Banjo

Heaving along from side to side, like a sailor on the unsteady deck of a ship, Lincoln Agrippa Daily, familiarly known as Banjo, patrolled the magnificent length of the great breakwater of Marseilles, a banjo in his hand.

“It sure is some moh mahvelous job,” he noted mentally; “most wonderful bank in the ocean I evah did see.”

It was afternoon. Banjo had walked the long distance of the breakwater and was returning to the Joliette end. He wore a cheap pair of slippers, suitable to the climate, a kind much used by the very poor of Provence. They were an ugly drab-brown color, which, however, was mitigated by the crimson socks and the yellow scarf with its elaborate pattern of black, yellow, and red at both ends, that was knotted around his neck and hung down the front of his blue-jean shirt.

Suddenly he stood still in his tracks as out of the bottom of one of the many freight cars along the quay he saw black bodies dropping. Banjo knew box cars. He had hoboed in America. But never had he come across a box car with a hole in the bottom. Had those black boys made it? He went down on the quay to see.

The fellows were brushing the hay off their clothes. There were four of them.

“Hello, there!” said Banjo.

“Hello, money!” replied the tallest of the four, who was just Banjo’s build.

“Good night, money. What I want to know is ef you-all made that theah hole in the bottom a that box car? I nevah yet seen no hole in the bottom of a box car, and I’ve rode some rails back home in the States.”

Banjo caressed his instrument. “I nevah part with this, buddy. It is moh than a gal, moh than a pal; it’s mahself.”

“You don’t have to go hungry round here, either, ef you c’n play a li’l’ bit,” drawled Ginger. “You c’n pick up enough change foh you’self even as much to buy us all a li’l’ red wine to wet our whistle when the stuff is scarce down the docks⁠—jest by playing around in them bars in Joliette and uptown around the Bum Square.”

“We’ll see what this burg can stand,” said Banjo. “It ain’t one or two times, but plenty, that mah steady here did make me a raise when I was right down and out. Oncet away back in Montreal, after I done lost every cent to mah name on the racetracks, I went into one swell spohting-place and cleaned up twenty-five dollars playing. But the best of all was the bird uvva time I had in San Francisco with three buddies who hed a guitar and a ukulele and a tambourine between them. My stars! I was living in clovah for six months.”

“You’ll make yours here, too,” said Malty. “Although this heah burg is lousy with pifformers, doing their stuff in the cafés, it ain’t often you come across one that can turn out a note to tickle a chord in you’ apparatus. Play us a piece. Let us hear how you sound.”

“Not now,” said Banjo. “Better tonight in some café. Maybe they won’t like it here.”

“Sure they will. You c’n do any ole thing at any ole time in this country.”

He went over to her and asked, “Danser?”

“No,” she said, disdainfully, and turned away. He touched her shoulder playfully.

“Laissez-moi tranquil, imbecile.” She spat nastily on the floor.

A rush of anger seized Banjo. “You pink sow!” he cried. His eyes caught the glint of the gold watch he had given to her, and wrenching it from her wrist, he smashed it on the red-tiled floor and stamped his heel upon it in a rage. The girl screamed agonizingly, wringing her hands, her wide eyes staring tragically at the remains of her watch. The little tout who had come in with her leaped over at Banjo. “What is it? What is it?” he cried, and hunching up his body and thrusting his head up and out like a comic actor, he began working his open hands up and down in Banjo’s face, without touching him. Banjo looked down upon the boy contemptuously and seized his left wrist, intending to twist it and push him outside, for he could not think of fighting with such an undersized antagonist. But in a flash the boy drew a knife across his wrist and, released, dashed through the door.

Banjo wrapped the cut in his handkerchief, but it was soon soaked with blood. It was late. The pharmacies were closed. The patronne of the bistro said that there were pharmacies open all night. Malty took Banjo to hunt for one.

As they were passing through the Bum Square a woman’s voice called Malty. They stopped and she came up to them. She was a little olive-toned woman of an indefinable age, clean-faced, not young and far from old, with an amorous charm round her mouth.

“Don’t,” she said. “I no like.”

“What’s the matter?” murmured Malty, thickly. “Kaint you like a fellah a li’l’ bit?”

He pressed closer against her and said, “Gimmie a kiss.”

She felt his strong desire. “Cochon, no. Go away from me.” She dug him sharply in the side with her elbow.

“You’ mout’ it stink. I wouldn’t kiss a slut like you,” said Malty, and he got up and gave Latnah a hard push.

She fell off the bench and picked herself up, crying. She was not hurt by the fall, but by Malty’s sudden change of attitude. Malty glowered at her boozily. Banjo stopped playing, went up to him, and shook his fist in his face.

“Wha’s matter you messing around mah woman?”

“Go chase you’self. I knowed her long before you did, when she was running after me.”

“You’re a dawggone liar!”

“And youse another!”

“Ef it’s a fight youse looking for, come on outside.”

Banjo and Malty staggered off. At the door, Malty stumbled and nearly fell, and Banjo caught his arm and helped him into the street. All the boys crowded to the door and flowed out into the alley, to watch. The antagonists sparred. Malty hiccuped ominously, swayed forward, and, falling into Banjo’s arms, they both went down heavily, in a helpless embrace, on the paving-stones.

“A nigger is a bohn mistake,” declared Banjo, laughing. “When Gawd made the white man, he put a little stuff in his haid for him to correct his mistakes. And so when the white man invented writing and pencil, he put an eraser on that pencil to rub out mistakes. But Gawd nevah gived the nigger no brain-stuff foh’m to correct his mistakes, and so the nigger kaint invent anything to correct his mistake.

“For when Gawd was making the first nigger, a bluebird jest fly down into the Tree of Life and started singing that the wul’ was ready and waiting foh the love a Gawd. And the tune was so temptation that Gawd lost his haid and set down the golden bowl with the nigger’s brain in it. And the serpent was right there. And he ups and et the nigger’s brain and put a mess a froth in the golden bowl. And that stuff for the nigger’s brain gived the serpent the run of the earth.⁠ ⁠…

“And when Gawd done took up his work again, he took the froth in the bowl and dumped it into the nigger’s brain and finished his job. And that’s why you find the world as it is today. The debbil ruling hell and earth, the white man always getting by and there, and the nigger always full a froth or just dumb like this heah Lonesome Blue.”