IV

It was dark now and there was a breeze blowing so that there were no mosquitoes nor sand flies and the boats had all come in, hoisting their outriggers as they came up the channel, and now were lying tied up in the slips of the three docks that projected out from the beach into the harbor. The tide was running out fast and the lights of the boats shone on the water that showed green in the light and moved so fast it sucked at the piling of the docks and swirled at the stern of the big cruiser they were on. Alongside in the water where the light was reflected off the planking of the cruiser toward the unpainted piling of the dock where old motorcar and truck tires were tied as fenders, making dark rings against the darkness under the rock, garfish, attracted by the light, held themselves against the current. Thin and long, shining as green as the water, only their tails moving, they were not feeding, nor playing; only holding themselves there in the fascination of the light.

Johnny Goodner’s cruiser, Narwhal, where they were waiting for Roger Davis, was headed into the ebbing tide and astern of her in the same slip, made fast so that the two cabin cruisers lay stern to stern, was the boat of the party that had been at Bobby’s place all day. Johnny Goodner sat in a chair in the stern with his feet on another chair and a Tom Collins in his right hand and a long, green Mexican chile pepper in his left.

“It’s wonderful,” he said. “I bite just a little piece and it sets my mouth on fire and I cool it with this.”

He took the first bite, swallowed, blew out, “thew!” through rolled tongue, and took a long swallow of the tall drink. His full lower lip licked his thin Irish upper lip and he smiled with his gray eyes. His mouth was sliced upwards at the corners so it always looked as though he were about to smile, or had just smiled, but his mouth told very little about him unless you noticed the thinness of the upper lip. His eyes were what you needed to watch. He was the size and build of a middleweight gone a little heavy; but he looked in good shape lying there relaxed and that is how a man looks bad who is really out of shape. His face was brown but peeling across the nose and the forehead that went back with his receding hairline. He had a scar on his chin that could have been taken for a dimple if it had been just a little closer to the center and his nose had been just perceptibly flattened across the bridge. It wasn’t a flat nose. It just looked as though it had been done by a modern sculptor who worked directly in the stone and had taken off just the shadow of a chip too many.

“Tom, you worthless character, what have you been doing?”

“Working pretty steadily.”

“You would,” he said and took another bite of the chile. It was a very wrinkled and droopy chile about six niches long.

“Only the first one hurts,” he said. “It’s like love.”

“The hell it is. Chiles can hurt both ways.”

“And love?”

“The hell with love,” Thomas Hudson said.

“What a sentiment. What a way to talk. What are you getting to be? A victim of sheepherder’s madness on this island?”

“No sheep here, Johnny.”

“Stone-crab herder’s madness then,” Johnny said. “We don’t want to have you have to be netted or anything. Try one of these chiles.”

“I have,” Thomas Hudson said.

“Oh I know your past,” he said. “Don’t pull your illustrious past on me. You probably invented them. I know. Probably the man who introduced them into Patagonia on Yak-back. But I represent modern times. Listen Tommy. I have these chiles stuffed with salmon. Stuffed with bacalao. Stuffed with Chilean bonito. Stuffed with Mexican turtledoves’ breasts. Stuffed with turkey meat and mole. They’ll stuff them with anything and I buy them. Makes me feel like a damned potentate. But all that’s a perversion. Just this long, drooping, uninspiring, unstuffed, unpromising old chile with the brown chupango sauce is the best. You bastard,” he blew out through his pursed tongue again, “I got too much of you that time.”

He took a really long pull at the Tom Collins.

“They give me a reason for drinking,” he explained. “Have to cool my damned mouth. What are you having?”

“I might take one more gin and tonic.”

“Boy,” Johnny called. “One more gin and tonic for Bwana M’Kubwa.”

Fred, one of the island boys Johnny’s captain had hired, brought in the drink.

“Here it is, Mr. Tom.”

“Thank you, Fred,” Thomas Hudson said. “The Queen, God bless her,” and they drank.

“Where’s the old whoremaster?”

“Up at his house. He’ll be down.”

He ate some more of the chile without commenting on it, finished his drink, and said, “How are you really, old Tom?”

“OK,” Thomas Hudson said. “I’ve learned how to live by myself pretty well and I work hard.”

“Do you like it here? I mean for all the time.”

“Yes. I got sick of moving around with it. I’d rather have it here. I get along well enough here, Johnny. Pretty damn well.”

“It’s a good place,” said Johnny. “It’s a good place for a guy like you that’s got some sort of inner resources. Hell of a place for a guy like me that keeps chasing it or running away from it. Is it true that Roger’s gone Red on us?”

“So they’re saying that already.”

“That’s what I heard on the coast.”

“What happened to him out there?”

“I don’t know all of it. But it was something pretty bad.”

“Really bad?”

