Cannery Row (16 page)

“No we’re not,” said Mary. “We’re magic people. We always have been. Remember that ten dollars you found in a book—remember when your cousin sent you five dollars? Nothing can happen to us.”

“Well, it has happened,” said Tom. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I just can’t talk myself out of it this time. I’m sick of pretending everything. For once I’d like to have it real—just for once.”

“I thought of giving a little party tonight,” said Mary.

“On what? You’re not going to cut out the baked ham picture from a magazine again and serve it on a platter, are you? I’m sick of that kind of kidding. It isn’t funny any more. It’s sad.”

“I could give a little party,” she insisted. “Just a small affair. Nobody will dress. It’s the anniversary of the founding of the Bloomer League—you didn’t even remember that.”

“It’s no use,” said Tom. “I know it’s mean but I just can’t rise to it. Why don’t you just go out and shut the door and leave me alone? I’ll get you down if you don’t.”

She looked at him closely and saw that he meant it. Mary walked quietly out and shut the door, and Tom turned over on the bed and put his face down between his arms. He could hear her rustling about in the other room.

She decorated the door with old Christmas things, glass balls, and tinsel, and she made a placard that said “Welcome Tom, our Hero.” She listened at the door and couldn’t hear anything. A little disconsolately she got out the footstool and spread a napkin over it. She put her bouquet in a glass in the middle of the footstool and set out four little cups and saucers. She went into the kitchen, put the tea in the teapot and set the kettle to boil. Then she went out into the yard.

Kitty Randolph was sunning herself by the front fence. Mary said, “Miss Randolph—I’m having a few friends in to tea if you would care to come.” Kitty Randolph rolled over languorously on her back and stretched in the warm sun. “Don’t be later than four o’clock,” said Mary. “My husband and I are going to the Bloomer League Centennial Reception at the Hotel.”

She strolled around the house to the backyard where the blackberry vines clambered over the fence. Kitty Casini was squatting on the ground growling to herself and flicking her tail fiercely. “Mrs. Casini,” Mary began and then she stopped for she saw what the cat was doing. Kitty Casini had a mouse. She patted it gently with her unarmed paw and the mouse squirmed horribly away dragging its paralyzed hind legs behind it. The cat let it get nearly to the cover of the blackberry vines and then she reached delicately out and white thorns had sprouted on her paw. Daintily she stabbed the mouse through the back and drew it wriggling to her and her tail flicked with tense delight.

Tom must have been at least half asleep when he heard his name called over and over. He jumped up shouting, “What is it? Where are you?” He could hear Mary crying. He ran out into the yard and saw what was happening. “Turn your head,” he shouted and he killed the mouse. Kitty Casini had leaped to the top of the fence where she watched him angrily. Tom picked up a rock and hit her in the stomach and knocked her off the fence.

In the house Mary was still crying a little. She poured the water into the teapot and brought it to the table. “Sit there,” she told Tom and he squatted down on the floor in front of the footstool.

“Can’t I have a big cup?” he asked.

“I can’t blame Kitty Casini,” said Mary. “I know how cats are. It isn’t her fault. But—Oh, Tom! I’m going to have trouble inviting her again. I’m just not going to like her for a while no matter how much I want to.” She looked closely at Tom and saw that the lines were gone from his forehead and that he was not blinking badly. “But then I’m so busy with the Bloomer League these days,” she said, “I just don’t know how I’m going to get everything done.”

Mary Talbot gave a pregnancy party that year. And everyone said, “God! A kid of hers is going to have fun.”

25

Certainly all of Cannery Row and probably all of Monterey felt that a change had come. It’s all right not to believe in luck and omens. Nobody believes in them. But it doesn’t do any good to take chances with them and no one takes chances. Cannery Row, like every place else, is not superstitious but will not walk under a ladder or open an umbrella in the house. Doc was a pure scientist and incapable of superstition and yet when he came in late one night and found a line of white flowers across the doorsill he had a bad time of it. But most people in Cannery Row simply do not believe in such things and then live by them.

