Sweet Thursday (14 page)

“He don't want a wife, and if he did, he don't want nobody like me.”

“People don't know what they want,” said Fauna. “They got to be pushed. Why would guys in their right mind want to get married? But they do.”

“Maybe they fall in love,” said Suzy.

“Yeah—and that's the worst that can happen. Know something, Suzy? When a man falls in love it's ninety to one he falls for the dame that's worst for him. That's why I take matters in my own hands.”

“How do you mean?” Suzy asked.

“Well, when a guy picks out a dame for himself he's in love with something in himself that hasn't got nothing to do with the dame. She looks like his mother, or she's dark and he's scared of blondes, or maybe he's getting even with somebody, or maybe he ain't quite sure he's a man and has to prove it. Fella that studied stuff like that told me one time—a man don't fall for a dame. He falls for new roses, and he brings his own new roses. The best marriages are the ones pulled off by someone that's smart but not sucked in. I think you'd be good for Doc.”

“Why?”

“Because you ain't like him. You want I should try?”

“No,” said Suzy. “I wouldn't sandbag no guy. Especially Doc.”

“Everybody sandbags everybody,” said Fauna.

Suzy said softly, “You know, you was right, Fauna. I was sixteen when it happened. But you know, he talked to me like I was a girl. I can't even remember how it sounds—talked to like a girl.”

Fauna put her hand on Suzy's shoulder. “Maybe you'll find out again,” she said. “If I pull this off I'll put a red ring around your gold star. You ready to go to sleep now?”

“I guess so,” said Suzy. “Let's don't sandbag Doc.”

Suzy waited until Fauna had rustled to her bed and then she crept out the front door. The light was still burning in Western Biological. She went across the street, past the street light, and up the stairs, and she tapped with her fingertips. Doc didn't answer. She opened the door and saw him sitting at his table, his eyes red, the glass dishes in front of him. He looked very tired and the skin above his beard was gray.

“You're working late,” she said.

“Yes. You made me ruin the first set. I had to do it over. It takes time.”

“I'm sorry. Doc, you got to write that paper. I don't know nothing about it, but you got to write it.”

“I think you were right the first time,” he said. “Maybe I can't.”

“Sure you can,” said Suzy. “You can do anything you want to.”

“Maybe that's it. Maybe I don't want to.”

“I want you to.”

“What have you got to do with it?”

Suzy blushed and looked at her fingers for an answer. “Everybody wants you to,” she said. “You'll let everybody down if you don't do it.”

He laughed. “That's not a good reason, Suzy.”

She tried another tack. “Everybody hates a coward—”

“If I'm a coward, whose business is it?”

“You got to write it, Doc.”

“I won't!”

“I'd help you if I could.”

“What in the world could you do?”

Her face flamed. “Maybe give you a kick in the ass. Maybe that's what you need.”

“Why can't you leave me alone?” he said. And then, “Goddam it! You've done it again—you made me pass over the time!”

“You done it yourself,” said Suzy, “you lousy stiff! You blame everybody else. You done it yourself.”

“Get on back to the whore house!” he shouted. “Go on! Get out!”

In the doorway she stopped and looked back. “God, how I hate a fool!” she said, and she slammed the door behind her.

In a moment there was a tap on the glass.

“Go on home!” Doc shouted.

Mack opened the door. “It ain't Suzy, it's me.”

“You were listening.”

“No, I wasn't. Say, Doc, would you say a piece of property on Cannery Row was a good investment?”

“No,” said Doc.

“She's quite a dame,” said Mack.

“I thought you said you weren't listening.”

“Listen, Doc, nobody in this block listening—but everybody heard. You know, they say there's three good reasons for marrying a hustler.”

“What are you talking about?” said Doc.

Mack counted on his fingers. “Number one, she ain't likely to wander—she's done all her experimenting. Number two, you ain't likely to surprise her or disappoint her. And number three, if a hustler goes for you she ain't got but one reason.”

Doc watched him, hypnotized. “What reason?”

“She likes you. Good night, Doc.”

“Sit down—have a drink.”

“I can't. I got to get some sleep. I got work to do tomorrow. 'Night Doc.”

Doc looked at the door after Mack had closed it. The grain of the unpainted pine seemed to squirm to his weary eyes.

