Sweet Thursday (23 page)

“I figured we're both going the same way. I'll walk with you.”

“Why not?” said Suzy. “You can carry my books.”

“What?”

“Just a joke.”

“Ha, ha!” said Hazel seriously.

They walked down Alvarado Street, all closed up except where the bars splashed neon culture on the sidewalk. At the tip of the Presidio they stopped and leaned their elbows on the iron railing and looked at the fishing boats in the black water of the bay. They crossed the tracks, went past the Army ware house, and entered the upper end of Cannery Row. And at last Hazel said, “You're a swell dame.”

“Come again?”

“Say, what you think's the matter with Doc?”

“How would I know?”

“You sore at him?”

“How'd you like to mind your own business?”

“It's all right,” said Hazel quickly. “I ain't bright. Everybody knows that.”

“What's that got to do with keeping out of my hair?”

“Nobody pays no attention to me,” said Hazel. He offered this as a recommendation. “Doc says I don't listen. He likes that.”

They walked on in silence for a while. Then Hazel said timidly, “He done everything in the world for me. Once he went character witness for me and I ain't got no character. Once I'd of lost a foot, but he opened her up and shook powder on her and I still got her.”

Suzy didn't answer. Their footsteps were loud on the pavement and echoed back from the iron fronts of dead canneries.

“Doc's in trouble,” Hazel said.

Their footsteps filled the street.

“Anybody in trouble, why, they go to Doc. Nobody goes to him now he's in trouble.”

Step, step, step.

“I got to help him,” said Hazel. “But I ain't bright.”

“What the hell do you want me to do?” said Suzy.

“Well, couldn't you go over and set with him?”

“No.”

“If you was in trouble he'd help you.”

“I ain't in trouble. How do you know he's in trouble?”

“I'm telling you. I thought you liked him.”

“I like him all right. If he was in real trouble like if he was sick or bust his leg, I'd probably take him some soup.”

“Jeeze! If he bust his leg he couldn't go to the spring tides,” said Hazel.

“Well, he ain't busted his leg.”

They passed Wide Ida's. Hazel asked, “You want a beer?”

“No, thanks.” Then she said, “Ain't you going up to the Palace?”

“No,” said Hazel, “I got to see a guy.”

Suzy said, “Once, when I was a kid, I made an ashtray for my old man and old lady—”

“They like it?”

“They didn't need no ashtray.”

“Didn't they smoke?”

“Yes,” said Suzy. “Good night.”

Hazel was approaching a state of collapse. In his whole life he had never sustained a thought for more than two minutes. Now his resources reeled under the strain of four hours of concentration. And it was not yet over. He had to make two more visits, and then he had to retire under the black cypress tree to sift his findings. So far he could see no light anywhere. His mental pictures were like those children's kaleidoscopes that change color and design as they are turned. It seemed to Hazel that a slight zizzing sound came from his brain.

It was a catty night. Big toms crept about, their heads and shoulders flattened to the ground, seeking other toms. Lady cats preened themselves in sweet innocence, unaware of what they hoped was likely to happen to them. On the rocks off Hopkins Marine Station the sea lions barked with a houndish quaver. The silver canneries were silent under the street lights. And from somewhere on the beach Cacahuete Rivas's trumpet softly mourned the “Memphis Blues.”

Hazel had stopped for a moment in appreciation of the secret night. He looked up at the boiler where Suzy had gone, and into the streak of street light he saw a figure move. From the shape and posture he thought it must be the Patrón. In a way it was none of Hazel's business. He walked up the stairs and knocked on the door of Western Biological.

Doc sat on his bed regarding a heap of collecting paraphernalia: nets, buckets and jars, formaldehyde and Epsom salts and menthol, rubber boots and rubber gloves, glass plates and string. On his table stood a small new traveling aquarium with a tiny pump and motor run by two dry cells. Morosely he watched the mist of white air bubbles sift through the sea water.

“Come in,” he said to Hazel. “I'm glad to see you.”

“Just come to pass the time of day,” said Hazel.

“Good. I'm glad. A man feels silly talking to himself, and at the same time it's private. You're the perfect answer, Hazel.”