There was no doubt in Mack’s mind that a dark cloud had hung on the Palace Flophouse. He had analyzed the abortive party and found that a misfortune had crept into every crevice, that bad luck had come up like hives on the evening. And once you got into a routine like that the best thing to do was just to go to bed until it was over. You couldn’t buck it. Not that Mack was superstitious.

Now a kind of gladness began to penetrate into the Row and to spread out from there. Doc was almost supernaturally successful with a series of lady visitors. He didn’t half try. The puppy at the Palace was growing like a pole bean, and having a thousand generations of training behind her, she began to train herself. She got disgusted with wetting on the floor and took to going outside. It was obvious that Darling was going to grow up a good and charming dog. And she had developed no chorea from her distemper.

The benignant influence crept like gas through the Row. It got as far as Herman’s hamburger stand, it spread to the San Carlos Hotel. Jimmy Brucia felt it and Johnny his singing bartender. Sparky Evea felt it and joyously joined battle with three new out of town cops. It even got as far as the County Jail in Salinas where Gay, who had lived a good life by letting the sheriff beat him at checkers, suddenly grew cocky and never lost another game. He lost his privileges that way but he felt a whole man again.

The sea lions felt it and their barking took on a tone and a cadence that would have gladdened the heart of St. Francis. Little girls studying their catechism suddenly looked up and giggled for no reason at all. Perhaps some electrical finder could have been developed so delicate that it could have located the source of all this spreading joy and fortune. And triangulation might possibly have located it in the Palace Flophouse and Grill. Certainly the Palace was lousy with it. Mack and the boys were charged. Jones was seen to leap from his chair only to do a quick tap dance and sit down again. Hazel smiled vaguely at nothing at all. The joy was so general and so suffused that Mack had a hard time keeping it centered and aimed at its objective. Eddie who had worked at La Ida pretty regularly was accumulating a cellar of some promise. He no longer added beer to the wining jug. It gave a flat taste to the mixture, he said.

Sam Malloy had planted morning glories to grow over the boiler. He had put out a little awning and under it he and his wife often sat in the evening. She was crocheting a bedspread.

The joy even got into the Bear Flag. Business was good. Phyllis Mae’s leg was knitting nicely and she was nearly ready to go to work again. Eva Flanegan got back from East St. Louis very glad to be back. It had been hot in East St. Louis and it hadn’t been as fine as she remembered it. But then she had been younger when she had had so much fun there.

The knowledge or conviction about the party for Doc was no sudden thing. It did not burst out full blown. People knew about it but let it grow gradually like a pupa in the cocoons of their imaginations.

Mack was realistic about it. “Last time we forced her,” he told the boys. “You can’t never give a good party that way. You got to let her creep up on you.”

“Well when’s it going to be?” Jones asked impatiently.

“I don’t know,” said Mack.

“Is it gonna be a surprise party?” Hazel asked.

“It ought to, that’s the best kind,” said Mack.

Darling brought him a tennis ball she had found and he threw it out the door into the weeds. She bounced away after it.

Hazel said, “If we knew when was Doc’s birthday, we could give him a birthday party.”

Mack’s mouth was open. Hazel constantly surprised him. “By God, Hazel, you got something,” he cried. “Yes, sir, if it was his birthday there’d be presents. That’s just the thing. All we got to find out is when it is.”

“That ought to be easy,” said Hughie. “Why don’t we ask him?”

“Hell,” said Mack. “Then he’d catch on. You ask a guy when is his birthday and especially if you’ve already give him a party like we done, and he’ll know what you want to know for. Maybe I’ll just go over and smell around a little and not let on.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Hazel.

“No—if two of us went, he might figure we were up to something.”

“Well, hell, it was my idear,” said Hazel.

“I know,” said Mack. “And when it comes off why I’ll tell Doc it was your idear. But I think I better go over alone.”

“How is he—friendly?” Eddie asked.

“Sure, he’s all right.”

Mack found Doc way back in the downstairs part of the laboratory. He was dressed in a long rubber apron and he wore rubber gloves to protect his hands from the formaldehyde. He was injecting the veins and arteries of small dogfish with color mass. His little ball mill rolled over and over, mixing the blue mass. The red fluid was already in the pressure gun. Doc’s fine hands worked precisely, slipping the needle into place and pressing the compressed air trigger that forced the color into the veins. He laid the finished fish in a neat pile. He would have to go over these again to put blue mass in the arteries. The dogfish made good dissection specimens.