“They’ve got different ideas of what’s bad out there. It wasn’t St. Quentin quail if that’s what you mean. Anyway out there with that climate and the fresh vegetables and everything it’s like the size of their football players. Hell, girls fifteen look twenty-four. At twenty-four they’re Dame May Whitty. If you’re not a marrying man you better look at their teeth pretty close. And of course you can’t tell a damn thing from their teeth. And they’ve all got mothers and fathers or one or the other and they’re all hungry. Climate gives them appetite, too, of course. Trouble is, people get enthusiastic sometimes and don’t ask for their driving licenses or their social security cards. I think they ought to measure it by size and weight and general capabilities and not just by age. Wreaks too many injustices just going by age. All around. Precocity isn’t penalized in any other sport. Other way around. Apprentice allowance claimed would be the fairest. Same as racing. They had me pretty well boxed on that rap. But that wasn’t what they got old Roger on.”

“What did they get me on?” Roger Davis asked.

He had dropped down from the dock onto the deck in his rope-soled shoes without making any noise and he stood there looking awfully big in a sweatshirt three sizes too large for him and a pair of tight old dungarees.

“Hi,” said Johnny. “Didn’t hear you ring. I was telling Tom I didn’t know what they got you on but that it wasn’t jailbait.”

“Good,” said Roger. “Let’s drop the subject.”

“Don’t be so powerful,” Johnny said.

“I’m not being powerful,” Roger said. “I asked politely. Do you drink on this boat?” He looked at the cabin cruiser that lay with her stern toward them. “Who’s that?”

“The people at the Ponce. Didn’t you hear?”

“Oh,” said Roger. “Well, let’s have a drink anyway even though they have set us a bad example.”

“Boy,” Johnny called. Fred came out of the cabin. “Yes sir,” he said.

“Enquire what the pleasure of these Sahibs is.”

“Gentlemen?” Fred asked.

“I’ll take whatever Mr. Tom is drinking,” Roger said. “He’s my guide and counselor.”

“Many boys at camp this year?” Johnny asked.

“Just two so far,” Roger said. “My counselor and I.”

“My counselor and me,” Johnny said. “How the hell do you write books?”

“I can always hire someone to put in the grammar.”

“Or get someone free,” Johnny said. “I’ve been talking with your counselor.”

“Counselor says he’s quite happy and contented here. He’s hit the beach for good.”

“You ought to see the place,” Tom told him. “He lets me come in for a drink once in a while.”

“Womens?”

“No womens.”

“What do you boys do?”

“I’ve been doing it all day.”

“But you were here before. What did you do then?”

“Swim, eat, drink. Tom works, read, talk, read, fish, fish, swim, drink, sleep—”

“No womens?”

“Still no womens.”

“Sounds unhealthy to me. Sort of unwholesome atmosphere. You boys smoke much opium?”

“Tom?” Roger asked.

“Only the best,” Thomas Hudson said.

“Got a nice stand of marijuana planted?”

“Any planted, Tom?” Roger asked.

“Was a bad year,” Thomas Hudson said. “Rain gave the crop hell.”

“Whole thing sounds unwholesome,” Johnny drank. “Only saving aspect is you still take a drink. You boys gone in for religion? Has Tom Seen The Light?”

“Tom?” Roger asked.

“Relations with the Deity about the same,” Thomas Hudson said.

“Cordial?”

“We are tolerant,” Thomas Hudson said. “Practice any faith you wish. Got a ball field up the island where you can practice.”

“I’ll give the Deity a fast one high and inside if he crowds the plate,” Roger said.

“Roger,” said Johnny reproachfully. “It’s after dark. Didn’t you see twilight fall and dusk set in and darkness come? And you a writer. Never a good idea to speak slightingly of the Deity after dark. He’s liable to be right behind you with his bat poised.”

“I’ll bet he’d crowd the plate, too,” Roger said. “I’ve seen him crowding it lately.”

“Yes sir,” Johnny said. “And he’d step into your fast one and knock your brains out. I’ve seen him hit.”

“Yes, I guess you have,” Roger agreed. “So has Tom and so have I. But I’d still try and get my fast ball by him.”

“Let’s cut out the theological discussion,” Johnny said. “And get something to eat.”

“That decrepit old man you keep to tool this thing around the ocean still know how to cook?” Thomas Hudson asked.

“Chowder,” Johnny said. “And a yellow rice tonight with plover. Golden plover.”

“You sound like a damned Interior decorator,” Tom said. “There’s no gold on them this time of year, anyway. Where’d you shoot the plover?”

“On South Island when we went in to anchor and swim. I whistled the flock back twice and kept knocking them down. There’s two apiece.”

It was a fine night and after they had eaten dinner they sat out in the stern with coffee and cigars, and a couple of other people, both worthless sporting characters, came over from one of the other boats with a guitar and a banjo and the Negroes gathered on the dock and there was some sporadic singing. In the dark, up on the dock, the boys would lead off with a song and then Fred Wilson, who had the guitar, would sing and Frank Hart would fake along on the banjo. Thomas Hudson could not sing, so he sat back in the dark and listened.

There was quite a lot of celebration going on at Bobby’s place and you could see the lights from the open door over the water. The tide was still ebbing strong, and out where the light shone fish were jumping. They were gray snappers mostly, Tom thought, feeding on the bait fish that fell out with the tide. A few Negro boys were fishing with hand lines and you could hear them talking and cursing softly when they lost a fish, and hear the snappers flopping on the dock when they landed one. There were big snappers out there and the boys were baiting them up with chunks of marlin meat from a fish one of the boats had brought in early that afternoon and that had already been hung up, photographed, weighed, and butchered.

