Cannery Row

Chapter VIII

In April 1932 the boiler at the Hediondo Cannery blew a tube for the third time in two weeks and the board of directors consisting of Mr. Randolph and a stenographer decided that it would be cheaper to buy a new boiler than to have to shut down so often. In time the new boiler arrived and the old one was moved into the vacant lot between Lee Chong’s and the Bear Flag Restaurant where it was set on blocks to await an inspiration on Mr. Randolph’s part on how to make some money out of it. Gradually the plant engineer removed the tubing to use to patch other outworn equipment at the Hediondo. The boiler looked like an old-fashioned locomotive without wheels. It had a big door in the center of its nose and a low fire door. Gradually it became red and soft with rust and gradually the mallow weeds grew up around it and the flaking rust fed the weeds. Flowering myrtle crept up its sides and the wild anise perfumed the air about it. Then someone threw out a datura root and the thick fleshy tree grew up and the great white bells hung down over the boiler door and at night the flowers smelled of love and excitement, an incredibly sweet and moving odor.

In 1935 Mr. and Mrs. Sam Malloy moved into the boiler. The tubing was all gone now and it was a roomy, dry, and safe apartment. True, if you came in through the fire door you bad to get down on your hands and knees, but once in there was head room in the middle and you couldn’t want a dryer, warmer place to stay. They shagged a mattress through the fire door and settled down. Mr. Malloy was happy and contented there and for quite a long time so was Mrs. Malloy.

Below the boiler on the hill there were numbers of large pipes also abandoned by the Hediondo. Toward the end of 1937 there was a great catch of fish and the canneries were working full time and a housing shortage occurred. Then it was that Mr. Malloy took to renting the larger pipes as sleeping quarters for single men at a very nominal fee. With a piece of tar paper over one end and a square of carpet over the other, they made comfortable bedrooms, although men used to sleeping curled up had to change their habits or move out. There were those too who claimed that their snores echoing back from the pipes woke them up. But on the whole Mr. Malloy did a steady small business and was happy.

Mrs. Malloy bad been contented until her husband became a landlord and then she began to change. First it was a rug, then a washtub, then a lamp with a colored silk shade. Finally she came into the boiler on her hands and knees one day and she stood up and said a little breathlessly, “Holman’s are having a sale of curtains. Real lace curtains and edges of blue and pink — $1.98 a set with curtain rods thrown in.”

Mr. Malloy sat up on the mattress. “Curtains?” he demanded. “What in God’s name do you want curtains for?”

“I like things nice,” said Mrs. Malloy. “I always did like to have things nice for you,” and her lower lip began to tremble.

“But, darling,” Sam Malloy cried, “I got nothing against curtains. I like curtains.”

“Only $1.98,” Mrs. Malloy quavered, “and you begrutch me $1.98,” and she sniffled and her chest heaved.

“I don’t begrutch you,” said Mr. Malloy. “But, darling— for Christ’s sake what are we going to do with curtains? We got no windows.”

Mrs. Malloy cried and cried and Sam held her in his arms and comforted her.

“Men just don’t understand how a woman feels,” she sobbed. “Men just never try to put themselves in a woman’s place.”

And Sam lay beside her and rubbed her back for a long time before she went to sleep.