His real name was Leroy Johnson, I think, but when Danny Jackson saw how cool and neat he was in his moves, and how he handled the plates, he began to call him “the Doctor.” Then the Sheik, coming down from his high one day after missing the lunch and dinner service, saw how Doc had taken over his station and collected fat tips from his tables by telling the passengers that the Sheik had had to get off back along the line because of a heart attack. The Sheik liked that because he saw that Doc understood crackers and how they liked nothing better than knowing that a nigger had died on the job, giving them service. The Sheik was impressed. And he was not an easy man to impress because he knew too much about life and had to stay high most of the time. And when Doc would not split the tips with him, the Sheik got mad at first and called Doc a barrel of motherfuckers and some other words you would not recognize. But he was impressed. And later that night, in the crew car when the others were gambling and drinking and bullshitting about the women they had working the corners for them, the Sheik came over to Doc’s bunk and said: “You’re a crafty motherfucker.”

“Yeah?” says Doc.

“Yeah,” says the Sheik, who did not say much. “You’re a crafty motherfucker but I like you.” Then he got into the first waiter’s bunk and lit up again. But Reverend Hendricks, who always read his Bible before going to sleep and who always listened to anything the Sheik said because he knew the Sheik only said something when it was important, heard what was said and remembered it. After he put his Bible back in his locker, he walked over to Doc’s bunk and looked down at him. “Mister Doctor Craft,” the Reverend said. “Youngblood Doctor Craft.”

“Yeah?” says Doc.

“Yeah,” says Reverend Hendricks. “That’s who you are.”

And that’s who he was from then on.

II