There was quite a crowd on the dock now with the singing and Rupert Pinder, a very big Negro who was said to have once carried a piano on his back, unaided, from the Government dock all the way up the King’s Highway to the old club that the hurricane blew away, and who fancied himself as a fighting man, called down from the dock, “Captain John, boys say they getting thirsty.”

“Buy something inexpensive and healthful, Rupert.”

“Yes sir, Captain John. Rum.”

“That’s what I had in mind,” John said. “Why not try for a demijohn? Better value, I think.”

“Many thanks, Captain John,” Rupert said. Rupert moved off through the crowd which thinned rapidly and fell in behind him. Thomas Hudson could see them all heading toward Roy’s place.

Just then, from one of the boats tied up at Brown’s dock, a rocket rose with a whoosh high into the sky and burst with a pop to light up the channel. Another went whooshing up at an angle and burst, this time, just over the near end of their dock.

“Damn,” said Fred Wilson. “We should have sent over to Miami for some.”

The night was lighted now with rockets whishing and popping and, in the light, Rupert and his followers were coming back out onto the dock, Rupert carrying a big wicker demijohn on his shoulder.

Someone fired a rocket from one of the boats and it burst just over the dock, lighting up the crowd, the dark faces, necks, and hands, and Rupert’s flat face, wide shoulders, and thick neck with the wicker-covered jug resting tenderly and proudly alongside his head.

“Cups,” he said to his followers, speaking over his shoulder. “Enameled cups.”

“Got tin cups, Rupert,” one boy said.

“Enameled cups,” Rupert said. “Get them. Buy them from Roy. Here’s money.”

“Get the Verey pistol of ours, Frank,” Fred Wilson said. “We might as well shoot up those flares and get some fresh ones.”

While Rupert waited grandly for the cups someone brought a saucepan and Rupert poured into it and it was passed around.

“For the little people,” Rupert said. “Drink up, unimportant people.”

Singing was proceeding steadily and with little organization. Along with the rockets some of the boats were firing off rifles and pistols and from Brown’s dock a Tommy gun was skipping tracers out over the channel. It fired a burst of threes and fours, then loosed off a full clip, rattling the red tracers out in a lovely looping arc over the harbor.

The cups came at the same time as Frank Hart dropped down into the stern carrying a case with a Verey pistol and an assortment of flares and one of Rupert’s assistants started pouring and handing cups around.

“God bless the Queen,” Frank Hart said and loaded and fired a flare past the end of the dock directly at the open door of Mr. Bobby’s place. The flare hit the concrete wall beside the door, burst, and burned brightly on the coral road, lighting everything with a white light.

“Take it easy,” Thomas Hudson said. “Those things can burn people.”

“The hell with take it easy,” Frank said. “Let me see if I can bag the Commissioner’s house.”

“You’ll burn it,” Roger told him.

“If I burn it I’ll pay for it,” Frank said.

The flare arced up toward the big white-porched house but it was short and burned brightly just this side of the Commissioner’s front porch.

“Good old Commissioner,” Frank reloaded. “That will show the bastard whether we’re patriotic or not.”

“Take it easy, Frank,” Tom urged him. “We don’t have to play rough.”

“Tonight’s my night,” Frank said. “The Queen’s night and mine. Get out of my way, Tom, while I nail Brown’s dock.”

“He’s got gas on it,” Roger said.

“Not for long,” Frank told him.

It was impossible to tell whether he was trying to miss each shot to devil Roger and Thomas Hudson or whether he was really being bad. Neither Roger nor Thomas Hudson were sure either but they knew no one should be able to shoot a signal pistol with that much accuracy. And there was gas on the dock.

Frank stood up, took careful aim with his left arm down at his side like a duelist, and fired. The flare hit the dock at the far end from where the gas drums were piled and ricocheted off into the channel.

“Hey,” someone yelled from the boats that were tied up at Brown’s. “What the hell?”

“Almost a perfect shot,” Frank said. “Now I’m going to try for the Commissioner again.”

“You better damn well cut it out,” Thomas Hudson told him.

“Rupert,” Frank called up, ignoring Thomas Hudson. “Let me have some of that, will you?”

“Yes sir, Captain Frank,” Rupert said. “You got a cup?”

“Get me a cup,” Frank said to Fred, who was standing watching.

“Yes sir, Mr. Frank.”

Fred jumped and came back with the cup. His face was shining with excitement and pleasure.

“You figure to burn down the Commissioner, Mr. Frank?”

“Only if he catches fire,” Frank said.

He handed the cup up to Rupert who three quarters filled it and reached it down.

“The Queen, God bless her,” Frank drained the cup.

It was a terrific slug of rum to take like that.

“God bless her. God bless her, Captain Frank,” Rupert said solemnly, and the others echoed, “God bless her. God bless her indeed.”

“Now for the Commissioner,” Frank said. He fired the signal pistol straight up in the air, a little into the wind. He had loaded with a parachute flare and the wind drifted the bright white light down over the cruiser astern.

