Tortilla Flat (12 page)

Wherefore the friends, in despair, organized a group, formed for and dedicated to her destruction.

It may be that Danny, deep in his soul, was beginning to tire of Sweets’ affection and the duty of attendance it demanded. If such a change were taking place, he did not admit it to himself.

At three o’clock one afternoon Pilon and Pablo and Jesus Maria, followed vaguely by Big Joe Portagee, returned triumphant from three-quarters of a day of [77] strenuous effort. Their campaign had called into play and taxed to the limit the pitiless logic of Pilon, the artistic ingenuousness of Pablo, and the gentleness and humanity of Jesus Maria Corcoran. Big Joe had contributed nothing.

But now, like four hunters, they returned from the chase more happy because their victory had been a difficult one. And in Monterey a poor puzzled Italian came gradually to the conviction that he had been swindled.

Pilon carried a gallon jug of wine concealed in a bundle of ivy. They marched joyfully into Danny’s house, and Pilon set the gallon on the table.

Danny, awakened out of a sound sleep, smiled quietly, got up from bed, and laid out the fruit jars. He poured the wine. His four friends fell into chairs, for it had been an exhausting day.

They drank quietly in the late afternoon, that time of curious intermission. Nearly everyone in Tortilla Flat stops then and considers those things that have taken place in the day just past, and thinks over the possibilities of the evening. There are many things to discuss in an afternoon.

“Cornelia Ruiz got a new man this morning,” Pilon observed. “He has a bald head. His name is Kilpatrick. Cornelia says her other man didn’t come home three nights last week. She didn’t like that.”

“Cornelia is a woman who changes her mind too quickly,” said Danny. He thought complacently of his own sure establishment, built on the rock of the vacuum-cleaner.

“Cornelia’s father was worse,” said Pablo. “He could not tell the truth. Once he borrowed a dollar from me. I have told Cornelia about it, and she does nothing.”

“Two of one blood. ‘Know the breed and know the dog,”’ Pilon quoted virtuously.

Danny poured the jars full of wine again, and the gallon was exhausted. He looked ruefully at it.

Jesus Maria, that lover of the humanities, spoke up quietly. “I saw Susie Francisco, Pilon. She said the recipe worked fine. She has been out riding with Charlie Guzman on his motorcycle three times. The first two times she gave him the love medicine it made him sick. She thought it was no good. But now Susie says you can have some cookies any time.”

[78] “What was in that potion?” Pablo asked.

Pilon became secretive. “I cannot tell all of it. I guess it must have been the poison oak in it that made Charlie Guzman sick.”

The gallon of wine had gone too quickly. Each of the six friends was conscious of a thirst so sharp that it was a pain of desire. Pilon looked at his friends with drooped eyes, and they looked back at him. The conspiracy was ready.

Pilon cleared his throat. “What hast thou done, Danny, to set the whole town laughing at thee?”

Danny looked worried. “What do you mean?”

Pilon chuckled. “It is said by many that you bought a sweeping-machine for a lady, and that machine will not work unless wires are put into the house. Those wires cost a great deal of money. Some people find this present very funny.”

Danny grew uncomfortable. “That lady likes the sweeping-machine,” he said defensively.

“Why not?” Pablo agreed. “She has told some people that you have promised to put wires into her house so the sweeping-machine will work.”

Danny looked even more perturbed. “Did she say that?”

“So I was told.”

“Well, I will not,” Danny cried.

“If I did not think it funny, I should be angry to hear my friend laughed at,” Pilon observed.

“What will you do when she asks for those wires?” Jesus Maria asked.

“I will tell her ‘no,’ ” said Danny.

Pilon laughed. “I wish I could be there, It is not such a simple thing to tell that lady ‘no.’ ”

Danny felt that his friends were turning against him. “What shall I do?” he asked helplessly.

Pilon gave the matter his grave consideration and brought his realism to bear on the subject. “If that lady did not have the sweeping-machine, she would not want those wires,” he said.

The friends nodded in agreement. “Therefore,” Pilon continued, “the thing to do is to remove the sweeping-machine.”

[79] “Oh, she wouldn’t let me take it,” Danny protested.

“Then we will help you,” said Pilon. “I will take the machine, and in return you can take the lady a present of a gallon of wine. She will not even know where the sweeping-machine has gone.”

