Читать книгу Back where I came from - A. J. Liebling - Страница 8

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The port of New York has known strong seamen, but Comrade Osterhahnsen, an A.B. whom I once met at the International Seamen’s Club, is the only one who ever held a 3,000-ton ship for twelve hours with his feet. The I.S.C. was an exceedingly militant organization, a forerunner of the CIO maritime union.

“Because of the size of my feet,” said Comrade Osterhahnsen told me, as he got outside of a bowl of chili and rice, “I am on the capitalist blacklist; but no matter—I struck a great blow for our industry that morning in Dakar on the old Anthony Roosevelt.

“I signed articles for that voyage in New York. The captain he says ‘usual articles,’ and I, what knows ’em by heart, signed without reading. Then we got to sea and I found they had cut the wages $5.

“But as luck would have it, when I grabbed that ship I had one pair of shoes to my name, and they was in pretty bad shape. All cracked they was with salt water and the soles wore off on the cobbles of South Street. So a couple of weeks out I went to the slop chest to buy some new shoes. And I wear size 13. They didn’t have my size in stock.

“So I knew I had ’em. The ship’s officers, I mean. We unloaded our cargo in Dakar and we was just about to weigh anchor. I didn’t stir a foot. ‘Turn out,’ says the boatswain. ‘I will,’ I says, ‘when the slop chest stocks to fit me.’

“The old man was swearing like a black-hearted slave of the capitalist system, which he was, and he says, ‘We’ll miss this tide and lose twelve hours. I’ll put you ashore, and let you stew with the natives,’ he says.

“ ‘Well,’ I says, ‘what about the counsel?’ ‘The counsel will do nothing for you,’ the old man yells, ‘you sonofabitching sea lawyer.’ So they put me ashore. I didn’t go to the counsel direct. That does no good. I knew from experience. I just walked up to the first cop I seen and knocked him down.

“Fifteen minutes later I was in the jug.

“ ‘What did you do it for?’ says the counsel. So I told him. ‘And I am going to keep on doing it every day until you get me a ship away from here,’ I told him.

“So the counsel jumps in his own motorboat and races out to the ship and he says to the old man if he leaves me there he will have him arrested for a marooner and a pirate and a menace to the peace of nations. So they hold the ship and I gets my shoes.”