Algren at Sea

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Who Lost an American?

  NEW YORK - RAPIETTA GREENSPONGE, GIRL COUNSELOR, COMES TO MY AID

  DOWN WITH ALL HANDS - THE CRUISE OF THE SS MEYER DAVIS

  THE BANJAXED LAND - YOU HAVE YOUR PEOPLE AND I HAVE MINE

  THE SOUTH OF ENGLAND - THEY WALKED LIKE CATS THAT CIRCLE AND COME BACK

  PARIS - THEY’RE HIDING THE HAM ON THE PINBALL KING or SOME CAME STUMBLING

  BARCELONA - THE BRIGHT ENORMOUS MORNING

  ALMERÍA - SHOW ME A GYPSY AND I’LL SHOW YOU A NUT

  SEVILLE - THE PESETA WITH THE HOLE IN THE MIDDLE

  CRETE - THERE’S LOTS OF CRAZY STUFF IN THE OCEAN

  ISTANBUL - WHEN A MUSLIM MAKES HIS VIOLIN CRY, HEAD FOR THE DOOR

  CHICAGO I - THE NIGHT-COLORED RIDER

  CHICAGO II - IF YOU GOT THE BREAD YOU WALK

  CHICAGO III - IF I CAN’T SELL IT I’LL KEEP SETTIN’ ON IT; I JEST WON’T GIVE IT ...

  CHICAGO IV - THE IRISHMAN IN THE GROTTO, THE MAN IN THE IRON SUIT, AND THE GIRL ...

  EPILOGUE - Tricks Out of Times Long Gone

  Notes from a Sea Diary - Hemingway All the Way

  PREFATORY

  JUNE 21, 1962 - TWO HOURS OUT OF THE PORT OF SEATTLE

  JUNE 27TH - LIONS, LIONESSES, DEADBONE CRUNCHERS

  JUNE 29TH - EAST CHINA SEA: WE DIDN’T COME TO GAMBLE.

  JULY 1ST - 472 CHO-RYANG-DONG: A PARLOR ONCE PURPLE NOW FADED TO ROSE

  JULY 4TH - EAST CHINA SEA

  JULY 6TH - SOUTH CHINA SEA, TWO DAYS FROM THE PORT OF HONGKONG. DINGDING, ...

  JULY 9TH - CONCANNON GETS THE SHIP IN TROUBLE or ASSY-END UP ON HO-PHANG ROAD

  JULY 13TH - INDIAN OCEAN: “I CAN SEE YOU HAVE BEEN WOUNDED”

  JULY 14TH - RAFTS OF A SUMMER NIGHT

  JULY 15TH - ARABIAN SEA

  Port of Bombay

  JULY 15TH: PORT OF BOMBAY - II. KAMATHIPURA

  JULY 17TH: PORT OF BOMBAY - III.KALYANI-OF-THE-FOUR-HUNDRED

  CAGE I

  CAGE 2

  CAGE 3

  CAGE 4

  CAGE 5

  CAGE 6

  CAGE 7

  CAGE 8

  CAGE 9

  CAGE 10

  CAGE II

  CAGE 12

  CAGE 13

  CAGE 14

  CAGE 15

  CAGE 16

  CAGE 17

  CAGE 18

  JULY 22ND - ARABIAN SEA

  Night in the Gardens of Horn & Hardart

  II. HEMINGWAY HIMSELF

  III. THE REAL THING IN KITSCH

  JULY 25TH - BAY OF BENGAL

  The Quais of Calcutta

  KANANI MANSIONS

  EPILOGUE

  Copyright Page

  Who Lost an American?

