by Paul Henke
‘Yes and do what? Tell me that,’ Mam said in a more reasonable voice.
‘Anything that isn’t academic. Anything that doesn’t involve books and the law and writing and clients. Just anything I feel like, okay?’ I said more belligerently than I intended.
‘What will you do about money? I thought you put every penny into the business,’ Dad said.
‘I put in all I had left from Uncle James’ legacy. The same as Sion, in fact. But I’ve been working long enough and I’ve saved some of what I’ve earned. Altogether I have just over a thousand dollars. More than enough to live on, in fact live very well. Which is why I’m taking tomorrow’s ferry for New Orleans.’
That night I pulled out my old atlas. Battered and torn I remembered the many hours I’d spent in Llanbeddas day dreaming about America and travelling the world. I thought of Sian and wondered what she would be like if she were alive today. One day I’d go back.
There was no more argument and they all came to see me off the next day. Gunhild didn’t appear and when the hooter sounded and we cast off I had a heavy heart, standing alone at the rail, waving goodbye. It was irrational because I did not intend being away for very long.
I had a few drinks in the saloon followed by a tough steak which I helped down with a bottle of red, vinegary wine, supposedly all the way from France. After a few more large brandies, more than a little drunk, I went to find my cabin.
It was one deck down, decorated with a floral wallpaper, and had room for a single bed, a wardrobe and behind a curtain, a tub. The tub was filled and emptied by an old and wizened black man, who said his name was Moses. He told me he looked after a dozen cabins on the deck and his duties included cleaning, making the beds, putting away clothes, seeing to the bath, shining shoes, pressing clothes and a few more jobs I did not quite catch. I was sitting on the edge of the bed and when I leaned back was almost instantly asleep. I guess another of his jobs was to remove boots.
I felt more than a bit lonely to start with. The Mississippi is a big, wide and muddy river, and also a busy one. There were always boats and barges moving up and down, though they kept clear of the deep draught, paddle-wheel boats which sailed like Queen Dowagers along the deeper water channels, imperiously clearing the smaller fry away from their path. It took two weeks to get to New Orleans where I walked disconsolately down the gangplank and on to the wharf. There was so much happening, so much excitement in the air, that I optimistically went to look for a quiet hotel not too far from the waterfront.
I found a place, a kind of poor carpetbagger’s hotel, as I described it in a letter to Gunhild. It had two floors with six bedrooms, a communal bathroom at one end and served food which was renowned for its mediocrity. After two dinners there I had learned my lesson, and from then on I went to different taverns and inns around the town, mostly down by the water front. I was advised by the hotel owner that I was going to a rough area. I told him I would rather take my chances with the unknown of the waterfront, than risk the certainty of food poisoning. After that he never spoke to me except coldly to say good-day when he gave me my room key. He was right of course. Some of the places were not suitable for me to enter and it might have been bravado that made me visit them. Looking back I think it was more akin to stupidity. Smooth talk and a generous buying of drinks usually calmed any potential antagonists. Some of the stories those men had to tell were incredible. Most of them were seamen sailing to Africa, Britain, or the Far East. From one week to the next nobody knew who was going to be in any bar. They came and they went, and the ones who replaced them were like the ones who had gone and so the same people seemed to stay forever.
The truth was that apart from sitting in those foulsmelling, smoke filled rooms for an evening and often staying there until the dawn I did nothing. In spite of missing Gunhild I was not tempted by the painted prostitutes who solicited me for my trade and they soon learned to leave me alone. I had been there for two months when, very drunk one night, I made up my mind to take a ship to Africa, working my passage and returning six months later. The next day I changed my mind when I learned more about how much I would be paid and the sort of conditions I would have to live and work under. It scared me silly.