“Say, Doc, I just remembered. What's ass-astro-physic?”

“You don't really want me to tell you, do you?”

“Not very much. I just wondered. I signed up for it.”

Doc shuddered. “I don't think I want to hear about that,” he said.

“I brang you a pint.”

“That's friendly of you. Will you join me?”

“Sure,” said Hazel. “You're really going to La Jolla, huh?”

“Well, I guess I have to. That's one of the things I've been trying to figure out. I've made such a stink about it.”

“Lot of people think you won't go.”

“Well, that's one of the reasons I have to.”

“Don't you want to?”

“I don't know,” said Doc softly.

He got up from the bed and disengaged a wire from the dry cell. “No point in wasting juice,” he said. “I've been tearing myself down like a Model T Ford in a backyard. Got the pieces all laid out. Still don't know why it won't run. Don't even know whether I can get it together again.”

“I could help,” said Hazel. “I know about Model T's.”

“It might turn out you know about people too,” said Doc.

Hazel looked shyly down at his feet. No one had ever accused him of knowing anything before.

Doc chuckled, “That's my good Hazel!”

“Say, Doc, what you think is the matter with you?” Hazel was appalled at his daring, but he had asked. And Doc seemed to find the question reasonable.

“God knows,” he said. “Some kind of obscure self-justification, I guess. I wanted to make a contribution to learning. Maybe that was a substitution for fathering children. Right now, my contribution, even if it came off, seems kind of weak. I think maybe I've talked myself into something, and now maybe I have to do it.”

Hazel groped among his bits and pieces. “Mack's sorry about what him and Fauna done. He's just sick.”

“He shouldn't be,” said Doc. “I'm the one who messed it up.”

“You mean you would of took Suzy on?”

“I guess so. I've thought about it ever since. For a couple of days there I felt different and better than I ever have in my life. A kind of built-in pain was gone. I felt wide open.”

“About Suzy?”

“I guess so. I'm supposed to have this wild free brain without conventional barriers. And what did I do? I balanced a nasty ledger. I weighed education, experience, background, even probable bloodlines. Some of the worst people I ever knew had the best of all those. Well, there it is. Saying it has made it even clearer. I guess I've thrown it away.”

“Why don't you give it one more try, Doc?”

“How?”

“Why don't you take a candy bar or a bunch of carnations and knock on her door?”

“Right from the beginning, huh? Sounds kind of silly.”

“Well, dames is all dames,” said Hazel.

“You may have made a discovery. Have you seen her?”

“Yeah. She got that boiler fixed up real pretty. She got a job down at the Golden Poppy.”

“How is she? What did she say?”

Hazel cast about again among his broken pieces. Her vehemence came back to him. “When she was a kid she made an ashtray for her papa and mama—” Hazel let it hang there because it sounded ridiculous.

“Well, what about it?”

“They didn't need no ashtray,” said Hazel.

“She told you that?”

“Yep.”

“Let's have a drink.”

“I can't, Doc. I got one more—I mean, I got to see a guy.”

“This late at night?”

“Yeah.” And then Hazel confessed. “You been good to me, Doc. I wouldn't do no bad thing to you.”

“Of course you wouldn't.”

“But I done it.”

“What!”

“Remember you always said you liked me 'cause I didn't listen?”

“Sure I remember.”

Hazel's eyes were shy and ashamed. “I listened,” he said.

“That's all right.”

“Doc—”

“Yes?”

“Joseph and Mary's hanging around the boiler.”

Hazel couldn't remember ever having been so tired. He had put his mind to unaccustomed tricks, and it was just as he had been afraid it would be. He had got nothing. He had started out hoping to find some kind of light to guide him. What he had got reminded him of Henri's painting in nutshells. He wanted to sleep a long time, perhaps never to awaken to a world in which he now felt himself a stranger. He had made a mess of it. He wondered if he would make as bad a mess in Washington.

He walked wearily through the vacant lot and up the chicken walk to the Palace Flop house. He wanted to slip into bed in the dark and hide his failure in sleep.

Mack and the boys were waiting up for him.

“Where the hell you been?” said Mack. “We looked all over for you.”

“Just walking around,” said Hazel listlessly.

