The Wounded and the Slain Page 6

  The taxi driver was leaning against the battered fender of a very old Austin. As Bevan approached, the taxi driver moved and blocked his path and said, “Where you go, mon?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Bevan said, standing there and waiting for the Jamaican to step aside. “I wouldn’t have the least idea.”

  The taxi driver said, “You looking for.

  “I don’t know what I’m looking for,” Bevan said, addressing the statement to no one in particular.

  “Perhaps I can be of aid.” The Jamaican’s dark face was solemn.

  “I doubt it,” Bevan murmured, gazing past him. “I seriously doubt it.”

  “What hotel you stay at?”

  Bevan looked at him. “For Christ’s sake— Oh, all right, the Laurel Rock. So what?”

  “Believe me, mon, you have a long walk. De distance is certainly not for walking. If you permit, I will drive you to de Laurel Rock.”

  “I can walk it,” Bevan said vaguely. “I like to walk.”

  “Believe me, mon, dat is not de point. De point is”—the Jamaican aimed a forefinger at the darkening sky—“it is getting late.”

  Bevan smiled dimly. “You’re right about that.” The way he said it, it had no connection with the hour of the day. His voice was almost inaudible as he said. “You’re so right.”

  The Jamaican frowned slightly, detecting something odd in the man’s tone, the man’s eyes. But of course the important thing was the fare, and he went on with the sales talk. “Believe me, mon, dis vicinity is not safe for a tourist after dark. Many bandits and treacherous people about.”

  “Really bad?” Bevan smiled.

  The taxi driver nodded solemnly. “Bad, mon.”

  “That’s fine,” Bevan said. “I’d like to meet them. I’m a rotten apple myself.”

  The taxi driver gave him a side glance. “Excuse me, mon. You are perhaps joking wid me?”

  “I couldn’t be more serious.”

  For some moments the Jamaican was quiet. He was wondering how to handle this problem. It was definitely a problem; he had the feeling he was dealing with something very much out of the ordinary.

  Bevan was saying, “All right, Roscoe. Take me for a ride.”

  “To de Laurel Rock?”

  “No,” Bevan said. “Away from the Laurel Rock. As far away as I can get.”

  Without sound the Jamaican said, I think this one is crazy and the practical thing for me to do is leave him alone. I am never comfortable around crazy people.

  “Tell you what,” Bevan said. “Take me back to Hallihan’s.”

  “Hallihan’s?”

  “It’s only a short ride,” Bevan said. His voice fell off and became a low groan. “It’s at Fiftieth Street and Tenth Avenue.”

  The taxi driver played with that one for a moment, couldn’t do anything with it, and finally said, “Do you know where you are? You are in Kingston, Jamaica.”

  “Correction.” Bevan grinned at him. “I’m located exactly three miles south of nowhere.”

  The Jamaican decided he’d had enough. He stepped aside, walked quickly to the parked Austin, climbed in, and started the engine.

  Bevan stood gazing at the little old car as it chugged away. The grin was fading from his lips and he was saying aloud, “Nobody cares.” And then, with a shrug, “Well, why the hell should they?”

  He glanced around, looking for any sign that offered drinks for sale.

  There were no such signs in the immediate vicinity. He didn’t know what street he was on. It was a quiet street and it was empty of people. He moved slowly through the stillness and the increasing darkness. There were no lamps along this street and gradually he developed a feeling of uneasiness mingled with the contented realization that this was the way it ought to be. It was a weird mixture of feelings, but of course he had no idea it was weird; he wasn’t trying to study it or measure it while it hit him. It hit him lightly, almost caressingly.

  Bevan turned a corner and found himself on Barry Street.

  o o o o o

  Barry is a somewhat narrow thoroughfare north of Harbour and south of Queen. These are wider streets, better paved, appearing rather prominently on the city map. Harbour Street has many retail shops in addition to warehouses and brokerage establishments, and Queen is more or less the main drag, very noisy and somewhat frolicsome at night, brightly lit with its native hotels and saloons and eateries. In comparison, Barry Street is not much more than a hungry-looking alley. The fact remains, however, that more money changes hands along Barry. It is a distribution center for a special type of commerce that can’t be advertised on the printed page or billboards.

