BUM'S RUSH IN MANHA'TTAN
35
at the door
loo~ed
carefully into the faces, "Turn your heads this way,"
he repeated. A few of the men he stopped for a second look:.
The youth leaned back to me and w)lispered, "They had a baby riot
here last Monday. The bread was all mouldy and a couple of mugs started
tossing it around the room." I made up my mind to sit next to this young
man but 1 lost him inside.
We got two sandwiches and a tin cupful of coffee. The men who
came after me on line had to eat standing. The smell of the coffee was
dominant but you had also an interplay of disinfectant and flophouse
odors. The official at the doorway stood on a chair and made the an–
nouncement that we were to clean away the benches we sat on and set
up the metal springs and mattresses stored on all sides. Only a very few
of the men looked at him while he was speaking.
I had two wholewheat bread sandwiches of white American cheese on
which fingermarks showed. I scraped the marks otf and ate but I could
not drink the coffee. A man took it eagerly and offered a slice of rye in
exchange. I went up front for a drink of water. You had to ask for it.
"Where's your tin?" the official said.
I returned to the table for it but some of the men had got up and
there was no extra tin . Nobody would give up his. I went bade to the
official and told him.
"Let's look in your package," he said.
"You don't think I gypped it?"
He examined the bundle. "Hold on to your t;n next time," he said,
"]ust for that you don't get water."
I bent down and drank some anyway. He called me a lousy bum
and I called him a lousy stoolpigeon. I would have set up a bed or two
but I left without doing it. On the wharves the sun was still up and I
joined a group to watch the unloading of a banana cargo.
It
was a white boat from the tropics. Men shuttled over the gang–
plank. Two bloated carcasses of rats clinging together undulated in the
tide. Loosely fastened garbage came apart on the surface and boxes and
condoms awaited final decomposition. Many green bananas floated on the
stagnant harbor water.
A ragged man and a boy were bending over the edge of the dock dang–
ling fruit baskets attached to ropes. They dragged them along the slimy
waves, lifted them to let the water run out, then they lowered them back.
The boy struggled with the water-filled basket. The man cast and drew
with few wasted motions.
I said, "What are you fishing for?"