“Some neighbor will see you take it.”

“Oh, no,” said Pilon. “You stay here, Danny. I will get the machine.”

Danny sighed with relief that his problem was assumed by his good friends.

There were few things going on in Tortilla Flat that Pilon did not know. His mind made sharp little notes of everything that his eyes saw or his ears heard. He knew that Sweets went to the store at four-thirty every afternoon. He depended upon this almost invariable habit to put his plan into effect.

“It is better that you do not know anything about it,” he told Danny.

In the yard Pilon had a gunny sack in readiness. With his knife he cut a generous branch from the rose bush and pushed it into the sack.

At Sweets’ house he found her absent, as he had expected and hoped she would be. “It is really Danny’s machine,” he told himself.

It was a moment’s work to enter the house, to put the vacuum-cleaner in the sack, and to arrange the rose branch artistically in the sack’s mouth.

As he came out of the yard, he met Sweets. Pilon took off his hat politely. “I stepped in to pass the time,” he said.

“Will you stop now, Pilon?”

“No. I have business down in Monterey. It is late.”

“Where do you go with this rose bush?”

“A man in Monterey is to buy it. A very fine rose bush. See how strong it is.”

“Stop in some other time, Pilon.”

He heard no cry of anger as he walked sedately down the street. “Perhaps she will not miss it for a while,” he thought.

Half the problem was solved, but half was yet to be approached. “What can Danny do with this sweeping-machine?” Pilon asked himself. “If he has it, Sweets will [80] know he has taken it. Can I throw it away? No, for it is valuable. The thing to do would be to get rid of it and still to reap the benefit of its value.”

Now the whole problem was solved. Pilon headed down the hill toward Torrelli’s house.

It was a large and shining vacuum-cleaner. When Pilon came again up the hill, he had a gallon of wine in each hand.

The friends received him in silence when he entered Danny’s house. He set one jug on the table and the other on the floor.

“I have brought you a present to take to the lady,” he told Danny. “And here is a little wine for us.”

They gathered happily, for their thirst was a raging fire. When the first gallon was far gone, Pilon held his glass to the candlelight and looked through it. “Things that happen are of no importance,” he said. “But from everything that happens, there is a lesson to be learned. By this we learn that a present, especially to a lady, should have no quality that will require a further present. Also we learn that it is sinful to give presents of too great value, for they may excite greed.”

The first gallon was gone. The friends looked at Danny to see how he felt about it. He had been very quiet, but now he saw that his friends were waiting on him.

“That lady was lively,” he said judiciously. “That lady had a very sympathetic nature. But God damn it!” he said, “I’m sick of it!” He went to the second jug and drew the cork.

The Pirate, sitting in the corner among his dogs, smiled to himself and whispered in admiration, “ ‘God damn it, I’m sick of it.’ ” That, thought the Pirate, was very fine.

They had not more than half finished the second jug, indeed they had sung only two songs, when young Johnny Pom-pom came in. “I was at Torrelli’s,” Johnny said. “Oh, that Torrelli is mad! He is shouting! He is beating on the table with his fists.”

The friends looked up with mild interest. “Something has happened. It is probable Torrelli deserves it.”

“Often he has refused his good customers a little glass of wine.”

[81] “What is the matter with Torrelli?” Pablo asked.

Johnny Pom-pom accepted a jar of wine. “Torrelli says he bought a sweeping-machine from Pilon, and when he hooked it up to his light wire, it would not work. So he looked on the inside, and it had no motor. He says he will kill Pilon.”

Pilon looked shocked. “I did not know this machine was at fault,” he said. “But did I not say Torrelli deserved what was the matter with him? That machine was worth three or four gallons of wine, but that miser Torrelli would give no more than two.”

Danny still felt a glow of gratitude toward Pilon. He smacked his lips on his wine. “This stuff of Torrelli’s is getting worse and worse,” he said. “At its best it is swill the pigs leave, but lately it is so bad that Charlie Marsh even would not drink it.”

They all felt a little bit revenged on Torrelli then.

“I think,” said Danny, “that we will buy our wine some place else, if Torrelli does not look out.”

How the Friends solaced a Corporal and in return received a lesson in paternal ethics
.

