his changing political views. When he was younger his infatuation with the idealism expressed in the letters to his friends and the ongoing dialogs in the media regarding the various political movements give way to his more critical nature which began to develop after his induction into the Navy. He wrote to Sebastian on March 25,1943 from the Navy barracks: “Though I am skeptical about the administration of the Progressive movement, I shall withhold all judgments until I come in direct contact with these people—other Communists, Russians, politicians, etc., leftists artists, leaders, workers, and so forth.”

The Sea Is My Brother is a seminal work marking Jack’s transition as a writer and represents the earliest evidence of the development of his style. He tells Sebastian in a letter, dated March 15, 1943; “I am writing 14 hours a day, 7 days a week . . . I know you’ll like it, Sam; it has compassion, it has a certain something that will appeal to you (brotherhood, perhaps).”

Shortly after he wrote The Sea Is My Brother, Jack began The Town and the City, published in 1950, which launched his career as a writer. These two novels, both based on his real-life experiences, are part of the writing method he started to develop in 1943 that he dubbed “Supreme Reality.”

Jack began this work not long after his first tour as a Merchant Marine on the S.S. Dorchester from the late summer—October of 1942 during which he kept a journal detailing the gritty daily routine of life at sea. The journal titled “Voyage to Greenland” is dated 1942 and subtitled “GROWING PAINS or A MONUMENT TO ADOLESCENCE”. Inspired by the trip, the journal is an example of Jack’s love for adventure, the character traits of his fellow shipmates which created spontaneous sketches of those experiences that were later woven into this novel.

Jack often revisited his journals adding notes and did so here with a poem dated April 17, 1949 several years after the Sea Is My Brother was written.

All life is but a skull-bone and
A rack of ribs through which
we keep passing food & fuel—
just so’s we can burn so
furious beautiful. The first entry dated Saturday July 18, 1942 describes his first night on deck the Dorchester, the meal he ate (five lamb chops), and this passage written early the next morning: “I sat in a deck chair, awhile after and bethought me about several things. How should I write this journal? Where is this ship bound for, and when? What is the destiny of this great grey tub? I signed on Friday, or yesterday, and do not begin work till Monday morning. . . . I could have gone home to say goodbye—but goodbyes are so difficult, so heart-rending. I haven’t the courage, or perhaps the hardness, to withstand the tremendous pathos of this life. I love life’s casual beauty—fear its awful strength.”

Early on in the “Voyage to Greenland” journal is evidence of his plans for the observations he was making: “Up to now, I’ve refrained from introducing any characters in this journal, for fear I should be mistaken due to a brief acquaintance with those in question, and should be forced to rescind previous opinions and judgments.” Jack continues that although it would create an “acceptable log,” that he felt it should “tell the story within the story,” and that since he shall “perhaps one day want to write a novel about the voyage,” and he would be able to find all the details on file: “a true writer never forgets character studies, and never will.” Later the same day he began these character studies.

August 2

CHARACTER STUDIES

Here is some data on my scullion mates, and others: Eatherton is just a good-hearted kid from the “tough” section of Charleston, Mass, who tries to live up to his environment, but fails, for his smile is too boyish, too puckish. He is a veteran seaman already, and berates me for being a despicable “college man” who “reads books all the time and knows nothing about life itself.” Don Graves is an older boy, quite handsome, with a remarkable sense of wit and tomfoolery that often befuddles me. He is able to toy with people’s emotions, for he undeniably possesses a strong, moving personality. He’s 27 years old, and I believe he looks upon me with some mixed pity and head-shaking—but no compassion. He has little of that, and no learning; but considerable earthy judgment and native ability, and a sort of appeal that is quiet and sure. Eddie Moutrie is a cussing little bastard, full of venom and dark, haggard beauty, often tenderness. I envision him now, smoking with his contemptuous scowl, turned away, yelling derision at me in a rough, harsh voice, returning his gaze with blank and tender eyes.

August 2

MORE

They are good kids, but cannot understand me, and are thus enraged, bitter, and full of hidden wonder. Then there is the chef, a fat colored man with prominent but-toxes [sic] who loves to play democratic and often peels potatoes with us. His face is fat and sinuous, touched with childish propriety. His face seems to say: “Now, we are here, and things are in all due harmony and order.” He has grown fat on his own foods. He sits at our mess table, wearing a fantastic cook’s cap, and picks delicately with fat greasy hands at his food. All things are in order with the chef. He is the antithesis of Voltaire, the child of Leibniz.

Then there’s Glory, the giant negro cook, whose deep voice can always be heard in its moaning softness above the din of the galley. He is a man among men—gentle, impenetrable, yet a leader. The glory that is Glory . . .

“Shorty” is a withered, skinny little man without teeth and a little witch jaw. He weighs about 90 pounds, and when he’s mad, he threatens to throw us all through the portholes.

“Hazy” is a powerfully built, ruddy

August 2

LES MISERABLES

Youth who works, eats, and sleeps, and rarely speaks. He’s always in his bunk, sleeping, smiling when Eatherton farts toward his face: then turns over back to his solitary, sleepy world.

“Duke” Ford is a haggard youth who has been torpedoed off Cape Hatteras, and who carries the shrapnel marks of the blast in his neck. He is a congenial sort but the frenzied mark of tragedy still lingers in his eyes; and I doubt whether he’ll ever forget the 72 hours on the life raft, and the fellow with bloody stumps at his shoulders who jumped off the raft in a fit of madness and committed suicide in the Carolinian sea . . .

Then there’s the rather stupid Paul, an awkward, almost idiotic youth, the butt of all the leg-pullers in the crew. They are making a mess of the tenderness his mother must have taught him. His voice is a strange mixture of kindness, despair, and futile attempts at snarling pseudo-virility. It is pathetic to see this poor lad in the midst of callous fools and stupid bums . . . for most of the crew is just that, and I shall not write of them except

August 2

VAL, THE LADIES’ CHOICE

as a man body in this narrative. They have no manners, no scruples, and spend their leisure time gambling in the dining room, their dull countenances glowing with ancient cruelty under the golden lights. O Satan! Mephisto! Judas! O Benaiah! O evil eyes that glint beneath the lights! O clink of silver! O darkness, O death, O hell! Sheathed knives and chained wallets: lustful, grabbing, cheating, killing, hating, laughing in the lights . . .

