Sweet Thursday (7 page)

For days the flame burned in Doc, his phoenix thought. True, he didn't have a proper microscope, but he had eyes and he had, thank God, an analytic mind that could slough off sensations, emotions, pains. As he stared at the octopi his thesis took form. With a glass needle he stimulated one to fear and rage until it attacked and killed its brother. He removed one passive octopus to a separate jar where he subjected it to mild solutions of menthol, of Epsom salts, sickening it a little and then bringing it back to health again. Then he aroused rage, and when the body colors pulsed and changed he introduced a small amount of cocaine sulphate and saw the emotion disappear into sleep, if you can say an octopus sleeps. Then he aroused it with saline and touched it here and there with the frustrating needle, noted the flush, the growing intensity of color, the uncertain whipping and groping of the arms, until suddenly it collapsed and died. Doc removed the body and dissected the tissue, trying to find burst vesicles.

“It works!” he said aloud. “I haven't proper equipment to see how it happens, but this animal dies with the appearance of apoplexy. There must be leakage even if I can't see it. I can start my paper with observation.”

Doc bought a package of yellow pads and two dozen pencils. He laid them out on his desk, the pencils sharpened to needle points and lined up like yellow soldiers. At the top of a page he printed:
OBSERVATIONS AND SPECULATIONS
. His pencil point broke. He took up another and drew lace around the O and the B, made a block letter of the S and put fish hooks on each end. His ankle itched. He rolled down his sock and scratched, and that made his ear itch. “Someone's talking about me,” he said and looked at the yellow pad. He wondered whether he had fed the cotton rats. It is easy to forget when you're thinking.

Watching the rats scrabble for the food he gave them Doc remembered that he had not eaten. When he finished a page or two he would fry some eggs. But wouldn't it be better to eat first so that his flow of thought would not be interrupted later? For some days he had looked forward to this time of peace, of unbroken thought. These were the answer to his restlessness: peace and the life of the mind. It would be better to eat first. He fried two eggs and ate them, staring at the yellow pad under the hanging light. The light was too bright. It reflected painfully on the paper. Doc finished his eggs, got out a sheet of tracing paper, and taped it to the bottom of the shade below the globe. It took time to make it neat. He sat in front of the yellow pad again and drew lace around all the letters of the title, tore off the page, and threw it away. Five pencil points were broken now. He sharpened them and lined them up with their brothers.

A car drove up in front of the Bear Flag. Doc went to the window and looked out. No one he knew, but he saw Mack go into the grocery. He remembered he wanted to ask Mack something.

It's always hard to start to concentrate. The mind darts like a chicken, trying to escape thinking even though thinking is the most rewarding function of man. Doc could take care of this. When you know what you're doing you can handle it. He set his jaw and was starting to turn back to his desk when he saw out of the corners of his eyes the flash of a skirt. He looked out the window again. A girl had come out of the Bear Flag and was walking along Cannery Row toward Monterey. Doc couldn't see her face, but she had a fine walk, thigh and knee and ankle swinging free and proud, no jerk and totter the way so many women walked as they fell from step to step. No, this girl walked with her shoulders back and her chin up and her arms swinging in rhythm. It's a gay walk, Doc thought. You can tell so much by a walk—discouragement or sickness, determination. There are squinched-up mean walks and blustering walks, shy creeping walks, but this was a gay walk, as though the walker were going happily to a meeting with someone she loved. There was pride in the walk too, but not vanity. Doc hoped she would not turn the corner, but she did. There was a flick of skirt and she was gone. But Doc could see in his mind her swinging limbs, the melody of her lithe, swift movement. Probably ugly as a mud fence, he thought, and then he laughed at himself. “That's full circle,” he said. “Mind, I congratulate you. You jumped me to sex, translated it to aesthetics, and ended with sour grapes. How dishonest can I be? And all because I don't want to go to work. I'll work my head off to avoid work. Come, mind. This time you don't get away with it—back to the desk.”

