Sweet Thursday (6 page)

The girl said good-by and went away, and Doc did not know she was gone. For that matter he did not know she had been with him.

With infinite care Doc scrubbed out a big aquarium, carpeted it with sea sand, and laid in stones populated with sponges and hydroids and anemones. He planted seaweeds and caught little crabs and eels and tide-pool Johnnys. He carried buckets of sea water from the beach and set up a pump to circulate the water from tank to aquarium and back. He considered every factor within his knowledge—relations of plant and animal life, food, filtering, oxygenation. He built an octopus world within walls of glass, trying to anticipate every octopus need and to eliminate every octopus enemy or danger. He considered light and heat.

Eight of his octopi were dead, but the twenty living ones scuttled to the bottom of their new home and hid themselves, throbbing and blushing with emotion. Doc drew a stool close and peered into the little world he had made, and his mind was filled with cool green thoughts and stately figures. For the moment he was at peace. The pale expressionless eyes of the octopi seemed to be looking into his eyes.

In the days that followed, Doc's disposition was so unpredictable that Mack exhausted every other possibility before he moved in on Western Biological for the two dollars he thought he needed.

Mack's campaign was probably the most elaborate of his career. It began quietly, and only after a thorough preparation did it begin to take shape. Then spinnerets of emotion laced in and the heavy notes of tragic necessity began to be faintly heard. Drama grew, as it should, out of its inherent earth. Mack's voice was controlled and soft—no trembling yet—just a reasonable, clear, but potentially passionate growth. Mack knew he was doing well. He could hear himself, and he knew that if he were on the receiving end he would find it impossible not to weaken. Why, then, did not Doc turn his eyes from the dimly lit aquarium? He had certainly said “hello” when Mack came in. A little shakily Mack cut in the
vox angelica,
the
vox dolorosa,
and finally a
bendiga stupenda
so moving that Mack himself was in tears.

Doc did not turn his head.

Mack stood stunned. It is a frightening thing to lay out everything you have, to finish, and have no response. He didn't know what to do next. He said loudly, “Doc!”

“Hello,” said Doc.

“Don't you feel good?”

“Sure, Mack. How much do you want?”

“Two dollars.”

Doc reached in his hip pocket for his wallet without lifting his eyes. Mack's great performance had been wasted. He might just as well have simply come in and asked for the money. He knew he could never reach such a height again. A sudden anger came over him, and he considered refusing the money, but his natural good sense saved him. He stood there rolling the dollar bills between his fingers. “What's got into you, Doc?” he said.

Doc turned slowly toward him. “There's going to be one great difficulty,” he said. “How am I going to light them? It's always a problem, but in this case it might be insuperable.”

“Light what, Doc?”

“We start with two obvious problems,” Doc continued. “First, they can't stand heat, and second, they are to a certain extent photophobic. I don't know how I'm going to get enough cold light on them. Would it be possible, do you suppose, to condition them, to light them constantly, so that the photophobia subsides?”

“Oh sure,” said Mack uneasily.

“Don't be too sure,” said Doc. “The very process of conditioning might, if it did not kill them, change their normal reactions. It's always difficult to evaluate responses that approximate emotions. If I place them in an abnormal situation, can I trust the response to be normal?”

“No,” said Mack.

“You cannot dissect for emotion,” Doc went on. “If a human body were found by another species and dissected, there would be no possible way of knowing about its emotions or its thoughts. Now, it occurs to me that the rage, or rather the symptom that seems like rage, must be fairly abnormal in itself. I have seen it happen in aquariums. Does it occur on the sea bottom? Is the observed phenomenon not perhaps limited to the aquarium? No, I can't permit myself to believe that, or my whole thesis falls.”

“Doc!” Mack cried. “Look, Doc, it's me—Mack!”

“Hello, Mack,” said Doc. “How much did you say?”

“You've already given it to me,” said Mack, and he felt like a fool the moment he'd said it.

“I need better equipment,” said Doc. “Goddam it, I can't see without better equipment.”

“Doc, how's about you and me stepping over and getting a half-pint of Old Tennis Shoes?”

“Fine,” said Doc.

“I'll buy,” said Mack. “I've got a couple of loose bucks.”

Doc said sharply, “I'll have to get some money. Where can I get some money, Mack?”

“I told you, I'll buy, Doc.”