“Sure missed Commissioner that time,” Rupert said. “What’s wrong, Captain Frank?”

“I wanted to illuminate this beautiful scene,” Frank said. “No hurry about the Commissioner.”

“Commissioner’d burn good, Captain Frank,” Rupert advised. “I don’t want to influence you in it but it hasn’t rained on island for two months and Commissioner’s dry as tinder.”

“Where’s Constable?” Frank asked.

“Constable’s keeping out of the way of things,” Rupert said. “Don’t you worry about Constable. Nobody on this dock would see shot if shot was fired.”

“Everybody on this dock lay flat down on their faces and see nothing,” a voice came from back in the crowd. “Nothing has been heard. Nothing win be seen.”

“I give the command,” Rupert urged. “Every face is averted.” Then, encouragingly, “She’s just as dry as tinder that old place.”

“Let me see how you’d do it,” Frank said.

He loaded with another parachute flare and fired up and into the wind. In the falling garish light everyone on the dock was lying face down or was on hands and knees with eyes covered.

“God bless you, Captain Frank,” came Rupert’s deep solemn voice out of the dark when the flare died. “May He in His infinite mercy give you courage to burn Commissioner.”

“Where’s his wife and children?” Frank asked.

“We get them out. Don’t you worry,” Rupert said. “No harm of any kind come to anyone innocent.”

“Should we burn him?” Frank turned to the others in the cockpit.

“Oh, cut it out,” Thomas Hudson said. “For Christ’s sake.”

“I’m leaving in the morning,” Frank said. “As a matter of fact I’m cleared.”

“Let’s burn him,” Fred Wilson said. “Natives seem to favor it.”

“Burn him, Captain Frank,” Rupert urged. “What do you say?” he asked the others.

“Burn him. Burn him. God give you strength to burn him,” said the boys on the dock.

“Nobody want him unburned?” Frank asked them.

“Burn him, Captain Frank. Nobody see it. Nothing ever been heard. Not a word’s been said. Burn him.”

“Need a few practice shots,” Frank said.

“Get off this damned boat if you’re going to burn him,” Johnny said.

Frank looked at him and shook his head a little so that neither Roger nor the boys on the dock saw it.

“He’s ashes now,” he said. “Let me have just one more, Rupert, to stiffen my will.”

He handed up the cup.

“Captain Frank,” Rupert leaned down to speak to him. “This will be the deed of your life.”

Up on the dock the boys had started a new song.

“Captain Frank in the harbor

Tonight’s the night we got fun.”

Then a pause, and pitched higher ...

“Captain Frank in the harbor

Tonight’s the night we got fun.”

The second line was sung like a drum bonging. Then they went on:

“Commissioner called Rupert a duty black hound

Captain Frank fired his flare pistol and burnt him to the ground.”

Then they went back to the other old African rhythm four of the men in the launch had heard sung by the Negroes that pulled the ropes on the ferries that crossed the rivers along the coast road between Mombasa, Malindi, and Lamu where, as they pulled in unison, the Negroes sang improvised work songs that described and made fun of the white people they were carrying on the ferry.

“Captain Frank in the harbor

Tonight’s the night we got fun.

Captain Frank in the harbor”

Defiant, insultingly, despairingly defiant the minor notes rose. Then the drum’s bonging response.

“Tonight’s the night we got fun!”

“You see, Captain Frank?” Rupert urged, leaning down into the cockpit. “You got the song already before you even commit the deed.”

“I’m getting pretty committed,” Frank said to Thomas Hudson. Then, “One more practice shot,” he told Rupert.

“Practice makes perfect,” Rupert said happily.

“Captain Frank’s practicing now for the death,” someone said on the dock.

“Captain Frank’s wilder than a wild hog,” came another voice.

“Captain Frank’s a man.”

“Rupert,” Frank said. “Another cup of that, please. Not to encourage me. Just to help my aim.”

“God guide you, Captain Frank,” Rupert reached down the cup. “Sing the Captain Frank song, boys.”

Frank drained the cup.

“The last practice shot,” he said and firing just over the cabin cruiser lying astern he bounced the flare off Brown’s gas drums and into the water.

“You son of a bitch,” Thomas Hudson said to him very quietly.

“Shut up, christer,” Frank said to Thomas Hudson. “That was my masterpiece.”

Just then, in the cockpit of the other cruiser, a man came out onto the stern wearing pajama trousers with no top and shouted, “Listen, you swine! Stop it, will you? There’s a lady trying to sleep down below.”

“A lady?” Wilson asked.

“Yes, goddam it, a lady,” the man said. “My wife. And you dirty bastards firing those flares to keep her awake and keep anybody from getting any sleep.”

“Why don’t you give her sleeping pills?” Frank said. “Rupert, send a boy for some sleeping pills.”

“Do you know what you do, colonel?” Wilson said. “Why don’t you just comport yourself as a good husband should? That’ll put her to sleep. She’s probably repressed. Maybe she’s thwarted. That’s what the analyst always tells my wife.”

They were very rough boys and Frank was way in the wrong but the man who had been pitching the drunk all day had gotten off to an exceedingly bad start with the approach he had taken. Neither John nor Roger nor Thomas Hudson had said a word. The other two, from the moment the man had come out onto the stern and yelled, “Swine,” had worked together like a really fast shortstop and second baseman.

