Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

To Have and Have Not
To Have and Have Not
To Have and Have Not
Ebook227 pages3 hours

To Have and Have Not

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

()

Read preview

About this ebook

From one of the best writers in American literature, a classic novel about smuggling, intrigue, and love.

To Have and Have Not is the dramatic story of Harry Morgan, an honest man who is forced into running contraband between Cuba and Key West as a means of keeping his crumbling family financially afloat. His adventures lead him into the world of the wealthy and dissipated yachtsmen who throng the region and involve him in a strange and unlikely love affair.

In this harshly realistic, yet oddly tender and wise novel, Hemingway perceptively delineates the personal struggles of both the "haves" and the "have nots" and creates one of the most subtle and moving portraits of a love affair in his oeuvre. By turns funny and tragic, lively and poetic, remarkable in its emotional impact, To Have and Have Not is literary high adventure at its finest.
LanguageEnglish
PublisherScribner
Release dateJul 25, 2002
ISBN9780743237345
Author

Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway did more to change the style of English prose than any other writer of his time. Publication of The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms immediately established Hemingway as one of the greatest literary lights of the twentieth century. His classic novel The Old Man and the Sea won the Pulitzer Prize in 1953. Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954. His life and accomplishments are explored in-depth in the PBS documentary film from Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, Hemingway. Known for his larger-than-life personality and his passions for bullfighting, fishing, and big-game hunting, he died in Ketchum, Idaho on July 2, 1961. 

Read more from Ernest Hemingway

Related to To Have and Have Not

Related ebooks

Action & Adventure Fiction For You

View More

Related articles

Reviews for To Have and Have Not

Rating: 3.413793103448276 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

58 ratings35 reviews

What did you think?

Tap to rate

Review must be at least 10 words

  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Crisp, effortless prose. Oddly erratic plot, the Harry Morgan thread and the Richard Gordon thread really don't have anything to do with each other. The Richard Gordon part feels strongly autobiographical. Apparently the book was written quickly and it shows. I read it while I was in Key West, where the book was set, so it resonated for me in spite of all the flaws.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    We were recently in Key West, and of course had to visit the Hemingway House and Museum (and the polydactyl Hemingway cats. I chose this as the one book purchase from the museum store, because it was Hemingway's only novel set in Key West, and one of a few novels written during his twelve years living there. It's been a long time since I last read Hemingway, and even so I could tell this is not one of his stronger novels. There's a lot of racist language (I can't recall if that was as prevalent in other Hemingway works) by the characters , which I found off-putting, but the story itself moved along to keep me going to the end. Harry Morgan, the main character, is living in Key West during the Great Depression, and to support his wife and family, he takes on a lot of illegal activities such as rum-running (due to Prohibition) and human trafficking. There's also unhappy rich people here. All rather depressing, but the desperation certainly comes across throughout this novel.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Hemingway is the ultimate manipulator. He gets a lot of flack for his straightforward writing but I have found myself enjoying it. It doesn't always take flowery language to make a scene or a character. To Have and Have Not is up there with Farewell to Arms in the Hemingway upper echelon.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Beperkte samenhang: losse verhalen, op zich uitstekend, met Harry als bindmiddel. Diverse boodschappen: strijd van man tegen onrecht, de sociale ellende en contrast met de rijken; hardheid van het bestaan. bewust technische vormexperimenten met soms mooie effecten, maar geen geheel
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Really great...
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I technically finished this yesterday (9.23) (because I only had about 4 pages to go when I got to to work) ironically at work; where when I didn't get the promotion I was told I read too much on my breaks and I should be spending that time socializing with my co-workers.

    But anyway.... the book..... is just not good. It screams amateurish and first-time writing. Its not that its Hemingway's style that is bad; its just the execution of it in this book. The various chapters that are POV and then are omniscient, the going back and forth, the things like Harry losing his arm basically happening off-screen, the bad way that he tried to show the intersecting lives of the rich and the poor.... it all just comes off as .... so bad.....