“I'll need a wide-angle binocularscope and light. I'll have to find out about light—maybe a pinpoint spot from across the room. No, they'd move out of that. Maybe there are new kinds of lights. I'll have to look into it.”

“Come on, Doc.”

Doc bought a pint of Old Tennis Shoes and later sent Mack out with money to buy another pint. The two of them sat in the laboratory side by side, staring into the aquarium, resting their elbows on the shelf, and they got to the point where they were mixing a little water with the whisky.

“I got an uncle with an eye like them,” said Mack. “Rich old bastard too. I wonder why, when you get rich, you get a cold eye.”

“Self-protection,” said Doc solemnly. “Conditioned by relatives, I guess.”

“Like I was saying, Doc. Everybody in the Row is worried about you. You don't have no fun. You wander around like you was lost.”

“I guess it's re orientation,” said Doc.

“Well, some people think you need a dame to kind of nudge you out of it. I know a guy that every time he gets feeling low he goes back to his wife. Makes him appreciate what he had. He goes away again and feels just fine.”

“Shock therapy,” said Doc. “I'm all right, Mack. Don't let anybody give me a wife though—don't let them give me a wife! I guess a man needs a direction. That's what I've been needing. You can only go in circles so long.”

“I kind of like it that way,” said Mack.

“I'm going to call my paper ‘Symptoms in Some Cephalopods Approximating Apoplexy.'”

“Great God Almighty!” said Mack.

As he got to know him, Joseph and Mary regarded Doc with something akin to love—for love feeds on the unknown and unknowable. Doc's honesty was exotic to Joseph and Mary. He found it strange. It attracted him in spite of the fact that he could not understand it. He felt that there was something he had missed, though he could not figure what it was.

One day, sitting in Western Biological, Joseph and Mary saw a chess board and, finding that it was a game and being good at games, he asked Doc to teach him. J and M easily absorbed the characters and qualities of castles and bishops and knights and royalty and pawns. During the first game Doc was called to the telephone, and when he returned he said, “You've moved a pawn of mine and your queen and knight.”

“How'd you know?” the Patrón asked.

“I know the game,” said Doc. “Look, Joseph and Mary, chess is possibly the only game in the world in which it is impossible to cheat.”

Joseph and Mary inspected this statement with amazement. “Why not?” he demanded.

“If it were possible to cheat there would be no game,” said Doc.

J and M carried this away with him. It bothered him at night. He looked at it from all angles. And he went back to ask more about it. He was charmed with the idea, but he couldn't understand it.

Doc explained patiently, “Both players know exactly the same things. The game is played in the mind.”

“I don't get it.”

“Well, look! You can't cheat in mathematics or poetry or music because they're based on truth. Untruth or cheating is just foreign, it has no place. You can't cheat in arithmetic.”

Joseph and Mary shook his head. “I don't get it,” he said.

It was a shocking conception, and he was drawn to it because, in a way, its outrageousness seemed to him like a new, strange way of cheating. In the back of his mind an idea stirred. Suppose you took honesty and made a racket of it—it might be the toughest of all to break. It was so new to him that his mind recoiled from it, but still it wouldn't let him alone. His eyes narrowed. “Maybe he's worked out a system,” he said to himself.

It is popular to picture a small-town constable as dumb and clumsy. In the books he plays the stock bumpkin part. And people retain this attitude even when they know it's not true. We have so many beliefs we know are not true.

A constable, if he has served for a few years, knows more about his town than anyone else and on all levels. He is aware of the delicate political balance between mayor and councilmen, Fire Department and insurance companies. He knows why Mrs. Geltham is giving a big party and who is likely to be there. Usually he knows, when Mabel Andrews reports a burglar, whether it is a rat in the dining room, a burglar, or just wishful thinking. A constable knows that Mr. Geltham is sleeping with the schoolteacher and how often. He knows when high-school boys have switched from gin to marijuana. He is aware of every ripple on the town's surface. If there is a crime the constable usually knows who didn't do it and often who did. With a good constable on duty a hundred things don't happen that might. Sometimes there's a short discussion in an alley; sometimes a telephone call; sometimes only his shadow under a street light. When he gets a cat down out of a tree he knows all about the owner of the cat. And many weeping, parent-prodded little boys and girls put small things, stolen from the Five-and-Dime, in the constable's hands, and he, if he is a good constable, gives them a sense of mercy-in-justice without injuring the dignity of the law.