He picked up a pencil and wrote, “The observed specimens were twenty small octopi taken in the intertidal zone near the town of La Jolla. Specimens were placed in a large aquarium under conditions as nearly approximating their natural habitat as possible. Sea water was continuously filtered and replaced every twenty-four hours. Animals from a typical ecological community were introduced, together with sand, rock, and algae taken from the collecting point. Small crustaceans were supplied. In spite of precautions, five individuals died within one week. The remaining fifteen seemed to become acclimatized and readily captured and consumed the small grapsoid crabs placed in the aquarium. The lights—” His pencil point broke. He took another, and it broke with a jerk, making a little tear in the paper. He read what he had written; dull, desiccated, he thought. Why should I presume that an animal so far removed from the human—perhaps I'm fooling myself. The middle voice sang subtly, “Looking for yourself in the water—searching, little man, among the hydroids for your soul—looking for contentment in vanity. Are you better than Mack that you should use the secret priestly words of science to cover the fact that you have nothing to say?”

And the bottom voice mourned, “Lonesome! Lonesome! Let me up into the light and warmth. Lonesome!”

Doc jumped up and went to the aquarium and stared into the lighted water. From under a rock an octopus looked out and one of its arms flicked rhythmically, as though it led an orchestra, and the beat was gay and free and fluid—like the swinging thigh and knee and ankle.

Doc put his face in the palm of his hand and pressed blackness on his eyes until specks of green and red light swarmed on his vision. And then he got up and went across the street for beer.

Joseph and Mary Rivas liked Fauna, even admired her. But he did feel that it was a little indecent for a woman to own the Bear Flag, a paying institution with a steady income. Operate it, yes, but not own it. The proprieties told Joseph and Mary there should be a man in the background to drain off the profits. It was his observation that when women had access to money they got nervous. To his mind, a healthy woman was a broke woman. A dame with money was a kind of a half-assed man. She stopped working at being a woman, and, as everybody knows, the finest thing about a woman is that she is a woman.

Joseph and Mary had given some thought to relieving Fauna of the responsibility of the profits: if he owned the Bear Flag and Fauna ran it, there would be a natural and practical balance. Fauna had so far figured her way out from under his philanthropy, but Joseph and Mary did not give up, particularly when it was no trouble not to.

A good stock manipulator reads the financial page and looks for the stock he has, but he also notices other quotations too, just in case. Joseph and Mary kept that kind of eye on the Bear Flag. He felt that someday Fauna might look away from the dealer for a moment. Now that his own affairs ran smoothly, he was able to cast a benevolently rapacious eye about him. He knew about Suzy before she had even got her clothes washed, and he felt that Fauna was slipping.

“You got a quail there,” he told Fauna. “That's Mary trouble if I ever seen it.”

“I guess so,” said Fauna.

“Why'd you take her on?”

“I let myself make a mistake once in a while,” said Fauna. “She ain't a good hustler, but when I get through with her she might make somebody a damn fine wife.”

“She's making a patsy of you,” said the Patrón.

“People got to be a patsy now and then,” said Fauna. “You never feel real good if you never been a sucker. Once I went missionary down in South America.”

“Why?” asked the Patrón.

“Can't remember right off.”

“What did you do?”

“Taught them to love one another.”

“What did they do?”

“Taught me to shrink heads.”

“Savages!” said the Patrón.

“No they wasn't. Them headhunters was pretty nice people—honest too. When they sell you a head they give good value. But there's always a wise guy. Like this Athatoolagooloo—a natural-born head-hustler. He'd worked out a way to push monkey heads. Gave them a close shave, didn't have to shrink them much. There's people will buy anything.”

“I know,” said the Patrón.

“Well, the Bishop come through,” said Fauna, “and he give me holy hell for buying up them monkey heads.”

“You mean to say
you
bought them?” said the Patrón.

