Stories of Breece D'J Pancake by Breece D'J Pancake Page B
Authors: Breece D'J Pancake
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up from the pavement, twist everything’s color. A few people walk along in the drizzle, but they don’t stop to look into cheap-shop windows.
Aways past the streets I see the river in patches between buildings, and the black joints of river are frosted by this foggy rain. But on the river it’s always the same. Tomorrow starts another month on the river, then a month on land—only the tales we tell will change, wrap around other times and other names. But there will be the same crew on the
Delmar,
the same duty for eighteen hours a day, and pretty soon there won’t be tales. For now, I wait, watch the wind whip rain onto the panes and blur the glass.
I plug in the hot plate for coffee, look through the paper for something to do, but there is no wrestling or boxing for tonight, and even the bowling alley is closed for New Year’s. I could maybe go down to a bar on First Avenue, sort of tie one on, but not if I have to watch barge rats and walk the wet steel edges tomorrow. Better to buy a pint and whiskey myself into an early sack, better not to think about going out.
I down my coffee too soon, burn my mouth. Nothing ever goes just the way it should. I figure that is my bitch with New Year’s—it’s a start all right—only I think back on parties we had in the Navy, and how we pulled out the stops the year we got to be short-timers, and it leaves me feeling lousy to sit here thinking about parties and work and the baby year and the old worn out year. I want to haul my ass out of here—I have been inside too long.
I get my jacket and watch cap, then stand outside my door and light a cigarette. The hall and stairwell are all lit up to keep away the whores and stumblebums. The door across the hall opens and the drag queen peeks out, winks at me: “Happy New Year.” He closes his door quietly, and I cut loose, kick the door, smudge the paint with my gum soles. I hear him in there laughing at me, laughing because I am alone. All the way down the stairs I can hear his laugh. He is right: I need a woman—not just a lousy chip—I need the laying quiet after that a chip never heard of. When I come to the lobby full of fat women and old men, I think how this is all the home I have. Maybe I have bought this room forever—I just might not need another flop after tonight.
I stand under the marquee, smoke, look back into the lobby at the old cruds. I think how all my fosters were old and most of them dead by now. Maybe it’s better they are dead or I might go back and visit them and cramp their style. There wouldn’t be any welfare check tied to me now, and I am too big to be whipped.
I toss my cigarette, watch it bob down the gutter-wash and through the grate. It will probably be in the Mississippi before the
Delmar.
Moping around these towns for nine months has made me screwy; walking barges and securing catheads in high water has finally got me down here with the rest of the cruds. Now my mouth hurts from the coffee burn, and I don’t even feel like getting soused. I walk down the street, watch people as they pass, and think how even the chippies in their long vinyl coats walk like they have someplace to be. I think I am getting pretty low if these old sows are starting to look good.
I walk until I see a stumblebum cut into a passage between two buildings. He has got his heat in him and he is squared away. I stop to watch this jake-legger try to spread out his papers for a bed, but the breeze through the passage keeps stirring his papers around. It’s funny to watch this scum chase papers, his old pins about ready to fold under him. The missions won’t let him in because he is full of heat, so this jake-legger has to chase his papers tonight. Pretty soon all that exercise will make him puke up his heat, and I stand and grin and wait for this to happen, but my grin slips when I see her standing in that doorway.
She is just a girl—fourteen, fifteen—but she stares at me like she knows what I’m thinking,
Aways past the streets I see the river in patches between buildings, and the black joints of river are frosted by this foggy rain. But on the river it’s always the same. Tomorrow starts another month on the river, then a month on land—only the tales we tell will change, wrap around other times and other names. But there will be the same crew on the
Delmar,
the same duty for eighteen hours a day, and pretty soon there won’t be tales. For now, I wait, watch the wind whip rain onto the panes and blur the glass.
I plug in the hot plate for coffee, look through the paper for something to do, but there is no wrestling or boxing for tonight, and even the bowling alley is closed for New Year’s. I could maybe go down to a bar on First Avenue, sort of tie one on, but not if I have to watch barge rats and walk the wet steel edges tomorrow. Better to buy a pint and whiskey myself into an early sack, better not to think about going out.
I down my coffee too soon, burn my mouth. Nothing ever goes just the way it should. I figure that is my bitch with New Year’s—it’s a start all right—only I think back on parties we had in the Navy, and how we pulled out the stops the year we got to be short-timers, and it leaves me feeling lousy to sit here thinking about parties and work and the baby year and the old worn out year. I want to haul my ass out of here—I have been inside too long.
I get my jacket and watch cap, then stand outside my door and light a cigarette. The hall and stairwell are all lit up to keep away the whores and stumblebums. The door across the hall opens and the drag queen peeks out, winks at me: “Happy New Year.” He closes his door quietly, and I cut loose, kick the door, smudge the paint with my gum soles. I hear him in there laughing at me, laughing because I am alone. All the way down the stairs I can hear his laugh. He is right: I need a woman—not just a lousy chip—I need the laying quiet after that a chip never heard of. When I come to the lobby full of fat women and old men, I think how this is all the home I have. Maybe I have bought this room forever—I just might not need another flop after tonight.
I stand under the marquee, smoke, look back into the lobby at the old cruds. I think how all my fosters were old and most of them dead by now. Maybe it’s better they are dead or I might go back and visit them and cramp their style. There wouldn’t be any welfare check tied to me now, and I am too big to be whipped.
I toss my cigarette, watch it bob down the gutter-wash and through the grate. It will probably be in the Mississippi before the
Delmar.
Moping around these towns for nine months has made me screwy; walking barges and securing catheads in high water has finally got me down here with the rest of the cruds. Now my mouth hurts from the coffee burn, and I don’t even feel like getting soused. I walk down the street, watch people as they pass, and think how even the chippies in their long vinyl coats walk like they have someplace to be. I think I am getting pretty low if these old sows are starting to look good.
I walk until I see a stumblebum cut into a passage between two buildings. He has got his heat in him and he is squared away. I stop to watch this jake-legger try to spread out his papers for a bed, but the breeze through the passage keeps stirring his papers around. It’s funny to watch this scum chase papers, his old pins about ready to fold under him. The missions won’t let him in because he is full of heat, so this jake-legger has to chase his papers tonight. Pretty soon all that exercise will make him puke up his heat, and I stand and grin and wait for this to happen, but my grin slips when I see her standing in that doorway.
She is just a girl—fourteen, fifteen—but she stares at me like she knows what I’m thinking,
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