A stranger getting off the Del Monte Express in Monterey wouldn't be aware that his arrival was noted, but if something happened that night he would know it all right.

Monterey's Joe Blaikey was a good constable. He wouldn't ever be chief—didn't much want to be. Everybody in town liked Joe and trusted him. He was the only man in town who could stop a husband-and-wife fight. He came by his techniques in both social life and in violence from being the youngest of fifteen nice but violent children. Just getting along at home had been his teacher. Joe knew everyone in Monterey and he could size up a stranger almost instantly.

When a girl named Suzy got off the Greyhound bus, she looked up and down the street, fixed her lipstick, then lifted her beat-up suitcase and headed for the Golden Poppy Restaurant. Suzy was a pretty girl with a flat nose and a wide mouth. She had a good figure, was twenty-one, five-feet-five, hair probably brown (dyed blond), brown cloth coat, rabbit-skin collar, cotton print dress, brown calf shoes (heel taps a little run over), scuff on the right toe. She limped slightly on her right foot. Before she picked up her suitcase she opened her brown purse of simulated leather. In it were mirror, comb with two teeth missing, Lucky Strikes, matchbook that said “Hotel Rosaline, San Francisco,” half pack of Peppermint Life Savers, eighty-five cents in silver, no folding money, lipstick but no powder, tin box of aspirin, no keys.

If there had been a murder that night Joe Blaikey could have written all that down, but now he wasn't even aware that he knew it. Joe acted pretty much by instinct. He got into the Golden Poppy just as the waitress was putting a cup of coffee on the counter in front of Suzy.

Joe slipped onto the stool next to her. “Hi, Ella,” he said to the waitress. “Cup of coffee.”

“Coming up,” said Ella. “How's your wife, Joe?”

“Oh, pretty good. Wish she'd get her strength back, though.”

“Takes it out of you,” said Ella. “Man can't understand that. Give her a tonic and let her rest. I'll have fresh coffee in a minute if you want to wait.”

“Yeah,” said Joe.

Ella went to the head of the counter, put coffee in the Silex, and filled the bowl.

Joe said quietly to Suzy, “What's on your mind, sister?”

“Not a thing,” said Suzy. She didn't look at him but she could see him in the shine of a malted machine behind the counter.

“Vacation?”

“Sure.”

“How long?”

“Don't know.”

“Looking for a job?”

“Maybe.”

Ella started toward them, saw what was happening, and got busy at the other end of the counter.

Joe asked, “Know anybody here?”

“I got an aunt here.”

“What's her name?”

“That your business?”

“Yep.”

“All right, I got no aunt.”

Joe smiled at her, and Suzy felt better. She liked a guy who was worried about his wife.

He said to her, “On the bum?”

“Not yet,” said Suzy. “You gonna give me trouble, mister?”

“Not if I can help it,” said Joe. “You got a Social Security card?”

“Lost it,” said Suzy.

Joe said, “It's a tough town. All organized. Don't work the street. The authorities won't have it. If you need a buck to blow town, come to me. My name's Joe Blaikey.”

“Thanks, Joe. But I ain't hustling, honest.”

“Not yet, you ain't,” said Joe. “It's a hell of a town to get a job in since the canneries closed. Take it easy.” He stood up and stretched. “I'll get the coffee later, Ella,” he said and went out.

Ella's work seemed to be all done. She mopped the counter with a damp cloth. “Swell fella,” she said. “More coffee? Fresh is ready.”

“Seemed like,” said Suzy. “Yeah.”

Ella brought a fresh cup. “Where you staying?”

“Don't know yet.”

“My sister rents rooms—pretty nice. Four dollars a week. I can give her a ring, see if she's got one vacant.”

“I think I'll look around town a little,” said Suzy. “Say, mind if I leave my suitcase here? It's kind of heavy.”

“Sure. I'll put it back of the counter here.”

“Well, s'pose you're off shift when I come back?” Ella looked levelly at Suzy. “Sister,” she said, “I ain't never off shift.”

Suzy looked in the store windows on Alvarado Street and then she went to the wharf and watched the fishing boats at their moorings. A school of tiny fish always lay in the shade of the pier and two little boys fished with hand lines and never caught anything. About four o'clock she strolled along deserted Cannery Row, bought a package of Lucky Strikes at the grocery, glanced casually at Western Biological, and knocked on the door of the Bear Flag.