I was in one particular den called the ‘Gut to Throaters’ when I met Jake Kirkpatrick. He was a big, scrawny man with huge hands like shovels and a lopsided grin. He looked as though he found the human race an object of derision. Only when I met him he was not smiling. What happened was that I, minding my own business as usual, got to the bar and ordered a dark rum and a beer. The Gut to Throaters was a long, low room in the basement of a whore house. One wall was taken up with a bar running the whole length with three sweat stained men behind trying to cure the thirst of half a hundred or so seamen. If there was any decor it could not be seen through the smoke and gloom of the hanging lamps. Tables, chairs and men packed the place, with about a dozen women, who from the frequency with which they were going through the back door were doing a brisk trade. It fascinated me the time they took. So far the quickest had been a young lad who was out and back in three and a half minutes. From his smirk when he returned he had not been disappointed, though I did wonder what she had done in such a short time. I never did find out.
I was minding my own business and looking the place over, sipping my drinks, one in each hand, when this drunken oaf knocked into me and sent the glasses flying to the floor.
‘Careful,’ I yelled over the din, putting a steadying hand out to him. I had lost many a drink that way and I expected to lose a lot more. It was the price paid for being in such a dump.
The man turned to face me. He was about six inches taller, broad and had a huge fat gut hanging over his belt like a roll of whale’s blubber. ‘Whar yer say?’ he scowled at me.
‘Nothing,’ I yelled back. ‘Let me get you a drink,’ I offered. I could see that he was spoiling for a fight. I turned and yelled for a barman. It was inevitable that I would meet a man who could not be bought off with a drink, or turned easily from his purpose, which, in this case, was to murder me, or at least cripple me. So it was not totally unexpected when he caught hold of my shoulder and swung me around. His arm was back and his fist clenched to knock me into next week, which he would have done if he had connected. Not only did I duck but as the momentum of his swing brought him staggering closer I hit him with all my strength in his fat belly. I could not believe it. I had spent years playing football, was still pretty fit and I knew I had muscle when I needed it. My fist sank in like it was dough and he hardly blinked. Perhaps he had taken on so much alcohol he was immune to pain. I only knew I suddenly wished one of two things. The first that I was somewhere else, or the second that I too, was immune.
I followed up my first blow with a second, aimed roughly at the same spot. The effect was the same. I stepped back hastily, realising he had recovered from his first swipe at me and was steadying himself for another. I then encountered a further problem. It was so packed there was not room to step back anywhere. His left hand was about to close over my shirt front and haul me to meet his swinging fist when I caught his wrist, swung him around and pushed him as hard as I could, my foot up his backside.
40
He went sprawling into a group of equally drunk men and for the first time others began to take notice of what was happening. I wish they had not bothered, because all it meant was they yelled, pushed each other into a rough circle with me and fatso in the middle and screamed for blood – my blood. I had hoped to be able to push my way through the crowd before fatso recovered but now there was no chance.
There were cries of ‘Gut him Eric,’ ‘Slice his balls off,’ ‘Cut his throat,’ and other similar expressions, all of which scared me to death.
One thing I had learned from football, in which my speciality had been place kicking, was the follow through. We had been taught to kick as though what mattered was the top of the trajectory of the foot, and the fact we contacted a ball mid-way was incidental. I couldn’t b
eat this oaf with my fists, of that I had no doubt. If he was as impervious to a kick as he was to a blow in the guts then I could say goodbye to life. I did not wait for him to come to me. I moved in to get the range right. I put more behind that kick than I ever did at university, even when going for a match kick.
He did not scream. I don’t think he could. He went a sort of puce and green colour and collapsed in a heap on the ground, his hands clutched in front of him. There was a sort of stunned silence while the knowledge that their champion had been defeated sunk into their pickled brains. Then the clamour started and, contrary to my expectation, they did not acclaim me but howled for my blood. Before I could do more than blink, a swarthy fellow, a bit shorter than me, with bow legs and an earring, stepped into the circle and faced me. The crowd clapped and cheered.
While they dragged the fat man unceremoniously out of the way the man said: ‘Mo’sieur, he was my friend. I shall take his place.’