Mack moved and groaned. “Jesus! You hit me a crack,” he said. “Damn near killed me.”

“I shouldn't of did it,” said Hazel. “You want I should rub it?”

“Hell no! What you been up to? When you get making plans, the sky is falling on my tail, said Henny Penny.”

Whitey No. 2 asked, “Who you been with?”

“Everybody. Just walking around.”

“Well, who?”

“Oh, Joe Elegant and Fauna and Suzy and Doc.”

“You seen Suzy?” Mack demanded.

“Sure. Went down to the Poppy for a cup of coffee.”

“Look who's buying coffee!”

“It was on the house,” said Hazel.

“Well, what did she say?”

“She says in the third grade she made an ashtray.”

“Oh, Jesus!” said Mack. “Did she say anything about Doc?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“You guess so!”

“Don't ask me if you're going to be mean to me. That'll just get
me
mean.”

Mack shifted painfully to his other buttock.

Hazel felt ringed with hostility. “I guess I'll go outside,” he said miserably.

“Wait! What'd she say about Doc?”

“Said she didn't want no part of him, except—I'm going to go on out.”

“Except what?”

“Except he got sick or bust a leg.”

Mack shook his head. “Sometimes you get me thinking the way you do. God Almighty! I shouldn't of let you out alone.”

“I didn't do no harm.”

“I bet you didn't do no good either. I bet right now you're trying to figure out germ warfare—how to get Doc sick.”

“I'm tired,” said Hazel. “I just want to go to bed.”

“Who's stopping you?”

Hazel didn't even take off his clothes before he went to bed, but he didn't sleep either; at least not until the dawn crept out from Salinas. His brain was blistered and his responsibility rode him with surcingle and spurs.

Doc sat for a long time after Hazel left him. His chest rustled with feeling and his throat was dry. His top mind looked at him—a scientist, a thinker trained, conditioned to method, to exactness. No single thing could be permitted in unless it could be measured or tasted or heard or seen. The laws of science were Doc's laws, and he sought to obey them. To break these laws was not only a sin to him but a danger, for violation would let in anarchy. He was frightened and cold.

His middle mind screamed with joy at his discomfiture. “I told you! All through the years I've told you you were fooling yourself. Let's see you get back to analysis, I dare you!”

And the low-humming mind in his entrails was busy too, aching and yet singing that the ache was necessary and good.

Middle mind had its way. Doc thought, Let's look at this. Here is a man with work to do. The girl—what is she? Let's suppose every good thing should come of a relationship with her. It still would be no good. There is no possible way for this girl and me to be successful—no way under the sun. Not only is she illiterate, but she has a violent temper. She has all of the convictions of the uninformed. She is sure of things she has not investigated, not only sure for herself, but sure for everyone. In two months she will become a prude. Then where will freedom go? Your thinking will be like tennis against a bad player. Let's stop this nonsense! Forget it! You can't have it and you don't want it.

Middle mind hooted, “You can't
not
have it too. What ever happens, you've got her. Take a feel of your pulse, listen to your pounding heart. Why? You just heard the iron door of the boiler clang, that's why. You haven't even thought what that means yet, but you've got a pain in your gut because of that clang and because it's three-thirteen in the morning.”

Low mind said, “Nothing's bad. It's all part of one thing—the good and bad. Do you know any man and woman—no matter how close—who don't have good and bad? Let me out! Or, by God, I'll set my claws in you and I'll tear at you for all your life! Let me out, I say! Feel this, this red burning? That's rage. Will you let it out or will it fester here until it makes you sick and crazy? Look at the time. You heard that iron door.”

Doc looked at his watch—3:17. “Why that son-of-a-bitch!” he said aloud. He snapped off his light and went to the window and looked out toward the strip of light the street lamp threw on the vacant lot. Then he opened his front door and crept down the stairs. Crossing the street, he followed a broad shadow and hid in it.

