Collected Short Fiction Read Online Free Page B

worry,’ Bogart said. ‘I go buy another.’
    They had never seen Bogart drink so much; they had never heard him talk so much; and they were alarmed. No one dared to ask Bogart where he had been.
    Bogart said, ‘You boys been keeping my room hot all the time?’
    ‘It wasn’t the same without you,’ Hat replied.
    But they were all worried. Bogart was hardly opening his lips when he spoke. His mouth was twisted a little, and his accent was getting slightly American.
    ‘Sure, sure,’ Bogart said, and he had got it right. He was just like an actor.
    Hat wasn’t sure that Bogart was drunk.
    In appearance, you must know, Hat recalled Rex Harrison, and he had done his best to strengthen the resemblance. He combed his hair backwards, screwed up his eyes, and he spoke very nearly like Harrison.
    ‘Damn it, Bogart,’ Hat said, and he became very like Rex Harrison. ‘You may as well tell us everything right away.’
    Bogart showed his teeth and laughed in a twisted, cynical way.
    ‘Sure I’ll tell,’ he said, and got up and stuck his thumbs inside his waistband. ‘Sure, I’ll tell everything.’
    He lit a cigarette, leaned back in such a way that the smoke got into his eyes; and, squinting, he drawled out his story.
    He had got a job on a ship and had gone to British Guiana. There he had deserted, and gone into the interior. He became a cowboy on the Rupununi, smuggled things (he didn’t say what) into Brazil, and had gathered some girls from Brazil and taken them to Georgetown. He was running the best brothel in the town when the police treacherously took his bribes and arrested him.
    ‘It was a high-class place,’ he said, ‘no bums. Judges and doctors and big shot civil servants.’
    ‘What happen?’ Eddoes asked. ‘Jail?’
    ‘How you so stupid?’ Hat said. ‘Jail, when the man here withwe. But why you people so stupid? Why you don’t let the man talk?’
    But Bogart was offended, and refused to speak another word.
    From then on the relationship between these men changed. Bogart became the Bogart of the films. Hat became Harrison. And the morning exchange became this:
    ‘Bogart!’
    ‘Shaddup, Hat!’
    Bogart now became the most feared man in the street. Even Big Foot was said to be afraid of him. Bogart drank and swore and gambled with the best. He shouted rude remarks at girls walking by themselves in the street. He bought a hat, and pulled down the brim over his eyes. He became a regular sight, standing against the high concrete fence of his yard, hands in his pockets, one foot jammed against the wall, and an eternal cigarette in his mouth.
    Then he disappeared again. He was playing cards with the gang in his room, and he got up and said, ‘I’m going to the latrine.’
    They didn’t see him for four months.
    When he returned, he had grown a little fatter but he had become a little more aggressive. His accent was now pure American. To complete the imitation, he began being expansive towards children. He called out to them in the streets, and gave them money to buy gum and chocolate. He loved stroking their heads, and giving them good advice.
    The third time he went away and came back he gave a great party in his room for all the children or kids, as he called them. He bought cases of Solo and Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola and about a bushel of cakes.
    Then Sergeant Charles, the policeman who lived up Miguel Street at number forty-five, came and arrested Bogart.
    ‘Don’t act tough, Bogart,’ Sergeant Charles said.
    But Bogart failed to take the cue.
    ‘What happening, man? I ain’t do anything.’
    Sergeant Charles told him.
    There was a little stir in the papers. The charge was bigamy; but it was up to Hat to find out all the inside details that the newspapers never mention.
    ‘You see,’ Hat said on the pavement that evening, ‘the man leave his first wife in Tunapuna and come to Port of Spain. Theycouldn’t have children. He remain here feeling sad and small. He go away, find a girl in