Sweet Thursday

27 O Frabjous Day![100]

The communications system on Cannery Row is mysterious to the point of magic and rapid to the speed of light. Fauna and Mack came to the decision that the party should be a masquerade on Friday evening at 9:11½. By 9:12 the magic had started, and by 9:30 everyone who was not asleep, drunk, or away, knew about it. One particularly mean woman who hadn’t had a man for a long time commented, “How will you know whether they’re in costume or not?”—a statement clearly drawn from her own state of misery. But mainly the news was received with wonder and joy. Mack’s tom-wallager had achieved the stature of a bull-bitch tom-wallager.

Consider what was in store for the ticket holders: a party at the Palace Flop house; a raffle that amounted to a potlatch; an engagement of exciting proportions unknown in the annals of the Row; and, on top of this, a costume party! Any one of these would have been enough. Together they threatened to be a celebration close to a catastrophe.

Fauna breathed a sigh of relief for it solved her greatest problem. She wanted to dress Suzy in a certain way, and Suzy, being the tough monkey she was, would have resisted. Now it was easy. There’s little difference between the wardrobe of Snow White and that of a lovely young bride.

There will be those who will consider that Fauna took too much upon herself in engineering a marriage without the knowledge or collusion of either party, and such skeptics will be perfectly right. But it was Fauna’s conviction, born out of long experience, that most people, one, did not know what they wanted; two, did not know how to go about getting it; and three, didn’t know when they had it.

Fauna was one of those rare people who not only have convictions but are quite willing to take responsibility for them. She knew that Doc and Suzy should be together. And since they were too confused, or thoughtless, or shy to bring about that happy state, Fauna was prepared to do it for them. Her critics will cry, “Suppose she is wrong! Maybe this association has no chance of success.” And Fauna’s answer to this, if she had heard it, would have been, “They ain’t doing so good now. It might work. What they got to lose? And when you look at it, what chance has anybody got? Doc put on a tie, didn’t he? And if I’m wrong it’s my fault. Sure, they’ll fight now and then. Who don’t? But maybe they’ll get something too. What’s the odds for anybody?”

And if it was suggested that people should have the right to choose for themselves after thinking it over, she would have replied, “Who thinks? I can think because I ain’t part of it.”

And if she had been accused of being a busybody she would have said, “Damn right! Done it all my life!” You couldn’t win an argument with Fauna because she would agree with you and then go right on as she had planned. She had taken up astrology because she found that people who won’t take advice from a wise and informed friend will blindly follow the orders of the planets—which, by all reports, are fairly remote and aloof. Doc would refuse astrology, so he had to be sandbagged. Fauna expected no thanks. She had given that up long ago. Doc could not interpret the black voice of his guts, but it sounded loud in Fauna’s ears. She knew his loneliness. When she was with him, that low voice drowned out all the others.

On Saturday morning she made every girl in the house bring out every article of clothing she possessed and lay it on the bed in her office.

Now Mabel was a natural-born, blowed-in-the-glass hustler. In any time, under any system, after a period of orientation, Mabel would have found herself doing exactly what she was doing in Cannery Row. This was not a matter of Fate, but rather a combination of aptitudes and inclinations. Born in a hovel or a castle, Mabel would have gravitated toward hustling.

The heap of finery on Fauna’s bed was impressive. Some of those dresses could have got a girl booked for vagrancy just going out to mail a letter.

Mabel took Fauna aside and spoke to her privately. “My grandma come from the old country,” she said when the door of her room was closed. Mabel opened the bottom drawer of her bureau and lifted out a brown paper parcel sealed against air with strips of cellophane tape. “Grandma left it to Mama, and Mama left it to me,” she said as she tore the paper. “We ain’t none of us needed it.” She removed layer after layer of tissue paper and at last spread a dress out on her bed—a wedding dress of sheerest white linen embroidered with sprays of white flowers—stitches so tiny they seemed to grow out of the cloth. The bodice was close-fitting and the skirt very full. Mabel opened a box and laid beside the dress a silver wedding crown. “I guess she wouldn’t hurt it none,” said Mabel. “Tell her not to spill nothing on it. I’ll polish up the crown, it’s kind of tarnished—real silver!”