“You filthy swine,” the man said. He did not seem to have much of a vocabulary and he looked between thirty-five and forty. It was hard to tell his age closely, even though he had switched on his cockpit lights. He looked much better than Thomas Hudson had expected him to look after hearing the stories all day and Thomas Hudson thought he must have gotten some sleep. Thomas Hudson remembered, then, that he had been sleeping at Bobby’s.

“I’d try Nembutal,” Frank told him very confidentially. “Unless she’s allergic to it.”

“I don’t see why she’s so dissatisfied,” Fred Wilson told him. “Why you’re quite a fine-looking physical specimen. You really look pretty damned good. I’ll bet you’re the terror of the Racquet Club. What does it cost you to keep in that wonderful shape? Look at him, Frank. Did you ever see as expensive a looking top of a man as that?”

“You made a mistake though, governor,” Frank told him. “You’re wearing the wrong end of your pajamas. Frankly I’ve never seen a man wearing that bottom part before. Do you really wear that to bed?”

“Can’t you filthy-mouthed swine let a lady sleep?” the man said.

“Why don’t you just go down below,” Frank said to him. “You’re liable to get in trouble around here using all those epithets. You haven’t got your chauffeur here to look after you. Does your chauffeur always take you to school?”

“He doesn’t go to school, Frank,” Fred Wilson said, putting aside his guitar. “He’s a big grown-up boy. He’s a businessman. Can’t you recognize a big businessman?”

“Are you a businessman, sonny?” Frank asked. “Then you know it’s good business for you to run along down into your cabin. There isn’t any good business for you up here.”

“He’s right,” Fred Wilson said. “You haven’t any future around with us. Just go down to your cabin. You’ll get used to the noise.”

“You filthy swine,” the man said and looked at them all.

“Just take that beautiful body down below, will you?” Wilson said. “I’m sure you’ll get the lady to sleep.”

“You swine,” the man said. “You rotten swine.”

“Can’t you think up any other names?” Frank said. “Swine’s getting awfully dull. You better go down below before you catch cold. If I had a wonderful chest like that I wouldn’t risk it out here on a windy night like this.”

The man looked at them all as though he were memorizing them.

“You’ll be able to remember us,” Frank told him. “If not I’ll remind you any time I see you.”

“You filth,” the man said and turned and went below.

“Who is he?” Johnny Goodner asked. “I’ve seen him somewhere.”

“I know him and he knows me,” Frank said. “He’s no good.”

“Can’t you remember who he is?” Johnny asked.

“He’s a jerk,” Frank said. “What difference does it make who he is outside of that?”

“None, I guess,” Thomas Hudson said. “You two certainly swarmed on him.”

“That’s what you’re supposed to do with a jerk. Swarm on him. We weren’t really rude to him.”

“I thought you made your lack of sympathy clear,” Thomas Hudson said.

“I heard a dog barking,” Roger said. “The flares probably scared his dog. Let’s cut the flares out. I know you’re having fun, Frank. You’re getting away with murder and nothing bad’s happened. But why terrify the poor bloody dog?”

“That was his wife barking,” Frank said cheerily. “Let’s shoot one into his cabin and illuminate the whole domestic scene.”

“I’m getting the hell out of here,” Roger said. “You joke the way I don’t like. I don’t think jokes with motorcars are funny. I don’t think drunken flying is funny. I don’t think scaring dogs is funny.”

“Nobody’s keeping you,” Frank said. “Lately you’re a pain in the ass to everybody anyway.”

“Yes?”

“Sure. You and Tom christing around. Spoiling any fun. All you reformed bastards. You used to have plenty of fun. Now nobody can have any. You and your brand new social conscience.”

“So it’s social conscience if I think it would be better not to set Brown’s dock on fire?”

“Sure. It’s just a form of it. You’ve got it bad. I heard about you on the coast.”

“Why don’t you take your pistol and go play somewhere else?” Johnny Goodner said to Frank. “We were all having fun till you got so rough.”

“So you’ve got it, too,” Frank said.

“Take it a little easy,” Roger warned him.

“I’m the only guy here still likes to have any fun,” Frank said. “All you big overgrown religious maniacs and social workers and hypocrites—”

“Captain Frank,” Rupert leaned down over the edge of the dock.

“Rupert’s my only friend,” Frank looked up. “Yes, Rupert?”

“Captain Frank, what about Commissioner?”

“We’ll burn him, Rupert old boy.”

“God bless you, Captain Frank,” Rupert said. “Care for any rum?”

“I’m fine, Rupert,” Frank told him. “Everybody down now.”

“Everybody down,” Rupert ordered. “Down flat.”

Frank fired over the edge of the dock and the flare lit on the graveled walk just short of the Commissioner’s porch and burned there. The boys on the dock groaned.

“Damn,” Rupert said. “You nearly made her. Bad luck. Reload, Captain Frank.”