‘I don’t have any quarrel with you,’ I replied and turned my back on him. The trouble was there was nowhere to go. The sea of faces before me was not going to let me out. Resignedly I turned back. That was when he produced a wicked looking knife and held it in front of him in a way that convinced me he knew how to use it.
‘That’s it Frenchy, give the ponce what for,’ said a voice. More yelled similar lines of encouragement. None were directed at me.
Now I was really scared. Frenchy looked sober whereas the fat man had been so drunk he could hardly stand. Frenchy also knew I could use my feet to good effect, so I would not have much chance to do that again. I did the only thing I could think of. I backed away. Those behind gave a little and a few more paces I realised why. I stopped at the bar.
I had made up my mind to jump the bar and make for the back door, the one the whores used, when another man intervened.
‘That’ll do Frenchy,’ he said in a quiet voice. ‘Leave him be. He ain’t done you no harm. So leave it.’
‘Aww, c’mon Jake,’ Frenchy whined. ‘Just let’s us have a bit of fun, that’s all. He ain’t not’ing but a dude what got no rite in zis bar.’
‘Maybe, but leave it. If you don’t, you can try taking me on.’
There were a number of loud protests but no one person was heard above the rest.
‘None of you liked Fat Hugh. He’s had that coming for a long time and you all know it. You,’ he pointed at me, ‘come here.’
Fearing another trick I didn’t move but braced myself for my play.
‘Don’t jump the bar sonny,’ he said. ‘You won’t stand a chance. But you will if you come here and follow me out.’ He suddenly clamped his hand over Frenchy’s wrist and effortlessly squeezed. Frenchy’s eyes popped and the knife clattered to the floor.
I had no choice: I went with him. Following him, a path opened up like the Red Sea rolling back for Moses, and in an atmosphere of hostility, expecting a knife in my back any second, we climbed the stone steps and into the fog laden night.
We walked a few yards in silence and then my rescuer said, ‘I leave you here. I go this way. If I was you I wouldn’t go down there again. The Gut to Throaters isn’t a place for the likes of you.’
‘Hey look, let my buy you a drink and say thank you. That’s the least I can do. Come on man, I probably owe you my life,’ I took hold of his arm. ‘Come on. It isn’t every day a man gets to thank somebody for his life. You pick the spot and I’ll buy the best drink money can buy.’
He hesitated a moment and then gave his lop-sided grin. ‘Hell, why not? It’s an offer to drown my sorrows in and I won’t have another chance.’
‘Good. Where shall we go?’
‘You did mean it about the best money could buy?’
‘Sure,’ I said in an expansive frame of mind.
‘Okay, let’s go to the Carlton.’
‘Eh, eh . . . okay. Except we aren’t exactly dressed right for the Carlton.’ It was the smartest, best and most expensive place in New Orleans and that was saying some.
‘Don’t worry about that,’ he replied. ‘There’s a back bar where no mind is paid to the way you look, only to the colour of your money.’
I followed him in silence. We went past the imposing entrance to the best known hotel in the Southern States and through a side door. We descended a short flight of steps, Jake knocked on a door, an eye appeared at a spy hole, Jake murmured something and we entered. It was a cellar, I presumed part of the hotel, with a small bar, a few tables and chairs and not too many patrons.
‘Smiley, give us a bottle of best French and two Champagne,’ said my companion to the dour faced man behind the bar. The man looked at me quizzically. ‘He’s all right – have I ever let you down before?’ With a shrug Smiley turned to get our drinks. Twenty dollars was expensive but under the circumstances I didn’t mind.
‘My name is David Griffiths,’ I held out my hand.
‘Jake Kirkpatrick,’ he replied, shaking my hand. ‘Let’s grab a table.’ He led me to a corner and we sat down.
‘What is this place?’ I asked.
‘It’s a part of the Carlton, like I told you. Here the drinks are exactly what you can buy upstairs, a lot cheaper and with no fancy frills,’ he paused. ‘Also it’s run by the management but the owners don’t see the profits, if you get my meaning.’
I got his meaning.
Smiley thumped the bottles and cut glass tumblers in front of us with a frown in response to my thanks.
