That run was the most exciting I ever made on the railroad. After three days away from New York, our dining car was returning again, feeding a morning train out of Philadelphia. A three-days' run was a long one and our crew was in a happy getting-home mood. In the pantry cooks and waiters joked mainly about women, as always, wives and sweethearts; some chanted, "Someone else may be there when I'm gone."
But something more than the mere physical joy of getting back to the city that was home had uplifted my heart. Like a potful of good stew a mixed feeling of happiness, hope and eagerness was bubbling inside of me. For in my pocket there was a letter from a great editor and critic advising me that I should pay him a visit as soon as it was possible. The letter had been delivered just as I was leaving on that three-days' trip and there had been time only to telephone and make an appointment for this day of our return.
Was ever a waiter more impatient for a run to end? And yet for all my impatience it was my happiest railroad itinerary. For I had made it buoyant with the hope that at last I was about to make my appearance before an American audience. A first appearance on the American stage—one important point of the vast stage of life upon which all of us must appear, some to play in a big scene, some in a little scene, and each preoccupied with the acting of his own particular part.
I was intent on my own rôle—I a waiter—waiting for recognition as a poet. It was seven years since I had arrived in the States from Jamaica, leaving behind me a local reputation as a poet. I came to complete my education. But after a few years of study at the Kansas State College I was gripped by the lust to wander and wonder. The spirit of the vagabond, the daemon of some poets, had got hold of me. I quit college. I had no desire to return home. What I had previously done was done. But I still cherished the urge to creative expression. I desired to achieve something new, something in the spirit and accent of America. Against its mighty throbbing force, its grand energy and power and bigness, its bitterness burning in my black body, I would raise my voice to make a canticle of my reaction.
And so I became a vagabond—but a vagabond with a purpose. I was determined to find expression in writing. But a vagabond without money must live. And as I was not just a hard-boiled bum, it was necessary to work. So I looked for the work that was easy to my hand while my head was thinking hard: porter, fireman, waiter, bar-boy, houseman. I waded through the muck and the scum with the one objective dominating my mind. I took my menial tasks like a student who is working his way through a university. My leisure was divided between the experiment of daily living and the experiment of essays in writing. If I would not graduate as a bachelor of arts or science, I would graduate as a poet.
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