JESUS
Maria Corcoran was a pathyway for the humanities. Suffering he tried to relieve; sorrow he tried to assuage; happiness he shared. No hard nor haunted Jesus Maria existed. His heart was free for the use of anyone who had a use for it. His resources and wits were at the disposal of anyone who had less of either than had Jesus Maria.

He it was who carried José de la Nariz four miles when José’s leg was broken. When Mrs. Palochico lost the goat of her heart, the good goat of milk and cheese, it was Jesus Maria who traced that goat to Big Joe Portagee and halted the murder and made Big Joe give it back. It was Jesus Maria who once picked Charlie Marsh out of a ditch where [82] he lay in his own filth, a deed which required not only a warm heart, but a strong stomach.

Together with his capacity for doing good, Jesus Maria had a gift for coming in contact with situations where good wanted doing.

Such was his reputation that Pilon had once said, “If that Jesus Maria had gone into the Church, Monterey would have had a saint for the calendar, I tell you.”

Out of some deep pouch in his soul Jesus Maria drew kindness that renewed itself by withdrawal.

It was Jesus Maria’s practice to go to the post office every day, first because there he could see many people whom he knew, and second because on that windy post office corner he could look at the legs of a great many girls. It must not be supposed that in this latter interest there was any vulgarity. As soon criticize a man who goes to art galleries or to concerts. Jesus Maria liked to look at girls’ legs.

One day when he had leaned against the post office for two hours with very little success, he was witness to a pitiful scene. A policeman came along the sidewalk leading a young boy of about sixteen, and the boy carried a little baby wrapped in a piece of gray blanket.

The policeman was saying, “I don’t care if I can’t understand you. You can’t sit in the gutter all day. We’ll find out about you.”

And the boy, in Spanish with a peculiar inflection, said, “But, señor, I do nothing wrong. Why do you take me away?”

The policeman saw Jesus Maria. “Hey, paisano,” he called. “What’s this
cholo
talking about?”

Jesus Maria stepped out and addressed the boy. “Can I be of service to you?”

The boy broke into a relieved flood. “I came here to work. Some Mexican men said there would be work here, and there was none. I was sitting down resting when this man came to me and dragged me away.”

Jesus Maria nodded and turned back to the policeman. “Has he done some crime, this little one?”

“No, but he’s been sitting in the gutter on Alvarado Street for about three hours.”

[83] “He is a friend of mine,” Jesus Maria said. “I will take care of him.”

“Well, keep him out of the gutter.”

Jesus Maria and his new friend walked up the hill. “I will take you to the house where I live. There you will have something to eat. What baby is this?”

“It is my baby,” said the boy. “I am a
caporál
, and he is my baby. He is sick now; but when he grows up, he is going to be a
generál
.”

“What is he sick from, Señor Caporál?”

“I don’t know. He is just sick.” He showed the baby’s face, and it looked very ill indeed.

The sympathies of Jesus Maria mounted. “The house, where I live is owned by my friend Danny, and there is a good man, Señor Caporál. There is one to appeal to when trouble is upon one. Look, we will go there, and that Danny will give us shelter. My friend Mrs. Palochico has a goat. We will borrow a little milk for the baby.”

The corporal’s face for the first time wore a smile of comfort. “It is good to have friends,” he said. “In Torreón I have many friends who would make themselves beggars to help me.” He boasted a little to Jesus Maria. “I have rich friends, but of course they do not know my need.”

Pilon pushed open the gate of Danny’s yard, and they entered together. Danny and Pablo and Big Joe were sitting in the living room, waiting for the daily miracle of food. Jesus Maria pushed the boy into the room.

“Here is a young soldier, a
caporál
,” he explained. “He has a baby here with him, and that baby is sick.”

The friends arose with alacrity. The corporal threw back the gray blanket from the baby’s face.

“He is sick, all right,” Danny said. “Maybe we should get a doctor.”

But the soldier shook his head. “No doctors. I do not like doctors. This baby does not cry, and he will not eat much. Maybe when he rests, then he will be well again.”

At this moment Pilon entered and inspected the child. “This baby is sick,” he said.

Pilon immediately took control. Jesus Maria he sent to Mrs. Palochico’s house to borrow goat milk. Big Joe and Pablo to get an apple box, pad it with dry grass, and line it [84] with a sheepskin coat. Danny offered his bed, but it was refused. The corporal stood in the living room and smiled gently on these good people. At last the baby lay in its box, but its eyes were listless and it refused the milk.