The lights went on in the cockpit of the cruiser astern of them and the man was out there again. This time he had a white shirt and white duck trousers on and he wore sneakers. His hair was combed and his face was red with white patches. The nearest man to him in the stern was John, who had his back to him, and next to John was Roger who was just sitting there looking gloomy. There was about three feet of water between the two sterns and the man stood there and pointed his finger at Roger.

“You slob,” he said. “You rotten filthy slob.”

Roger just looked up at him with a surprised look.

“You mean me, don’t you?” Frank called to him. “And it’s swine, not slob.”

The man ignored him and went on at Roger.

“You big fat slob,” the man almost choked. “You phony. You faker. You cheap phony. You rotten writer and lousy painter.”

“Who are you talking to and about what?” Roger stood up.

“You. You slob. You phony you. You coward. Oh you slob. You filthy slob.”

“You’re crazy,” Roger said quietly.

“You slob,” the man said across the space of water that separated the two boats the same way someone might speak insultingly to an animal in one of those modern zoos where no bars, but only pits, separate the visitors from the beasts. “You phony.”

“He means me,” Frank said happily. “Don’t you know me? I’m the swine.”

“I mean you,” the man pointed his finger at Roger. “You phony.”

“Look,” Roger said to him. “You’re not talking to me at all. You’re just talking to be able to repeat back in New York what you said to me.”

He spoke reasonably and patiently as though he really wanted the man to understand and shut up.

“You slob,” the man shouted, working himself further and further into this hysteria he had even dressed up for. “You rotten filthy phony.”

“You’re not talking to me,” Roger repeated to him very quietly now and Thomas Hudson saw that he had decided. “So shut up now. If you want to talk to me get up on the dock.”

Roger started up for the dock and, oddly enough, the man came climbing up on the dock as fast as you please. He had talked himself into it and worked himself up to it. But he was doing it. The Negroes fell back and then closed in around the two of them leaving plenty of room.

Thomas Hudson didn’t know what the man expected to happen when he got up on the dock. No one said anything and there were all those black faces around him and he took a swing at Roger and Roger hit him in the mouth with a left and his mouth started to bleed. He swung at Roger again and Roger hooked him hard to the right eye twice. He grabbed hold of Roger and Roger’s sweatshirt tore when he dug the man in the belly hard with his right and then pushed him away and slapped him hard across the face backhand with his open left hand.

None of the Negroes had said a word. They just kept the two men surrounded and gave them plenty of room. Someone, Tom thought it was John’s boy Fred, had turned the dock lights on and you could see well.

Roger went after the man and hooked him three times fast to the head high up. The man grabbed him and his sweatshirt tore again as he pushed him away and jabbed him twice in the mouth.

“Cut out those lefts,” Frank yelled. “Throw your right and cool the son of a bitch. Cool him.”

“Got anything to say to me?” Roger said to the man and hooked him hard on the mouth. The man was bleeding badly from the mouth and the whole right side of his face was coming up and his right eye was almost closed.

The man grabbed Roger and Roger held him inside and steadied him. The man was breathing hard and he hadn’t said anything. Roger had a thumb on the inside of the man’s two elbows and Tom could see him rubbing the thumbs back and forth over the tendons between the biceps and the forearms.

“Don’t you bleed on me, you son of a bitch,” Roger said, and brought his left hand up fast and loose and knocked the man’s head back and then backhanded him across the face again.

“You can get a new nose now,” he said.

“Cool him, Roger. Cool him,” Frank pled with him.

“Can’t you see what he’s doing, you dope?” Fred Wilson said. “He’s ruining him.”

The man grabbed Roger and Roger held him and pushed him away.

“Hit me,” he said. “Come on. Hit me.”

The man swung at him and Roger ducked it and grabbed him.

“What’s your name?” he said to the man.

The man didn’t answer. All he did was breathe as though he were dying with asthma.

Roger was holding the man again with his thumbs pressing in on the inside of his elbows. “You’re a strong son of a bitch,” he said to the man. “Who the hell ever told you you could fight?”

The man swung at him weakly and Roger grabbed him, pulled him forward, spun him a little, and clubbed him twice on the ear with the base of his right fist.

“You think you’ve learned not to talk to people?” he asked the man.

“Look at his ear,” Rupert said. “Like a bunch of grapes.”

Roger was holding the man again with his thumbs pushing in against the tendons at the base of the biceps. Thomas Hudson was watching the man’s face. It had not been frightened at the start; just mean as a pig’s is; a really mean boar. But it was really completely frightened now. He had probably never heard of fights that no one stopped. Probably he thought in some part of his mind about the stories he had read where men were kicked to death if they went down. He still tried to fight. Each time Roger told him to hit him or pushed him away he tried to throw a punch. He hadn’t quit.

Roger pushed him away. The man stood there and looked at him. When Roger wasn’t holding him in that way that made him feel absolutely helpless the fear drained away a little and the meanness came back. He stood there frightened, badly hurt, his face destroyed, his mouth bleeding, and that ear looking like an overripe fig as the small individual hemorrhages united into one great swelling inside the skin. As he stood there, Roger’s hands off him now, the fear drained and the indestructible meanness welled up.

“Anything to say?” Roger asked him.

“Slob,” the man said. As he said it, he pulled his chin in and put his hands up and turned half away in a gesture an incorrigible child might make.