  For Simone de Beauvoir

  The author wishes to thank the following publications for permission to reprint articles: “Rapietta Greensponge, Girl Counselor, Comes to My Aid,” first published in Harlequin under the title “Whobody Knows My Name or How to Be a Freedom-Rider Without Leaving Town.” “The South of England,” “The Banjaxed Land: You Have Your People and I Have Mine” (under the title “You Have Your People and I Have Mine”), and “There’s Lots of Crazy Stuff in the Ocean” (under the title “The Moon of King Minos”) were first published in Rogue; the poem on pages 77-78 was first published in Rogue, under the title “The Bride Below the Black Coiffure”; © Rogue Magazine/Greenleaf Publishing Company 1961. “Barcelona: The Bright Enormous Morning” and “Seville: The Peseta with the Hole in the Middle” appeared originally in The Kenyon Review, under the title “The Peseta with the Hole in the Middle.” “The Night-Colored Rider” originally appeared in Playboy, under the title “The Father & Son Cigar”; © 1962 by Nelson Algren. “Down With All Hands” was first published in The Atlantic Monthly. “They’re Hiding the Ham on the Pinball King” was first published in Contact. “When a Muslim Makes His Violin Cry, Head for the Door” was first published in Nugget Magazine. “Almeria: Show Me a Gypsy and I’ll Show You a Nut” was first published under the title “Dad Among the Troglodites or, Show Me a Gypsy and I’ll Show You a Nut” in The Noble Savage, No. 5, a Meridian periodical, published by The World Publishing Company, 1962.

  Permission to quote from the following publications has been granted by the publishers: “Cocktails for Two” by Arthur Johnston and Sam Coslow, © 1934 by Famous Music Corporation; copyright renewed 1961 by Famous Music Corporation. Passage from Green Hills of Africa reprinted with the permission of Charles Scribner’s Sons from Green Hills Of Africa by Ernest Hemingway, copyright 1935 Charles Scribner’s Sons. Selection from “An Impolite Interview with Hugh Hefner,” in The Realist, May 1961. Excerpt (page 54) from Borstal Boy by Brendan Behan, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. “Tricks Out of Times Long Gone” by Nelson Algren first appeared in The Nation, September 1962. Excerpts from “Playboy’s Number One Playboy” by Peter Meyerson, Pageant. Excerpt from The Hive by Camilo Cela, Farrar, Straus and Company, Inc. Excerpt from Chicago Sun-Times reprinted with permission.

  NEW YORK

  RAPIETTA GREENSPONGE, GIRL COUNSELOR, COMES TO MY AID

  When I recall today what a mark I must have appeared, before Rapietta came to my rescue, I have to smile. It’s a wonder somebody didn’t take me for a fool.

  Legally speaking I have held my own ground ever since. The house that stands on the ground is, of course, in Rapietta’s name—but what house by the side of any road could have found a better friend to Man? Bless the day, I say, when first I shook the firm small hand of Rapietta Greensponge, Courageous Counselor: Bless that hour.

  “Are you putting that expression on to match the style of your shoes or is it real?” Rapietta inquired of me with a forthright smile, when I first appeared in the offices of Doubledge Deadsinch & O’Lovingly, shaking my hand forthrightly.

  “The expression is as completely my own as the shoes,” I assured her, referring to the ankle-high white sneakers I had earned, some years before, by making a bet on a Cuban middleweight. Naturally I call them my Ked Gavilans.

  “I don’t believe it,” she told me, “but if you can hold it, we’ll bury them.”

  “Might I ask whom we may be burying, ma’am?” I inquired, watching my grammar as this was my first visit to New York.

  Rapietta tiptoed to the door, opened it softly, peered down the corridor, closed it as softly, and tiptoed back to confide in me.

  “The jackals who are trying to take advantage of you, my friend.”

  I tiptoed to the door, opened it softly, and peered down the corridor. Sure enough, the jackals had gone into hiding.

  “Any jury with eyes in its head can see advantage is being taken of you by somebody, so it must be them,” she revealed. It was the first time I had seen the judicial mind at work.

  “In event of a bench trial before a blind judge,” she explained, making allowances for the fact that I was only a layman, “we’ll demand a change of venue.”

  It was during my first change of venue that an Indiana sheriff led a motorbike posse to my door and read an eviction notice aloud to me. I did not ask him to let me read it myself as there was not a moment to lose. Excusing myself, I rolled my stamp collection into my G.I. blanket, mounted my British lightweight bicycle made in Duesseldorf and, with the cry of “Sink the Bismarck!” broke through the cordon and sped swiftly down the Indiana Turnpike till I came to a tollway. There I abandoned the bike and made my way on foot to Chicago’s West Side.

  Quick thinking had thus salvaged several valuable items as well as a portion of my dignity.

  When the weather turned cold the hallway in which I had taken refuge, pending word from Rapietta, developed a draft. I didn’t mind walking up and down swinging my ar
ms until dawn; but when the weather turned icy I began to slip on the frost. I bumped my head just once too often. The suspicion then came upon me that either advantage had somehow been taken of me once more or the hallway was too small for sleeping purposes.