    Its funny, I have a hate/love relationship with Hemingway. Sometimes I find him deep and insightful and love his prose, and then others it just comes off as poor and amateur hour. I also mostly feel like the characters are him; so their actions and dialogue is his actions and dialogue, like surrogate characters, rather than their own entities. So things like racial language (the n-word and the Asian c-word) in the book more comes off as thats how E. Hemingway talks rather than thats how Character X talks. Especially how it transcends just this book and its in multiple works of his (books / short stories). Ultimately just none of the characters felt great in this either, Harry comes off as flat. We're told how amazing he is by his wife, we're told how handsome he is by an ugly woman at a bar, etc. The back blurb also doesn't do this book much justice (which luckily I only read after being 2/3rds of the way through the novel). The back blurb mentions an "amazing love" (I'm assuming Harry and his wife's, which is piss poor blurb-writing if I ever saw it), and it says he's caught up in a love affair (he barely sees two of the characters, one time at a bar, who THEY have the affair - not him). That back book blurb has about as much to do with the actual novel as a Bud Light can has to do with beer.... (hint, BL is more like water than beer.... and bad water at that).
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Beperkte samenhang: losse verhalen, op zich uitstekend, met Harry als bindmiddel. Diverse boodschappen: strijd van man tegen onrecht, de sociale ellende en contrast met de rijken; hardheid van het bestaan. bewust technische vormexperimenten met soms mooie effecten, maar geen geheel
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I like the local, the boats, hemingway, etc. its on of his best
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Probably Hemingway's weakest novel. Still, more interesting and original than the movie, which tried too hard to be Casablanca.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Just when I think this book is about Harry Morgan, I find that it's really not. First, lets talk about Harry. In the winter he runs charter fishing trips out of Havana. He's been known to use his ship for other, not so legal, purposes as well. In the summer he returns to Florida and his family where he is soon involved in another scheme which goes awry. Then, Hemingway seems to step back from Harry's story and becomes involved with the people who frequent Freddy's bar and the yacht's that dock in Key West's basin. It offers an enlightening snapshot of who travels to Key West and for what reason. Nice snapshot or not,it took away from the flow of the story and jars the reader who want's to know what's happened to Harry. I find the title also exemplifies the tribulations of those who have with those who do not. Both suffer in some manner.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Hard to read past the cheap racist descriptions, hasn't aged well, which is a shame, as the gritty noir story is a good one.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    How far would you go to support your loved ones? This is a tale of one man's downfall while he tries to do just that. It is a dark tale. It is also a cautionary tale of the dark side of wealth and what it can take to accumulate it. Hemingway is a master storyteller, but I doubt you need me to tell you that!
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    The greatest Hemingway failure I've read since The Old Man And The Sea, To Have And Have Not finds him failing to write convincing women AND stream-of-conscious. All of this could conceivably be forgiven if the narrative were compelling, but the virulently racist Harry Morgan experiences a death that elicits no sympathy from the reader whatsoever. Oh, spoiler alert! I've thrown the book a bone by giving it a full star instead of just half of a star because there are some well written passages that have been stowed few and far between. And the book is a sight better than The Old Man And The Sea, but that regrettably doesn't say much.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    You would think that it would be difficult to have a depressing story set in the warm and sunny Florida Keys, but this Hemingway novel manages to do it. Henry Morgan's life goes from bleak to bleaker. Set during the Depression, Morgan makes some dicey choices trying to earn enough money for his family to survive. And of course, there are lots of scenes fishing off the Keys. Hemingway at his grittiest.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I had two misconceptions about To Have and Have Not. The first was that it’s widely regarded as Hemingway’s worst novel and even the author himself said he only wrote it for the money. I’m not sure where I picked that up, because as far as I can tell it received mixed reviews and the only suggestion that Hemingway disliked it comes from an interview with Howard Hawks, a director who adapted it for film in 1944, and claimed that Hemingway told him it was “a bunch of junk.” The second misconception was that it was based on the short story “After the Storm,” one of my favourites from The First 49 Stories. But while “After The Storm” is very similar – involving a rough-and-tumble boat captain in the Gulf of Mexico – To Have and Have Not is actually apparently based upon two different stories, which were incorporated into the book.To Have and Have Not follows Harry Morgan, a forty-something American skipper who divides his time between Key West and Havana and makes a living by chartering his boat for ventures ranging from fishing expeditions to human trafficking. You can tell straight away that it was developed out of a couple of short stories, because it’s a patchwork novel; it begins with a couple of disparate sections in which Morgan smuggles Chinese immigrants and then a load of rum, oddly switching between first person and third person perspective, and then it warms up to the crux of the novel – a scene in which the Cubans he agrees to smuggle back into the country rob a bank in Key West first and then essentially