  The late-night action along Barry Street takes place mostly in the back rooms. The majority of the customers are merchant seamen off the vessels docked in Kingston Harbor. In the dismal gray hours of early morning they come away from Barry Street with bloodshot eyes, breathing air that tastes like grease mixed with vinegar. And later, in waterfront bars throughout the globe, they advise their seagoing drinking companions, “If you ever hit Kingston, Jamaica, stay the hell away from Barry Street.”

  “Bad?”

  “Worse than bad. You’re bound to get clipped, and you’re lucky if you get out of it alive.”

  But negative publicity has a magnetic effect on most merchant seamen. It amounts to a dare, and as a group they enjoy biting at dares. And so they are lured to Barry Street, and they enter its dark stillness with chips on their shoulders, moving along with a swagger that says, Not this one, mate. This one’ll come out ahead of the game.

  And some of them do. But most of them don’t. Most of them come out with empty pockets and bleeding mouths and battered heads. Many of them come out with their hands pressed tightly against their knife-slashed ribs and bellies. And the very next time their boat docks in Kingston, they head directly for Barry Street.

  They enter the shabby splintered doorways under hand-printed signs that read, “Licensed to sell alcoholic beverages.” So in the front rooms everything is legitimate and they purchase the rum at the standard rate, sixpence or a dime for the water glass half filled. This bargain price puts considerable liquor down their throats and eventually nudges them toward the back rooms, where there is gambling or girls or perhaps nothing more than someone holding a blackjack and waiting patiently. The windup is that they’re either cheated at cards or robbed by the girls or slugged senseless. And whether they know it or not, they look for this to happen. If it doesn’t happen, they keep forcing the issue, trying to make it happen. There is a metaphysical reason that seamen in general behave this way, and it is not too difficult to probe. The oceans were made for fishes, not for two-legged creatures. So the effect of long weeks or months aboard the slow-moving freighters is like the slow burning of a fuse attached to a firecracker.

  On this night four Norwegian seamen walked into

  Winnie’s Place on Barry Street. They came in quietly and remained quiet while they took a table. Winnie gave them a quick once-over from where she stood behind the bar, and she knew they wouldn’t be quiet for long.

  She sighed inwardly. She had a headache and she was suffering from a chest cold. All day long she’d been hoping there wouldn’t be any excitement tonight. Not that she especially minded the excitement; it was the thought of cleaning up afterward that bothered her.

  She was a middle-aged spinster who had worked hard all her life and hadn’t had much fun. Her dealings with men were on the dreary side, and although she wanted to like them, they didn’t give her many openings. It was probably because of her looks. Her muscatel-colored skin was badly blemished from smallpox in childhood, and she didn’t have much of a chin. Another factor that kept her unmarried and more or less untouched was her curveless build. She was decidedly flat-fronted and flat-backed. It amounted to five feet seven and 160 pounds of rather unattractive female.

  But it didn’t bother her too much. A long time ago she’d made up her mind she wouldn’t allow it to bother her. The only thi
ng that really bothered her was this business of cleaning up after the turmoil of smashing bottles and breaking chairs and getting phlegm and blood all over the floor. She took another look at the four Norwegians and wondered how long it would be before they started something.

  In addition to the Norwegians, there were perhaps a dozen customers in the place. Three of them were Chinese cooks off a boat from Australia, and all the others were natives except for Bevan, who sat on a stool beside the window with his glass of rum on the windowsill. When he’d first come in, they’d looked at him curiously. But now he’d been here for hours and they’d got tired of wondering who he was and what he wanted in this place. They’d gradually arrived at the conclusion that whoever he was, the only thing he was after was alcohol and a lot of it.

  The Norwegians remained quiet for perhaps a quarter of an hour. Then one of them got up and came toward Winnie and said in English, “Where is the music?”

  “No music,” Winnie said. “De piccolo is broken.”

