IF GREAT AUTHORS WROTE PORN: #07 Mark Twain: Hoss Williams Talks
βPersons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot. By Order of the Authorβ
Now, they has been some books writ by a man named Mark Twain, bout a couple of no good boys in this town name of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. Them books was purty good, mostly true but with some stretchers. I don't know much bout that Tom Sawyer, he thinks he is too good for the likes of me. But Huck Finn and me done slept in the same old barr'ls down at the tannery before he got all uppity and went to live with the Widder Douglas. He uset to say, "Hoss Williams, I reckon when I grow up I will be just like you, free and easy and not beholdin' to anybody." He allus was a good boy like that.
Well, there was a printer in this town by the name of Orion Clemens. Somehow he took to me, and din't look down on me like the other folks in town did. "Hoss," he would say, "deep down under that dirt there is a man someplace, I reckon." Sometimes to make him happy I would go jump in the ol' river and try to get some of the smell offen me, and try to stand up straight and behave myself for a while, till I got hold of some likker. That alluz did me in.
Huck Finn done innerduced me to a free nigger name of Jim, and I kinder took to him too. Those boys had some money somehow and now and then they give some of it to Jim. He was a right good headed nigger. Sometimes, when I was hungry, he would feed me. I don't like to talk about it, but sometimes I would sit right down and eat with him. A man will do a lot when he is hungry. But Jim never throwed it up to me. He used to work around the print shop for Orion sometimes, too.
Well, we sometimes set around that print shop and talked, and of course sometimes we talked about wimmen. Jim had been married, but Orion never had, and wasn't no gal wanted anything to do with the likes of me, I guess. Wasn't nothing any of us could do now but lie in bed and put a hand around our cock, and start stroking. That sure felt good, but I was all in a sweat to stick my dick in a real woman's cunt fer a change. Orion said he felt the same way.
"Now what we have to do, Hoss, is get ourselves to St. Louis. That is a real big town, and I know they surely have some courtesans there waiting for lonely men." Orion always was one to use big fancy words. He must have read about courtesans in one of those books by Sir Walter Scott he were alluz readin. I figured it was the same gals that, 'fore he died, my old Pap used to call "soiled doves" when he was sober and "fuckin' ho's" when he was likkered up. The way I heared it was that iffen you gaved them enough money they would do any dirty thing you wanted. Sometimes I heard some of the drunks at the saloon talking about getting some poon tang, and that sounded good to me, and they talked about gettin their cocks sucked by some saloon gals, and I figured that sounded pretty good to me too. So I agreed with Orion that St. Louis was the place we ought to go.
So we tole Jim that was what we was athinking on and said we aimed to take him with us. But he didn't want to go. "Nassuh, Mars Hoss, nassuh. They ain't anything for a free nigger to do in Sant Luse 'cept get his black ass in a whole heap a trubble. I couldn't go inter no sportin' house with you and Mars Orion nohow, they wouldn't let a nigger in."
But Orion could always talk Jim into anything. He promised to carry Jim's emancipation papers and read them to anybody who wanted to cause Jim any trouble. He promised that Jim could wait comfortable for us on the stoop if we went in a high class house. He promised to find some nigger wenches for Jim, too. He tole Jim that he heard those St. Louis nigger wenches could give a better blow job nor anybody. Now Jim's wife had died afore this, and Jim he said he hain't been getting' none for some time, and he was one purty horny buck, so maybe he would come after all. Well Orion went on promising, and 'fore long he agreed he would come.
I asked Orion why he wanted Jim to come along so much. "My Goodness, Hoss Williams, what questions you asks. Don't you know that the Negro stud is reputed by science to have the largest male member of anybody in the human race? And don't you figure if he was using that on some high yaller wench's female flowers and making her scream it would be a pretty show for us to watch? I'm thinking Jim will probably do better than any of us in St. Louis parlors." That was the way Orion Clemens talked all the time. He got it out of them books. Mostly I could figure it out, and this time I followed what he was saying well enough. So I 'lowed that I would like to watch that too, and Jim should come along sure enough.
So Orion he says, "Hoss, if you plan to visit a house of pleasure in St. Louis, you have to clean up and look decent. You think you can do that for one day?"
I sure enuf wanted to dip my wick in the city, so I promised Orion I could do it. Dern him, I didn't know he would make me take a bath! I thought the ol' Mississippi River was good enuf for that, but no, he wanted hot water and soap and all. Then he give me one of his own white shirts, and some black trousers, and some shoes that warn't all busted out at the toes, and even a hat with a brim on it. I looked in the mirror and damn if I didn't look like a man that could stand up and be proud of hisself. I figgered it would stay that way if I stood away from likker til we come back.
Well, we could have tooken a horse and buggy and got to St. Louis easy. But nothing would do for Orion Clemens but to take a steamboat. We had two little packets call at the town every day, one upstream and one downstream, so Orion figgered to take the downstream one the next day.
So there we was, standing on the wharf, with Jim carrying a traveling bag for each of us, and a tow sack full of his clo'se too. When the boat came in, Orion marched aboard and right up to the Captain. "How much, Sir, to transport myself and my companion and our man to St. Louis."
The Captain scratched his head and spit terbacker on the deck and looked at Orion like a bug he might squash. "Well, if that ain't the dod-derndest thing I ever hearn!" he said. "You two fine gennelmen and your nigger wants to ride my boat a lil bitty trip down the river? Ain't you strong enuf to walk it? Why you wanna waste my boat's time like that? I ought to throw the both of you over the labbord side, and the nigger too."
But Orion didn't let anything bother him. "If we can afford to pay three dollars apiece for passage to St. Louis, and another dollar for the nigger, can't you afford to take us? Or are you making so much money on this boat that you just sit in your cabin sipping fine brandy and eatin' macaroni?"
Well, the Captain sorta turned pale at that. I reckon that he warn't really makin that much money on his boat and Orion had hit home with him. He stuttered a bit and said, "Well, if you gol-blamed fools want to throw your money in the river, I don't see why it shouldn't land in my hands as good as anybody's. I'll take you to St. Louis. What business have you there, anyhow?"
At that, Orion moved close to the officer and spoke very softly to him. But the Captain was not a man to care why Orion was talkin so soft.. He gave a huge horselaugh, and I thunk everybody on that boat heared him! "Har, har! I shoulda knowed it! Yer thinking of getting down to the big city so you can dip yer wicks! Why, I bet you both got hard ons now, jest thinking about what you lookin for there!" Orion reddend at that remark, but paid close attention to the Captain anyhow. "Sure, the river men knows where to find what you wants. Purty gals, big boobs, soft white asses, ruby lips, and a nice hole for a man's pole to fill in! Come with me, you polliwog, and I will give you d'rections and my pers'nal note of innerduckshun too!" He pulled Orion into the pilot house. Jim and I just looked at each other and knowed Orion Clemens had done it again.
Well, the boat went on downriver toward St. Louis, and I set on the deck watching the bluffs on the Missouri side, and the piney woods on the Illinois side. They ain't nothing as peaceful and relaxing as watching the big ol muddy river just rollin by, and I should have been calm and sleepy. But I kept thinking about those Saint Louis gals, and my dick just stayed so stiff that I couldn't never think of being calm. I was hopin that we could see that French dance they calls the can can, and maybe even some of those gals I heered about that sings songs with no top on their dresses at all. And then I was thinking about those sportin' house gals and wondering just how you go about it and all, and figgering out how to grab their teats and what I could do if I got my hand in their bloomers and all that. So I can't say that the trip downriver was nohow restful or calm for me.