hijack him. This critical part of the novel is an example of Hemingway at his finest, and even the earlier segments, while unneccesary, were enjoyable in themselves. It’s a shame that during and after this mid-novel climax, Hemingway decided to focus on a bunch of extraneous characters back in Key West who are going through marriage break-ups and bar arguments are various other things that are not as remotely interesting as the lethal conflict between a skipper and his hijackers in the middle of the sea.To Have and Have Not is a flawed but enjoyable Hemingway novel, with subtle Marxist undertones (hence the title) and a particularly vivid setting – you can almost feel the Cuban sun on your arms and see the light dappling on the Caribbean water. (Or maybe that’s because I read most of it on a beach in Western Australia.) When it’s good, it’s truly great – it’s just a shame that those moments are uncommon. There’s a very good short novel in here, encrusted with a bunch of other rubbish that simply didn’t need to be there. If Hemingway truly did think this book was “a bunch of junk,” he only had himself to blame.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    If I ever read To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway before, it did not stick because I have no recollection of it. I went through a decidedly passionate Hemingway phase in my teens and again in my early twenties, but I don’t recall this work, although I remember quite vividly A Farewell to Arms, The Sun Also Rises, For Whom the Bell Tolls, the fat one volume Collected Short Stories – if not the details of the narratives but the way they made me feel, the impact the fiction had upon my life, the essential contribution to the foundation of my own core sense of existentialism. Of course it has been a lot of years and a lot partying since those days, so it remains possible that I read To Have and Have Not and simply forgot it. Anyway, I don’t think so. I typically read four or five books at the same time, and I quite randomly picked To Have and Have Not off the shelf as a nightstand book for the end of the day. Almost immediately, I rediscovered the electric thrill of reading Hemingway again, the way he gets inside your skin so you literally become the protagonist! Literary scholars can wax on about his brilliant technique of utilizing the objective correlative to transform the otherwise inanimate into dynamic moods and passion, but it is more challenging to qualify how the master transports you inside the story: you might be a ninety pound weakling who clerks at a drugstore, but when you read Hemingway you become - for a brief moment perhaps – Robert Jordan with a rifle facing certain death for something you believe in. Hemingway is out of fashion these days, most prominently I believe because his larger-than-life personality became conflated with his literature, so that he became a caricature for himself the way Elvis did. But of course that the real-life Elvis became a fat, sequined, pill-popping fop in Vegas should not detract from the brilliance of Jailhouse Rock, and the loud, bullying, lion-hunting Hemingway should not overshadow the beauty of the author’s spare prose and the spell it casts on the reader in his many literary efforts. There are definitely aspects of the real Ernest Hemingway that should be out of fashion, but there are certainly critical pieces of his legacy as a great writer that should never be out of fashion. If you doubt that, read him; I encouraged my twenty-something daughter to read A Farewell to Arms and it blew her away. Genius does not go out of fashion.To Have and Have Not (1937) is not Hemingway’s best book, in my opinion. In fact, I am not certain he ever figured out what he wanted to say in this novel, so he just said everything he could think of while he wrote it. It is actually two short stories and a novella, loosely woven together, and according to Howard Hawks (who directed the extremely loose film adaptation) Hemingway called it his worst book. It is certainly disjointed, but it is punctuated by the kind of brilliance Hemingway uniquely supplies in his fiction. This would be a good time to bring up the film, which is a memorable if sometimes trite 1944 Bogart-Bacall vehicle that leaves an indelible impression on the viewer so that it is ever after difficult to separate the Bogey version of Harry Morgan in the flick from the Harry Morgan character in the Hemingway novel. The Bogey Harry Morgan is a worldly, cynical yet larger-than-life cardboard cut-out (speaking of caricatures!) spawn of Rick in Casablanca whom you really can’t take that seriously: he is nothing like the doomed down-on-his-luck fatalistic fellow Harry Morgan in the book, who unlike the Bogey Harry Morgan (who has the hot statuesque future wife Lauren Bacall to trade clever jibes with) has a middle-aged overweight wife, mother to three girls, who is past-her-prime but pathetically hangs on to what they had together when he was the younger and more successful alpha-male. But reading the book, I think Hawks magnificently succeeded by casting Walter Brennan as the alcoholic shipmate Eddie; this is the only film character who even remotely resembles his fictional counterpart. Eddie is one of the best side-kicks Hemingway ever devised, but no matter how hard I shook my head I couldn’t help hearing Brennan’s screechy voice when Eddie spoke in the pages of the book. Much of To Have and Have Not is about Harry Morgan and his struggle to tragically and hopelessly hold on against a world that is crushing him, but there are other incongruous characters introduced late in the book who assume control of the narrative for some time, men and women who are rich and flawed and troubled: superficial, supercilious beings with the world at their fingertips who squander it all for the frivolous or for the pure pleasure of rising roughshod over the pack. They are the “haves,” I suppose, largely miserable creatures, while Harry is one of the “have-nots,” by implication a better human being who nevertheless is broken against the rocks of life in a cruel, uncaring, amoral world. For me, these other characters are not nearly as well-drawn as the typical personalities Hemingway etches into his narratives, and I can see why the author would have been disappointed with the end product. Still, it was wonderful to read “Papa” Hemingway again. If flawed, this book is still far better than a couple of dozen other works of critically acclaimed works of fiction by “noted authors” that I have read of late. That in itself says everything that needs to be said about the master of twentieth century American fiction, although I might add that I have felt like Harry Morgan more than once in my life, which is testament to the genuine veracity that inhabit all of the central characters in a Hemingway book, even a book not quite as grand as some of the others.