Fauna was speechless for once. Her fingers went to the light and lovely fabric. She was a hard woman to break up, but the dress nearly did it. “Snow White!” she said breathlessly. “I better be careful or I’ll get to believing my own pitch. Mabel, I’m going to give you my jet earrings.”

“I don’t want nothing.”

“You want my jet earrings!”

“Aw shoot!” said Mabel.

“Looks like it might nearly fit her,” Fauna observed.

“Well, we can kind of tack it where it don’t.”

“You know, you’re a good girl. You want I should go to work on you?”

“Hell no!” said Mabel. “I like it here. There’s a veil too in this here bag.”

“I don’t know if we can get away with a veil, but we’ll try,” said Fauna.

“Oh hell, she don’t know a veil from a hole in the ground,” said Mabel.

If only people would give the thought, the care, the judgment to international affairs, to politics, even to their jobs, that they lavish on what to wear to a masquerade, the world would run in greased grooves. On the surface Cannery Row was quieter than usual, but below the surface it seethed. In one corner of the Palace Flop house, Whitey No. 2 gave careful lessons to little Johnny Carriaga in the art of palming cards. Johnny had been borrowed for the occasion—or, more truthfully, rented—since Alberto Carriaga had received sixty-two cents, the price of a gallon of wine, for the use of his firstborn. It was planned that Johnny should be dressed as Cupid, with paper wings, bow and arrow, and quiver. The quiver was added as a hiding place for the winning raffle ticket. For although nearly everyone on the Row knew the raffle was rigged, a certain pride made it necessary to carry the deception off with dignity. Because of a small distrust of Johnny the arrows in the quiver were tipped with rubber suction cups.

Whitey No. 2 had cut a card the exact size of a raffle ticket. “Now try it again, Johnny,” he said. “No, I can see the edge of it. Look! Sort of squeeze the edges in your palm, like this. Now try it again. That’s right! That’s good. Now let’s see you get it out of the quiver. You make a pass with the bow—like this—so they look at your other hand, and you say—”

“I know,” said Johnny. “ ‘I’m Cupid, God of Love, and I draw a bead on unsuspecting hearts.’ ”

“God! That’s beautiful,” said Eddie. “I wonder where Mack got that?”

“He made it up,” said Whitey No. 2. “Now when you shove up the bow with your right hand, you get the ticket out of the quiver with your left. Try it.”

“ ‘I-am-Cupid-God-of-Love,’ ” said Johnny, and he brandished the bow.

“That’s good,” said Whitey No. 2. “It will take a little more practice though. Don’t look at your left hand, Johnny. Look at the bow. Now here’s the bowl. Dig around the cards without dropping the ticket. Go on, practice.”

“I want thirty-five cents,” said Johnny.

“What!”

“If I don’t get thirty-five cents I’ll tell.”

“Mack,” said Whitey No. 2, “this here kid’s jumped the price.”

“Give it to him,” said Mack. “I’ll flip him double or nothing later.”

“Not with that two-headed nickel, you won’t,” said Johnny.

“Seems like kids got no respect for their elders nowadays,” Eddie observed. “If I ever said that, my old man would of clobbered me.”

“Maybe your old man wasn’t rigging no raffle,” said Johnny.

Whitey No. 1 said, “This kid ain’t honest. You know where bad kids go, Johnny?”

“I sure do, and I been there,” said Johnny.

“Give him the thirty-five cents,” said Mack.

What hidden, hoarded longings there are in all of us! Behind the broken nose and baleful eye may be a gentle courtier; behind the postures and symbols and myths of Joe Elegant there may be the hunger to be a man. If one could be, for only an evening, what ever in the world one wished, what would it be? What secret would come out?

To a certain extent the theme of the Palace Flop house raffle and engagement party was chosen because of Hazel. He was definitely dwarf material. But when he had reviewed the story, asked questions, and got as clear a picture as he ever got of anything, Hazel elected to be Prince Charming. He saw himself in white silk knee breeches and an Eton jacket, his left hand fondling the hilt of a small sword.