  Reluctant as I was to get a representative of law and order into trouble I determined, nonetheless, to advise Rapietta of my situation. I set out for the Eastern Seaboard with my Eastern-Seaboard-English dictionary under my arm.

  Exchanging cheerful handwaves with motorists along the Pennsylvania Turnpike was jolly fun, particularly when a light snow was falling. Then I could pelt merry fellows driving to town. One fellow got into the spirit of the thing so well that he stopped and invited me to ride beside him.

  I accepted readily and was about to thank him when he struck me with a rubber gearshift handle with great force and pushed me into a snow-bank. As I didn’t wish to make a nuisance of myself around a clinic, I waited until the blood from the gash had coagulated before setting out once more.

  Don’t throw bouquets at me

  Don’t laugh at my jokes too much—

  Six days later I was riding through the Holland Tunnel singing and in no time at all I was opening the door of Doubledge Deadsinch & O’Lovingly. I simply could not remember to knock.

  Rapietta Greensponge was with a hearty fellow who looked so familiar to me that I felt I must have encountered him somewhere before.

  “Three guesses,” The Hearty Fellow offered, causing me to warm to him. Nobody enjoys playing “Guess Whom” more than I. I guess I’d rather play “Guess Whom” than ride a passenger train.

  “Only offer him two,” Rapietta counseled him. I gathered he was her client as well as myself. We already had something in common.

  “I don’t need three!” I boasted, “I can guess in one—Have you been in a Bwoadway Pwoduction wecently?” I asked The Hearty Fellow, cleverly emulating Mr. Bennett Surface.

  “No,” he confessed, falling into my twap.

  “Then you are Zewo Mothtell!”

  “You’re getting warmer,” my new friend assured me.

  “Come on, give us a clue, kid,” I cajoled him, for he was a regular fellow.

  He turned back the lapel of his coat and revealed a sheriff ’s badge.

  “Duke Wayne!” I cried.

  “You’re getting even warmer,” was my hearty friend’s hearty response.

  “No more guesses,” Rapietta cautioned, “he’s really getting warm.”

  “Oh, tell anyhow,” I pleaded.

  “Next time I see you,” my mysterious friend promised as he shook my hand, and left.

  “Wemember—you pwomised!” I called gaily after him. Then I became my old thoughtful self.

  I told Rapietta how I had been evicted and had saved myself by quick thinking and the cry of “Sink the Bismarck!”

  “Where is the bicycle now?” she inquired.

  “I traded it to a tollgate guard on the Indiana Tollway for an extra pair of Ked Gavilans. He won his by betting on Chuck Davey.”

  “You’re putting me on,” Rapietta told me, waggling a finger playfully at me.

  “I needed them to keep my feet dry,” I explained, “in event it rained on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Last time it snowed and I got a gash on my forehead.”

  Rapietta’s admiration gleamed in her eyes but there was no time for that. Wasting no time in useless indignation, she handed me a document prepared for the contingency we now faced.

  I read it swiftly and had to protest.

  Passing ownership of the house to herself was a shrewd legal stroke—but what was to become of my stamp collection? Even now it might be endangered by another motorbike posse. I demanded that Rapietta assume guardianship of it lest it be seized as I slept. My clever demand put her on the defensive.

  “I can only assume guardianship in perpetuity,” she dickered. I snatched the papers and signed them before she could change her mind, and once more we had eluded my pursuers.

  “What does ‘in perpetuity’ mean, Rapietta?” I inquired later.

  “It means that your stamp collection is now protected forever by a little somebody,” she assured me modestly.

  “Then that was a neat ruse,” I boasted.

  “It certainly was,” Rapietta agreed generously, “and half the credit belongs to you.” She emphasized this by tapping the top button of my weskit with her forefinger.

  The honor of the thing fired my ambition. “What do I do next?” I asked eagerly, jumping in and out of my sneakers. “How am I to get full credit for something?”

  Rapietta put her hands on my shoulders to calm me.

  “Bring five hundred in small bills to my apartment after twelve,” she advised me; “we are facing a new contingency.”

  “Then we will have our first lunch together!” I realized.

  “Twelve midnight, you wild thing,” she taunted me gently while shoving me with her powerful forearms into the spick-and-span corridor of Doubledge Deadsinch & O’Lovingly, Selfless Solicitors—“and bring your toothbrush so we can both get some sleep.”