Jack’s journal ends on August 19, 1942 shortly after reaching Greenland. The last entries are a short story entitled “‘WHAT PRICE SEDUCTION?’ OR A 5 CENT ROMANCE IN ONE REEL A SHORT SHORT STORY—‘THE COMMUNIST,’” two poems, a descriptive character piece called “PAT,” and a set of notes called JACK KEROUAC FREE VERSE, FOUR PARTS.²

This next poem encompasses many of the daily frustrations expressed in the journal about being different than the rest of the crew.

WHEN I WAS OUT TO SEA

Once, when I was out to sea,
I knew a lad who’s famous now.
His name is sung in America,
And carried far to other lands.
But when I knew him, far back now,
He was a lad with lonely eyes.
The bos’un laughed when Laddie wrote:
“Truth Brothers!” in his diary.
“You daggone little pansy!”
Roared the heavyset rough bos’un.
“You don’t know what life be,
You with all your sissy books!
Look at me! I’m rough and I’m tough,
And I got lots to teach ye!”
So the bos’un jeered, and the bos’un snarled,
And he set him down to drudgery.
And the boy, he and his poetry,
He wanted to stand bow-watch
And brood into the sea,
But the bos’un laughed, and snarled,
And set him down to drudgery.
Down in the hold, mid fetidity . . .
Then one night, a wild dark night,
The lad stood by the heaving bow
And the storm beat all about him.
The bos’un he laughed and set right out
To put him down to drudgery,
That sissy lad of poetry . . .
With wind and sky all scattered wide,
A grim, dreary night for fratricide!

–JK

Jack disembarked the Dorchester but continued to think of the sea as a symbol for the integration of his friends and the promise of brotherhood. After a brief return to Columbia University he moved back to Lowell with his parents and got a job at a garage on Middlesex Street where he works diligently night and day writing by hand his first novel. The novel’s importance to this early period of Jack’s life is indisputable. Although a short novel, it represents a pivotal point in his writing career where his serious intention to become a writer resonates in the power of his speech and the depth of his visualization.

The placement of hyphens, dashes, ellipses, apostrophes, etcetera, have all been maintained only standardized for readability. In cases of spelling errors, I have corrected unless thought to be intentional and have included some editorial elements and or additional punctuation when needed which can be found in brackets [. . .] and in cases were material is missing, illegible or otherwise obscured, I have shown this with empty brackets [ ]. In places where Jack Kerouac has edited his own material by crossing out and re-writing; I have only included that which he preserved unless context is unclear or words appear to be missing. Spacing and line breaks have been preserved in some cases where the emphasis of the words would be affected, otherwise the margins, indents and line spacing have been standardized. Kerouac’s entire archive can be found in the Berg Collection of the New York Public Library.

CHAPTER ONE

The Broken Bottle

A young man, cigarette in mouth and hands in trousers’ pockets, descended a short flight of brick steps leading to the foyer of an uptown Broadway hotel and turned in the direction of Riverside Drive, sauntering in a curious, slow shuffle.

It was dusk. The warm July streets, veiled in a mist of sultriness which obscured the sharp outlines of Broadway, swarmed with a pageant of strollers, colorful fruit stands, buses, taxis, shiny automobiles, Kosher shops, movie marquees, and all the innumerable phenomena that make up the brilliant carnival spirit of a midsummer thoroughfare in New York City.

The young man, clad casually in a white shirt without tie, a worn gabardine green coat, black trousers, and moccasin shoes, paused in front of a fruit stand and made a survey of the wares. In his thin hand he beheld what was left of his money—two quarters, a dime, and a nickel. He purchased an apple and moved along, munching meditatively. He had spent it all in two weeks; when would he ever learn to be more prudent! Eight hundred dollars in fifteen days—how? where? and why?

When he threw the apple core away, he still felt the need to satisfy his senses with some [ ] dawdle or other, so he entered a cigar store and bought himself a cigar. He did not light it until he had seated himself on a bench on the Drive facing the Hudson River.

It was cool along the river. Behind him, the energetic thrum of New York City sighed and pulsed as though Manhattan Island itself were an unharmonious wire plucked by the hand of some brazen and busy demon. The young man turned and swept his dark, curious eyes along the high rooftops of the city, and down toward the harbor where the island’s chain of lights curved in a mighty arc, sultry beads in the midsummer mist strung in confused succession.

His cigar held the bitter taste he had wanted in his mouth; it felt full and ample between his teeth. On the river, he could distinguish faintly the hulls of the anchored merchant ships. A small launch, invisible except for its lights, glided a weaving path alongside the dark freighters and tankers. With quiet astonishment he leaned forward and watched the floating points of light move slowly downriver in liquid grace, his almost morbid curiosity fascinated by what might have seemed commonplace to another.

This young man, however, was no ordinary person. He presented a fairly normal appearance, just above average height, thin, with a hollow countenance notable for its prominence of chin and upper lip muscles, and expressive mouth lined delicately yet abundantly from its corners to the thin nose, and a pair of level, sympathetic eyes. But his demeanor was a strange one. He was accustomed to hold his head high, so that whatever he observed received a downward scrutiny, an averted mien that possessed a lofty and inscrutable curiosity.

In this manner, he smoked his cigar and watched the Drive saunterers pass by, for all outward purposes at peace with the world. But he was broke and he knew it; by tomorrow he would be penniless. With a shade of a smile, which he accomplished by raising a corner of his mouth, he tried to recall how he had spent his eight hundred dollars.