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Read this book, which is totally different from the movie. Loved the movie but disliked this book, especially the ending.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    My first Hemingway and most probably also the last: he did not know how to write. His language is dull, his characters are vague and they talk like no one would really talk, his plot is okay, but then why are there all these side-kicks and what happens to them in the end? What purpose do they serve if the author merely introduces these characters, largely at the cost of the main plot and characters, and then forgets to explain the fates of the "sad little love stories"? If the purpose is to show how miserable the life is in this corner of the world - to everyone, not just to the main characters - I think it only succeeds in adding (unnecessary) violence and chauvinism to the story.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I must say I was biased by this book because Hemingway is my favorite author. I didn't understand everything that happened in this book, either, because of Hemingway's famous vague-ness, but that's okay. It had everything I like in a novel: crime, rich buttheads, poetically rambling sentences, and boats. The ending was really sad though, I must say.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Brutal, tragic story of Harry Morgan, who tries to provide for his family through increasingly shady means, in Depression-era Florida Keys and Cuba. His story is contrasted against the Haves, including a Hemingway stand-in, and their superficial existence. Rough stuff.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I read this during the summer of 2010 amid a fascination with the detective novel. This book in particular was picked up to accompany the Humphrey Bogart film. I enjoyed the film but I enjoyed the book much, much more. The setting is changed for the film. It isn't believed to be one of Hemingway's best but I think that is just plain wrong. This book is fabulous. And Captain Morgan finds its name within this novel."there aren't any lucky rummies."
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    After seeing the movie "based" on this novella, I decided it was worth checking out the original - if in part only to see how true to it the movie was. I'd chalk this up as one of the few cases where I preferred the movie. Not one of Hemingway's best, this slim book isn't terrible but I wouldn't really recommend it either, especially if you'd seen the more romance- and action-packed movie first. Of course, Hemingway's unique style is here and the book is worthwhile for that, but the plot is particularly compelling.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    SummaryHarry Morgan is a policeman-turned-fisherman down on his luck like so many others in the Depression-struck Florida Keys. To make ends meet, Harry begins engaging in increasingly dangerous illegal activities in the waters between the Keys and Cuba.The book opens on Harry and several Cuban revolutionaries who want to pay Harry an exorbitant fee to transport them to the United States. Harry refuses, preferring to use his boat for legal activities, and as the revolutionaries leave, they are gunned down in the street.However, after being tricked by a customer who charters the boat for three weeks and then vanishes without settling his account, Harry agrees to smuggle Chinese immigrants from Cuba to the mainland. Next, Harry begins running alcohol between the two countries, and a confrontation with Cuban customs lost Harry his arm and his boat. Undeterred, he signs to the next scheme he runs across: stealing a boat and ferrying Cubans involved in a bank robbery back to their homeland.As he descends ever-deeper into desperation, Harry meets old friends and new faces. He has little patience for those who have not remained as resilient to the times as himself, and he has no patience for outsiders. Tensions mount between this hardscrabble jack-of-all-trades and several tourists who frequent his local bars.One pair of tourists take special prominence in the book: Arthur, an unexceptional writer, and his beautiful, unhappy wife. When Arthur comes home one day after sleeping with yet another woman, his wife decides to leave him for another man, an alcoholic who has been seen sloshing around the bars as well.Meanwhile, you are given a peek into the intimate details of Harry’s relationship with his wife, Marie. The quiet desperation with which they cling to each other is meant as a justification for Harry’s illegal maritime activity. Unfortunately, Harry does not return home after his trip with the Cuban bank-robbers, and Marie becomes yet another Depression-era woman left wringing her apron in desperation and rage.AnalysisI’ll be the first to admit that I have a bit of a Hemingway obsession. One of my literary goals is to read all of his books, and I’m not too far from the finish line. However, To Have and Have Not is my least favorite Hemingway book so far. Though Hemingway attempts to dissect grand social issues, such as troubled economic times and the relationship that exists between husband and wife, the entangled sub-plots and the erratic activities of the characters serve to distract from whatever statement Hemingway is trying to make.The unexpected changes in viewpoints are disorienting, and the stories of other characters either stop abruptly or trail off seemingly without resolution. Harry remains the driving force of the novel, if there is one, even when the narrative meanders through the viewpoints of those who interact with him. Though his motivations inspire pity, his actions encourage judgment. Ultimately, I felt indifference toward him.One aspect of the novel that I did enjoy, however, was the marine setting. I liked the descriptions of Harry’s boat and the protective feelings that he felt for her. However, if you want good writing by Hemingway about the nautical life, read The Old Man and the Sea. In fact, skip this book and read Old Man anyway.