Jake mixed brandy and Champagne in equal amounts, filling the glasses to the brim. ‘Cheers,’ he said, lifted the glass and drained it. I tentatively sipped mine and looked at him in awe. ‘I intend getting blind, legless drunk and when they sweep me out I shall wake up in the gutter sometime tomorrow and remember you made it possible,’ he grinned humourlessly.
I shrugged and tried a mouthful. I half choked, much to his amusement. After a few more tries it seemed to slip down easier, though I can’t claim to have kept pace with Jake. At some stage I passed out.
When I did come to a hundred little men were inside my head trying to get out. The world about me was creaking and moving in a most peculiar manner and I felt sicker than I could remember. I think I groaned.
‘You’re alive,’ somebody said in a cheerful tone. I opened my eyes the smallest fraction and tried to identify the person. It took a few moments. Jake somebody or other. It took a few more seconds to recollect the night before but no matter how I tried I could not remember anything after we arrived at the Carlton. The secret bar I told myself, pleased I could remember that much. I croaked and then tried again. ‘Where am I?’ I managed with some effort. ‘Christ, I feel sick.’
‘Feel free. I no longer own her so puke to your hearts content.’ He spoke with a great deal of bitterness.
Somehow I sat up, holding my head tightly to prevent it falling off. I looked about me and then closed my eyes quickly.
‘Is this a boat?’ I asked with what I thought was inordinate intelligence considering my condition.
‘Yep, that’s right. The Lucky Lady. Registered New Orleans and stolen from me by legal shenanigans. The bastards.’
‘If it was legal then it wasn’t stealing,’ I defended the law.
‘It was stolen – but I don’t know how, by a fast, smart talking lawyer,’ he paused. ‘I’ll make you a coffee. You’ll have time to drink it before the Sheriff gets here and throws us off.’
The coffee was strong and bitter but not destined to stay in my stomach. I just made it up top when I vomited. Another coffee and the room stopped spinning, a third and I could think, after a fashion. ‘Why are you having the boat taken off you?’ I asked, finally.
He shrugged. ‘All I know was that after I thought I’d made my last payment the deputy came here, said I had to appear in court and gave me a paper. I didn’t know what was going on so I went thinking there was a mistake. When I got there I was told I still owed another payment and as I hadn’t paid the boat was forfeited. I kicked up hell and asked for m
ore time but it didn’t get me anywhere. So now I lose her.’
‘Didn’t you get a lawyer to help?’
‘What good is a smart-arsed lawyer? All it would have meant was more bills. And anyway I had to pay the money to one of the biggest lawyers in town – so I supposed he knew the law all right.’
‘Didn’t it occur to you he might have been using the law to his own ends?’ I asked, irritated with such stupidity.
He shrugged. ‘I guess it did occur to me but I didn’t have a brass nickel to do anything about it. Anyway, there wouldn’t be anybody in this town that would buck him.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Neil Guinn.’
I nodded in understanding. I had seen and heard his name around; it seemed that he was one of the biggest and sharpest lawyers in the State, if not in a lot of states.
‘Didn’t anybody tell you that you had another instalment to make?’
‘A what?’ Jake asked, sipping his scalding hot and hair curling strong coffee.
‘Didn’t anybody tell you there was another payment to make?’
‘No, they didn’t,’ he thought for a moment. ‘I only heard, when I got to court.’
‘Hmm, I see. Look, something isn’t right about all this. I don’t deny you may owe money but the way things have happened it seems to me you’re being taken for a ride.’
‘What would you know about it?’
‘I, em, I’m a lawyer myself.’
I did not see what was so funny. I think it must have been my indignant look that stopped him sufficiently to ask, ‘Are you joking?’
‘No, I’m damned well not,’ I retorted with some heat.
He picked up my hands and looked at them critically. ‘I saw last night you weren’t used to hard work.’
‘Believe me it’s just as hard to work with your brains as it is with your brawn,’ I replied acidly.