Cannery Row (9 page)

Hazel said, “There ain’t nobody likes a party better than Doc. We’re givin’ him the party. What the hell is the beef?”

“I don’t know,” said Mack, “I’d just like to give him something when I didn’t get most of it back.”

“How about a present?” Hughie suggested. “S’pose we just bought the whiskey and give it to him and let him do what he wants.”

“Now you’re talkin’,” said Mack. “That’s just what we’ll do. We’ll just give him the whiskey and fade out.”

“You know what’ll happen,” said Eddie. “Henri and them people from Carmel will smell that whiskey out and then instead of only five of us there’ll be twenty. Doc told me one time himself they can smell him fryin’ a steak from Cannery Row clear down to Point Sur. I don’t see the percentage. He’d come out better if we give him the party ourselves.”

Mack considered this reasoning. “Maybe you’re right,” he said at last. “But s’pose we give him something except whiskey, maybe cuff links with his initials. ”

“Oh, horse shit,” said Hazel. “Doc don’t want stuff like that.”

The night was in by now and the stars were white in the sky. Hazel fed the fire and it put a little room of light on the beach. Over the hill a fox was barking sharply. And now in the night the smell of sage came down from the hills. The water chuckled on the stones where it went out of the deep pool.

Mack was mulling over the last piece of reasoning when the sound of footsteps on the ground made them turn. A man dark and large stalked near and he had a shotgun over his arm and a pointer walked shyly and delicately at his heel.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he asked.

“Nothing,” said Mack.

“The land’s posted. No fishing, hunting, fires, camping. Now you just pack up and put that fire out and get off this land.”

Mack stood up humbly. “I didn’t know, Captain,” he said. “Honest we never seen the sign, Captain.”

“There’s signs all over. You couldn’t have missed them.”

“Look, Captain, we made a mistake and we’re sorry,” said Mack. He paused and looked closely at the slouching figure. “You are a military man, aren’t you, sir? I can always tell. Military man don’t carry his shoulders the same as ordinary people. I was in the army so long, I can always tell.”

Imperceptibly the shoulders of the man straightened, nothing obvious, but he held himself differently.

“I don’t allow fires on my place,” he said.

“Well, we’re sorry,” said Mack. “We’ll get right out, Captain. You see, we’re workin’ for some scientists. We’re tryin’ to get some frogs. They’re workin’ on cancer and we’re helpin’ out getting some frogs.”

The man hesitated for a moment. “What do they do with the frogs?” he asked.

“Well, sir,” said Mack, “they give cancer to the frogs and then they can study and experiment and they got it nearly licked if they can just get some frogs. But if you don’t want us on your land, Captain, we’ll get right out. Never would of come in if we knew.” Suddenly Mack seemed to see the pointer for the first time. “By God that’s a fine-lookin’ bitch,” he said enthusiastically. “She looks like Nola that win the field trials in Virginia last year. She a Virginia dog, Captain?”

The captain hesitated and then he lied. “Yes,” he said shortly. “She’s lame. Tick got her right on her shoulder.”

Mack was instantly solicitous. “Mind if I look, Captain? Come, girl. Come on, girl.” The pointer looked up at her master and then sidled up to Mack. “Pile on some twigs so I can see,” he said to Hazel.

“It’s up where she can’t lick it,” said the captain and he leaned over Mack’s shoulder to look.

Mack pressed some pus out of the evil-looking crater on the dog’s shoulder. “I had a dog once had a thing like this and it went right in and killed him. She just had pups, didn’t she?”

“Yes,” said the captain, “six. I put iodine on that place.”

“No,” said Mack, “that won’t draw. You got any epsom salts up at your place?”

“Yes—there’s a big bottle.”

“Well you make a hot poultice of epsom salts and put it on there. She’s weak, you know, from the pups. Be a shame if she got sick now. You’d lose the pups too.” The pointer looked deep into Mack’s eyes and then she licked his hand.

“Tell you what I’ll do, Captain. I’ll look after her myself. Epsom salt’ll do the trick. That’s the best thing.”

The captain stroked the dog’s head. “You know, I’ve got a pond up by the house that’s so full of frogs I can’t sleep nights. Why don’t you look up there? They bellow all night. I’d be glad to get rid of them.”

