How many children have you got?
Five and twenty is my lot!
And then the ring starts hollering and shrieking again at the top of their voices.. ferocious hoarse urchins.. And then this rather bouncy one that’s danced two by two..
Dancing Dolly had no sense!
She bought a fiddle for eighteen pence!
And so many other pretty and fresh and funny and dainty songs that dance in my memory… all on the wings of youth.. And so for everything at the bottom of these alleys as soon as the weather isn’t too bad.. not quite so cold, not quite so bleak over the Wapping section between Poplar and Chinatown. Then sadness melts away in little gray piles in the sun.. I’ve seen lots of them melting that way from sadness, the streets verily full of them, delighting in the water running down the gutter..
Pert brisk little girl with golden muscles!. Keener health!. whimsical leap from one end of our troubles to the other! At the very beginning of the world the fairies must have been young enough to have ordained only extravagance. The world at the time all whimsical marvels and peopled with children, all games and trifles and whirls and gewgaws! A spray of giggles!.. Happy dances!. carried off in the ring!
I remember their pranks as if it were yesterday. their impish farandolas along the streets of sorrow those days of pain and hunger..
Glory be to their memory! Cute little monkey-faces! Imps of the pale sun! Misery! You will always well up for me, in gentle whirls, laughing angels in the gloom of the age, as in your alleys in times gone-by, no sooner shall I close my eyes.. the cowardly moment when everything dims. Thus Death, still, thanks to you, dancing a bit. expiring music of the heart!. Lavender Street!.. Daffodil Place!.. Grumble Avenue!. dank alleys of despair. The weather never really very fine, the round and the farandola of the fog pits between Poplar and Leeds Barking.. Little elves of the sun, light shockheaded band, fluttering from shadow to shadow!.. crystal facets of your laughter. sparkling all around, and your cheeky teasing. from one danger to another!. Startled faces right in front of the huge drays!.. Champing dray horses grinding the echo!. Enormous hairy pasterns. belong to Guinness and Co., one fright to another!. Little dream girls!.. lively as larks on the wing!. soar!. flutter o’er the lanes!. in the mist. in the sticky black gum!. Warwick Commons! Cari-bon Way where the frightened hobo roams. sniffling along the gutters. clad in fear!. and the minstrel, the fake soot-smeared darky, harlequin rags.. prowling around here, there, everywhere.. banjo in his fist.. t.b. voice.. from one fog.. from one mist to another.. jigging a sore foot for a penny,
for tuppence!.. the back-somersault!.. three coughs one after another!. spits reddish and goes off a way toward the gray of the clouds… far as the streets can see.. and then again another stretch of hovels. Hollyborn Street.. Falmouth Cottage. Hollander Place. Bread Avenue!. All of a sudden rings out the alarm, way off over there!.. from the end of the rooftops. the moan of the ship!. At the far other end of things!.. Watch out, bums on the lookout!. Watch out, peeping Toms and snoopers!. Vermin, cockeyes, wretches of bad luck!.. ship rats! pepper-red mugs! toothless stumpy riffraff! Flabby-armed good-for-nothings!. Whore lice! Load of stinkers! the Spirit of Water summons you!. Don't you hear its exquisite voice?. Shake a leg, carrion, and get going!. All pouring from the gangplank!. All ages!. origins!.. foul races! the scum of the four Universes! black, white, yellow and chocolate! Rogues of all kinds! No question about it! All cankers! All vices! Politely with a curtsy!. Please do!.. Flinching and funking and shying at the moment. Curse it! dodging to trammel the maneuver! religiously, skullcapfuls.. On with the punishment! with the flogging!.. souse that he be!. Truce to vehemence!. To your stations, men!.. Swarm of cables! traps shut, bolted, dumfounded, transposed, agog with excitement!.. prostrated at the prodigious spectacle of the fragilities of landing, of the subtle miracle!. the big bundle of packing falls right on the dot! on the dock! ropes taut! groans stop! grind crush, between port and dock. Let us pray! O what a moment! A tiny click! a thread too much! a bellyful of boat busts!. O Ship!. anyone not left breathless. just looking at it. is a dirty slut of a dungy cow’s ass! dead and done for! to drown without a gulp! pronto! not in the waves he blasphemes, but under immensities of crap, a hundred thousand truckloads of dull piss! That’s it! Song without words!
"Shame upon him! Shame upon his accursed ill-begotten henchmen!. May the Door close forever upon that vomit! Scandal in the Seamen’s Palace! A mess to the mutts! ”
You said it! This way! I’ll go first..
Let’s make it snappy!. Shake a leg! Two more blind alleys, a completely deserted market. and then the rubble of a fire. and then a tiny little square, a lamppost right in the middle, three putrid houses, ought to be torn right down, another that still holds its own, it’s the North Pole Shop where Tom Tackett would take my pennies, he used to hold them for me day after day, weeks when I used to do little odd jobs here and there.. on the Docks, easy chores because of my arm, my leg. At the sideshows with Boro in order to pick up a few cents for necessities… a couple of shirts, pair of new soles, a wool sweater. Tom Tackett, foresight itself, he had everything in his shop, he’d hold my dough for me, I wouldn’t have kept anything by myself, I’d draw a little at the end of the month. "Ship Chandlers,” that was his game, everything for the sailor, everything the crew needs, and the captain. Jackknives, all sorts of boots, and lanterns, flares of all colors, and then gamy smoked meat and pickling brine that sticks in the memory, that I haven’t digested yet.
I’m doddering around like an old bumblebee, I’m all tangled up in the air, Ah sees it, I ain’t tellin’ things in the right order, what about it! You’ll excuse me somewhat, kidding about my memories, digressing from rhyme to reason, jabbering away about my friends instead of showing you around!.. Let’s go! and let’s keep going!. Let me show you around nicely.. straying neither right nor left!.. Let s bear northwest right off!.. We’ll follow the walls of the Temple.. "The Disciples and the Anabaptist,” the Temple all yellow inside its railings, the bells chime only Sundays and no great shakes! just three-four strokes!.. Here around the big lot all green and black..
A puddly stretch of white and pink jerseys. where it’s the color that’s pretty.. Some of them all blue or all purple.. the Poplar team for instance. gets them excited easy. The wad-chewing fans boo the enemy team, bad going and they get sore! And then come bloody brawls all because of a little lost ball!. Like I tell ya!. It ends in a slaughter for a contested place kick. There’s dirty playing, sorehead sport, specially the Italians, who’re cocks o’ the walk in all the pubs from Limehouse to Poplar. a clan playing on the team, tribefuls of them sweating away on West Docks. A population that’s carried away… It served another purpose too, the slimy Anabaptist lot. We buried our tubes of opium in its mounds, in the ratholes, the cane boxes, the dope from the river, the fine contraband, that the Chinese flutters back and forth at the porthole, day or night. Fffftt!. It’s gone!. The boat slips gently off.. almost to a stop.. veers at the lock.. the pilot fools around with his dial. "Ding! Dang! Derang! Dong!..” A second!. A breath!. Box hits the water! Plunk!. Spray! Dope overboard!. Get it back!. At first I didn’t feel a damned thing! Came close to missing it a lot of times!.. Blind as a bat!.. Yessirree! Boro’s the one who wised me up!.. He showed me the fine points of the game.. Have to heave off right on the dot. The porthole spits out. Zzpp!
.. shoots out!.. Plop! in the water!.. Courier of the Waves!
the accomplice!. the dinghy darts off!.. let ’er go.. and snap it up!. c’mon, scull ’er!. I got it!. Keep to the side! Fish out the bundle. Watch it!. go look!. Scram!