The night before, he knew, had cost him his last hundred and fifty dollars. Drunk for two consecutive weeks, he had finally achieved sobriety in a cheap hotel in Harlem; from there, he recalled, he had taken a cab to a small restaurant on Lenox Avenue where they served nothing but spare ribs. It was there he’d met that cute little colored girl who belonged to the Young Communists League. He remembered they’d taken a taxi down to Greenwich Village where she wanted to see a certain movie. . . . wasn’t it Citizen Kane? And then, in a bar on MacDougall Street, he lost track of her when he met up with six sailors who were broke; they were from a destroyer in dry-dock. From then on, he could remember riding in a taxi with them and singing all kinds of songs and getting off at Kelly’s Stables on 52nd Street and going in to hear Roy Eldridge and Billie Holliday. One of the sailors, a husky dark-haired pharmacist’s mate, talked all the time about Roy Eldridge’s trumpet and why he was ten years ahead of any other jazz musician except perhaps two others who jammed Mondays at Minton’s in Harlem, Lester somebody and Ben Webster; and how Roy Eldridge was really a phenomenal thinker with infinite musical ideas. Then they had all rode to the Stork Club, where another sailor had always wanted to go, but they were all too plastered to be admitted in, so they went to a dime-a-dance joint where he had bought up a roll of tickets for the gang. From there they had gone to a place in the East Side where the Madame sold them three quarts of Scotch, but when they were finished, the Madame refused to let them all sleep there and kicked them out. They were sick of the place and the girls anyway, so they rode uptown and west to a Broadway hotel where he paid for a double suite of rooms and they finished the Scotch and flopped off in chairs, on the floor, and on the beds. And then, late the next afternoon he woke up and found three of the sailors sprawled about in a litter of empty bottles, sailor caps, glasses, shoes, and clothing. The other three had wandered off somewhere, perhaps in search of a bromo seltzer or tomato juice.

Then he had dressed up slowly, after taking a leisurely shower, and strolled off, leaving the key at the desk and making a request to the hotelkeeper not to disturb his slumbering buddies.

So here he sat, broke except for fifty cents. Last night had cost $150 or so, what with taxis, drinks around, hotel bills, women, cover charges, and everything else; his good time was over for this time. He smiled as he remembered how funny it was when he woke up a few hours previous, on the floor between a sailor and an empty quart bottle, and with one of his moccasins on his left foot and the other on the bathroom floor.

Casting away his cigar butt, he rose and moved on across the Drive. Back on Broadway he walked slowly uptown taking in the small shoe stores, radio repair shops, drugstores, newsstands, and dimly lit bookstores with a calm and curious eye.

In front of a fruit stand he stopped in his tracks; at his feet, a small cat mewed up at him in a plaintive little cry, its pink bud of a mouth opened in a heart shape. The young man stooped down and picked up the cat. It was a cute little kitten with grey-striped fur and a remarkably bushy tail for its age.

“Hello, Tiger,” he greeted, cupping the little face in his hand. “Where do you live, huh?”

The kitten mewed a reply, its fragile little frame purring in his hand like a delicate instrument. He caressed the tiny head with his forefinger. It was a minute shell of a skull, one that could be crushed between thumb and forefinger. He placed the tip of his nose against the little mouth until the kitty playfully bit it.

“Ha ha! A little tiger!” he smiled.

The proprietor of the fruit stand stood in front rearranging his display.

“This is your cat?” inquired the young man, walking over with the kitten.

The fruit man turned a swarthy face.

“Yes, that is my wife’s cat.”

“He was on the sidewalk,” said the young stranger. “The street’s no place for a kitty, he’ll get run over.”

The fruit man smiled: “You are right; he must have wandered away from the house.” The man glanced up above the fruit store and shouted: “Bella!”

A woman presently came to the window and thrust her head out: “Hah?”

“Here’s your cat. He almost got lost,” shouted the man.

“Poom-poom!” cooed the woman, espying the kitten in the young man’s hands. “Bring it up Charley; he’ll get hurt in the street.”

The man smiled and took the cat from the stranger’s hands; its weak little claws were reluctant to change hands.

“Thank you!” sang the woman from above.

The young man waved his hand.

“You know women,” confided the fruitseller, “they love little cats . . . they always love the helpless things. But when it comes to men, you know, they’ll want them cruel.”

The young stranger smiled thinly.

“Am I right?” laughed the man, slapping the youth on the back and reentering his store with the kitten, chuckling to himself.

“Maybe so,” mumbled the youth to himself. “How the hell should I know?”

He walked five more blocks uptown, more or less aimlessly, until he reached a combination bar and cafeteria, just off the Columbia University campus. He walked in through the revolving doors and occupied an empty stool at the bar.

The room was crowded with drinkers, its murky atmosphere feverish with smoke, music, voices, and general restlessness known to frequenters of bars on summer nights. The young man almost decided to leave, until he caught sight of a cold glass of beer the bartender was just then setting before another patron. So he ordered himself a glass. The youth exchanges stares with a girl named Polly, who sits in a booth with her own friends.

They stared at each other for several seconds in the manner just described; then, with a casual familiarity, the young man spoke to Polly: “Where you going?”

“Where am I going?” laughed Polly, “I’m not going anywhere!”

But while she laughed at the stranger’s unusual query, she could not help but wonder at his instant possessiveness: for a second, he seemed to be an old friend she had forgotten many years ago, and who had now chanced upon her and resumed his intimacy with her as though time were no factor in his mind. But she was certain she had never met him. Thus, she stared at him with some astonishment and waited for his next move.

He did nothing; he merely turned back to his beer and drank a meditative draught. Polly, bewildered by this illogical behavior, sat for a few minutes watching him. He apparently was satisfied with just one thing, asking her where she was going. Who did he think he was? . . . it was certainly none of his business. And yet, why had he treated her as though he had always known her, and as though he had always possessed her?

With an annoyed frown, Polly left the booth and went to the young stranger’s side. She did not reply to the inquiries shouted after her by her friends; instead, she spoke to the young man with the curiosity of a child.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Wesley.”

“Wesley what?”

“Wesley Martin.”

“Did I ever know you?”

“Not that I know of,” he answered calmly.

“Then,” began Polly, “why did you? . . . why? . . . how do you . . . ?”

“How do I do what?” smiled Wesley Martin, raising a corner of his mouth.

“Oh hell!” cried Polly, stamping an impatient foot. “Who are you?”

Wesley maintained his amused shadow of a smile: “I told you who I was.”

“That’s not what I mean! Look, why did you ask me where I was going? That’s what I want to know.”

“Well?”