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Later torn up and revamped for a movie, this lesser work of Hemingway still has it's moments. Following the characters as they collide into each other violently all around the island is what makes this novel work. The movie was good too, but only for the banter between Bogie and Bacall.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    "On the other hand, a surgeon cannot desist while operating for fear of hurting the patient. But why must all the operations in life be performed without an anaesthetic?"-from To Have and Have NotIf you've read Hemingway you know what to expect. If you've seen the movie with Humphrey Bogart, it is only loosely based on the novel. The beginnings are rather similar, but the movie eliminates the grim nature of the book almost entirely.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Good book. If you like Hemingway, you'll like it. Not much really happens and its not a resounding novel with a deep message, well maybe other than money is the ruin of man. But it is a good, easy read that will satisfy readers looking for machismo.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    For some odd reason, what stixcks in my mind from this is how the man lobves his fat wife and a visiting novelist imagines he cabn;t love the fat wife and fictionalizes a love between the man and a beautiful young union organizer.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    When asked by a friend to describe this novel, I said that it was a mean story about mean people who do mean things to one another. More specifically, Hemingway is exercising a kind of casual, detached social criticism with Harry Morgan, a down-on-his-luck captain of a private fishing boat, and his attempts to do business with a series of lowlifes who at their best prove untrustworthy, and at their worst lethal. Viewed as Depression-era social criticism, the novel is half-baked and unconvincing, but I suspect that Hemingway was no more convinced of his social message than Harry Morgan is convinced by the politics of the young Cuban revolutionary he agrees to smuggle out of Key West with three other men in the novel's third part. Harry is no bleeding-heart, and he is as quick to toss his friend Albert's dead body off his boat and into the sea as he is to grieve over him. To me, the point of the book is not that the author Richard Gordon, for example, is a "have" and that Harry Morgan is a "have not," and isn’t that a shame. The point is that, in Key West, anyway, the two live right next to one another.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    First of all: chapter 24 should have been COMPLETELY EXCISED by Scribner's editors. It has nothing to do with the story, which itself is mundane and, for Hemingway, borning. One of his more empty efforts.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    The original New York Times review in 1937 put it this way: "Mr. Hemingway has been for some years an outstanding figure in American literature; he has influenced greatly men a little younger than himself, and they have paid him the tribute of imitation. Whatever he does is of interest because he has, unquestionably, a very real talent. What has he done with it in To Have and Have Not?"It's a good question, and one that hasn't really been answered in the 70 years since then. Some have said Hemingway hated the book himself and only wrote it to fulfil some kind of contractual obligation. But how could he be contractually obliged to write an awful book? Even if somebody did set the subject matter, surely he could have produced something better than this?The main problem with the book is that it is schizophrenic. It's a cross between an adolescent high-seas adventure story and a social analysis of the effects of the Great Depression. Even if both could be crammed into one book, it's probably safe to say that fans of one genre are unlikely to be fans of the other.The writing style, too, is schizophrenic, lurching from first person to third person, from one character's point of view to another's. Harry Morgan's character, too, changes. He starts out as a hard-drinking, hard-fighting Hemingway hero, but later on, as the whole idea of the book seems to change midstream, he becomes more of a Steinbeck-style poor old victim of the system. His wife and children then appear in the book, looking as if they have been grafted on to make him appear more sympathetic. Then rich people start to appear, being vile and self-obsessed but never fully drawn as characters. Their only role appears to be to act as "haves" to contrast against the "have nots".Another major problem I had with the book was its racism. You could argue that Hemingway was showing his characters to be racist, but still the constant, overwhelming use of words like "nigger" and "chink" really shocked me and immediately put me off the book. And worse than the words themselves were the way the characters of other races were described as objects more than people, with no characters beyond crude racial stereotypes like lazy blacks and untrustworthy Chinese. They are hardly ever even given names, but just referred to by their race: "the [insert racial slur] said...." Well, I suppose every good writer has a clunker. I still like Hemingway's writing, particularly in For Whom the Bell Tolls. So this book did teach me one thing: don't judge an author by one book alone. If this had been my first Hemingway book, I'd probably never have read another, and as a result I'd have missed out on some fantastic writing.

