Sweet Thursday

13 Parallels Must Be Related

Doc spent a restless night. His head was full of yellow pads and seers and octopi. Ordinarily he would have worked or read since he couldn’t sleep, but now if he turned on a light he would see the yellow pad and the marshaled pencils.

As the dawn crept over the bay he decided to go for a very long walk, perhaps to follow the shoreline all the way around to Carmel. He arose, and since it was still dusky in the laboratory he turned on the lights to make his coffee.

Wide Ida, from the entrance of La Ida, saw his lights come on. She put an unlabeled pint bottle of brown liquor in a paper bag and crossed the street to Western Biological.

“Doc,” she said, “would you work this stuff over?”

“What is it?”

“They say it’s whisky. I just want to know if it’ll kill anybody. I got a pretty good buy. They make it up in Pine Canyon.”

“That’s against the law,” said Doc.

“Killing people is against the law too,” said Wide Ida.

Doc was torn between bootlegging and murder. He thought sadly that he was always involved in something like this—not good or bad but bad and less bad. He made a fairly quick analysis. “It’s not poison,” he said, “but it won’t build good healthy stomachs. There’s some fusel oil[62] in it. But I guess it’s no worse than Old Tennis Shoes.”

“Thanks, Doc. What do I owe you?”

“Oh, maybe a quart—but not this stuff.”

“I’ll send over some Old Taylor.”

“You don’t have to go off the deep end,” said Doc.

“Doc, I hear you got trouble.”

“Me? What kind of trouble?”

“I just heard,” said Wide Ida.

Doc said angrily, “I’ve got no trouble. What’s all the talk! God Almighty, everybody treats me as though I had a disease. What kind of trouble?”

“If there’s anything I can do,” she said and went out quickly, leaving the pint behind.

Doc took a sip of it, made a face, and took a swig. His heart was pounding angrily. He could not admit that the pity of his friends only confirmed his frustration. He knew that pity and contempt are brothers. He set his chin. “I will get the spring tides at La Jolla,” he said to himself. “I will get a new microscope.” And the very lowest voice whispered, “Somewhere there’s warmth.”

He sat down at his desk and wrote viciously: “Parallels must be related.” He took another drink from the pint and opened yesterday’s mail. There was an order for six sets of slides—starfish, embryonic series, for the Oakland Polytechnic[63] High School. He was almost glad to do the old and practiced work. He got his collecting buckets together, threw rubber boots in his old car, and drove out to the Great Tide Pool.