“Well for God’s sake don’t be so exasperating—I’m asking you, you’re not asking me!” By this time Polly was fairly shouting in his face; this amused Wesley, for he was now staring at her wide-eyed, with his mouth open, in a fixed, sustained glee which was all at once as mirthless as it was tremendously delighted. It seemed as though he were about to burst into guffaws of laughter, but he never did; he only stared at her with roguish stupefaction.

At a point where Polly was ready to be hurt by this uncomplimentary attitude, Wesley squeezed her arm warmly and returned to his beer.

“Where are you from?” pressed Polly.

“Vermont,” mumbled Wesley, his attention fixed on the bartender’s operations at the tap.

“What’re you doing in New York?”

“I’m on the beach,” was the reply.

“What’s that mean?” persisted Polly in her child’s wonder.

“What’s your name?” posed Wesley, ignoring her question.

“Polly Anderson.”

“Polly Anderson—Pretty Polly,” added Wesley.

“What a line!” smirked the girl.

“What’s that mean?” smiled Wesley.

“Don’t give me that stuff . . . you all try to act so innocent it’s pitiful,” commented Polly. “You mean men don’t have lines in Vermont? Don’t try to kid me, I’ve been there.”

Wesley had no comment to make; he searched in his pockets and drew out his last quarter.

“Want a beer?” he offered Polly.

“Sure—let’s drink them at my table; come on over and join the party.”

Wesley purchased the beers and carried them over to the booth, where Polly was directing a new seating arrangement. When they had seated themselves side by side, Polly introduced her new friend briefly as “Wes.”

“What do you do, feller?” inquired the man addressed as Everhart, who sat in the corner peering slyly through horn-rimmed glasses toward Wesley.

Wesley glanced briefly at his interrogator and shrugged. This silence fascinated Everhart; for the next few minutes, while the party regained its chatty frolic, Everhart studied the stranger; once, when Wesley glanced at Everhart and found him ogling from behind the fantastic spectacles, their eyes locked in combat, Wesley’s cool and non-committal, Everhart’s a searching challenge, the look of the brazen skeptic.

As the night now wore on, the girls and George Day in particular became exceedingly boisterous; George, whose strange fancy had thought of something, was now laughing with a painful grimace; he was trying to relate the object of his mirth, but when he would reach the funny part of the incident which amused him so, and was about to impart the humor to the rest of them, he would suddenly convulse in laughter. The result was infectious: the girls screamed, Everhart chuckled, and Polly, head on Wesley’s shoulder, found herself unable to stop giggling.

Wesley for his part, found George’s dilemma as amusing as he had Polly’s impatience earlier in the evening, so that now he stared with open-mouthed, wide-eyed astonishment at the former, an expression of amusement as droll in itself as anything its wearer would ever wish to see.

For the most part, Wesley was not drunk: he had by now consumed five glasses of beer, and since joining the party in the booth, five small glasses of straight gin which Everhart had cheerfully offered to pay for. But the atmosphere of the bar, its heavy smoke and odor of assorted hard liquors and beer, its rattle of sounds, and the constant loud beat of music from the nickelodeon served to cloud his senses, to hammer them into muffled submission with a slow, delirious, exotic rhythm. Enough of this, and Wesley was as good as drunk; he usually could drink much more. Slowly, he began to feel a tingle in his limbs, and he found his head swaying occasionally from side to side. Polly’s head began to weigh heavily on his shoulder. Wesley, as was his wont when drunk, or at least almost drunk, began to hold a silence as stubborn as the imperturbability which accompanied it. Thus, while Everhart spoke, Wesley listened, but chose to do so in strict, unresponsive silence.

Everhart, now quite intoxicated, could do nothing but talk; and talk he did, though his audience seemed more concerned with maintaining the ridiculous gravity of drunkards. No one was listening, unless it was Wesley in his oblique manner; one of the girls had fallen asleep.

“What do I tell them when they want to know what I want to do in life?” intoned Everhart, addressing them all with profound sincerity. “I tell them only what I won’t do; as for the other thing, I do not know, so I do not say.”

Everhart finished his drink hastily and went on: “My knowledge of life is negative only: I know what’s wrong, but I don’t know what’s good . . . don’t misinterpret me, fellows and girls . . . I’m not saying there is no good. You see, good means perfection to me . . .”

“Shut up, Everhart,” interposed George drunkenly.

“. . . and evil, or wrong, means imperfection. My world is imperfect, there is no perfection in it, and thus no real good. And so I measure things in the light of their imperfection, or wrong; on that basis, I can say what is not good, but I refuse to dawdle about what is supposed good. . . .”

Polly yawned loudly; Wesley lit up another cigarette.

“I’m not a happy man,” confessed Everhart, “but I know what I’m doing. I know what I know when it comes to John Donne and the Bard; I can tell my classes what they mean. I would go so far as to say I understand Shakespeare thoroughly—he, like myself, was aware of more imperfection than is generally suspected. We agree on Othello, who, but for his native gullibility and naiveté, would find in Iago a harmless little termite’s spite, as weak and impotent as it is inconsequential. And Romeo, with his fanciful impatience! And Hamlet! Imperfection, imperfection! There is no good; there is no basis for good, and no basis for moral. . . .”

“Stop grating in my ear!” interrupted George, “I’m not one of your stupid students.”

“Blah!” added one of the girls.

“Yes!” sang Everhart. “A high hope for a low heaven! Shakespeare said that in Love’s Labour’s Lost! Ay! There it is! A low heaven, and high-hoped men . . . but fellows and girls, I can’t complain: I have a good post in the University, as we are fond to call it; and I live happily with my aged father and impetuous young brother in a comfortable apartment; I eat regularly, I sleep well; I drink enough beer; I read books and attend innumerable cultural affairs; and I know a few women. . . .”

“Is that so!” cried George, leaning his head to sleep through the monologue.