Book preview

To Have and Have Not - Ernest Hemingway

1

You know how it is there early in the morning in Havana with the bums still asleep against the walls of the buildings; before even the ice wagons come by with ice for the bars? Well, we came across the square from the dock to the Pearl of San Francisco Café to get coffee and there was only one beggar awake in the square and he was getting a drink out of the fountain. But when we got inside the café and sat down, there were the three of them waiting for us.

We sat down and one of them came over.

Well, he said.

I can’t do it, I told him. I’d like to do it as a favor. But I told you last night I couldn’t.

You can name your own price.

It isn’t that. I can’t do it. That’s all.

The two others had come over and they stood there looking sad. They were nice-looking fellows all right and I would have liked to have done them the favor.

A thousand apiece, said the one who spoke good English.

Don’t make me feel bad, I told him. I tell you true I can’t do it.

Afterwards, when things are changed, it would mean a good deal to you.

I know it. I’m all for you. But I can’t do it.

Why not?

I make my living with the boat. If I lose her I lose my living.

With the money you buy another boat.

Not in jail.

They must have thought I just needed to be argued into it because the one kept on.

You would have three thousand dollars and it could mean a great deal to you later. All this will not last, you know.

Listen, I said. I don’t care who is president here. But I don’t carry anything to the states that can talk.

You mean we would talk? one of them who hadn’t spoke said. He was angry.

"I said anything that can talk."

"Do you think we are lenguas largas?"

No.

"Do you know what a lengua larga is?"

Yes. One with a long tongue.

Do you know what we do with them?

Don’t be tough with me, I said. You propositioned me. I didn’t offer you anything.

Shut up, Pancho, the one who had done the talking before said to the angry one.

He said we would talk, Pancho said.

Listen, I said. "I told you I didn’t carry anything that can talk. Sacked liquor can’t talk. Demijohns can’t talk. There’s other things that can’t talk. Men can talk."

Can Chinamen talk? Pancho said, pretty nasty.

They can talk but I can’t understand them, I told him.

So you won’t?

It’s just like I told you last night. I can’t.

But you won’t talk? Pancho said.

The one thing that he hadn’t understood right had made him nasty. I guess it was disappointment, too. I didn’t even answer him.

"You’re not a lengua larga, are you?" he asked, still nasty.

I don’t think so.

What’s that? A threat?

Listen, I told him. Don’t be so tough so early in the morning. I’m sure you’ve cut plenty people’s throats. I haven’t even had my coffee yet.

So you’re sure I’ve cut people’s throats?

No, I said. And I don’t give a damn. Can’t you do business without getting angry?

I am angry now, he said. I would like to kill you.

Oh, hell, I told him. Don’t talk so much.

Come on, Pancho, the first one said. Then, to me, I am very sorry. I wish you would take us.

I’m sorry, too. But I can’t.

The three of them started for the door, and I watched them go. They were good-looking young fellows, wore good clothes; none of them wore hats, and they looked like they had plenty of money. They talked plenty of money, anyway, and they spoke the kind of English Cubans with money speak.

Two of them looked like brothers and the other one, Pancho, was a little taller but the same sort of looking kid. You know, slim, good clothes, and shiny hair. I didn’t figure he was as mean as he talked. I figured he was plenty nervous.

