"How's the champeen freightchecker?" said Buffalo.
I was back in the ranks of those who work while others sleep. My first week tallying freight had passed smoothly enough, thanks to Buffalo, and Johnny Kelly, the boss tallyman, who had put Domenic, Sicilian doyen of stevedors, with me to steer me clear of trouble.
"Not so bad, Buffalo," I said.
The nightly lull in the hurricane of men and trucks that preceded the docking of the two o'clock boat was on us. The lights of the riverboat Richard Peck were slipping away, in their wake a phosphorescent trail of churned waters. A yard engine blew off steam, gave a last convulsive kick and shunted back towards the roundhouse. The string of empties rolled in past us onto track 2. A switchman's lantern swung, and the brakeman spun his wheel sharply to the right. A screeching of metal was followed by the impact of moving cars coming to a standstill, the shock passing along the line in a series of dull crashes.
"Starting in loading tonight?" said Buffalo.
"That's right," I said.
Up to now, all I had been doing was checking off numbers as freight slid from car to runway on the end of Domenic's grappling irons. A purely clerical job that required no initiative,— unlike loading against time, which called for clear judgment, quick thinking and imagination.
"Johnny put me on the car next yours, so all you got to do is holler if there's anything on your mind," Buffalo said.
"Johnny's a swell guy," I said.
"Now you're talking," said Buffalo. "He figured on being next you, but there's a couple of loads of glassware for them Lakawanna cars over on 3 he's packing himself."
On the night air our breath showed up like steam from the spout of a kettle as we blew on our hands to warm them. The runways were slippery and the water no longer lapped the wooden piles under the dock. A heavy layer of ice had silenced it. I was missing the stove in the freight office, but I had no kick coming. My last payday had netted me, with over time, $12.95: my record week to-date.
"Come on over to 3," I said, "We've time. I want to tell Johnny thanks."
"Guess he ain't there yet, it's only ten to. But it won't hurt to have a look," said Buffalo. "Say, you remember that crazy nigger?"
"That tore my pants on the girder and came near dropping the lamp on me?"
"That's him," Buffalo said with a grin. "Pulls a razor on Johnny last night."
"You don't say. Looked like a quiet boy to me," I said.
Buffalo tapped his forehead.
"Punch drunk. A good kid but he hits the hop. Takes him that way once in a while. Tame as a bedbug rest of the time. Johnny had his gun."
"What'd he do?"
"We gets the razor away from the shine and Johnny takes him out and has him payed off. The jug's what that coon needs to cool him off. Two flatfoots right there and Johnny never opens his face. The nigger says: 'I'll get you yet, Mister Kelly. I'se got more razors where that one come from'. Johnny says: 'What you think you are, a barber? Get out of here before I let the night air into your hide'. So I takes the nigger by the arm and brings him over to the waterfront by the Dutchman's and shows him the ice under the docks and I says: 'Listen, brother, the night you gets Mister Kelly, there's where you'll be sleeping right down under that big cake of ice'."
"Where's he now—the shine?" I said, thinking of the razors.
"Don't ask me," said Buffalo. "Come on, them Lakawanna cars is up at the other end of the track."
When we got up there we found two cars loaded and sealed. The door of the third was open, but there was no light over it. There were cases of hardware marked Yale and Towne on the platform waiting to be loaded, and a pile of sacks. One of the sacks had burst and cakes of rocksalt had spilled out of it. A freight list, clipped to a tallyman's board, lay beside them. As I picked it up I noticed a derby hat stuck between the car floor and the runway. Buffalo went into the car. He struck a match but it went out. He held three together and struck them. I held the derby over them as they took fire. Johnny was lying on his face on the floor of the car. The matches burned out. I struck three more and held them inside the derby while Buffalo turned him over.
"Come closer with the light," Buffalo said.
Johnny's muffler was slashed and blood-soaked from a gash on the side of his neck.
"Get some of that salt," Buffalo said.
I gave him the matches and the derby. When I came back with the salt we plastered the wound with it and tied it down with the muffler. Then Johnny opened his eyes. Buffalo bent over him and asked him something. Johnny seemed to nod. Then he closed his eyes again. By the time we got him out of the car the boys were coming back to work....From the shipping clerk's office at the end of track 1, a cop phoned for an ambulance.
For two nights I saw nothing of Buffalo. Johnny's condition was bad, but he was hanging on. The Dutchman's daughter saw him twice and gave us the news. The third night a corpse was hauled up from under the dock. It was frozen stiff. When they laid it out in the light of switchmen's lanterns there were cakes of ice stuck to it. It was the colored boy. The two cops who had heard Johnny threatened were there. I saw them look at each other.
"Accidental drowning," said one.
"Was he a swimmer ?" the other asked, taking out his pencil and note book.
I was beginning to get fedup, scared, more likely. Carloadings were extra heavy, and when I got home around eight of a Sunday morning I would sleep all Sunday, Sunday night and half of Monday without opening my eyes. I had saved about $125., and was thinking a rest was due me, when a letter came from my father. He was happy that I was under the eye of such a serious and kind man as G.B., but noted with dismay that every letter from me was harder to decipher. Apparently I had forgotten the little I had learned of grammar and syntax. And all the American slang! The only one who could get any sense out of my letters was Mezzim, and he was in County Clare.... What is a cinch?" my father wrote, "Do you mean clinch? What do you mean by a broad?...Now you just steer clear of that bigamist fellow, Buffalo. You don't know what else he may be....It is regrettable there are so many loose women in the neighborhood where you work....I hope you keep your thoughts pure and clean and your body as well. MENS SANA IN CORPORE SANO: this is my motto.
"Your dear mother was spared the chagrin that was mine at your failturetyping error in original. to pass your entrance examinations to Trinity College. It was her hope that both her sons would obtain university degrees with honors. An American whom I met in Dublin when I went up to the General Synod last week told me there are many universities in America as big as Oxford, Cambridge and Trinity College, Dublin put together. Of course I took this with a grain of salt. But I know there is a college near San Francisco attended by both sexes. My brothers' son went there, I believe; and I once met an American missionary who had been to a college called Harvard. G.B. mentions in one of his letters that New Haven is a university town. Is this the university? As you know, your mother left a little money that I'm sure she would have wished to be devoted to the education of her boys. I might consider sending you to college over there. I'm quite sure you would have more chance of passing your examinations, as the standard of scholarship in America is undoubtedly below that of T.C.D. Try and obtain samples of entrance examination papers, mathematics in particular, and post them to me. When I have gone over them carefully I will write G.B. at once and let him know the subjects you need coaching in."
Two months later the Belle Dock freightyard had passed from my life. My daily vista was the more tranquil, green, fenced campus of Yale. The smoke stacks of the Richard Peck and Chester Chapin had been superceded by the towers of Phelps Gateway and the Old Library.