“Now it comes,” Rupert shouted. “Now it’s going to roll.”

But it was nothing dramatic nor scientific. Roger stepped quickly over to where the man stood and raised his left shoulder and dropped his right fist down and swung it up so it smashed against the side of the man’s head. He went down on his hands and knees, his forehead resting on the dock. He knelt there a little while with his forehead against the planking and then he went gently over on his side. Roger looked at him and then came over to the edge of the dock and swung down into the cockpit.

The crew of the man’s yacht were carrying him on board. They had not intervened in what had happened on the dock and they had picked him up from where he lay on his side on the dock and carried him sagging heavily. Some of the Negroes had helped them lower him down to the stern and take him below. They shut the door after they took him in.

“He ought to have a doctor,” Thomas Hudson said.

“He didn’t hit hard on the dock,” Roger said. “I thought about the dock.”

“I don’t think that last crack alongside the ear did him a lot of good,” Johnny Goodner said.

“You ruined his face,” Frank said. “And the ear. I never saw an ear come up so fast. First it was like a bunch of grapes and then it was as full as an orange.”

“Bare hands are a bad thing,” Roger said. “People don’t have any idea what they’ll do. I wish I’d never seen him.”

“Well, you’ll never see him again without being able to recognize him.”

“I hope he’ll come around,” Roger said.

“It was a beautiful fight, Mr. Roger,” Fred said.

“Fight, hell,” Roger said. “Why the hell did that have to happen?”

“The gentleman certainly brought it on himself,” Fred said.

“Cut out worrying, will you?” Frank said to Roger. “I’ve seen hundreds of guys cooled and that guy is OK.”

Up on the dock the boys were drifting away commenting on the fight. There had been something about the way the white man had looked when he was carried aboard that they did not like and all the bravery about burning the Commissioner’s house was evaporating.

“Well, good night, Captain Frank,” Rupert said.

“Going, Rupert?” Frank asked him.

“Thought we might all go up see what’s going on at Mr. Bobby’s.”

“Good night, Rupert,” said Roger. “See you tomorrow.”

Roger was feeling very low and his left hand was swollen as big as a grapefruit. His right was puffed too but not as badly. There was nothing else to show he had been in a fight except that the neck of his sweatshirt was ripped open and flapped down on his chest. The man had hit him once high up on his head and there was a small bump there. John put some Mercurochrome on the places where his knuckles were skinned and cut. Roger didn’t even look at his hands.

“Let’s go up to Bobby’s place and see if there’s any fun,” Frank said.

“Don’t worry about anything, Roge,” Fred Wilson said and climbed up on the dock. “Only suckers worry.”

They went on along the dock carrying their guitar and banjo toward where the light and the singing were coming out of the open door of the Ponce de León.

“Freddy is a pretty good joe,” John said to Thomas Hudson.

“He always was,” Thomas Hudson said. “But he and Frank are bad together.”

Roger did not say anything and Thomas Hudson was worried about him; about him and about other things.

“Don’t you think we might turn in?” he said to him.

“I’m still spooked about that character,” Roger said.

He was sitting with his back toward the stern, looking glum and holding his left hand in his right.

“Well you don’t have to be anymore,” John spoke very quietly. “He’s walking around now.”

“Really?”

“He’s coming out now and he’s carrying a shotgun.”

“I’ll be a sad son of a bitch,” Roger said. But his voice was happy again. He sat with his back toward the stern and never turned around to look.

The man came out to the stern this time wearing both a pajama top and trousers, but what you saw was the shotgun. Thomas Hudson looked away from it and to his face and his face was very bad. Someone had worked on it and there was gauze and tape over the cheeks and a lot of Mercurochrome had been used. They hadn’t been able to do anything about his ear. Thomas Hudson imagined it must have hurt to have anything touch it, and it just stood out looking very taut and swollen and it had become the dominant feature of his face. No one said anything and the man just stood there with his spoiled face and his shotgun. He probably could not see anyone very clearly the way his eyes were puffed tight. He stood there and he did not say anything and neither did anyone else.

Roger turned his head very slowly, saw him, and spoke over his shoulder.

“Go put the gun away and go to bed.”

The man stood there with the gun. His swollen lips were working but he did not say anything.

“You’re mean enough to shoot a man in the back but you haven’t got the guts,” Roger spoke over his shoulder very quietly, “Go put the gun away and go to bed.”

Roger still sat there with his back toward the man. Then he took what Thomas Hudson thought was an awful chance.

“Doesn’t he remind you just a little bit of Lady Macbeth coming out there in his nightclothes?” he asked the three others in the stern.

Thomas Hudson waited for it then. But nothing happened and after a while the man turned and went down into the cabin taking the shotgun with him.

“I feel very, very much better,” Roger said. “I could feel that sweat run clean down from my armpit and onto my leg. Let’s go home, Tom. Man’s OK.”

“Not too awfully OK,” Johnny said.

“OK enough,” Roger said. “What a human being that is.”

“Come on, Roger,” Thomas Hudson said. “Come on up to my place for a while.”

“All right.”