As they turned out of the door to the right, I saw a closed car come across the square toward them. The first thing a pane of glass went and the bullet smashed into the row of bottles on the showcase wall to the right. I heard the gun going and, bop, bop, bop, there were bottles smashing all along the wall.

I jumped behind the bar on the left side and could see looking over the edge. The car was stopped and there were two fellows crouched down by it. One had a Thompson gun and the other had a sawed-off automatic shotgun. The one with the Thompson gun was a nigger. The other had a chauffeur’s white duster on.

One of the boys was spread out on the sidewalk, face down, just outside the big window that was smashed. The other two were behind one of the Tropical beer ice wagons that was stopped in front of the Cunard bar next door. One of the ice-wagon horses was down in the harness, kicking, and the other was plunging his head off.

One of the boys shot from the rear corner of the wagon and it ricocheted off the sidewalk. The nigger with the Tommy gun got his face almost into the street and gave the back of the wagon a burst from underneath and sure enough one came down, falling toward the sidewalk with his head above the curb. He flopped there, putting his hands over his head, and the chauffeur shot at him with the shotgun while the nigger put in a fresh pan; but it was a long shot. You could see the buckshot marks all over the sidewalk like silver splatters.

The other fellow pulled the one who was hit back by the legs to behind the wagon, and I saw the nigger getting his face down on the paving to give them another burst. Then I saw old Pancho come around the corner of the wagon and step into the lee of the horse that was still up. He stepped clear of the horse, his face white as a dirty sheet, and got the chauffeur with the big Luger he had; holding it in both hands to keep it steady. He shot twice over the nigger’s head, coming on, and once low.

He hit a tire on the car because I saw dust blowing in a spurt on the street as the air came out, and at ten feet the nigger shot him in the belly with the Tommy gun, with what must have been the last shot in it because I saw him throw it down, and old Pancho sat down hard and went over forwards. He was trying to come up, still holding onto the Luger, only he couldn’t get his head up, when the nigger took the shotgun that was lying against the wheel of the car by the chauffeur and blew the side of his head off. Some nigger.

I took a quick one out of the first bottle I saw open and I couldn’t tell you yet what it was. The whole thing made me feel pretty bad. I slipped along behind the bar and out through the kitchen in back and all the way out. I went clean around the outside of the square and never even looked over toward the crowd there was coming fast in front of the café and went in through the gate and out onto the dock and got on board.

The fellow who had her chartered was on board waiting. I told him what had happened.

Where’s Eddy? this fellow Johnson that had us chartered asked me.

I never saw him after the shooting started.

Do you suppose he was hit?

Hell, no. I tell you the only shots that came in the café were into the showcase. That was when the car was coming behind them. That was when they shot the first fellow right in front of the window. They came at an angle like this——

You seem awfully sure about it, he said.

I was watching, I told him.

Then, as I looked up, I saw Eddy coming along the dock looking taller and sloppier than ever. He walked with his joints all slung wrong.

There he is.

Eddy looked pretty bad. He never looked too good early in the morning; but he looked pretty bad now.

Where were you? I asked him.

On the floor.

Did you see it? Johnson asked him.

Don’t talk about it, Mr. Johnson, Eddy said to him. It makes me sick to even think about it.

You better have a drink, Johnson told him. Then he said to me, Well, are we going out?

That’s up to you.

What sort of a day will it be?

Just about like yesterday. Maybe better.

Let’s get out, then.

All right, as soon as the bait comes.

We’d had this bird out three weeks fishing the stream and I hadn’t seen any of his money yet except one hundred dollars he gave me to pay the consul, and clear, and get some grub, and put gas in her before we came across. I was furnishing all the tackle and he had her chartered at thirty-five dollars a day. He slept at a hotel and came aboard every morning. Eddy got me the charter so I had to carry him. I was giving him four dollars a day.

I’ve got to put gas in her, I told Johnson.

All right.

I’ll need some money for that.

How much?

It’s twenty-eight cents a gallon. I ought to put in forty gallons anyway. That’s eleven-twenty.

He got out fifteen dollars.

Do you want to put the rest on the beer and the ice? I asked him.

That’s fine, he said. Just put it down against what I owe you.

I was thinking three weeks was a long time to let him go, but if he was good for it what difference was there? He should have paid every week anyway. But I’ve let them run a month and got the money. It was my fault but I was glad to see it run at first. It was only the last few days he made me nervous but I didn’t want to say anything for fear of getting him plugged at me. If he was good for it, the longer he went the better.