“Sure I bought them. I got a box of them in the woodshed. Everybody said I was a fool, but it paid off.”

“How'd it pay off?”

“Well, look,” said Fauna. “My bunch was honest and they shrunk honest heads. S'pose a shipment goes out and this joker Athatoolagooloo slips in a couple of his monkey heads—pretty soon nobody don't trust nobody. Why, people would get to looking asspants at a real nice head. I bought them up to keep them off the market. I had my reputation to think of.”

“Yeah, but this joker—” the Patrón began.

“I know what you're going to say—and he done it too. He had me. He charged me more for them monkey heads than I paid for the real article. He knew he had me.”

“That's what I thought. Anybody would,” said the Patrón.

“Oh, it all worked out,” said Fauna. “If you ever buy a Chungla head you'll know you got the best.”

“Yeah, but how about the joker?” said the Patrón.

Fauna opened up her desk drawer and took out a beautiful little item, black as polished ebony and no bigger than a lemon. “He made up real nice, didn't he?” said Fauna.

The Patrón looked nervously away. “I got to get back,” he said. “I left my nephew in the store.”

“Don't he play trumpet?”

“Drives me crazy,” said Joseph and Mary. “Got a new trumpet. Can't get away from it. Made him go practice down on the beach. Figured the waves and the sea lions would kind of drown him out. The other night he give a passing signal to a Navy tug, and they're still looking for what passed them. But last night was the worst. He was practicing down on the beach and he aimed his damn trumpet into the sewer pipe. Got resonance, he said. I don't know if it's true, but I heard that every toilet in the whole neighborhood give off with ‘Stormy Weather.' Old lady Somers was taking an enema. I don't believe what they said happened. I got to get back. That kid can break glass with a high note.”

“Come over and visit again,” said Fauna.

“You mind what I said about Suzy.”

“I will,” said Fauna.

It's a funny thing, but you never like to trade at your own place. The store across the street has always got fresher cigarettes than you have. The girls at the Bear Flag never got cigarettes from the slot machine at the Bear Flag. When they wanted Luckies or a 7 Up they went to the Patrón's. For that matter, nearly everyone in Cannery Row went nearly every place in Cannery Row nearly every day.

Joseph and Mary had hardly got back to the grocery before Suzy came in. You wouldn't recommend Joseph and Mary as a celebrator of God's loveliest creation, but if you wanted a quick assay on a babe you couldn't ask for better than Joseph and Mary's. If he was not involved in an emotional way he was good. Between the time Suzy got change and the time she pushed the Lucky Strike button on his cigarette machine, each had gone over the other and registered the result.

Suzy's note: “Greaseball, smart and mean. Look out if he gives you something. A percentage boy. Smiles with his mouth. Eyes like a snake. May trip himself someday by being too smart.”

Patrón's note: “Lousy risk for a house. A character. Won't play the rules. Might reverse the field. Too friendly. If she likes a guy she might toss in her roll.”

The Patrón would have kicked her out of the Bear Flag. He knew that the only person you can trust is an absolutely selfish person. He always runs true to form. You know everything he'll do. But you take somebody with an underlying kindness, and he might fool you. The only satisfactory sucker is the one who is entirely selfish. You never have any trouble with that kind. Fauna was laying herself wide open.

Joseph and Mary tabulated Suzy the way he might have bought a used car. Pretty good figure, good ankles and legs, too light in the butt and too heavy in the chest. That's a bad sign: a good hustler is flat-chested. Face kind of pretty if she felt like it. Face reflected how she felt. Good-looking if she felt good. A good hustler has a mask, looks the same to everybody, pretty, but you don't remember what she looked like the next morning. Suzy you wouldn't forget. A real bad risk. Suzy liked people or she didn't like them. That in itself was bad.

Cacahuete, the Patrón's nephew, was dusting shelves, and he flashed a gold smile at Suzy.

