Free Slow Learner by Thomas Pynchon Page B

and headed for Cuba. It seems there were several cases of rifles and other light armament down in the hold, all destined for a gang of banana pickers in Guatemala who had recently unionized and desired to abolish the local American sphere of influence. It was Porcaccio's intention to take over the ship and invade Cuba and claim the island for Italy, to whom it rightfully belonged, since Columbus had discovered it. For his mutiny he had assembled two Chinese wipers and a deck hand subject to epileptic fits. The captain laughed and invited Porcaccio in for a drink. Two days later they came staggering out on deck, drunk, arms flung about each other's shoulders; neither had had any sleep in the intervening period. The ship had run into a heavy squall; all hands were running around securing booms and shifting cargo, and in the confusion the captain somehow got washed over the side. Porcaccio thus became master of the Deirdre O'Tool e. The liquor supply had run out, however, so Porcaccio decided to head for Caracas and replenish. He promised the crew a jeroboam of champagne each the day Havana was captured. Bolingbroke and Sabbarese were not about to invade Cuba. As soon as the ship docked in Caracas they went over the hill and lived off the proceeds of a barmaid, an Armenian refugee named Zenobia, sleeping with her on alternate nights, for two months. Finally something — whether homesickness for the sea or an attack of conscience or the violent and unpredictable temper of their patroness Bolingbroke had never quite decided — prompted them to visit the Italian consul and give themselves up. The consul was most understanding. He put them on an Italian merchantman bound for Genoa and they shoveled coal as if into the fires of hell all the way across the Atlantic.
    By this time it was late and everybody was loaded. Bolingbroke yawned. "Good night, man," he said. "I got to be up bright and early. You hear any strange noises don't sweat it. That's a strong bolt."
    "Wha," Pig said. "Who's gonna get in?" Flange began to feel uneasy.
    "Nobody," Bolingbroke said, "only them. They try to get in every once in a while. But they ain't yet. And there's a hunk of pipe you can use if they do." He put out the lamp and stumbled over to his bed.
    "Yeah," Pig said, "but who?"
    "The gypsies," Bolingbroke yawned. His voice was drowsing off into sleep. "They live here. Here in the dump. Only come out at night." He fell silent and after a while began to snore.
    Flange shrugged. What the hell. All right, there were gypsies around. He remembered back in his childhood thet they used to camp out on the deserted areas of beach along the north shore. He thought by now they had all gone; somehow he was glad they had not. It suited some half-felt sense of fitness; it was right that there should be gypsies living in the dump, just as he had been able to believe in the Tightness of Bolingbroke's sea, its ability to encompass and be the sustaining plasma or medium for horse-drawn taxis and Porcaccios. Not to mention that young, rogue male Flange, from whom he occasionally felt the Flange of today had suffered a sea change into something not so rare or strange. He drifted into a light, uneasy sleep, flanked by the contrapuntal snorings of Bolingbroke and Pig Bodine.
    How long he slept was uncertain; he awoke in that total darkness with only the visceral time sense of its being two or three in the morning, or at least a desolate hour somehow not intended for human perception, but rather belonging to cats, owls and peepers and whatever else make noises in the night. Outside the wind was still blowing; he searched it for the sound he knew had awakened him. For a full minute there was nothing, then at last it came. A girl's voice, riding on the wind.
    "Anglo," it said, "Anglo with the gold hair. Come out. Come out by the secret path and find me."
    "Wha," Flange said. He shook Pig. "Hey buddy," he said, "there's a broad out there."
    Pig opened one unfocused eye.