  Rapietta slammed the door softly in my face. Little did the innocent creature fancy that at that very moment my G.I. toothbrush was hanging about my neck cleverly concealed by my collar. For, since suffering the theft of my Dr. West’s in the 178th Field Artillery I have never been able to bring myself to hang it up in a civilian bathroom. Needless to say I was honorably discharged. So much for World War I.

  Shortly after midnight the contingency Rapietta was facing came to a head.

  “What do I do now?” I asked sleepily, for it had been a trying day.

  “Hit the road by the backstair,” she explained, “and write me par avion.” And slipping into sleep as easily as she had slipped into French, the dear girl began snoring noisily.

  Swiftly translating her message into my mother tongue, I hurried down the stair and picked my way through Central Park in search of a friendly drugstore where I might purchase a par avion stamp. A friendly officer interceded, inquiring why I might be walking barefooty in New York after the sun had set. Although I had noticed that the streetlamps were lit, I hadn’t noticed that I’d forgotten my shoes. Thanking the officer courteously, I hurried back to Rapietta’s to recover them.

  She did not answer my knock. But when one of my Ked Gavilans came through the transom I concluded she must therefore be half awake, and knocked again.

  The second shoe caused me to wonder whether it were Rapietta throwing, as the shoe that came through this time was a size 13 British walker. It made a snug fit.

  I peered through the keyhole in order to see why Rapietta was getting her footwear confused with mine, and sure enough, she was wide-awake. Never a man to spoil somebody else’s good time, I withdrew tippytoe.

  Returning across the Pennsylvania Turnpike, however, I didn’t make as good time as I had in coming because the walker has a higher heel than a sneaker, which has no heel at all.

  My spirits picked up on the Indiana Tollway, and I began striding along while humming contentedlyI’m a Dingdong Daddy from Dumas

  ’n you oughta see me do my stuff.

  I was first in line at the General Delivery window in Chicago the following morning. My reward was a night wire from New York.

  Had something gone wrong in the week I’d been gone? I opened the wire with apprehension. Sure enough, it was from Rapietta:TIDE HAS TURNED STOP WE HAVE JACKALS CORNERED

  Western Union had italicized a telegram for me! It was my first time.

  I wired back:MISS YOU STOP COMING BACK TO HELP CORNER JACKALS

  By taking a shortcut through Grant Park I reached the monument to Stephen A. Douglas on Twenty-ninth and the lake by noon. Bundling my clothes neatly, with my oddly matched shoes inside to keep them dry, I struck out into the lake at Thirty-first and came up, dripping but happy, on a sand-bar only a quarter-mile offshore just as day was breaking the following morning. Now all I had to do was find the Indiana Tollway in order to make the Pennsyl
vania Turnpike so I could again negotiate the Holland Tunnel. I so much wanted to see Doubledge Deadsinch and O’Lovingly once again.

  A motorist driving a Bentley with a Nassau, Bahamas, license, picked me up at Harrisburg and made me get out in front of the Shredded Wheat plant at Niagara Falls. After admiring the colored lights on the falls while eating a Shredded Wheat biscuit somebody had discarded on the grass, I was once again on my way. In no time at all I was striding cheerfully along the Palisades, humming:In some secluded rendevous

  That overlooks the avenue

  With cocktails for two

  As we enjoy a cigarette

  To some exquisite chansonette

  My head may go reeling

  But my heart will be obedient

  Most any afternoon at five

  We’ll be so glad we’re both alive

  It may be fortune will complete her plan

  That all began

  With cocktails for two

  until I reached the offices I loved so well.

  “Tie a rubber band around it and toss it through the transom, Needlenose,” Rapietta’s voice instructed me from within.

  Nobody had ever called me Needlenose before.

  It was my first time again.

  “I don’t have a rubber band,” I explained through the door. After looking carefully about to see whether I’d brought somebody along.

  “Use your shoelace!” she instructed me.

  “Which shoe?” I countered.

  “The longest!”

  I had a problem: my laces were of equal length. Quickly solving this puzzler by cutting one short and using the other, I called—“Ready!—What I do wrap it around?”

  “The bankroll, Melonhead.”

  “I don’t have a bankroll, Rapietta.”

  “Oh,” I heard her mutter, “it’s him,” and she opened the door. “I was expecting a Britisher named Walker,” she explained. “What the hell do you want?”

  “I felt we should be together while the tide was turning, dear,” I explained.