“But that is all beside the point,” decided Everhart. “The revolution of the proletariat is the only thing today, and if it isn’t, then it is something allied with it—Socialism, international anti-Fascism. Revolt has always been with us, but we now find it in force. The writing of this war’s peace will be full of fireworks . . . there are two definitions for postwar peace: The good peace and the sensible peace. The sensible peace, as we all know, is the business man’s peace; but of course the business man wants a sensible peace based on the traditions of America—he’s a business man, he’s in business! This the radicals overlook: they forget the business man depends as much on business as the radicals depend on private support . . . take each away from each and the two classes disappear as classes. The business man wants to exist too—but naturally he’s prone to exist at the expense of others, and so the radicals are not blind to wrong. What I want to know is, if the radicals do not approve of economic liberalism, or laissez-faire, or private enterprise. . . .”

“Or what you will!” added George.

“Yes . . . if so, what do the radicals approve of? Plenty, of course: I respect their cognizance of wrong, but I fail to see the good they visualize; perfect states, as is the case with the younger and whackier radicals. But the older ones, with their quiet talk about a country where a man can do his work and benefit from this work; where he can also exist in cooperative security rather than in competitive hysteria—these older radicals are a bit more discerning, but I still doubt if they know what’s good: they only know what’s wrong, like me. Their dreams are beautiful, but insufficient, improbable, and most of all short of the mark.”

“Why is that so?” Everhart asked himself. “It is so because the progressive movement makes no provision for the spirit: it’s strictly a materialistic movement, it is limited. True, a world of economic equality and cooperative cheer might foster greater things for the spirit—resurgences in culture, Renaissances—but, in the main, it’s a materialistic doctrine, and a shortsighted one. It is not as visionary as the Marxists believe. I say, spiritual movements for the spirit! And yet, fellow and gentlewomen, who can deny Socialism? Who can stand up and call Socialism an evil, when in the furthest reaches of one’s conscience, one knows it is morally true? But is it a Good? No! It is only a rejection, shall we say, of the no-Good . . . and until it proves otherwise, in the mill of time, I will not embrace it fervently, I will only sympathize with it. I must search on . . .”

“Search on!” cried George, waving his arm dramatically.

“And in the process, I shall be free: if the process denies me freedom, I will not search on. I shall be free at all times, at all costs: the spirit flourishes only in the free.”

“Time marches on!” suggested Polly wearily.

“Do you know something?” posed Everhart.

“Yes I do!” announced George.

“The socialists will fight for freedom, win and write the peace—in this war or the next, and they will die having lived for the inviolable rights of man. And then will come the Humanists, when the way will have been paved for them, and these Humanists—great scientists, thinkers, organizers of knowledge, teachers, leaders . . . in short, builders, fixers, developers . . . shall lay down the foundations, in the days of no-war, for the future world of never-war. The Humanists will work and pave the way for the final and fabulous race of men, who will come on the earth in an era which the world has been bleeding toward for centuries, the era of universal peace and culture. This final, fabulous, and inevitable race of men will have nothing to do but practice culture, lounge around in creative contemplation, eat, make love, travel, converse, sleep, dream, and urinate into plastic toilets. In brief, the Great Romanticists will have arrived in full force, free to fulfill all of the functions of humanity, with no other worry in the world except that Englishmen still prefer Shakespeare while the world reads Everhart!”

George looked up briefly from his position under the table, where he had gone in search of an errant dime: “Why Bill, why didn’t you tell me you were going to be a writer.”

Bill Everhart waved an nonchalant palm: “After all this, don’t you think I’d make a splendid writer?”

George made a wry face: “Stick to teaching. I think you’d make a smelly writer. Besides, Everhart, you’re a hopeless pedagogue, and academic pain in the neck, and an officious little odious pedant.”

“In short, Bill,” added Polly with a dry smile, “you’re a louse.”

“And a bull-slinger to boot,” said George. “A little knickknack pouting on the shelf of time,” snuffing down his nose with obvious relish, “and a nub on the face of things.”

Polly began to giggle again, her long white neck craned downward revealing the fragile crucifix chain she wore. Wesley gazed at her affectionately, and placing his hand about the back of her neck, he turned her face toward his and kissed the surprised, parted lips. He found them instantly responsive and frankly passionate. Polly laughed and buried her face in his lapel, her bobbed hair a lavish brown pillow for his leaning cheek.

“Day, I still think you’re a scullion,” accused Everhart.

“Oh for gossakes stop this crazy talk! I’m tired. Let’s go!” This was spoken by Eve, the girl who had fallen asleep. She turned to her companion, yawning: “Aren’t you tired, Ginger?”

Ginger, who had maintained a bored silence most of the night, except to occasionally exchange kisses with her escort, Everhart, now yawned an affirmative reply.

“Hell no! We were supposed to get stinking drunk tonight,” objected Polly from Wesley’s shoulder. “We haven’t done any drinking!”

“Well, let them get a bottle . . . I want to get out of this place, we’ve been here long enough,” said Eve, removing a small mirror from her purse . . . “Oh heck, I look fiendish!”

“You haven’t said much tonight, feller,” said Ginger, smiling toward Wesley teasingly. She was rewarded with a thin, curving smile.

“Isn’t he cute!” cried Polly, delighted.

Wesley lifted his hand playfully, as if to strike her.

“Where do you want to go now?” asked George of Eve.

“Oh let’s go up. We can play the portable and dance. Besides, I’ve got a pair of rayons to wash for tomorrow morning.”

“I thought you washed them this afternoon!” said Ginger.

“I started to read a True Story Magazine and forgot all about them.”

“Dopey!”

“Let’s be frolicsome!” suggested Everhart, slapping the table. “I want to get blind loaded.”

“You are already, shortypants,” said Ginger. “Eve, will you wash my silk stockings while you’re at it . . . I need them for tomorrow night.”

“I will if you pick up my toaster at Macy’s tomorrow.”

“Oh but I have to model tomorrow afternoon from two till four,” protested Ginger, turning full body toward the other. They both reflected for a few moments while George Day yawned. “But you can pick it up after!” cried Eve.

Ginger pondered for a moment.

“It’s only five blocks downtown from your place,” supplied Polly, growing interested in the affairs of her world.

“But I have to get my permanent, Polly,” affirmed Ginger with a trace of desperation.

“You will still have time.”

“Sure!” chimed in Polly.

