John Steinbeck - Sweet Thursday

“Come again?” said Mack.

“How come—oh, the hell with it!” said Hazel.

Fauna had made a success of three improbable enterprises. More than likely she could have held her own in steel or chemicals, maybe even in General Electric, for Fauna had the proper ingredients for modern business. She was benevolent and at the same time solvent, public-spirited and privately an individualist, open-handed but with a delicate sense of doubly-entry bookkeeping, sentimental but not soft. She could easily have been chairman of the board of a large corporation. And Fauna took a deep personal interest in her girls.

Shortly after she took over the Bear Flag, Fauna set aside and decorated the Ready Room. It was a large and pleasant apartment with three windows overlooking the vacant lot. Fauna put in deep chairs and couches covered with bright, flower-littered glazed chintz. The drapes matched the furniture, and the pictures were designed to soothe without arousing interest—engravings of cows in ponds, deer in streams, dogs in lakes. Wet animals seem to serve some human need.

For recreation Fauna provided a table-tennis set, a card table, and a Parcheesi [67] Parcheesi: Brand name of a once-popular board game based on Pachisi, an ancient royal game of India created around 500 BCE, which utilized slave girls and concubines as red, yellow, blue, and green pawns on palace grounds. The trademark name was registered in 1870 by a New York game manufacturer. board. The Ready Room was a place to relax, to read, to gossip, to study, and some of these things were actually done by the girls of the Bear Flag.

One wall was dominated by a large framed board on which were pasted enormous gold stars, and this was Fauna’s personal pride. The Ready Room was gay and feminine. It had an exotic, Oriental odor from the incense which burned in the blackened lap of a crouching plaster Buddha.

At about a quarter to three Agnes and Mabel and Becky were relaxing in the Ready Room. It was a time of languor. The vacant lot was washed in clear pale sunshine, which made even the rusty pipes and the old boiler look beautiful. The tall mallow weeds were as sweetly green as a garden. A sleek, gray, lazy Persian cat hunted gophers in the grass and didn’t care whether she caught one or not.

Mabel stood at the window. She said, “I heard some people used to live in that old boiler.”

Agnes was painting her toenails and waving her feet to dry the enamel. “That’s before your time,” she said. “Mr. and Mrs. Malloy, they had it fixed up nice—awning out front, Oriental rug. Once you got inside, through the fire-door, it was real nice. She was a homemaker.”

“Why’d they leave?” Becky asked.

“They got to arguing. She kept wanting curtains. He wouldn’t let her because there wasn’t no windows. When they argued it kind of echoed in there and got on their nerves. He said there wasn’t room inside to take a swing at her. He’s in the county jail now—trusty. Mrs. Malloy’s slinging hash in a grease joint over at Salinas, waiting for him to get out. They was real nice people. He’s a high Elk.” [68] high Elk: The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of the USA (B.P.O.E.), which began modestly in 1868 as a private drinking club to circumvent New York City laws governing the opening hours of public taverns, has evolved into a major American fraternal, charitable, and service order. Headquartered in Chicago, it has local lodges throughout the nation. Both Monterey and Salinas had active Elk Lodges.

Mabel moved away from the window. “You heard the Rattlesnake Club is coming from Salinas tonight? Took the whole house over.”

“Yeah,” said Becky. “They’re having a memorial meeting for dead members. Fauna give them a rate.”

Agnes lifted her left leg and blew on her toenails. “Like this color?” she asked.

“It’s nice,” said Becky. “Looks a little like you was rotting. Say, where in hell is Suzy? She’ll find out when Fauna says three o’clock she means three o’clock. Gee, Fauna’s a funny name.”

Mabel said, “Her name used to be Flora. What is a fauna anyway? I never knew nobody named that.”

“Oh, it’s like a baby deer,” said Becky. “I don’t think Suzy’ll be here long. She’s kind of nuts—got a nuts look in her eye. Goes out walking.”

Mabel said, “Well, it’s two minutes to three. Suzy better get here.”