Looking backward in time, you can usually find the day it started, the day of Sarajevo, the day of Munich, the moment of Stalingrad or Valley Forge. You fix the day and hour by some incident that happened to yourself. You remember exactly what you were doing when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

There is no doubt that forces were in motion on that Thursday in Cannery Row. Some of the causes and directions have been in process for generations. There are always some people who claim they felt it coming. Those who remember say it felt like earthquake weather.

It was a Thursday, and it was one of those days in Monterey when the air is washed and polished like a lens, so that you can see the houses in Santa Cruz twenty miles across the bay and you can see the redwood trees on a mountain above Watsonville. The stone point of Frémont's Peak, clear the other side of Salinas, stands up nobly against the east. The sunshine had a goldy look and red geraniums burned the air around them. The delphiniums were like little openings in the sky.

There aren't many days like that anyplace. People treasure them. Little kids are likely to give off tin-whistle screams for no reason, and businessmen find it necessary to take a drive to look at a piece of property. Old people sit looking off into the distance and remember inaccurately that the days of their youth were all like that. Horses roll in the green pastures on such a day and hens make a terrible sunny racket.

Thursday was that magic kind of day. Miss Winch, who took pride in her foul disposition before noon, said good morning to the postman.

Joe Elegant awakened early, intending to work on his novel, on the scene where the young man digs up his grandmother to see if she was as beautiful as he remembered. You will recall his novel,
The Pi Root of Oedipus.
But Joe Elegant saw the golden light on the vacant lot and a dew diamond in the heart of every mallow leaf. He went out in the damp grass in his bare feet and scampered like a kitten until he got to sneezing.

Miss Graves, who sings the lead in the butterfly pageant in Pacific Grove, saw her first leprechaun up in back of the reservoir—but you can't tell everything that happened every place on that Sweet Thursday.

For Mack and the boys it was the morning of Truth, and since Mack was to bear the brunt of it, his friends cooked him a hot breakfast and Eddie mixed real bourbon whisky in the coffee. Hazel polished Mack's shoes and brushed his best blue jeans. Whitey No. 1 brought out his father's hat for Mack to wear—a narrow-brimmed black hat, the crown peaked up to a point. Whitey No. 1's father had been a switchman on the Southern Pacific, and this hat proved it. He stuffed toilet paper in back of the sweatband until it fitted Mack perfectly.

Mack didn't talk. He knew how much depended on him, and he was brave and humble at the same time. The boys put the carefully printed tickets in his hand and saw him off, and then they sat down in the weeds to wait. They knew Mack was quaking inside.

Mack went down the chicken walk and across the railroad track. He passed the old boiler and rapped on the rusty pipes in a wild show of bravado.

In front of the grocery he studied a display of screw drivers with loving intensity before he went in.

Cacahuete was behind the counter, studying a copy of
Down Beat.
He wore a purple windbreaker with gold piping. A lean and handsome boy, he had the wild and sullen light of genius in his eyes.

“Hi!” said Mack.

“Jar!” said Cacahuete.

“Joseph and Mary around?”

“Upstairs.”

“I want to see him personal,” said Mack.

Cacahuete gave him a long, surly stare, then went to the back of the store and called,
“Tío mio!”

“What do you want?”

“Mack wants to see you.”

“What about?”

“Who knows?”

Joseph and Mary came down the stairs in a pale blue silk bathrobe.

“'Morning, Mack. These kids have no manners.”

Cacahuete shrugged and took his
Down Beat
to the top of the potato bin.

“You're out early,” said the Patrón.

Mack began with ceremonial seriousness, “You ain't been here long, Joseph and Mary, but you've made a lot of friends, good friends.”

The Patrón inspected this statement and made a note of its slight inaccuracy. Still, he had nothing to lose by going along with it. “I like the people around here,” he said. “They treat me good.” His eyelids lowered sleepily, which meant he was as alert as a radar screen.

Mack said, “In a little town you get kind of hidebound. But you're a man of the world. You been all over. You know how things is.”

The Patrón smiled and acknowledged his wisdom and waited.

“I and the boys want to ask your advice,” said Mack. “You ain't likely to get a wild hair.”

A vague uneasiness stirred in the Patrón. “What's it about?” he asked tentatively.

Mack drew a deep breath. “A smart businessman like you might think it was silly, but maybe you been here long enough to get it. It's a sentimental thing. It's about Doc. I and the boys owe Doc a debt we ain't never going to be able to repay.”

“How much?” asked the Patrón. He upended a broom and tore out a straw with which to pick his teeth. “Take a powder,” he said softly to Cacahuete, and his nephew slithered upstairs.