They offered him Grumpy, lovable old Grumpy, the prize part of all. They offered him Sweet Pea the Skunk, but Hazel stuck to his dream. It was Prince Charming or he wouldn’t attend. Friendships have foundered on less.

“All right,” said Mack, “you go ahead. I was going to help you with your costume, but I know when I’m stumped. Hazel, if you’re Prince Charming, you’re on your own.”

“Who cares?” said Hazel. “Who wants your help? I’ll bet you’re mad because you wanted to be Prince Charming.”

“Not me,” said Mack. “I’m going as a tree.”

“How do you mean?”

“It’s a forest, ain’t it?” said Mack. “I want a little anenmity. You can’t see the tree for the forest.”

Hazel went to sit under the cypress tree. He was gloomy and he was frightened because ideas did not come to him, and when he sought them they ran screaming away. But he was determined. He could not let the office down. A man sentenced to be President could not go as a dwarf. It wasn’t dignified. Later in the morning he went to the back door of the Bear Flag and called for help from Joe Elegant.

Joe smiled. “I’ll help you,” he said maliciously.

All over the Row trunks were being opened, and the smell of mothballs penetrated as far as the middle of the street. And all over the Row the story was being rewritten to fit the wardrobe. By unspoken agreement no one planned to be Snow White.

In Western Biological, Doc awakened wracked with pain from sleeping on the floor. He lay still for a moment, trying to isolate the part of him that hurt worst. Not the least of his agony was his memory of forcing Old Jingleballicks to take his bed. A crazy, alcoholic generosity, probably masochistic in origin, had prompted the sacrifice. He raised up on one shattered elbow and looked at the old bastard sleeping so sweetly—his halo of yellow hair surrounding his polished pink pate, his breath puffing in small comfortable snores.

“Wake up!” Doc shouted in fury.

The pale eyes flickered. “What’s for breakfast?” said Old Jay.

“Don’t you even have the decency to have a hangover?”

“Certainly I do,” said Old Jay with dignity. “How’s about some beer?”

“Does your head ache?”

“Yes.”

“Do your joints ache?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have low-blood-pressure depression?”

“Overwhelming.”

“Then I’ve got you,” said Doc. “You get the beer.”

The pale eyes rolled despairingly. “I’ll pay half if you get it.”

“No.”

“Tell you what I’ll do—I’ll loan you the money.”

“No.”

Old Jingleballicks’ eyes were bleak. “Reach me my pants,” he said, and he fished out a quarter and a dime and held them out.

“No,” said Doc.

“God in heaven! What do you want?”

“I want two dollars.”

“Why, that would be six bottles!”

“Exactly. You’re trapped, Old Jingleballicks, and you know it.”

Old Jay dug deep and found two one-dollar bills. “Maybe I can write it off to entertainment,” he said.

Doc pulled on pants and shirt and went across the street. He took his time. He drank a bottle of beer quickly and then sipped a second while he heard the news of the day from Joseph and Mary.

Back in the laboratory he put the four cold remaining bottles on the table.

“Where’s my change?” asked Old Jay.

“I drank your change,” said Doc. He was beginning to feel good. He saw the stricken look. “You cheap old fraud,” he said happily, “for once you’ve been had.” And he went on, “I wish I could understand you. You must have millions and yet you pinch and squirm and cheat. Why?”

“Please give me beer. I’m dying,” said Old Jingleballicks.

“Then die a little longer,” said Doc. “I love to see you die!”

“It’s not my fault,” Old Jay said. “It’s a state of mind. You might call it the American state of mind. The tax laws are creating a whole new kind of man—a psyche rather than a psychosis. Two or three generations and we’ll maybe set the species. Can I have beer now?”

“No.”

“If a man has any money he doesn’t ask, ‘Can I afford this?’ but, ‘Can I deduct it?’ Two men fight over a luncheon check when both of them are going to deduct it anyway—a whole nation conditioned to dishonesty by its laws, because honesty is penalized. But it’s worse than that. If you’ll just hand me a bottle I’ll tell you.”