  “What piccolo? Who performs on this piccolo?”

  “De music machine,” Winnie said. “We call it de piccolo,” she explained. “It necessitates repairs and dey take it to de factory.”

  The Norwegian considered this for a few moments, came close to accepting it, then shook his head decisively and said loudly, “For sure, that is no excuse.”

  Winnie didn’t say anything. She aimed her attention past the Norwegian, focusing on the three Chinese, who were saying with their fingers that they wanted more Bed Stripe. Turning away from the Norwegian, Winnie opened the ice cabinet and was taking out three bottles of beer when he reached across the bar and put a grip on her arm. He did it quickly and it jolted her. She dropped two bottles but caught the third as it fell, her free hand holding it tightly around the neck, her free arm rigid at her side as she heard the Norwegian saying, “For sure, when I make the talk to someone, I demand the respect of being heard.”

  He tightened his grip on her arm. She stood there showing him her profile, her other arm now loose at her side. But her fingers were firm around the neck of the Red Stripe bottle.

  “And also,” the Norwegian said, “when I make the talk to someone, for sure he should look at me.”

  Winnie didn’t move. She was waiting for him to let go of her arm. He was a thickset man with very thick, strong fingers. His thumb was pressing into the vein at her elbow and it was hurting her.

  “You show me half your face,” the Norwegian said. “For sure, I want to see all your face when I make the talk to you.”

  She wanted very much to hit him with the bottle. She wasn’t the least bit angry. Actually, she felt sorry for him. His voice told her he was terrible unhappy and homesick. Besides, he was rather young, and she always had pity for the young ones far away from their homeland. But if she didn’t hit him, someone else would do it, and that would start a fracas. She was wondering technically what she could do to prevent a fracas. His thumb was pushing harder into her elbow and she decided the feasible thing to do was give in. She turned and showed him her full face and said, “Very well, mon. I listen to you.”

  “Good,” the Norwegian said. He gave an approving nod, his blue-gray eyes very cold and authoritative. “For sure, all I ask for is a reasonable quantity of politeness.”

  But he was somewhat taken away with it. He was forgetting to let go of her arm.

  One of the Jamaicans came forward and stood beside the Norwegian and said to him, “You are not so polite yourself.”

  Without looking at the Jamaican, the Norwegian said, “Get away from me, black man.”

  “What is that?” the Jamaican asked quietly, “What did you call me?”

  Before the Norwegian could answer, one of his shipmates was up from the table and moving in quickly, saying to him in the language of their country, “You are behaving badly.”

  “Keep out of this,” he said in their language. “You are behaving like an imbecile,” the other Norwegian said. He looked at the Jamaican, then at Winnie, trying to tell them with his eyes that he was ashamed of his compatriots conduct.

  The thickset Norwegian released Winnie’s arm. He turned slowly and faced his shipmate and said, “Now you have done something. For sure, you have hurt my feelings.”

  “And what is the remedy for that?” “I am not completely certain. I am trying to decide.” The two Norwegians at the table were getting up and coming toward them. And then it was getting rather crowded at the bar as several of the Jamaicans came forward. Winnie was still holding the bottle of Red Stripe at her side. She was saying, “All right, everybody. Now you go back to de tables. It is finished.”

  “What is finished?” the thickset Norwegian asked.

  “I say it is finished,” Winnie said. She spoke more loudly She raised her arm to display the bottle in her hand. “I am chairman of dis conference and I say it is finished.”

  “For sure, it is not finished,” the thickset Norwegian said. “It cannot be finished because it has not yet commenced.”

  “That is a logical statement,” a Jamaican said. “I think that is very logical.”