On the stroke of three a door opened and Fauna came in from her bedroom. A silver headband was tied around her orange hair, and it made her look like a certain social leader recently deceased. Fauna had the elegance found only in the drawing rooms of the old rich and in haute monde [69] haute monde: French for “fashionable society.” brothels. She was heavy but she moved with light, deft steps. She carried a large basket.

“Where’s Suzy?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” said Mabel.

“Well, look in her room.”

Mabel went out.

Fauna moved to the Parcheesi board. “Somebody’s been shooting craps with the Parcheesi dice,” she said.

“How’d you know?” Becky asked.

“There’s two bucks in the corner bucket. I don’t want gambling in the Ready Room. If a young lady wants to run a few passes with a customer, that’s different, but I don’t want to find no more pencil marks on the lump sugar either. Gambling’s a vice. I knew many a good hooker with a future that’s throwed it away on games of chance.”

“Hell, Fauna, you play poker,” said Becky.

“Poker ain’t a game of chance,” said Fauna. “And you watch your language, Becky. Vulgarity gives a hookshop a bad name.” She took a linen tablecloth from her basket and spread it over the Parcheesi board. Then she laid out a napkin, a plate, wineglasses, and a heap of flat silver.

Mabel and Suzy came in.

Fauna said, “I don’t like my young ladies to be late.” She took a teacher’s pointer from her basket. “Now, what young lady wants to be first?”

Agnes said, “I’ll do her.”

“You done it yesterday,” said Mabel. “Goddam it, it’s my turn!”

Fauna said sternly, “Young ladies, suppose some nice dumb young fellow was to hear you. Now, Mabel—” She indicated the items on the tablecloth with a pointer, and Mabel began, like a child reciting poetry, “Oyster fork…salad fork…fish fork…roast fork…savory fork…dessert fork…plate…dessert knife…savory knife…roast knife…fish knife—”

“Good!” said Fauna. “Now here.” And Mabel went on, “Water…white wine…claret…burgundy…port…brandy.”

“Perfect,” said Fauna. “Which side does the salad go on?”

“Left side, so you can get your sleeve in the gravy.”

Fauna was deeply gratified. “By God, that’s good! I wouldn’t be surprised if Mabel wasn’t one of them stars before too long.” She indicated the gold stars on the wall.

“What are they?” Suzy asked.

Fauna said proudly, “Every one of them stars represents a young lady from the Bear Flag that married, and married well. That first star’s got four kids and her husband’s manager of an A and P. [70] A and P: The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, better known as A&P, is a North American supermarket chain. The company was founded in 1859 by George Huntington Hartford and George Gilman in Elmira, New York, as The Great American Tea Company. It was renamed “The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company” in 1870, and over the next eighty years went on to become one of the dominant grocery chains in the United States. Third from the end is president of the Salinas Forward and Upward Club and held the tree on Arbor Day. [71] Arbor Day: American holiday, first observed in 1872, that encourages the planting and care of trees. National Arbor Day is observed on the last Friday of April, but each state has its own date. California’s observation occurs March 7–14. Next star is high up in the Watch and Ward, [72] Watch and Ward: Steinbeck was both intrigued by and suspicious of civic, social, professional, or special-interest organizations, whether real (Woodmen of the World [128] and I.O.O.F.) or imagined (Rattlesnake Club and Forward and Upward Club). In America and Americans (1966), he said, “Elks, Masons, Knight Templars, Woodmen of the World, Redmen, Eagles, Eastern Star, Foresters…the World Almanac lists hundreds of such societies and associations, military and religious, philosophic, scholarly, charitable, mystic, political, and some just plain nuts. All were and perhaps still are aristocratic and mostly secret and therefore exclusive. They seemed to fulfill a need for grandeur against a background of commonness, for aristocracy in the midst of democracy” (p. 360). His satire on civic hypocrisy is especially sharp here, for he refers to what was probably a local chapter of the New En gland Watch and Ward Society, founded in Boston in 1878 as the New En gland Society for the Suppression of Vice, and in 1890 renamed the Watch and Ward Society. It functioned as a watchdog agency against vice and led successful censorship campaigns against books it deemed obscene or pornographic. sings alto in the Episcopal church in San Jose. My young ladies go places. Now, Suzy—”