“That’s mighty nice of you,” said Mack. “I’ll bet those docs would thank you for that. But I’d like to get a poultice on this dog.” He turned to the others. “You put out this fire,” he said. “Make sure there ain’t a spark left and clean up around. You don’t want to leave no mess. I and the captain will go and take care of Nola here. You fellows follow along when you get cleared up.” Mack and the captain walked away together.

Hazel kicked sand on the fire. “I bet Mack could of been president of the U.S. if he wanted,” he said.

“What could he do with it if he had it?” Jones asked. “There wouldn’t be no fun in that.”

14

Early morning is a time of magic in Cannery Row. In the gray time after the light has come and before the sun has risen, the Row seems to hang suspended out of time in a silvery light. The street lights go out, and the weeds are a brilliant green. The corrugated iron of the canneries glows with the pearly lucency of platinum or old pewter. No automobiles are running then. The street is silent of progress and business. And the rush and drag of the waves can be heard as they splash in among the piles of the canneries. It is a time of great peace, a deserted time, a little era of rest. Cats drip over the fences and slither like syrup over the ground to look for fish heads. Silent early morning dogs parade majestically picking and choosing judiciously whereon to pee. The sea gulls come flapping in to sit on the cannery roofs to await the day of refuse. They sit on the roof peaks shoulder to shoulder. From the rocks near the Hopkins Marine Station comes the barking of sea lions like the baying of hounds. The air is cool and fresh. In the back gardens the gophers push up the morning mounds of fresh damp earth and they creep out and drag flowers into their holes. Very few people are about, just enough to make it seem more deserted than it is. One of Dora’s girls comes home from a call on a patron too wealthy or too sick to visit the Bear Flag. Her makeup is a little sticky and her feet are tired. Lee Chong brings the garbage cans out and stands them on the curb. The old Chinaman comes out of the sea and flap-flaps across the street and up past the Palace. The cannery watchmen look out and blink at the morning light. The bouncer at the Bear Flag steps out on the porch in his shirtsleeves and stretches and yawns and scratches his stomach. The snores of Mr. Malloy’s tenants in the pipes have a deep tunnelly quality. It is the hour of the pearl—the interval between day and night when time stops and examines itself.

On such a morning and in such a light two soldiers and two girls strolled easily along the street. They had come out of La Ida and they were very tired and very happy. The girls were hefty, big breasted and strong and their blonde hair was in slight disarray. They wore printed rayon party dresses, wrinkled now and clinging to their convexities. And each girl wore a soldier’s cap, one far back on her head and the other with the visor down almost on her nose. They were full-lipped, broad-nosed, hippy girls and they were very tired.

The soldiers’ tunics were unbuttoned and their belts were threaded through their epaulets. The ties were pulled down a little so the shirt collars could be unbuttoned. And the soldiers wore the girls’ hats, one a tiny yellow straw boater with a bunch of daisies on the crown, the other a white knitted half-hat to which medallions of blue cellophane adhered. They walked holding hands, swinging their hands rhythmically. The soldier on the outside had a large brown paper bag filled with cold canned beer. They strolled softly in the pearly light. They had had a hell of a time and they felt good. They smiled delicately like weary children remembering a party. They looked at one another and smiled and they swung their hands. Past the Bear Flag they went and said “Hiya,” to the bouncer who was scratching his stomach. They listened to the snores from the pipes and laughed a little. At Lee Chong’s they stopped and looked into the messy display window where tools and clothes and food crowded for attention. Swinging their hands and scuffling their feet, they came to the end of Cannery Row and turned up to the railroad track. The girls climbed up on the rails and walked along on them and the soldiers put their arms around the plump waists to keep them from falling. Then they went past the boat works and turned down into the park-like property of the Hopkins Marine Station. There is a tiny curved beach in front of the station, a miniature beach between little reefs. The gentle morning waves licked up the beach and whispered softly. The fine smell of seaweed came from the exposed rocks. As the four came to the beach a sliver of the sun broke over Tom Work’s land across the head of the bay and it gilded the water and made the rocks yellow. The girls sat formally down in the sand and straightened their skirts over their knees. One of the soldiers punched holes in four cans of beer and handed them around. And then the men lay down and put their heads in the girls’ laps and looked up into their faces. And they smiled at each other, a tired and peaceful and wonderful secret.

