Sweet Thursday (13 page)

Not the least important and valuable custom Fauna brought to the Bear Flag was the little time of rest and contemplation in the Ready Room after work and before sleep. Grievances were brought out and inspected, quarrels were settled, and all the little matters of interest and despair were turned over and examined for their actual value. Then praise or blame were assigned and plans for improvement were laid out with lore and tact learned in other fields. Fauna warped and nudged and bunted her young ladies toward good nature and kindliness, which are the parents of restful sleep. It was not unusual for light refreshments to be served, and on occasion the young ladies' voices joined in song—“Home Sweet Home,” “Old Black Joe,” “Down by the Old Mill Stream,” “Harvest Moon.” Dogwatch in the Ready Room was a medicine to weary nerves and frayed bodies.

The Bear Flag was shorthanded the night of the memorial meeting for dead members sponsored by the Rattlesnake Club of Salinas. Helen and Wisteria were doing sixty days for a lady fight that is still discussed with admiration in Cannery Row.

When the last Rattlesnake had gone and the big front door was closed, the girls wandered wearily into the Ready Room, sat down, and kicked off their shoes. Becky said, “One of them Rattlesnakes to night called us an institution and a landmark.”

Agnes said acidly, “We get a few more like Suzy and it'll be a institution all right. I got an uncle in a institution. He goes right on fighting the battle of San Juan Hill. Where is Suzy?”

“I'm right here,” said Suzy, entering. “I was getting that cracked record out of the jukebox. Am I pooped! Let's put it in the sack.”

“Before Fauna gives us good night? You crazy?” Mabel said. “She'd bust a gut.”

Becky sighed. “What a night! This is one time the group rate paid off. Them Rattlesnakes ain't turned a trick since midnight but they sure was active.”

“They was going fine until they run out of liquor,” said Mabel. “That new stuff Wide Ida sent in must be made of jumping beans.”

Suzy said, “I figured if that short one told me once more how his little boy cut a worm in two with a shovel—”

“Oh, you got it too, huh? Know what the little bastard said? Only four years old too. He said, ‘I cut a wum.' Now if he said he cut a camel I could listen to it three or four times.”

“That bald one!” said Mabel. “Did
his
wife have an operation! They turned her inside out. Sounded like they was pelting her. He got crying so hard I never did find out what she had.”

“A malignant artichoke,” said Becky. “I made him say it slow.”

Agnes asked, “Say, who is this guy Sigmund Ki they was singing about?”

“Never heard of him,” said Becky. “I once knew a dame said she was the original Frankie though.”

“I've personally knew three original Frankies,” said Mabel. “Suzy, you got to stop arguing with the customers.”

Suzy said, “If that's the live members of the Rattlesnake Club, the dead ones is what I call dead. I can scream twice at a rubber lizard and then the hell with it.”

Fauna came out of the bedroom office and stood in the doorway, rubbing lotion into her hands. She had changed to a peach-colored dressing gown. She said seriously, “Young ladies, you can make fun of the Rattlesnakes if you want to, but if you ever get in the administration end you will welcome good solid citizens like them. Why, there was some very important people here from Salinas! I give them a good rate, but you notice there's no busted furniture. Them free-spending sailors last Saturday night cost me eighty-five dollars in repairs. That nice boy give Becky a five-dollar tip—but he busted two windows and run off with the deer-antler halltree.”

Suzy said, “God, I'm sleepy.”

Fauna said sharply, “Suzy, I got one rule: never let the sun rise on a cross word or an unbalanced book.” She scratched her nose with a pencil. “I just wish there was more Rattlesnakes,” she said.

“I wish there was more dead members,” Suzy said.

“That's a cross word, Suzy!” said Fauna. “The birds are chirping happily, so why can't we? Now let's relax. Who wants a beer?”

Becky said, “If I say I want it I'll have to get it for everybody. My dogs are tired! You know what I was dancing? A quadrille!”

Fauna said dryly, “I seen you. I'll have to give you some lesson, I guess. You done a kootch quadrille. It ain't your feet should be tired. After all the posture lessons I give you, you still dance like a harlot.”

“What's a harlot?” Becky asked.

“A whore,” said Mabel.

“Oh, harlot, huh?” said Becky.

Agnes said, “Fauna, I want you should tell Suzy when she goes on errands she should come back. She stayed over Doc's about an hour while the Rattlesnakes was really active.”

Suzy asked, “Say, Fauna, what's wrong with Doc?”

“Wrong? Ain't nothing wrong with him,” said Fauna. “He's one of the nicest fellas ever lived on Cannery Row. You'd think he'd turn bitter the way everybody hustles him. Wide Ida gets him to analyze her booze, Mack and the boys throw the hook into him for every dime that sticks out, a kid cuts his finger on the Row and he goes to Doc to get it wrapped up. Why, when Becky got in a fight with that Woodman of the World and got bit in the shoulder, she might of lost her arm if it wasn't for Doc. Show her the scar, Becky.”

Suzy asked, “Don't Doc never come here?”

“No, he don't. But don't let nothing ever give you the idea he's strange. There's girls goes in there with fur coats and stuff and he plays that churchy kind of music. Doc's all right. He gets what he wants. Dora said every girl made a play for him. I put a stop to that.”

“Why'd you do that?” Suzy asked.

“I'm saving him—that's why. You look at them gold stars over there—every star, one of my girls has married well.”

Suzy said, “Who marries hustlers?”

“Now that's a bad attitude to take,” Fauna said coldly. “That's the kind of attitude I try to discourage. You look at that third star from the end over there. I admit she's kind of snooty, but why shouldn't she be? She's a reader in a big church in San Luis Obispo. I tell you, my girls marry, and marry well!”

Suzy said, “What's that got to do with Doc?”

