“And when they find a vagabond like us, they throw him down in chains before the big gamblers.
“Cold town,” he said. Sweat ran down his face. He was out of breath. “Cold town. In deep.”
Abruptly Cassius Clay Sugar Ray produced a pipe. He took a minute to fill it from a pouch on a string around his waist, and tamp it down and find a good brand in the fire and light it. “Cold town. In deep. Last chance coming down!” They smelled the smoke of Israelite marijuana moving across the fire. They all knew how he’d escaped. Fiskadoro knew, but he waited, like the others, to hear how it would turn out.
“Mostly,” Cassius Clay Sugar Ray said, “the mercy of Allah cleans out my brain of those terrible time. And it don’t make no sense telling you what those gambling men of the North Deerfield look like,” he said, “I tell you why. Because of those big gamblers have change their faces and their bodies when I be go back the second time, and ever since from that time until now, they have never did return to the way they looked the first time I looked my eyes across them. Just this much: they show long teeth coming out here, like big mean dogs: show claws on the end of their fingers. They push breath coming out in my face like a dead animal shit on their tongue. The mercy of Allah cleans out my brain of those terrible time, so I ain’t can’t remember did I weep and beg like a coward, but I know this, which I say without no shame, when I dream about it, I wake up and I weeping and begging like a coward, all right, well well, yes Cap’n.
“Our arms and legs lock up in chains. Bob Wilson crying, too. Michael Torres just curl up on the floor all stiff in front of the North Deerfield gamblers and try go die. I been breathing so hard I might make myself faint unconscious. I try go look at those big gamblers, and they turn blue, with yellow sparks. I wasn’t know who was Allah then, but I prayed to God, God, without knowing nothing.
“The biggest big gambler come walking right up to me. He choosing me for the leader. Bob Wilson he bawling like a seagull. Then to remind Bob Wilson what we say, I say, ‘Whatever happen go happen. Fugdat shit!’ Bob Wilson hear me, but he keep bawling out.
“Gambler say, ‘I am the Hootchy Kootchy Man!’
“I say, ‘Shit!’
“He say, ‘I control all the games down unto the shores of Cue-bar!’
“I say, ‘What games? What games?’
“He say, ‘All the games.’
“I say, ‘You control the Twicetown games? I see those Twicetown gambler-boys yesterday. They spending every coin at the still-house.’
“He got mad and he say, ‘End — of — discussion!’
“I say, ‘Every coin at the still-house. They don’t save out no coins for you.’
“His teeth grew.
“ ‘Old women run half those games,’ I say.
“Blood spilled outa his eyes.
“ ‘Those old women, they never hearda you,’ I say.
“He scream like I hammering on his feet. I felt sick to die, I been so chicken in my guts to hear a man make that type noise. Bob Wilson he got faint unconscious on the floor in his clattering chains and locks.
“But the biggest big gambler, he knew I go be reporting out the facts. He got calm inside his face. And I tell to them all, ‘You gone kill us. You gone turn us into ghosts right now.’
“They say, ‘That’s right.’
“ ‘You gone keep Bob Wilson brother in chains.’
“They say, ‘That’s right.’
“ ‘You gone talk about that hootchy and that kootchy down to Cuba. And everything I say, gone stay be true forever: Twicetown games just belong to everyone, no percent out of it for you big North Deerfield gamblers.’
“They didn’t say a sound.
“I say, ‘If you deliver us three back down to Twicetown, we gone take your message that you control all the games. We gone bring your percent, and we gone have Bob Wilson magic brother controlling some dice sometime once in a while for you.’ ”
Cassius Clay Sugar Ray looked around him at the faces in the flames, going green and blue in his sight, possibly, as had the faces of the gamblers from North Deerfield. “When Bob Wilson wake up and found out he ain’t dead yet, I told him, ‘The Mainland-Keys Alliance for Trading, we now in session!’
“I laughing and crying both at once, but those gamblers say, ‘You gone go back alone by yourself, nigger-person. We keep these two white boys till you come on back to here with a new report.’
“I say, ‘All right.’ I repeated to them, ‘Fugdat shit!’
“They took off my chains and locks and put me back on the Guerrilla. I be sure go die, they all knew about it, plain and obvious. But the biggest big gambler say, ‘My name is Ernest Bodine. Would you like a Bible?’
“I say, ‘Yes Cap’n,’ but he say, ‘I haven’t ain’t got one. But I give you the Koran of Mohammed.’ Then he made a sinful sound, ‘Moooooo-hammed! Ha ha!’ like a cow.
“I said, ‘Fugdat shit!’ But I took the book and I readed part of the page one to him, so he can see me as a schooled aficionado of words.
“They set my sail and push me out into the corriente on the Ocean.
“If ever I need to come about only once, I not never gone make it. I need the luck of Allah with the wind, to sail one person alone to Twicetown in the Guerrilla. But I didn’t know Allah then, I didn’t have no information about who was Allah. The corriente took me out till the land she been far away on the edge of the world. And next thing, before I knew what, this land we live on and walk on she be gone, gone from outa my eyes, and I there on the Ocean of agua y nothing but agua.
“Five days and four nights I sailing on, and I ain’t can’t never come about without no mates to help me. I make my best way to go south and west, but time I make east with the corriente, time dead west, sometime the forces turn me around and head me dead up to the Pole Star. Half-liter of water in a bucket disappeared. It rain and I catch a few drops in my hands. A few more drops in the bucket. I going fast. Thirst dry me up flat like a rag. North. South. East. West. A simple person, a little coward, on the Ocean.
“I tell to the Pole Star, ‘Who making you take me there?’
“When the boat gone west and the sundown look at me like a big eye, I say, ‘Who are you?’
“And I go down on my knees on the deck to pray: ‘You there up high! Heavenly Eye watching this trouble! Put your secret message in this book!’ ”
In the light of flames, Cassius Clay Sugar Ray held out his two hands together, the palms up, like the open pages of the sacred Koran.
“The line my finger pointed say, Would you deny these blessings of the Lord?
“I say, ‘Scuse me what? What blessings?’
“One more line down the page, it said me again, Would you deny these blessings of the Lord?
“I say, ‘Look at the sea all around! This is me I go drowning! Who talking about any blessings?’