The Patrón was sitting on a big rusty pipe trying to work out a puzzle. He had it laid out and the pieces didn't make sense. Here was himself, young, good-looking, snappy dresser, and making dough. And here was a dame, a dime-a-dozen dame, living in a boiler, working for her keep. The Patrón knew methods too, and, if not scientific, they had served him well enough so that he could depend on them. You sweet talk, you promise, you offer, and in reserve you always hold force. Every dame needs a little force. He felt the swelling knuckles of his right hand. This dame was nuts. She didn't listen to his pitch, and when he brought up force she slammed the iron door and damn near took his fingers off. He was going to lose the nails of all four fingers. The dirty bitch! Thus, musing bitterly, he did not hear Doc's approach.

Doc's fingers locked in the collar of the Patrón's striped shirt and yanked him to his feet. By reflex the Patrón lashed out with his foot and kicked Doc's legs from under him. The two fell together and rolled in the mallow weeds. Joseph and Mary tried for the groin with his knee, while Doc's delicate strong fingers laced around the throat. The Patrón felt the thumbs seeking the hollow below his Adam's apple. He tore at the white face with his fingers and Doc's thumbs went home. Flaring lights whirled in the Patrón's eyes and his brain turned red. He knew that in two seconds his thorax would collapse under the thumbs and he would be dead. He had seen it happen. He knew it and, so knowing, he went limp and in sweating terror felt the thumbs relax.

The Patrón lay still, and his sickened mind figured the chances—the groin again or butt of head to chin? But if he missed the terrible thumbs would come again. He was weak and afraid—afraid even to speak for fear the wrong word might draw the seeking thumbs. “Doc,” he whispered, “I give up. You got me.”

“Go near that girl again and I'll tear your throat out,” Doc whispered back.

“I won't. I swear to God I won't.”

In the grocery under the seven-watt light, the Patrón tried to get the cork out of a pint with his mashed fingers but had to pass the bottle to Doc.

Doc felt the sickness that follows rage—and he also felt silly. He took a gulp of whisky and passed the bottle over the counter. Joseph and Mary drank and then bent over, coughing and spluttering. Doc had to run around the counter to beat him on the back. When he could speak, Joseph and Mary looked at Doc with wonder.

“I can't understand it,” he said. “Where'd you learn that trick? What'd you want to do it for? You might of killed me.”

“I guess I wanted to,” said Doc. “I must have wanted to.” He laughed embarrassedly. “I thought you were making a pass at Suzy.”

“I was,” said Joseph and Mary. “Jesus, Doc, I didn't know you was that way with her.”

“I'm not,” said Doc. “Give me a drink.”

“You wasn't playing tiddlywinks,” said Joseph and Mary. “Now don't get excited. She give me the bum's rush. Hell, she damn near took off my fingers with that door. You ain't got any competition from me, Doc. She's all yours.”

“She won't even see me,” said Doc.

“Won't? What in hell
is
the matter with her?”

“Who knows?”

They rested their elbows on the counter and faced each other.

“Beats me,” said Joseph and Mary. “What you going to do?”

Doc smiled. “Hazel said take her flowers and a candy bar.”

“He might have something there. I can't figure her.” Gingerly the Patrón let a little whisky dribble down his throat and winced as it passed the bruised place. “I guess she's just nuts,” he said. “And if she's nuts, a guy's got to do nuts things. You don't think you could say the hell with her?”

“I have, over and over.”

“Don't do no good?”

“Not a bit. I know it's damn foolishness, but there it is.”

“I knew guys like that. There ain't nothing to do about it, I guess.” His eyes sharpened. “I remember something,” he said. “When I was talking to her through that damn firedoor to night she says, ‘When I find a guy that's up to his eyes I'll dive in,' she says. And I says, ‘For Doc?' ‘Hell no!' she says. ‘He's sliced like package bacon.'”

“I guess she's right,” said Doc.

“That ain't what I was thinking. Look, Doc, when you had the hooks in me, if I'd went on—well, would you of?”

“I guess so. I can hardly believe it of myself, but I guess I would have. I never did anything like that before. Why?”

“Well, I just thought—a guy that'll do a killing with his hands ain't sliced too thin. Let's finish the pint, Doc, and then I'll help you.”

“Help me what?”

“Flowers,” said Joseph and Mary. “We got an hour before daylight. Up above Light house Avenue there's front yards just lousy with flowers.”