Sweet Thursday

34 The Deep-Dish Set-Down

Joe Elegant was only the cook at the Bear Flag, not the bouncer, with the result that his services were never required late at night. He retired early and set his alarm clock for four. This gave him three or four hours every morning over his portable to tap out green letters on green paper.

The book was going well. His hero had been born in a state of shock and nothing subsequent had reassured him. When a symbol wasn’t slapping him in the mouth, a myth was kicking his feet out from under him. It was a book of moods, of dank rooms with cryptic wallpaper, of pale odors, of decaying dreams. There wasn’t a character in the whole of The Pi Root of Oedipus who wouldn’t have made the observation ward. The hero had elderly aunts beside whom the Marquis de Sade was an altar boy. The pile of green manuscript was three inches thick, and Joe Elegant was beginning to plan his photograph for the back of the dust cover: open collar, he thought, and a small, wry smile, and one hand relaxed in front of him with an open poison ring on the third finger. He knew which reviewers he could depend on and why. He typed: “A pool scummed with Azolla. In the open water in the middle of the pond a dead fish floated belly up…”

Joe Elegant sighed, leaned back, and scratched his stomach. He yawned, went into the Bear Flag’s kitchen, and started a pot of coffee. While it was heating he walked out into a glorious morning. The pelicans were drumming in for a run of tom cod, and little pink Kleenex clouds hung over the bay. Joe saw the flowers in front of the boiler door and moved over to inspect them—a huge bouquet of tulips, early roses, jonquils, and iris. They might have been anyone’s offering, except that their stems were in a museum jar.

Joe Elegant’s life had not been in danger since the engagement and raffle party, but he hadn’t felt much friendliness in Cannery Row either. He carried his news into the Bear Flag and served it to Fauna on a tray along with her coffee and crullers. By eight o’clock the news was in the Palace Flop house, and the early men were ingesting it with their whisky sours at the La Ida.

The best seats were in the Ready Room with its windows overlooking the vacant lot. Mack was there behind a drape, munching Fauna’s crullers. The girls were there in their best kimonos. Becky had put on her mules with the ostrich feathers. At eight-thirty the audience heard the boiler door screech and shushed one another.

Suzy, on her hands and knees, poked her head out of the firedoor and rammed her nose into the giant floral tribute. For a long moment she stared at the flowers, and then she reached out and dragged them inside. The iron door closed after her.

At nine o’clock Suzy re-emerged and walked rapidly toward Monterey. At nine-thirty she was back. She went into the boiler and in a moment came out, pushing her suitcase ahead of her. The audience was filled with dismay, but only for a moment. Suzy climbed the steps and rang the bell at the Bear Flag. Fauna chased the girls to their rooms and Mack out the back way before she answered the door.

Suzy said, “You told me I could use your bathroom.”

“Help yourself,” said Fauna.

In an hour, when the splashing had ceased, Fauna knocked on the bathroom door. “Want a little toilet water, honey?”

“Thanks,” said Suzy.

In a few minutes she emerged, scrubbed and shining.

“Like a cup of coffee?” Fauna asked.

“Wish I could,” said Suzy. “I got to run. Thanks for the bath. There ain’t nothing like a good deep-dish set-down bath.”

Fauna, from behind a drape, watched her crawl back into the boiler.

In her office Fauna scribbled a note and sent it by Joe Elegant to Western Biological. It read: “She ain’t going to work today.”