Listening to Philip's unsavory gripe further down the line, I hadn't had a chance to ask anybody what this was all about, and we now were too close to the cabin to speak—couldn't be indiscreet. Perhaps the thirty-two members of the crew were being formally presented to our distinguished visitor. That's what it looked like—Captain Brandt must be introducing us all proudly, three at a time, to this Secretary of State of Argentine—or maybe he was just a governor of one of the provinces.
So I thought as we stood shivering in the sun outside that door. There was a sharp wind and it found its way through the pea jacket, sweater, and two pair of dungarees I was wearing. Finally, the door swung open for us—a dirty, old guy from the black gang, the white-haired A.B. with the pink-lidded eyes, and me. The sun was bright in the cabin—the first and only time I ever saw the interior of the Old Man's quarters. It looked comfortable.
They all looked at us with a pleasant smile as we came in. The Argentinian towered over the others in stately dignity. He stood there rubbing his hands together. The red-headed Second, who had been talking to our visitor in a rapid Spanish, turned to us and said in English:
"All right, you guys, loosen your belts and open your pants."
We fumbled with our buttons and undid our trousers—what kind of a diplomatic reception is this? The Mate motioned me toward our visitor. I clumped forward holding up my pants.
The old gentleman had his snowy white starched shirt cuffs folded back over the sleeves of his elegant black jacket. With his long, pale, tapering hands, he directed me to stand facing him in the sun that came from one of the portholes. Then with a graceful wave he indicated something toward me and rippled in Spanish to the Mate.
"Take ya glasses off, kid, didn't ya hear him—?"
Now you try that sometime—try taking off a pair of springy specs that get caught in your matted hair (I hadn't had a haircut in a long time) from under a hat you'd had pulled down over your ears, while you're trying to keep up two pairs of pants that you're trying to hold on to under a lumped-up pea jacket and a sweater.
I did—and held my precious glasses in one hand and all the rest of me together with the other, while the old gentleman, smiling quietly, efficiently flicked up the upper lids of both my eyes, looking for something. Then with one quick movement, his slender fingers probed about on either side of my neck just back of the corners of my jaws. He said a word to the Captain, who scribbled it on the papers in front of him. Then this possible Secretary of State or governor of one of the provinces with no warning swooped those long aristocratic hands of his down and into my open trousers and out again so fast—surprising me so I gasped, fumbled, almost dropped my glasses, and lost my pants altogether.
Then he tapped me on the shoulder, said something again to the Captain, and dipped his hands in a bowl of water that smelled of disinfectant. He stood there wiping them on the clean towel while he waited until the embarrassed old white-haired guy with the pink lids arranged himself before him, trustingly but desperately holding up his pants.
Somehow, I got myself pulled together—glasses on and buttoned up—before he'd completed the inspection of the white-haired guy's eyes. He was somber and talked to him in Spanish. I was proud of my shipmate's halting response in the same language—I'd written sometime back he was a nice old guy.
The Port Doctor—of course he was that; even I'd guessed it by this time—completed his inspection of the old guy. Then he bent over the Captain's desk and talked to him in a low voice. The old guy was told to sit down in a chair over in the corner of the cabin, and after the doctor had gone over the dirty black-ganger—right down to the same quick loin inspection he'd given me—we were let out of the cabin. But the old white-haired guy with the pink eyelids remained sitting there, sad and forlorn, in a corner of the cabin, nobody talking to him.
Yes, we had been inspected carefully to make sure we brought no foreign germs to contaminate the Argentine, and the white-haired guy was the only one—because of his pink-lidded eyes—who was not a perfectly clean, harmless, physical specimen. They didn't inspect us as we left the last Argentinian port to check up on how many of their domestic bugs we carried away. They gave them away free—there was no tariff on them.
13. Thirty-Two Bridegrooms
BACK ON THE DECK UNDER THE SUPERVISION of the young Third Mate, with the Bos'n as his lieutenant, we began to sledge out the big wooden wedges which locked the long, flat iron bars that had been used to batten down the hatches. We'd begin unloading after lunch.
The Bos'n told us to lock up our stuff—"Lock your lockers, lock your cabin doors, nail down anything that belongs to you before those Spik longshoremen come aboard. They'd pick up anything lying around loose, and if you see any of these guys in 'tween decks where they don't belong, or back there in the fo'castle or in any of the passages, kick 'em the hell out —hard and fast."
That was a long speech for the Bos'n. He spoke it quietly, as if he didn't like Spiks. And sometime later, when I did a drawing of him and he talked a little about himself, I could see why.
The labor boss had come aboard and Philip had been sent ashore to get some cheroots for the Chief Engineer. It looked as if we had established contact with the mainland. I imagine a number of members of the crew would have gone on a toot that afternoon, but there wasn't much money around.
Perry% glistening with his "inside dope" look, grabbed big Joe and me and dragged us off to a quiet spot on the deck after the hatch covers had been neatly piled alongside the open hatches.
"Lissen, y'ain't gonna eat d'slops on dis ship today, are ye?"
Big Joe grimaced. "Yeah, what else? Can't get no money till night."
Perry brought his head down with a wink that screwed up the whole side of his face.
"Don't worry about dat. I arranged a deal—with that hombre," and he snapped his head back, still with that wink in the direction of the labor boss scribbling officiously in his little pad as he talked to the Third Mate.
Joe nodded knowingly and grinned.
Just before we knocked off at noon. Perry with much secretive twisting of his head from side to side disappeared into the fo'castle door and after a few moments appeared dressed in an overcoat which bulged suspiciously in strange places. It was one of those shaped coats, and that strange bulk Perry had hidden under it was as obvious a bit of smuggling as if he'd waved his crime from the masthead. Joe and I crowded around him and we stumbled down the gangplank in a huddle. The smiling sailor-boy policeman at the foot of the plank gave us the same bright smile he'd worn on his face all morning.
We kept our formation as we walked away from the river. Quickly, like an irregular-shaped six-legged crab, we made the shack—the one that had flaunted that intriguing sign Cerveza Chicago Bar.
We entered the door in a lump. The proprietor was standing behind a narrow little bar—need I say he wore mustachios?— and it looked as if he'd been expecting us.
There were three or four small round tables arranged around the room. Perry directed us to pick one, and then, with his coat-tails jutting aft and his newly acquired appendage bosoming for'ard, quickly crossed to the bar. The proprietor signaled him to a door. He and Perry disappeared behind its ragged cretonne curtain.