On the return voyage they sailed into the Delaware River and down to Baltimore and the Chesapeake Bay. But now they were back in the Big Easy. Johnny was fixing to sign off from his first voyage. When the ship docked Johnny went up to the Captain's Mast and got in line to collect his pay. When his turn came up the Captain glared at him. He counted out $883 and slid it across the table, then told Johnny to sign the log. The Captain glared at Johnny again as he signed. "Go back to school, kid!" Then the Captain looked over at the First Mate. "They're pulling 16 year olds out of school and sending them to sea! That's a bunch of crap!" The First Mate nodded in agreement. "Thank you, Sir" Johnny said as he grabbed the money. Johnny had gotten the same unsolicited advice from the Firemen and Oiler's, and even the Chief Engineer. But $883 dollars in his pocket. Wow! Johnny had never seen so much money before. He went back to his stateroom and counted the money over and over again. Finally convinced he had it, he grabbed his duffle bag and headed for the gangway.
Down on the dock, he went to a pay phone and called a cab to go to the Union Hall. He walked in the front door and past the main hall where seamen were sitting and looking at the job board to see which ships were in port and what jobs were available. He found a table in the galley dining room and dropped off his duffle bag. Then he went through the line and got a plate of red beans and rice. He stopped by a vending machine, dropped a quarter in, and got a can of Dixie beer. Back at the table he loaded the beans and rice up with Tabasco Sauce. As he was eating he noticed a kid he was in "seamen's school" with sitting at another table drinking a can of Dixie. "Hey, Billy! C'mon over here!" Billy Cannon turned around to see Johnny. He shot up and walked to Johnny's table.
"Hey, Johnny!" he said as he sat down. "Good to see you. Where'd they send you?" Johnny smiled at Billy. "I was on freighter. We went to Europe. Where'd they send you?" Billy smiled back. "I was on an oil tanker. We went through the Meditereanean and the Suez to the Persian Gulf."
"Did you sign off?" Johnny asked.
"Yeah, there's lots of jobs. A guy can jump a ship anytime."
"Me too. I'm thinking about going and visiting my mother in Bossier City.
"Your mother lives in Bossier City? I grew up in Shreveport."
"I was born in Shreveport but we went back to Mississippi when I was real young. I don't remember anything about it."
"What does your mother do there?"
"She's a bartender."
"No kidding? On the Bossier Strip?"
"What's the Bossier Strip?"
"You never heard of the Bossier Strip?"
"No."
"Well, you're in for something, Johnny. It's a pretty wild place."
"How so?"
"It's a nightclub district along Highway 80 just east of Shreveport. There's like fifty or sixty joints there. Liquor stores. Hotels. Restaurants. The place is all lit up at night. Bright lights everywhere."
"You been there?" Johnny asked
"Yeah. My dad took me to a few of the joints. I played pinball while he sat at the bar and drank beer. It's a wild and crazy place. Booze, girls, music. Even gambling."
"I'm definitely goin' to see my mother now." Johnny wondered what the hell his mother was doing in a place like that.
"Say, Billy. Did those old sea dogs on that tanker tell you anything about a seamen's life not being a very good life?"
"Hell, yeah. That's all I heard all the way over and back."
"Well, I guess they have a reason for it. Hey! Billy! Look!" Johnny said as he pointed.
Two "seamen's school" kids, dressed in whites, were walking from the galley towards the beer room, one with keys in his hands. Johnny and Billy grinned at each other. Every day two kids were assigned to restock the beer machines. It was always done in the middle of the day when the dining room was busy. If any of the beer was gonna be stolen, it was gonna have to be done in front of a dining room full of seamen.
"C'mon. Let's move to that table over there to get a better view" Billy said. They both darted for the other table. They watched without looking like they were watching. The two kids unlocked and entered the beer room, came out with a cart full of Dixie beer, and wheeled it to the first vending machine. The one with the keys opened it up and they started restocking. It was the third machine Johnny and Billy were interested in. The two kids finished the first and second machines then opened up the third. Johnny and Billy watched as the two kids just about had the third machine restocked without making a move.
"What a couple of dufluses" Johnny said in disgust. "Do you think we should tell them?"
"I'll do the honors" Billy said. "I need another beer anyway."
Billy walked over to the fourth machine and dropped a quarter in. "Hey, guys. A couple of months ago I was in your shoes. Look down there where the motor is" he said as he pointed to the bottom of the machine. The two kids looked down. "You see that empty space next to the motor? About 3 six-packs will fit down there. There's no panel on the back of the machine down there where the motor is. If you hold the door just right you can block off the view from most of the dining room. At night, when the hall is closed, you sneak down here, pull the machine out from the wall, grab the beer, shove the machine back in, then haul ass back upstairs. You got it?"
"Hell, yeah!" one of them said. "Thanks!" Billy got his beer and walked back to the table.
"How you gonna get to Bossier City, Johnny?"
"I'm gonna take Greyhound."
__________________________
Note: Moon Landrieu was elected Mayor of New Orleans in 1969. Clay Shaw was found not guilty. In 1973 Jim Garrison was tried for taking bribes to protect the illegal pinball machine business. The same pinball machines I wrote about in the Two In The Blue thread. I never went to sea again. And....if I had known then what I know now about blackjack I would have fleeced every damn one of those kids.