“It ain't money,” said Mack, “it's gratitude. For years Doc's took care of us—get sick he cures us, get broke he's there with a buck.”

“Everybody says the same,” the Patrón observed. He could not put his finger on the attack, and yet he felt there was an attack.

The sound of his own voice had a warming, reassuring effect on Mack. He was the professional practicing his profession. “We might of went right on hustling Doc for years,” he said, “if only Doc didn't get his ass in a sling.”

“He's in trouble?”

“You know he's in trouble,” said Mack. “Poor bastard sits there beating his brains out with them sooplapods.”

“You told me.”

“Well, us boys want to do something about it. We ain't going to see our darling friend crap out if we can help it. I bet he done a couple of nice things for you too.”

The Patrón said, “Do you know you can't rig a chess game?”

“We had that out,” said Mack impatiently. “Doc's business ain't been good. He can't crack open them sooplapods without he gets a great big goddam microscope—cost about four hundred bucks.”

The Patrón said hastily, “If you're passing the hat I'll throw in ten bucks.”

“Thanks!” said Mack passionately. “I knew you was a good guy. But that ain't it. I and the boys want to do it ourself. We don't want your ten bucks—we want your advice.”

The Patrón went behind the counter, opened the icebox, took out two cans of beer, speared them open, and slid one up the counter to Mack.

“Thanks,” said Mack, and he beered down his dry mouth and throat. “Haaah!” he said. “That's fine. Now here's what we want to know. We got something and we want to raffle it. Then we want to take that raffle money and get that microscope for Doc. We want you should give us a hand with the tickets and stuff like that.”

“What you going to raffle?” the Patrón asked.

This was the moment, the horrible moment. Mack's hand shook a little as he poured down the second half of the cool sharp beer. His insides quaked. “The Palace Flophouse—our home,” he said.

The Patrón took a pocket comb out of stock and ran it through his black shining hair. “It ain't worth four hundred bucks,” he said.

Mack nearly cried with relief. He could have kissed the Patrón's hand. He loved Joseph and Mary. A strong and tender tone issued from his throat. “We know that,” he said, “but it's our home. Oh, I know it ain't very valuable, but when you got something that ain't worth much—why, you raffle it, don't you? If you got a good cause you can raffle an old pair of socks.”

A new respect showed in the Patrón's eyes. “You got something there,” he said, and then, “Who's going to win it?”

Mack felt confident now. He knew his man. He was ready to use his knowledge. He said confidentially, “I don't never try to kid a smart hombre. I could tell you we was going to draw honest but you'd know that was double malarky. No, we got a idear.”

The Patrón leaned forward. Some of his wariness was lulled. He was still no pushover but he was softened up. “What's the idear?” he asked.

“Well, we got to have someplace to live, don't we? Now this is between I and the boys and you—okay?”

“Okay,” said the Patrón.

“We'll sell Doc a ticket or maybe just put a ticket in his name, and we'll rig the raffle so he wins.”

“I don't get it,” said the Patrón.

“Look!” said Mack. “Doc gets his microscope, don't he? And we go right on habiting in the Palace Flop house but it's Doc's. It's a sap to his old age—a kind of insurance. I and the boys figure that's the least we can do for him.”

“S'pose he sells it?” said the Patrón.

“Oh, not Doc! He wouldn't put us out in the street.”

A smile spread over the Patrón's large handsome face. He could find no fault with it. “I guess I never give you proper credit,” he said. “You're smart. Maybe we can do some business—I mean, later. You got the raffle tickets?”

“We made them up last night.” Mack laid a little pile of cards on the table.

“How much apiece?”

“Says right on them,” Mack said. “Two bucks.”

“My first offer still stands,” said the Patrón. “I'll take five and you can leave me some to sell.”

“Think you could use twenty?”

“I could unload nearly fifty,” said the Patrón. “I'll put them out with the Espaldas Mojadas.”

Mack's knees were weak as he went up the chicken walk. His glazed eyes stared straight ahead. He walked right past the boys and into the Palace Flop house and sat down heavily on his bed. The boys trooped in behind him and stood around.

“Got him!” said Mack. “He don't know he owns it. He bought five tickets and he's going to sell fifty to his wetbacks!”

There is a point of relief and triumph in which words have no place. Eddie went outside, and they could hear his shovel strike the ground. Mack and the boys knew Eddie was digging up a keg.

And this was only one of the happenings on that Sweet Thursday.