Ginger was trapped, and she knew it; she was trapped by the insistent logic of woman-kind, as surely as she had trapped others in her moments.

“Oh all right, I guess I can,” she concluded reluctantly. The other two girls leaned back, satisfied.

Wesley, who had been watching and listening, while the other two men were in reverie, now also leaned back in satisfaction. He gazed at Polly and wondered about her: she had been behaving unusually well all night, to his thinking, but now she had betrayed her colors. Polly was a woman! But when he squeezed her arm, and Polly touched her lips to his chin, quietly saying “Boo!” and tweaking his nose, he decided women had their virtues.

“Where and when do we go?” spoke George.

“To the place,” said Eve, picking up her handbag with long shiny fingers. “One of you two get a quart.”

“I’ll get it,” mumbled Everhart. “By God, I’ll get two quarts.”

“Let’s go,” cried Polly.

In the cool night street, Polly hung from Wesley’s arm and shuffled a dance step while Everhart crossed Broadway to a liquor store. The others chatted and laughed; all admitted their insobriety to one another, except Wesley, who shrugged uncertainly; they laughed.

On the way to Eve’s and Ginger’s, they were all very gay and marched down the side street linked six abreast while Everhart sang the Marseilleise. Near an alley, Day stopped the whole group and pledged their health with one of the quarts. They all followed suit, Wesley taking at one lift of the bottle what sure must have been a half pint of the whisky.

“You from Tennessee?” drawled Ginger while the others giggled in amazement.

“Hell no, woman!” answered Wesley with a sheepish grin.

They laughed raucously and proceeded on down the street. From then on, Wesley was aware of only three things: that he drank two more enormous draughts from the bottle; that he was in New York at night, because they were walking in a steep canyon between tall corniced buildings that leaned crazily, and the stars were very far away from all this, nodding, aloof, cool up there overhead, and sternly sober; and finally, that he discovered he was holding an empty quart bottle as they climbed the stoop to the apartment, so he turned around and hurled it far up the empty street, and when the glass shattered and the girls screamed, he wanted to tell them that was what he thought of all the talk they had made tonight.

CHAPTER TWO

New Morning

When Wesley woke up, he wasn’t surprised that he didn’t know where he was. He sat on the edge of the bed and was annoyed because he could see all of his clothes except the socks. After having put on his shirt, trousers, and coat he squatted on the floor barefooted and peered under the bed. His socks were not there.

He left the bedroom, glancing briefly at the sleeping Polly on his bed, and roamed through the apartment searching for his socks. He went into the bathroom, with its steamy smell of soap, and rummaged around in a welter of silk underthings, hanging rayon stockings, and castoff slips. They were not to be found; as a last resort, he peeked under the bathtub. Not there.

He rubbed his teeth with his forefinger, threw water on his face, sneezed two or three times, and shuffled off into the parlor carrying his moccasins.

Everhart was sitting by the window reading a Reader’s Digest.

“Where the hell are my socks?” Wesley wanted to know.

“Oh hello Wes! How do you feel?” greeted Bill, adjusting his glasses to peer at Wesley.

Wesley sat down and put on his moccasins over his bare feet.

“Lousy,” he admitted.

“I feel likewise . . . how about a bromo? I made myself one in the pantry.”

“Thanks.”

They went into the pantry where a fragile blue-pink light streamed in from the morning street. Everhart prepared the sedative while Wesley inspected the contents of the refrigerator, picking himself out a cold orange.

“We’re the only ones up,” chatted Everhart. “George sleeps late all the time. Eve left for work this morning . . . I can’t say as I envy her after what she drank last night.”

“Eve your girl?” inquired Wesley.

Everhart handed him the bromo: “I was with her last night; George was with Ginger.”

Wesley drank down the sedative.

“Eve works at Heilbroner’s, she gets off at noon. Ginger’ll have to get up soon herself—she’s a model. Boy! What a night . . .”

Everhart followed Wesley back into the parlor.

“Is Polly awake yet?” Bill asked.

Wesley shrugged: “Wasn’t when I got up.”

“You certainly are the boy with the women,” laughed Everhart, turning on the radio. “She was all over you last night; rare thing for Polly.”

“Cute kid,” reflected Wesley. He walked over to the window and sat on the ledge; pushing open a side pane, he glanced down at the street. It was a cool, sunny morning. The brownstone buildings, reminders of an older New York, stood in deep brown against a sky of magic blue; a pink-winged breeze breathed in through the open window. A faint sea-tang filled the new morning.

The radio began to play a Bing Crosby ballad. Wesley swept his gaze down the street and saw the Hudson in the clear distance, a mirrored sheen specked with merchant ships.

Everhart was standing beside him: “What do you do, Wes?”

Wesley pointed toward the ships on the river.

Everhart gazed in the same direction: “You’re a merchant seaman are you?”

Wesley nodded as he offered his friend a cigarette; they lit up in silence.

“How is it?” inquired Everhart.

Wesley turned his brown eyes on Bill: “I try to make it my home,” he said.

“Lonely sort of business, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” admitted Wesley, emitting a double tendril of smoke from his nose.

“I always thought about the sea and ships and that sort of thing,” said Everhart, his eyes fixed on the distant ships. “Get away from all this baloney.”

They heard women’s laughter from the bedrooms, rich bursts of confidential mirth that precipitated a sheepish grin on Everhart’s face: “The gals are up; now what in heavens are they laughing about?”

“Women always laugh that way,” smiled Wesley.

“Isn’t it the truth?” agreed Everhart. “Gets my goat oftentimes; wonder if they’re laughing at me . . .”

Wesley smiled at Everhart: “Why should they man?”

Everhart laughed as he removed his heavy glasses to polish them; he looked quite younger without them: “Tell you one thing, though; no finer sound in the morning than women laughing in the next room!”

Wesley opened his mouth and widened his eyes in his characteristic silent laughter.

“Whose apartment is this?” Wesley presently asked, throwing his cigarette butt in the street below.

“It’s Eve’s,” responded Everhart, adjusting his spectacles. “She’s a drunkard.”

From the next room Polly’s voice called out in a hurt way: “Is my Wesley gone away?”

“No he’s still here,” called back Everhart.

