John Steinbeck - Sweet Thursday

“Huh?”

“What’s that?”

“That funny kind of fork?”

“What’s it for?”

“I don’t know.”

“Cooperate, Suzy. What do you eat with it?”

Suzy mused, “You couldn’t get much mashed potatoes on it. Pickles maybe?”

“It’s a clam fork,” said Fauna. “Now say it. Clam fork. ”

Suzy said vehemently, “I wouldn’t eat a clam if you was to give me a scoop shovel.”

“What a mug!” said Agnes.

Suzy turned on her. “I ain’t no mug!”

Mabel cried, “Double negative! Double negative!”

“What you talking about?” said Suzy.

Mabel said, “When you say you ain’t no mug, that means you’re a mug.”

Suzy started for her. “Who’s a mug?”

Fauna bellowed, “If certain young ladies don’t come to order they’re going to get a paste in the puss! Now—posture. Where’s the books?”

Agnes said, “I think Joe Elegant’s reading them.”

“Damn it,” said Fauna, “I picked them books special so’s nobody’d take them. What’s he reading them for? Breeder’s Journal, [73] Breeder’s Journal: Perhaps The Guernsey Breeder’s Journal, the oldest dairy breed magazine published by a U.S. breed organization. California Civil Code, and a novel by Sterling North [74] Sterling North: Thomas Sterling North (1906–74), author of numerous books for adults and children, including the best seller So Dear to My Heart (1947). —what the hell is there to read? Well, we’ll just have to use the basket, I guess. Agnes, put the basket on your head.”

Fauna inspected her. “Now look here, young ladies,” she said. “Just because you got your ankles together and your hips flang forward—that don’t necessarily mean posture. Agnes, tuck in your butt! Posture’s a state of mind. Real posture is when a young lady’s flat on her ass and still looks like she got books on her head.”

There came a knock on the door and Joe Elegant handed Fauna a note. She read it and sighed with pleasure. “That Mack,” she said. “What a gent! I guess he’d drain the embalming fluid off his dead grandma, but he’d do it nice.”

“Is his grandma dead?” Agnes asked.

“Who knows?” said Fauna. “Listen to this, young ladies. ‘Mack and the boys request the pleasure of your company at their joint tomorrow aft. to drink a slug of good stuff and talk about something important. Bring the girls. R.S.V.P.’ ” Fauna paused. “He could of yelled outside the window, but not Mack—he requests the pleasure of our company.” She sighed. “What a gent! If he wasn’t such a bum I’d aim one of you young ladies at him.”

Agnes asked, “What’s the matter with Mack’s grandma?”

“I don’t even know he’s got a grandma,” said Fauna. “Now when we go over there tomorrow, you young ladies keep your traps shut and just listen.” She mused, “Something important—well, it might be like Mack needs twenty bucks, so just keep your heads shut and let me do the thinking.”

Suddenly Fauna beat her forehead with the heel of her hand. “I nearly forgot! Joe Elegant baked a great big goddam cake. Suzy, you take four cold cans of beer and that cake and go over and give them to Doc to cheer him up.”

“Okay,” said Suzy. “But it’ll probably molt in his stomach.”

“His stomach ain’t none of your business,” said Fauna.

And when Suzy had gone Fauna said, “I wisht I could stick up a star for that kid. She don’t hardly pull her own weight here.”

Doc laid ten big starfish out on a shelf, and he set up a line of eight glass dishes half filled with sea water. Although he was inclined to carelessness in his living arrangements his laboratory technique was immaculate. The making of the embryo series gave him pleasure. He had done it hundreds of times before, and he felt a safety in the known thing—no speculation here. He did certain things and certain other things followed. There is comfort in routine.

His old life came back to him—a plateau of contentment with small peaks of excitement but none of the jagged pain of original thinking, none of the loneliness of invention. His phonograph played softly, played the safe and certain fugues of Bach, clear as equations. As he worked, a benign feeling came over him. He liked himself again as he once had; liked himself as a person, the way he might like anyone else. The self-hatred which poisons so many people and which had been irritating him was gone for the time. The top voice of his mind sang peacefulness and order, and the raucous middle voice was gentle; it mumbled and snarled but it could not be heard. The lowest voice of all was silent, dreaming of a warm safe sea.

The rattlesnakes in their wire cage suddenly lifted their heads, felt the air with their forked tongues, and then all four set up a dry buzzing rattle. Doc looked up from his work as Mack came in.

Mack glanced at the cage. “Them new snakes ain’t got used to me yet,” he said.

“Takes a little time,” said Doc. “You haven’t been here much.”

“Didn’t feel no welcome here,” said Mack.

“I’m sorry, Mack. I guess I’ve been off my feed. I’ll try to do better.”

“You going to let up on them devilfish?”

“I don’t know.”

“They was making you sick.”

Doc laughed, “It wasn’t the octopi. I guess it was trying to think. I’d got out of the habit.”

“I never got the habit,” said Mack.

“That’s not true,” said Doc. “I never knew anyone who devoted more loving thought to minusculae.”

“I never even heard of them,” said Mack. “Say, Doc, what do you think of the Patrón—your honest, spit-in-the-lake opinion?”

“I don’t think I understand him. We’re kind of different.”

“You ain’t kidding,” said Mack. “He ain’t honest.”

Doc said, “I’d call that expert testimony.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you bring some experience to bear.”

“Oh, I know what you mean,” said Mack earnestly, “but you search your heart, Doc, and see if I ain’t dishonest in a kind of honest way. I don’t really fool nobody—not even myself. And there’s another thing—I know when I’m doing it. Joseph and Mary can’t tell the difference.”

“I think that might be true,” said Doc.

“What I’m wondering is—well, I don’t think the Patrón wants any trouble around here, do you?”

“Nobody wants any trouble.”

“He’s got a stake here,” Mack went on. “If the whole Row took a scunner to him, why, he just couldn’t take that chance, don’t you think?”

“If I knew what you were talking about, it might help,” said Doc.

“I’m just trying to figure something,” said Mack.

“Well, if you mean that the Patrón is in kind of a sensitive position—”

“That’s what I do mean,” said Mack. “He can’t afford to have no enemies.”

“Nobody wants enemies,” said Doc.

“I know. But he could get his ass in a sling. He got a business and he’s got property.”

“I see what you mean,” said Doc. “You’re going to pressure him and you want to know what he’ll do. What are you going to try to take away from him, Mack?”

“I’m just thinking,” said Mack.

“I never knew you to think idly. When you think, somebody gets hurt.”