From up near the station came the barking of a dog—the watchman, a dark and surly man, had seen them and his black and surly cocker spaniel had seen them. He shouted at them and when they did not move he came down on the beach and his dog barked monotonously. “Don’t you know you can’t lay around here? You got to get off. This is private property!”

The soldiers did not even seem to hear him. They smiled on and the girls were stroking their hair over the temples. At last in slow motion one of the soldiers turned his head so that his cheek was cradled between the girl’s legs. He smiled benevolently at the caretaker. “Why don’t you take a flying fuggut the moon?” he said kindly and he turned back to look at the girl.

The sun lighted her blonde hair and she scratched him over one ear. They didn’t even see the caretaker go back to his house.

15

By the time the boys got up to the farmhouse Mack was in the kitchen. The pointer bitch lay on her side, and Mack held a cloth saturated with epsom salts against her tick bite. Among her legs the big fat wiener pups nuzzled and bumped for milk and the bitch looked patiently up into Mack’s face saying, “You see how it is? I try to tell him but he doesn’t understand. ”

The captain held a lamp and looked down on Mack.

“I’m glad to know about that,” he said.

Mack said, “I don’t want to tell you about your business, sir, but these pups ought to be weaned. She ain’t got a hell of a lot of milk left and them pups are chewin’ her to pieces.”

“I know,” said the captain. “I s’pose I should have drowned them all but one. I’ve been so busy trying to keep the place going. People don’t take the interest in bird dogs they used to. It’s all poodles and boxers and Dobermans.”

“I know,” said Mack. “And there ain’t no dog like a pointer for a man. I don’t know what’s come over people. But you wouldn’t of drowned them, would you, sir?”

“Well,” said the captain, “since my wife went into politics, I’m just running crazy. She got elected to the Assembly for this district and when the Legislature isn’t in session, she’s off making speeches. And when she’s home she’s studying all the time and writing bills.”

“Must be lousy in—I mean it must be pretty lonely,” said Mack. “Now if I had a pup like this”—he picked up a squirming fuzz-faced pup—“why I bet I’d have a real bird dog in three years. I’d take a bitch every time.”

“Would you like to have one?” the captain asked.

Mack looked up. “You mean you’d let me have one? Oh! Jesus Christ yes.”

“Take your pick,” said the captain. “Nobody seems to understand bird dogs any more.”

The boys stood in the kitchen and gathered quick impressions. It was obvious that the wife was away— the opened cans, the frying pan with lace from fried eggs still sticking to it, the crumbs on the kitchen table, the open box of shotgun shells on the bread box all shrieked of the lack of a woman, while the white curtains and the papers on the dish shelves and the too small towels on the rack told them a woman had been there. And they were unconsciously glad she wasn’t there. The kind of women who put papers on shelves and had little towels like that instinctively distrusted and disliked Mack and the boys. Such women knew that they were the worst threats to a home, for they offered ease and thought and companionship as opposed to neatness, order, and properness. They were very glad she was away.

Now the captain seemed to feel that they were doing him a favor. He didn’t want them to leave. He said hesitantly, “S’pose you boys would like a little something to warm you up before you go out for the frogs?”

The others looked at Mack. Mack was frowning as though he was thinking it through. “When we’re out doin’ scientific stuff, we make it a kind of rule not to touch nothin’,” he said, and then quickly as though he might have gone too far, “But seein’ as how you been so nice to us—well I wouldn’t mind a short one myself. I don’t know about the boys.”

The boys agreed that they wouldn’t mind a short one either. The captain got a flashlight and went down in the cellar. They could hear him moving lumber and boxes about and he came back upstairs with a five-gallon oak keg in his arms. He set it on the table. “During Prohibition I got some corn whiskey and laid it away. I just got to thinking I’d like to see how it is. It’s pretty old now. I’d almost forgot it. You see—my wife—” he let it go at that because it was apparent that they understood. The captain knocked out the oak plug from the end of the keg and got glasses down from the shelf that had scallop-edged paper laid on it. It is a hard job to pour a small drink from a five-gallon keg. Each of them got half a water glass of the clear brown liquor. They waited ceremoniously for the captain and then they said, “Over the river,” and tossed it back. They swallowed, tasted their tongues, sucked their lips, and there was a far-away look in their eyes.