“That’s my honey!” asserted Polly from the next room.

Wesley smiled from his seat at the window. Everhart approached him: “Why don’t you go on in?”

“Had enough. That’s all I been doing for two weeks,” confided Wesley.

Everhart laughed heartily. At the radio, he tuned for a while until he found a satisfactory program.

“Battle Hymn of the Republic,” informed Everhart. “Great old tune, isn’t it? What does it make you think of?”

They both listened for awhile, until Wesley made his answer; “Abe Lincoln and the Civil War, I guess.”

Ginger swept into the room and gasped: “My Gawd! Will you look at this room!” It was, indeed, a sorry sight: chairs were turned over, bottles, glasses, and cocktail mixers were strewn everywhere, and a vase had been broken near the couch. “I’ll have to improve this mess somewhat before I go to work,” she added, more or less to herself. “How do you feel, Shortypants?” she asked of Everhart. Then, without a pause for his response: “Wes! You look absolutely tip-top there? Haven’t you got a big head?”

Wesley nodded toward Everhart: “He gave me a bromo. I feel right fine.”

“Right fine,” echoed Everhart. “I heard that expression last time . . .”

“George is still sleeping!” interrupted Ginger, bustling around picking up the bottles and things. “He’s a lazy old slop.”

“Last time I heard ‘right fine’ was down in Charlotte, North Carolina,” continued Everhart. “They also used to say, when you wanted to know where something was, that it was ‘right yonder,’ I thought you were from Vermont, Wes?”

“I am,” smiled Wesley. “I been all over this country though; spent two years in the south. Them expressions just come to me.”

“Been to California?” asked Everhart.

“All over the place—forty-three states. I guess I missed Dakota, Missouri, Ohio and a few others.”

“What were you doing, just loafing around?” inquired Everhart.

“I worked here and there.”

“My goodness, it’s already ten o’clock!” discovered Ginger. “Let’s eat some breakfast right away! I’ve got to beat it!”

“Do you have any eggs?” asked Everhart.

“Oh, hell, no! Eve and I finished them yesterday morning.”

Polly entered the room in Ginger’s bathrobe, smiling after a shower: “I feel better,” she announced. “Mornin’ Wesley!” She walked to his side and puckered her lips: “Kiss me!” Wesley planted a brief kiss on her lips, then slowly blew a cloud of smoke into her face.

“Give me a drag!” demanded Polly, reaching for his cigarette.

“I’ll go down and buy some eggs and fresh coffee buns,” Everhart told Ginger. “Make some fresh coffee.”

“Okay!”

“Coming with me, Wes?” called Everhart.

Wesley ruffled Polly’s hair and rose to his feet: “Right!”

“Come right back,” said Polly, peering slant-eyed through a cloud of cigarette smoke with a small seductive smile.

“Back right soon!” cried Everhart, slapping Wesley on the back.

In the automatic elevator, they could still hear the strains of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” coming from Eve’s radio.

“That song makes you think of Abe Lincoln and the Civil War,” remembered Everhart. “It does me too, but it also makes me mad. I want to know what the hell went wrong, and who it was inflicted the wrong.” The elevator stopped on the ground floor and slid open its doors. “That old cry ‘America! America’ What in heavens happened to its meaning. It’s as though an America is just that—America—a beautiful word for a beautiful world—until people just simply come to its shores, fight the savage natives, develop it, grow rich, and then lean back to yawn and belch. God, Wes, if you were an assistant instructor in English Literature as I am, with its songs, songs ever saying: ‘Go on! Go on!’ and then you look over your class, look out of the window, and there’s your America, your songs, your pioneer’s cry to brave the West—a roomful of bored bastards, a grimy window facing Broadway with its meat markets and barrooms and God knows the rest. Does this mean frontiers from now on are to be in the imagination?”

Wesley, it is to be admitted, was not listening too closely: he was not quite certain as to what his friend rambled on about. They were now in the street. Ahead, a colored man was busy disposing of a black pile of coal down a hole in the sidewalk: the coal flashed back the sun’s morning brilliance like a black hill studded with gems.

“It certainly does,” Everhart assured himself. “And there is promise in that: but no more romance! No more buckskins and long rifles and coonskins and hot buttered rum at Fort Dearborn, no more trails along the river, no more California. That state is the end of it; if California had stretched around the world back to New England, we might have driven west eternally, rediscovering and rebuilding and moving on until civilization would assume the aspects of a six-day bike race with new possibilities at each bend. . . .”

Wesley, walking around the coal pile with his talkative friend, addressed the man with the shovel.

“Hey there, Pops! Don’t work too hard!”

The man looked up and smiled happily: “Watch out there, man!” he shouted with whooping delight, leaning on his shovel. “You is talkin’ out mah league—I doan split no gut! Hoo hoo hoo!”

“That’s the ticket, Pops!” said Wesley, looking back with a smile.

“I swear to God,” resumed Everhart, adjusting his glasses, “if this were 1760 I’d be on my way West with the trappers, explorers, and the huntsmen! I’m not rugged, the Lord knows, but I want a life with purpose, with a driving force and a mighty one at that. Here I am at Columbia, teaching—what of it? I accomplish nothing; my theories are accepted and that’s all there is to it. I have seen how ideas are accepted and set aside for reference . . . that is why I gave up writing a long time ago. I’m thirty-two now; I wouldn’t write a book for a million. There’s no sense to it. Those lynx-eyed explorers—they were the American poets! The great unconscious poets who saw hills to the westward and were satisfied and that was that: they didn’t have to rhapsodize, their very lives did that with more power than a Whitman! Do you read much, Wes?”

The were now on Broadway, strolling along the spacious pavement; Wesley stopped to peel his orange over a city refuse basket, and after a pause during which he frowned with dark pity, he said: “I used to know a young seaman by the name of Lucian Smith; he used to try to make me read, because I never did do much reading.” He dropped the last peel in the basket with a slow, thoughtful flourish. “Luke finally made me read a book; he was a good kid and I wanted to make him feel as though he done me a favor. So I read the book he gave me.”

“What was it?”

“Moby Dick,” recollected Wesley.

“By Herman Melville,” added Everhart, nodding his head.