Have a bottle of beer? he asked me, opening the box.

No, thanks.

Just then this nigger we had getting bait comes down the dock and I told Eddy to get ready to cast her off.

The nigger came on board with the bait and we cast off and started out of the harbor, the nigger fixing on a couple of mackerel; passing the hook through their mouth, out the gills, slitting the side and then putting the hook through the other side and out, tying the mouth shut on the wire leader and tying the hook good so it couldn’t slip and so the bait would troll smooth without spinning.

He’s a real black nigger, smart and gloomy, with blue voodoo beads around his neck under his shirt, and an old straw hat. What he liked to do on board was sleep and read the papers. But he put on a nice bait and he was fast.

Can’t you put on a bait like that, captain? Johnson asked me.

Yes, sir.

Why do you carry a nigger to do it?

When the big fish run you’ll see, I told him.

What’s the idea?

The nigger can do it faster than I can.

Can’t Eddy do it?

No, sir.

It seems an unnecessary expense to me. He’d been giving the nigger a dollar a day and the nigger had been on a rumba every night. I could see him getting sleepy already.

He’s necessary, I said.

By then we had passed the smacks with their fish cars anchored in front of Cabañas and the skiffs anchored fishing for mutton fish on the rock bottom by the Morro, and I headed her out where the Gulf made a dark line. Eddy put the two big teasers out and the nigger had baits on three rods.

The stream was in almost to soundings and as we came toward the edge you could see her running nearly purple with regular whirlpools. There was a light east breeze coming up and we put up plenty of flying fish, those big ones with the black wings that look like the picture of Lindbergh crossing the Atlantic when they sail off.

Those big flying fish are the best sign there is. As far as you could see, there was that faded yellow gulfweed in small patches that means the main stream is well in and there were birds ahead working over a school of little tuna. You could see them jumping; just little ones weighing a couple of pounds apiece.

Put out any time you want, I told Johnson.

He put on his belt and his harness and put out the big rod with the Hardy reel with six hundred yards of thirty-six thread. I looked back and his bait was trolling nice, just bouncing along on the swell, and the two teasers were diving and jumping. We were going just about the right speed and I headed her into the Stream.

Keep the rod butt in the socket on the chair, I told him. Then the rod won’t be as heavy. Keep the drag off so you can slack to him when he hits. If one ever hits with the drag on he’ll jerk you overboard.

Every day I’d have to tell him the same thing but I didn’t mind that. One out of fifty parties you get know how to fish. Then when they do know, half the time they’re goofy and want to use line that isn’t strong enough to hold anything big.

How does the day look? he asked me.

It couldn’t be better, I told him. It was a pretty day all right.

I gave the nigger the wheel and told him to work along the edge of the Stream to the eastward and went back to where Johnson was sitting watching his bait bouncing along.

Want me to put out another rod? I asked him.

I don’t think so, he said. I want to hook, fight, and land my fish myself.

Good, I said. Do you want Eddy to put it out and hand it to you if one strikes so you can hook him?

No, he said. I prefer to have only one rod out.

All right.

The nigger was still taking her out and I looked and saw he had seen a patch of flying fish burst out ahead and up the stream a little. Looking back, I could see Havana looking fine in the sun and a ship just coming out of the harbor past the Morro.

I think you’re going to have a chance to fight one today, Mr. Johnson, I told him.

It’s about time, he said. How long have we been out?

Three weeks today.

That’s a long time to fish.

They’re a funny fish, I told him. They aren’t here until they come. But when they come there’s plenty of them. And they’ve always come. If they don’t come now they’re never coming. The moon is right. There’s a good stream and we’re going to have a good breeze.

There were some small ones when we first came.

Yes, I said. Like I told you. The small ones thin out and stop before the big ones come.

You party-boat captains always have the same line. Either it’s too early or too late or the wind isn’t right or the moon is wrong. But you take the money just the same.

Well, I told him, the hell of it is that it usually is too early or too late and plenty of time the wind is wrong. Then when you get a day that’s perfect you’re ashore without a party.

But you think today’s a good day?

Well, I told him, I’ve had action enough for me already today. But I’d like to bet you’re going to have plenty.

I hope so, he said.

We settled down to troll. Eddy went forward and laid down. I was standing up watching for a tail to show. Every once in a while the

Enjoying the preview?
Page 1 of 1