Fauna received her in the combination bedroom and office.

“I'll tell you the truth,” said Fauna, “business ain't been good. It may pick up some in June. I wish I could put you on. Ain't you got a hard-luck story that would kind of sway me?”

“Nope,” said Suzy.

“You broke?”

“Yep.”

“But you don't make nothing of it.” Fauna leaned back in her swivel chair and squinted her eyes. “I used to work a Mission,” she said. “I know hard-luck stories from both ends. I guess if you laid all the hard luck I've heard end to end, why, the Bible would look short. And some of them stories was true. Now, I could make a guess about you.”

Suzy sat silent—posture, hands, face, noncommittal.

“Lousy home,” said Fauna. “Fighting all the time. Probably you wasn't more than fifteen or sixteen when you married the guy, or maybe he wouldn't. Done it just to get away from the fighting.”

Suzy made no reply.

Fauna looked away so that she wouldn't see the hands slowly grip each other. “Got in a family way right off,” said Fauna. “That made the guy restless, and he powdered. What did you say?”

“I didn't say nothing,” said Suzy.

“Where's the baby?”

“I lost it.”

“Do you hate the guy?”

“I got nothing to say,” said Suzy.

“Okay with me. I ain't really very interested. There's some dames born for this business. Some are too lazy to work and some hate men. Don't hardly none of them enjoy what they're doing. That would be like a bartender that loves to drink. You don't look like a natural-born hustler to me. You ain't lazy. Why don't you get a job?”

“I worked waitress and I worked Five-and-Dime. Only difference is, you get took to a movie instead of three bucks,” said Suzy.

“You trying to make a stake?”

“Maybe.”

“Got a boy?”

“Nope.”

“Hate boys?”

“Nope.”

Fauna sighed. “You got me, sister. I can feel myself being got. You're a tough kid. Doing your own time, like an old con. I like that. It works better with me than a hard-luck story. Tell me, you hot?”

“Huh?”

“Under raps, I mean. Anybody got anything on you?”

“Nope.”

“Ever done time?”

“Once. Thirty days. Vagrancy.”

“Nothing else on the blotter?”

“Nope.”

“Can you give off a smile? You'd freeze the customers.” Suzy grinned at Fauna.

“Good God Almighty!” said Fauna. “You look like somebody's sister! I'm afraid you'll cost me. Why do I have to be a pushover? Ever worked a house?”

“Nope.”

“Well, it ain't as bad as the street. Doc Wilkins will be in tomorrow.”

Suzy asked, “Can I get my suitcase?”

“I guess so.” Fauna opened a wallet on her desk. “J. C. Penney's is open till six. Get yourself a dress—fancy but cheap. Get a new toothbrush. And when you come back, for God's sake go to work on your hair. You could be a good-looking kid if you worked it up.”

“I been riding a bus,” said Suzy.

“That'll do it,” said Fauna. “We eat at half-past six. How long since you ate?”

“Yesterday.”

“Beef stew to night, creamed carrots, cherry Jell-O for dessert.”

On her way to the door Suzy paused and her hand patted the doorframe. “Cop worked me over today,” she said. “Name's Joe Blaikey.”

“He's a nice fella. Why, he'd lend you dough,” said Fauna.

“That's what he said,” Suzy replied. “I love beef stew.”

At the Golden Poppy, Ella handed the suitcase over the counter. “You look like a kid with a job,” said Ella.

“Looks like. Say, where's J. C. Penney?”

“Turn right and go a block and a half. Yellow front. Be seeing you.”

“Sure,” said Suzy.

On the sidewalk Joe Blaikey fell into step beside her and took her suitcase from her hand. “That's a good woman,” he said. “You just keep your nose clean and you'll be all right.”

“How'd you know?” Suzy asked.

“She called me,” said Joe. “See you around.”

“Okay,” said Suzy.

She took her suitcase from him and turned into J. C. Penney's.

“Can I help you?”

“Dress. Not too dear.”

“Over here.”

“I like that tomatoey one.”

“That's a new shade, ‘Love Apples.'”

“Tomato color.”

“It's rayon. It'll give you good ser vice.”

“It better. Size twelve.”

“Shoes to match?”

Suzy took a very deep breath. “Yes, by God!” she said.