Wesley tore the orange in two and offered a half to his friend. They walked on, eating. “So I read Moby Dick; I read it slow, about five pages a night, because I knew the kid would ask me questions about it.”

“Did you like it?” Everhart asked.

Wesley spat out an orange grain, the same grave frown on his countenance: “Yeah,” he answered.

“What did the Smith kid ask you about it?” persisted Everhart.

Wesley turned his troubled face on the interrogator and stared for a few moments.

“All kinds of questions,” he finally told him. “All kinds. He was a bright kid.”

“Do you remember any of his questions?” Everhart smiled, conscious of his inquisitiveness.

Wesley shrugged: “Not offhand.”

“Where is he now?”

“The kid?”

“Yes . . .”

Wesley’s frown disappeared; in its place, an impassive, almost defiant stoniness manifested itself in his averted face.

“Lucian Smith, he went down.”

Everhart shot a scowling look toward his companion: “You mean he was torpedoed and drowned?” Everhart said this as though incredulous of such a thing; he rushed on: “He’s dead now? When did it happen? Why did . . . where was it?”

Wesley thrust his hand in his back pocket, saying: “Off Greenland last January.” He produced his seaman’s wallet, a large flat affair with a chain attached. “Here’s his picture,” he announced, handing Bill a small snapshot: “Smith’s a good kid.”

Everhart, taking the snapshot, was going to say something, but checked himself nervously. A sad face gazed out at him from the photograph, but he was too confused to make anything further of it: Wesley’s brooding presence, the sounds of the street gathering tempo for a new day, the gay sunshine’s warmth, and the music from a nearby radio store all seemed to remove this pinched little face with the sad eyes to a place far off, lonely, and forgotten, to unreal realm that was as inconsequential as the tiny bit of celluloid paper he held between his fingers. Bill handed back the picture and could say nothing. Wesley did not look at the picture, but slid it back into his wallet, saying: “Where do we buy the eggs?”

“Eggs . . .” echoed Everhart, adjusting his spectacles slowly. “Up ahead two blocks.”

On the way back, laden with packages, they said very little. In front of a bar, Wesley pointed toward it and smiled faintly: “Come on, man, let’s go in and have a little breakfast.”

Everhart followed his companion into the cool gloom of the bar, with its washed aroma and smell of fresh beer, and sat near the window where the sun poured in through the French blinds in flat strips. Wesley ordered two beers. Everhart glanced down and noticed his friend wore no socks beneath his moccasin shoes; they rested on the brass rail with the calm that seemed part of his whole being.

“How old are you, Wes?”

“Twenty-seven.”

“How long have you been going to sea?”

The beers were placed before them by a morose bartender; Bill threw a quarter on the mahogany top of the bar.

“Six years now,” answered Wesley, lifting the golden glass to the sun and watching the effervescence of many minute bubbles as they shot upward.

“Been leading a pretty careless life, haven’t you?” Everhart went on. “Port debaucheries, then back to sea; and on that way . . .”

“That’s right.”

“You’d never care to plant some roots in society, I suppose,” mused the other.

“Tried it once, tried to plant some roots, as you say . . . I had a wife and a kid coming, my job was a sure thing, we had a house.” Wesley halted himself and drank down the bitter thoughts. But he resumed: “Split up after the kid died stillborn, all that sort of guff: I hit the road, bummed all over the U.S.A., finally took to shipping out.”

Everhart listened sympathetically, but Wesley had said his piece.

“Well,” sighed Bill slapping the bar, “I find myself, at thirty-two, an unusually free and fortunate man; but honestly I’m not happy.”

“So what!” countered Wesley. “Bein’ happy’s O.K. in its place; but other things count more.”

“That’s the sort of statement I should make, or anyone of the creative artists whose works I talk on,” considered the other, “but as for you, a doubtlessly devil-may-care roué with a knack for women and a triple capacity for liquor, it seems strange. Aren’t you happy when you’re blowing your pay in port?”

Wesley waved a disgusted hand: “Hell no! What else can I do with money? I ain’t got no one to send it to but my father and one of my married brothers, and when that’s done, I still got too much money—I throw it away, practically. I’m not happy then.”

“When are you happy?”

“Never, I guess; I get a kick out of a few things, but they don’t last; I’m talkin’ about the beach now.”

“Then you are happy at sea?”

“Guess so . . . I’m home then anyway, and I know my work and what I’m doin’. I’m an A.B., see . . . but as to bein’ happy at sea, I don’t really know. Hell, what is happiness nohow?” Wesley asked with a trace of scorn.

“No such thing?” suggested Bill.

“You hoppin’ skippin’ Goddamn right!” asserted Wesley, smiling and shaking his head.

Bill called for two more beers.

“My old man is a bartender in Boston,” confided Wesley. “He’s a great old buck.”

“My old man used to be a shipyard worker,” Everhart supplied, “but now he’s old and feeble; he’s sixty-two. I take care of him and my kid brother financially, while my married sister, who lives in my place with her crum of a husband, feeds and cares [for] them. The kid goes to public school—he’s a doughty little brat.”

Wesley listened to this without comment.

“I’d like to make a change; spread my wings and see if they are ready for flight,” confessed Bill. “Know something? . . . I’d like to try the Merchant Marine for a spell!”

“How about your draft status?” Wesley asked.

“Just registered so far, unless my notification came in this morning’s mail,” pondered Bill. “But by heavens I really would like the idea!” Everhart lapsed into a musing silence while the other lit up a cigarette and inspected the glowing tip. He could use a little money, considering that the old man would soon require a hernia operation. What was it the doctor had said? . . . seven months? And the kid might want to go to Columbia in five or six years.

“How much money can you make on a trip?” asked Bill at length.

Wesley, with a mouthful of beer, held it for a moment, tasting it with relish.

“Well,” he answered, “depends. You’d make a bit less as ordinary seaman. The Russian run would net you around fourteen hundred bucks in five or six months, with pay, sea bonus, port bonus, and overtime. But a short run, like the Iceland or coastwise to Texas or South American run wouldn’t add up to that much in one trip.”

Well, two or three short trips, or one l

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 788