“Tell me first.”

“I didn’t write the tax laws,” Old Jay said, trembling. “The only creative thing we have is the individual, but the law doesn’t permit me to give money to an individual. I must give it to a group, an organization—and the only thing a group has ever created is bookkeeping. To participate in my gift the individual must become part of the group and thus lose his individuality and his creativeness. I didn’t write the law. I hate a law that stifles generosity and makes charity good business. Corporations are losing their financial efficiency because waste pays. I deplore it, but I do it. I know you need a microscope, but I can’t give it to you because with taxes a four-hundred-dollar microscope costs me twelve hundred dollars—if I give it to you—and nothing if I give it to an institution. Why, if you, through creative work, should win a prize, most of the money would go in taxes. I don’t mind taxes, God knows! But I do mind the kind of law that makes of charity not the full warmness of sharing but a stinking expediency. And now, if you don’t hand me a beer, I shall be forced—”

“Here’s your beer,” said Doc.

“What’s for breakfast?”

“God knows. The party at the Palace Flop house tonight is a masquerade. ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.’ ”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“I shall go as a red dwarf,” said Old Jingleballicks.

“A dying star,” said Doc. “It kind of fits you with that hair.”

When the beer was gone they decided that beer made breakfast redundant. Doc went back for six more bottles, and in a burst of generosity he brought back the Bohemia.

“Now there’s beer for you,” said Old Jingleballicks. “The Mexicans are a great and noble people. The Pyramid of the Sun and this beer—whole civilizations have produced less. You started to tell me about your paper last night but you got deflected by a girl. I’d like to see that girl.”

“I’d like to tell you about my paper. I want to draw some parallels between emotional responses in cephalopods and in humans, and I’d like to observe the pathological changes that go with these responses. Now the body walls of octopi are semitransparent. With proper equipment it might be possible to observe these changes as they happen. Sometimes the simpler organisms can give us a key to the more complex. Dementia praecox,[101] for example, was considered purely a psychotic manifestation until it was observed that there were physical symptoms as well.”

“Why don’t you write your paper?”

“I seem to be afraid to. A kind of terror comes over me when I start.”

“What have you got to lose if you fail?”

“Nothing.”

“What have you got to gain if you succeed?”

“I don’t know.”

Old Jingleballicks regarded Doc benignly. “Have you got enough beer in you so you aren’t quarrelsome?”

“I’m never quarrelsome.”

“The hell you aren’t! Took my head off last night. You hurt my feelings.”

“I’m sorry. What did you want to say?”

“Will you let me finish if I start?”

“I’ll try.”

Old Jay said, “You feel to me like a woman who has never had a baby but knows all the words. There’s a lack of fulfillment in you. I think you have violated something or withheld something from yourself—almost as though you were eating plenty but no Vitamin A. You aren’t hungry, but you’re starving. That’s what I think.”

“I can’t imagine anything I lack. I have freedom, comfort, and the work I like. What have I missed?”

“Well, last night, in every conversation, a girl named Suzy crept in—”

“For God’s sake!” said Doc. “Do you know what Suzy is? An illiterate little tramp, a whore! I took her out to dinner because Fauna asked me to. I found her interesting the way I’d find a new species of octopus interesting, that’s all. You’ve always been a goddam fool, Old Jingleballicks, but you’ve never been a romantic damn fool.”

“Who’s talking about romance? I was speaking of hunger. Maybe you can’t be wholly yourself because you’ve never given yourself wholly to someone else.”

“Of all the esoteric goddam nonsense!” Doc cried. “Why I give floor room to you I don’t know.”

“Then try to figure out why you get mad,” said Old Jay.

“What?”

“Well, aren’t you putting a lot of energy into denying something which, if it is not true, deserved no denial?”

“Sometimes I think you’re just plain nuts,” said Doc.

“Know what I’m going to do?” said Old Jay. “I’m going to buy a bottle of whisky.”

“I don’t believe it!” said Doc.