“I got him staked out for Miss Right,” said Fauna. “Someday I'll draw a bead on him.”

“Hell,” said Suzy, “he said he don't want to marry nobody.”

“Watch your language, Suzy,” said Fauna. And then with interest she asked, “How'd you get along with him?”

“We got in a hassle,” said Suzy. “He made me mad and I made him mad. All them goddam bugs—and a paper about nervous breakdowns in devilfish! Someday a guy in a white coat's going to tap him on the shoulder.”

Fauna said, “Don't believe it! Why, some of them bugs he gets as much as ten bucks for.”

“Not
apiece
?” said Suzy.

Fauna went on, “Why he takes an old beat-up cat he paid a quarter for and he shoots red and blue and yellow paint in it and he gets fifteen bucks for it.”

“Why, for Chrissake?” Suzy asked.

“Suzy, if you don't watch your language I'll wash out your mouth. Now you just get up and bring the beer for that. You're an ignorant girl but I'll be goddamned if I'll let you get common.”

Suzy went out, and Fauna said, “I wonder if she might be for Doc—she's got an awful big mouth. She'd talk her way out of an apple dumpling.”

Suzy came back with a tray of beer bottles.

Becky said, “Fauna, why don't you read Suzy's horoscope?”

“You mean stars and like that?” said Suzy. “What for?”

Becky said, “To see if you're going to marry Doc.”

Suzy said angrily, “I like a joke as good as anybody but don't get rough with me.”

Becky said, “Who's rough?”

“I don't believe that crap about stars,” said Suzy. “And you lay off talking about Doc. He's been to college—he's read so many books he can't count 'em—and not comic books neither. You lay off talking about him and me.”

Fauna said, “That will be enough, miss. You see that chart? Just look at them gold stars. And look particular at that gold star that's got a gold star on it. That young lady is married to a professor at Stanford. He's got about a million books, and she used to take all day Sunday figuring out Jiggs and Maggie. You know what she does? If somebody points to all them books and says, ‘Does the little lady read all of them?' she just smiles kind of quiet and mysterious. When they ask her a question, you know what she does? You can learn, Suzy, if you just pay attention. She repeats the last three words anybody says, and first thing you know, they think she said it. Why, her own husband thinks she can read and write! You get smart, Suzy. Doc don't want no dame that knows as much as him. What would he have to talk about? Let him tell you for once. Don't tell him.”

Becky said, “She won't. She loves to shoot off her face.”

“She damn well better learn to shut up or she won't be no gold star,” said Fauna. “That's a good idea about the horoscope. When's your birthday, Suzy?”

“February twenty-third.”

“What time was you born?”

“God knows, but I think it was leap year.”

Agnes said, “I bet she was born at night. I can always tell.”

Fauna went into her room and brought back a chart and pinned it to the wall. And she brought out her schoolroom pointer again. “Now this here's you, Pisces—that's fish.”

Suzy said, “You mean I'm fish?”

“You're fish,” said Fauna.

“I don't believe a goddam word of it. I don't even like fish,” Suzy said. “Why, hell, I break out if I look at a fish!”

“Don't look at them then,” said Fauna. “But if you ain't lied about your birthday you're fish. Now let's see—fish is to Jupiter, carry two in the Saturn, and three left over in the House of Venus—”

“I don't believe none of it,” Suzy said.

Fauna looked up from her figuring. “Tell her some of that stuff I done, Mabel.”

Mabel said, “I seen her do wonderful stuff. I had a pup one time. Fauna, she done a horoscope on him. It says on that pup's third birthday, ten o'clock, he's going explode.”

Suzy asked, “Did he?”

“Well, no. Something went haywire with the chart, I guess. Ten o'clock on that dog's third birthday he caught fire. I was taking a lemon rinse.”

“You could use one now,” Fauna said.

“What caught him on fire?” Suzy asked.

“He just caught. Spontaneous something or other. He was a pretty good dog but he wasn't very bright. Never could house-break him. He used to wet on Joe Elegant.”

Suzy said, “I bet Joe Elegant set him on fire.”

“That's a lie!” said Mabel. “Joe Elegant was in the hospital.”

Suddenly Fauna clapped her hands to her brow. “God Almighty!”

“What is it?” said Becky. “What's the matter?”

Fauna said impressively, “Suzy, you know what you're going to marry? You're going to marry a Cancer!”

“Thought you caught it,” said Suzy. “I didn't know you had to marry it.”

“Don't get funny,” said Fauna. “Cancer, that's a crab—and that's also July. Now you just think—who works with crabs and stuff like that?”

Becky said, “Joe Anguro's fish market.”

Fauna exploded, “Doc! And if his birthday's in July he's a gone goose. Agnes, when's Doc's birthday?”

“I don't know. Mack's gonna ask him.”

“Well, we'll have to find out. Can't let him know why we want to know.”

Agnes said, “Mack will find out. Mack's used to hustling Doc.”

“Well, I want to know right away. Now you young ladies get some sleep, you hear me? You know what's coming in today?” Fauna stuck the pencil in her hair. “A great big fat juicy destroyer! And you know what day it is?”

The girls spoke in a chorus. “Lord-God-Almighty,” they said, “payday!”

It took Fauna about five minutes to put up her hair and then she was ready to make her final rounds to see that the garbage was out and all the lights turned off. In the dark Ready Room she saw a glowing cigarette.

“Who's there?” she called.

“Me,” said Suzy.

“Why ain't you in bed?”

“I was thinking.”

“Now I know you'll never make a hustler. What you thinking about, your horoscope?”

“Yeah.”

“You like Doc, huh?”

“I put the knife in him. He made me mad.”

“Whyn't you let me handle it?” said Fauna. “I think I could maybe get him for you.”