They said good night to John and walked up the King’s Highway toward the house. There was still plenty of celebrating going on.

“Do you want to go into the Ponce?” Thomas Hudson asked.

“Hell no,” Roger said.

“I thought I’d tell Freddy the man’s OK.”

“You tell him. I’ll go on to your house.”

When Thomas Hudson got home Roger was lying face down on a bed in the far up-island end of the screen porch. It was dark and you could just barely hear the noise of the celebrating.

“Sleeping?” Thomas Hudson asked him.

“No.”

“Would you like a drink?”

“I don’t think so. Thanks.”

“How’s the hand?”

“Just swelled and sore. It’s nothing.”

“You feeling low again?”

“Yes. I’ve got it bad.”

“The kids will be here in the morning.”

“That will be fine.”

“You’re sure you wouldn’t like a drink?”

“No, kid. But you have one.”

“I’ll have a whisky and soda to go to sleep on.”

Thomas Hudson went to the icebox, mixed the drink, and came back out to the screened porch and sat there in the dark with Roger lying on the bed.

“You know, there’s an awful lot of real bastards loose,” Roger said. “That guy was no good, Tom.”

“You taught him something.”

“No. I don’t think so. I humiliated him and I ruined him a little. But he’ll take it out on someone else.”

“He brought it on.”

“Sure. But I didn’t finish it.”

“You did everything but kill him.”

“That’s what I mean. He’ll just be worse now.”

“I think maybe you taught him a hell of a lesson.”

“No. I don’t think so. It was the same thing out on the coast.”

“What really happened? You haven’t told me anything since you got back.”

“It was a fight, sort of like this one.”

“Who with?”

He named a man who was very high up in what is known as the industry.

“I didn’t want any part of it,” Roger said. “It was out at the house where I was having some woman trouble and I suppose, technically, I shouldn’t have been there. But that night I took it and took it and took it from this character. Much worse than tonight. Finally I just couldn’t take it any more and I gave it to him, really gave it to him without thinking about anything, and his head hit wrong on the marble steps going down to the pool. This was all by the pool. He came out of it at the Cedars of Lebanon finally about the third day and so I missed manslaughter. But they had it all set. With the witnesses they had I’d have been lucky to get that.”

“So then what?”

“So then, after he’s back on the job, I get the real frameroo. The full-sized one. Complete with handles.”

“What was it?”

“Everything. In series.”

“Want to tell me?”

“No. It wouldn’t be useful to you. Just take my word for it that it was a frame. It’s so awful nobody mentions it. Haven’t you noticed?”

“Sort of.”

“So I wasn’t feeling so good about tonight. There’s a lot of wickeds at large. Really bads. And hitting them is no solution. I think that’s one reason why they provoke you.” He turned over on the bed and lay face up. “You know evil is a hell of a thing, Tommy. And it’s smart as a pig. You know they had something in the old days about good and evil.”

“Plenty of people wouldn’t classify you as a straight good,” Thomas Hudson told him.

“No. Nor do I claim to be. Nor even good nor anywhere near good. I wish I were though. Being against evil doesn’t make you good. Tonight I was against it and then I was evil myself. I could feel it coming in just like a tide.”

“All fights are bad.”

“I know it. But what are you going to do about them?”

“You have to win them when they start.”

“Sure. But I was taking pleasure in it from the minute it started.”

“You would have taken more pleasure if he could have fought.”

“I hope so,” Roger said. “Though I don’t know now. I just want to destroy them. But when you start taking pleasure in it you are awfully close to the thing you’re fighting.”

“He was an awful type,” Thomas Hudson said.

“He couldn’t have been any worse than the last one on the coast. The trouble is, Tommy, there are so many of them. They have them in all countries and they are getting bigger all the time. Times aren’t good, Tommy.”

“When did you ever see them good?”

“We always had good times.”

“Sure. We had good times in all sorts of good places. But the times weren’t good.”

“I never knew,” Roger said. “Everybody claimed they were good and then everybody was busted. I didn’t have any money when they all had it. Then when I had some was when things were really bad. But people didn’t always seem as goddamned mean and evil though.”

“You’ve been going around with awful people, too.”

“I see some good ones once in a while.”

“Not very many.”

“Sure I do. You don’t know all my friends.”

“You run with a pretty seedy lot.”

“Whose friends were those tonight? Your friends or my friends?”

“Our friends. They’re not so bad. They’re worthless but they’re not really evil.”

“No,” said Roger. “I guess not. Frank is pretty bad. Bad enough. I don’t think he’s evil though. But there’s a lot of stuff I can’t take anymore. And he and Fred eviled up awfully fast.”

“I know about good and evil. I’m not trying to misunderstand nor play dumb.”

“I don’t know much about good because I’ve always been a failure at it. That evil is my dish. I can recognize that old evil.”

“I’m sorry tonight turned out so lousy.”

“I’m just feeling low.”

“Do you want to turn in? You better sleep here.”

“Thanks. I will if you don’t mind. But I think I’ll go in the library and read for a while. Where are those Australian stories you had the last time I was here?”

“Henry Lawson’s?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll get them.”

Thomas Hudson went to bed and when he woke in the night the light was still on in the library.