  “You really think so, black man?” The thickset seaman smiled. It was a leering smile, and as it came sliding off his face the other Norwegian punched him very hard in the mouth. He fell back against the Jamaican whom he had previously antagonized. The Jamaican aimed a punch at his head and missed and caught one of the other Norwegians between the eyes. So then it was started and Winnie saw a Jamaican pulling a knife from somewhere inside his shirt, and she swung the bottle in a sideward arc that ended alongside his face, the bottle breaking against his cheekbone. He dropped the knife as he went down with slivers of glass planted deep in his cheek, with the blood coming out very fast and gushing over his screeching mouth. One of the seamen leaned over to pick up the knife and a Jamaican snatched a bottle of Red Stripe lager off the bar and broke it over his head. Then some of them were scrambling to get at the knife and some were reaching for bottles on the shelf behind the bar. Among the Jamaicans certain personal animosities came to the surface and some were using their fists on each other. The thickset Norwegian was slugging head to head with the Norwegian who had called him an imbecile. While all this was happening, the three Chinese cooks were trying to make their way toward a side door that led to the alley. One of them managed to make it, and the others were blocked by the entangled combatants, some of them rolling on the floor, some of them sailing back from the impact of fists or elbows, all of them gasping and sobbing and grunting hard with the frenzied need to hit something, anything.

  On the other side of the room, Bevan had his head resting on the windowsill, his eyes half open and getting a rum-blurred close-up view of his empty glass. He heard the thudding, the banging and crashing and hammering, but the noises meant nothing to him. He was concentrating on the empty glass. It shouldn’t be empty, he was thinking. It should have some rum in it.

  He raised his head just a little and mumbled, “We’re ready for another.”

  At that moment a Jamaican was hurling a chair at another Jamaican who had owed him four shillings for several weeks and had shown no inclination to pay. The chair came sailing at the man’s head and he sidestepped gracefully. The chair continued on its way, missed Bevan’s skull by a few inches, and went crashing through the window. Bevan blinked several times and said, “I didn’t ask for that. I asked for a drink.”

  A moment later one of the Norwegians received a wallop in the face and it knocked him clear across the room. He collided with Bevan, who fell off the stool and sat down hard on the floor. The Norwegian was up instantly, taking a deep sobbing breath and returning to the skirmish. Bevan remained sitting on the floor, his shirt and tie and mohair suit now stained with blood from the Norwegians mouth and nose. He looked down at his bloodstained clothes and shook his head with solemn disapproval.

  “This won’t do,” he murmured. “This certainly calls for another drink.”

  He sat there waiting for someone to ser
ve him a glass of rum.

  On the other side of the room the free-for-all was gaining momentum. It had passed the phase of rum-induced fury; now it was blood-induced. The more blood they spilled, the more they wanted to spill.

  Winnie had decided there was nothing she could do except seek a safety zone. Now she was half crouched behind the bar, expecting its wooden sides to crumble at any moment. Already some of the boards had given way. The weakened, splintered bar was creaking and groaning as their lunging, tumbling, staggering bodies came against it. Winnie was estimating how much it would cost to put up a new bar, or anyway hire a carpenter to fix this one. She felt somewhat victimized, and her lower lip came out sullenly.

  She thought, there’s no way to sue for damages. That’s one of the disadvantages of this business. What you ought to do, Winnie, is get out of this business. And do what? Go to work in some factory? Or in the fields? Or sit in a stall in the marketplace selling mangoes and limes? With your face wet with tears at the end of the day when you look at the fruit and vegetables unsold and there’s no consolation whatsoever, not even the sight of other tearful faces? No, you don’t want that. You had a taste of it once, the tobacco factory and the sugar fields and the marketplace, and you concluded that’s for the fools, the soft ones, the timid ones. And yet, Winnie, you’re a fool yourself, all things considered. You try to treat them nice and look what they do to your place. Just look at what they do to this decent establishment that you sweat and strain to keep clean, the glasses always washed and no dust on the tables, no roaches on the floor. Yes, I insist this is a decent establishment, not like the other houses on Barry Street, with the dirty goings-on in the back rooms. In the back rooms of this house there are no girls, no gambling, no hired rough man waiting there with something heavy in his hand. But what are the dividends from your honesty? And how do they show their appreciation? Look at you now. You’re hiding here like a lonely frightened mouse, and if you raise your head another inch it might get fractured.