over the side of the dock, his feet still on the ladder. He had an ugly, thick-featured face on which protruded several moles and he held his head far over on his right shoulder. His hands, grasping the top rung of the ladder, were crisscrossed by white scars and the fingers were as thick as sausages.
“Did she get you?” he asked June, who was rubbing her shoulder.
“Just a little,” said June, but she was trembling.
“Standing around in this weather!” said the man. “No wonder you’ve got the chill.”
“It’s just her old fever,” said Ronny, speaking for the first time. At his pure, high soprano the man looked at him as though cocking his head humourously. But of course it was tilted that way permanently.
“I don’t know where you came from,” he said, “but right now you’re going with me. I’m Eddie, see?” There was something about Eddie despite his hideousness that made him disarming, even childlike, although June was of an age to find personal beauty very important. Now he led the way and they followed meekly. Behind them came a thin little man who shuffled rather than walked. It was to him the rope had been thrown. Skirting the water’s edge with its hotel, its dance hall and its bars, they arrived at a grimy food shop called Snacks.
“Hey Ma,” called Eddie, “you got customers!”
Ma, who was somewhere in back, came out, a thin, flat-chested woman with a nonchalant manner and curl papers in her hair.
“Give us four coffees,” said Eddie.
They sat down in a grimy booth, the little man and Eddie on one side, June and Ronny on the other.
“Is she really your mother?” asked Ronny when the woman had served them and gone out of the room again.
“No of course not!” Eddie was shocked. The little man laughed. Eddie turned and looked towards the back of the shop as though its proprietress had given him an insult. “My mother was a beauty.”
“Everyone’s was,” said the little man.
“Well you did call her Ma.” Ronny spoke reasonably.
The little man laughed again and this time they all saw that he had no teeth. “That’s just so as not to call her something worse.”
Eddie turned to him. “Come on, Flo!” He winked at the others and explained: “Ma’s coffee needs a little help.”
Flo obediently drew a flask out of his hip pocket and poured liberal quantities in his and Eddie’s coffee. He looked doubtfully across the table.
“Go on,” said Eddie. “It’s medicine, ain’t it? She’s caught a cold.” Flo poured some of the liquor in the other two cups.
“Well, here’s to you.” Eddie lifted his cup and everyone followed him as though mesmerized by his soft, tenor voice whose accent was like a dim memory. The lukewarm liquid seemed to make a path in June’s body and along that path all chill and trembling stopped. Eddie reached out and patted her on the arm. “There,” he said, “you just drink that up.” His tough, thick hand stretched from his sleeve so that one could see on the inside of his wrist a blue and red Christ on a cross, and above that, the four card symbols: spade, heart, club, and diamond.
“You’re tattooed,” said Ronny, almost with awe.
“Sure. I got many more,” said Eddie, and immediately unbuttoned his shirt to display a chest covered with designs. A full-rigged ship showed among his black hairs as though sailing through a forest, while beneath it a woman turned her profile with a padlock on her lips. Still lower a many-petaled rose wound its stem around his navel. These were Eddie’s diary; the records of his sentiments and misdeeds, pricked out upon his skin with India ink. Encouraged by Ronny’s admiring attention, Eddie now removed his shirt altogether.
Flo said: “I used to be a real tattoo artist on the other side. Here they got machines.”
Eddie rippled his muscles; a woman on his arm danced with her hips and a butterfly flew. His thick, uneven lips, scorched by the salt wind, smiled. His face softened. “You’re nice kids,” he remarked.
“She’s not a kid,” said Ronny, pointing at June.
“All women are kids in America,” stated Flo.
Eddie looked hastily at June. “Don’t get rough, Flo,” he said.
But June was not listening. She had been profoundly and secretly thrilled by the tattooing on Eddie’s body. The images transferred themselves from his skin to stamp her mind. The liquor liberated her fancy. Her eyes gleamed and the drops of rain that fell from her hair were like pure round pearls on her skin. Beside her she felt the palpitating little body of Ronny with his bare thigh stirring against her leg. She turned to him suddenly: “Why don’t you try, Ronny? I dare you!”
Ronny leaped to his feet, upsetting the remains of his coffee. A wave of emotion contracted the muscles of his cheeks. He looked at June with a sort of passion. “It’s needles in the skin!” he said in his shrill voice.
“Yes,” agreed June.
Ronny leaned across and plucked Flo’s sleeve. “Can you do it, Mr. Flo?”
Flo smiled. It was as though he had been leading up to this all along, pulling at their nerves, guiding their reactions. “Sure I can. I’m an artist like I said.”
Eddie smiled too. He had taken several raw swigs from Flo’s flask which by now was cradled in his lap. “You’re a funny kid,” he said, not to Ronny but to June. “You’ve got all the makings, haven’t you?” His eyes, reddened by sun and wind, concentrated themselves. June did not want to meet them, but her own vision was a little hazy so that she could not quite control its direction. ‘He’s ugly,’ she thought as one repeats a charm or a prayer.
For a moment all four of them were silent and during the pause they realized that they were no longer the only people in the shop. Two clamdiggers in hip boots and sou’-westers were drinking coffee in another booth and at the counter some girls were ordering sundaes. June, hearing their noisy chatter, stared at them curiously. They were about her own age with brilliant, painted lips and permanent waves which split the ends of their hair. With every move they aimed uncertain weapons at the men in the room. Feeling June’s eyes, they turned with one accord and stared back. Then, with derisive giggles, they wheeled around again to their sundaes.
June was very embarrassed. “Well,” she said in a quarrelsome manner to Ronny, “are you or aren’t you?”
“I am,” said Ronny. He had grown quite still. All the vibrations of his body were suspended. “Mr. Flo is going to tattoo me,” he continued slowly and almost with languor, “aren’t you, Mr. Flo?”
“Sure,” agreed Flo. “We have to go next door to the barber’s, that’s all. I got my needles there.”
CHAPTER NINE
The afternoon of the scout meeting decided Stevens to write to Ronny’s mother.
“Dear Mrs. Villars:” he wrote.
“I am addressing you in some perplexity and after much hesitation.