“Hi, Doc,” said Mack. “Keepin’ pretty busy?”

“Busy as I want,” said Doc. “How’s the pup?”

“Doin’ just fine. She would of died if it hadn’t been for you.”

For a moment a wave of caution went over Doc and then slipped off. Ordinarily a compliment made him wary. He had been dealing with Mack for a long time. But the tone had nothing but gratefulness in it. He knew how Mack felt about the pup. “How are things going up at the Palace?”

“Fine, Doc, just fine. We got two new chairs. I wish you’d come up and see us. It’s pretty nice up there now.”

“I will,” said Doc. “Eddie still bring back the jug?”

“Sure,” said Mack. “He ain’t puttin’ beer in it no more and I think the stuff is better. It’s got more zip.”

“It had plenty of zip before,” said Doc.

Mack waited patiently. Sooner or later Doc was going to wade into it and he was waiting. If Doc seemed to open the subject himself it would be less suspicious. This was always Mack’s method.

“Haven’t seen Hazel for some time. He isn’t sick, is he?”

“No,” said Mack and he opened the campaign. “Hazel is all right. Him and Hughie are havin’ one hell of a battle. Been goin’ on for a week,” he chuckled. “An’ the funny thing is it’s about somethin’ they don’t neither of them know nothin’ about. I stayed out of it because I don’t know nothin’ about it neither, but not them. They’ve even got a little mad at each other.”

“What’s it about?” Doc asked.

“Well, sir,” said Mack, “Hazel’s all the time buyin’ these here charts and lookin’ up lucky days and stars and stuff like that. And Hughie says it’s all a bunch of malarkey. Hughie, he says if you know when a guy is born you can tell about him and Hughie says they’re just sellin’ Hazel them charts for two bits apiece. Me, I don’t know nothin’ about it. What do you think, Doc?”

“I’d kind of side with Hughie,” said Doc. He stopped the ball mill, washed out the color gun and filled it with blue mass.

“They got goin’ hot the other night,” said Mack. “They ask me when I’m born so I tell ’em April 12 and Hazel he goes and buys one of them charts and read all about me. Well it did seem to hit in some places. But it was nearly all good stuff and a guy will believe good stuff about himself. It said I’m brave and smart and kind to my friends. But Hazel says it’s all true. When’s your birthday, Doc?” At the end of the long discussion it sounded perfectly casual. You couldn’t put your finger on it. But it must be remembered that Doc had known Mack a very long time. If he had not he would have said December 18 which was his birthday instead of October 27 which was not. “October 27,” said Doc. “Ask Hazel what that makes me.”

“It’s probably so much malarkey,” said Mack, “but Hazel he takes it serious. I’ll ask him to look you up, Doc.”

When Mack left, Doc wondered casually what the build-up was. For he had recognized it as a lead. He knew Mack’s technique, his method. He recognized his style. And he wondered to what purpose Mack could put the information. It was only later when rumors began to creep in that Doc added the whole thing up. Now he felt slightly relieved, for he had expected Mack to put the bite on him.

26

The two boys played in the boat works yard until a cat climbed the fence. Instantly they gave chase, drove it across the tracks and there filled their pockets with granite stones from the roadbed. The cat got away from them in the tall weeds but they kept the stones because they were perfect in weight, shape, and size for throwing. You can’t ever tell when you’re going to need a stone like that. They turned down Cannery Row and whanged a stone at the corrugated iron front of Morden’s Cannery. A startled man looked out the office window and then rushed for the door, but the boys were too quick for him. They were lying behind a wooden stringer in the lot before he even got near the door. He couldn’t have found them in a hundred years.

“I bet he could look all his life and he couldn’t find us,” said Joey.

They got tired of hiding after a while with no one looking for them. They got up and strolled on down Cannery Row. They looked a long time in Lee’s window coveting the pliers, the hack saws, the engineers’ caps and the bananas. Then they crossed the street and sat down on the lower step of the stairs that went to the second story of the laboratory.

Joey said, “You know, this guy in here got babies in bottles.”