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.