Suzy lighted up. She didn't smile—she grinned. Her lips were full and mouth wide, and when she grinned her eyes crinkled and something warm and scary came out of her. That's a bad risk. On top of this was toughness, but not dependable dull toughness. Suzy might take a poke at Jack Dempsey. She wasn't smart. All in all, Joseph and Mary would've dumped Suzy in a minute. She'd be the kind of dumb dame who'd fall for some guy without finding out his bank balance. She was the kind, he thought, who'd give one guy a helluva lot of trouble but who'd be lousy playing the field. She had something of the same quality Doc had. The Patrón decided to warn Fauna again. This kid could be pure murder in a hookshop. Such was the Patrón's reasoned opinion, and the Patrón was a professional. If you'd take a doctor's advice about a disease, you'd surely take the Patrón's about a hustler. Both could be wrong, of course.

The appraisals and judgments were almost instantaneous, so that by the time Suzy had opened her cigarettes, put one in her mouth, and lighted it, the judgment was complete.

“How are you?” Joseph and Mary asked.

“Okay,” said Suzy. “Fauna wants some yellow pads and a couple of pencils—soft pencils.”

The Patrón laid them out. “She does a lot of writing,” he said. “She's used six pads in about a month.”

“She's doing astrology.”

“You believe that stuff?”

“No, but it don't do no harm.”

“I knew a guy made a good living with it,” said the Patrón.

“Oh, she don't charge nothing,” said Suzy.

“I know,” said the Patrón. “I can't figure why not. Fauna ain't dumb.”

“She sure ain't,” said Suzy.

Doc came in with two empty beer bottles. “Get a couple of cold ones back on the ice, will you?” he asked.

Suzy glanced at him, took him in, and looked away. His beard shocked her a little. She didn't stare at him the way you don't stare at a cripple.

The Patrón said, “Why don't you put in an icebox? Then you can take a case at a time.”

“It's easier to let you keep the ice,” said Doc.

“You know Suzy here? She's new at the Bear Flag.”

“How do you do?” said Doc.

“How do you do?” said Suzy. She would have said “Hi” to anyone else.

When Doc had gone the Patrón said, “That's a funny guy.”

“It takes all kinds,” said Suzy.

“He knows stuff I ain't even heard of.” The Patrón was defending Doc the way everyone did.

“Kind of hoity-toity?” asked Suzy.

“Hell no! That's the way he always talks. He don't know no other way.”

“Well, I guess it takes all kinds,” said Suzy.

“He gets bugs and stuff out of the ocean and sells them.”

“Who to?”

“Why, there's people'll buy anything,” said the Patrón.

“I guess so. Why don't other people do it?”

“Too much work, and you got to know what to get.”

“Say, why does he wear that beard? I used to know a wrestler wore one.”

“I don't know why,” said the Patrón. “Why'd the wrestler?”

“Thought it made him look tough.”

“Well, maybe Doc the same—but no, he don't want to be tough.” The Patrón went on, “In the Army they made a guy with a beard shave it off. Said a guy with a beard wanted to be different, and the best way to not get along in the barracks is to be different.”

“Maybe that's it,” said Suzy. “I don't mind a different guy if he ain't too different.”

“Dames can take it,” said the Patrón. “They don't like it but they can take it. What the hell am I doing all this talking for? I got work to do!”

Suzy asked, “You Mexican?”

“American. My old man was Mexican.”

“Can you talk that spick talk?”

“Sure.”

“Polly-voo?”

“That ain't the same kind,” said the Patrón.

“Be seeing you,” said Suzy, and she went out and let the screen door slam.

She ain't a bad kid, the Patrón thought, but I'd sure kick her the hell out of the Bear Flag.

Doc looked out the window of Western Biological. He watched Suzy walk past the vacant lot and up to the front porch of the Bear Flag. Just as she was about to climb the steps she turned and looked around. She thought someone was looking at her. She didn't see Doc.