John Steinbeck - Sweet Thursday

Fauna grieved like a lost setter dog. In a lifetime of preposterous plans she had discovered some failures but never before a catastrophe.

Even the Patrón experienced little flashes of an emotion new to him. Always before he had managed to swap guilt for blame of circumstance or enemy, but now his accusing finger bent like a comedy pistol and aimed at his own heart. It was an interesting pain, but a pain nevertheless. He became kindly and thoughtful of all around him—an attitude that frightened people who knew him. There is nothing reassuring about the smile of a tiger.

As for Doc, he was undergoing reorganization so profound that he didn’t know it was happening. He was like a watch taken apart on a jeweler’s table—all jewels and springs and balances laid out ready for reassembling. For pain or frustration the human has many anodynes, not the least of which is anger.

Doc quarreled viciously with Old Jingleballicks, ordered him out, and told him never to return. Doc fought with the expressman over the quality of the service he had been getting, although it hadn’t varied in ten years. Finally he let the word be passed that he was working and did not want to see anyone from Cannery Row or anyplace else. He sat over his yellow pad, the neat pile of Suzy’s sharpened pencils beside him, and in his eyes the bleak look of shock.

Suzy was at once the cause and the victim of the disintegration of the Row. It cannot be said that trouble builds character, for just as often it destroys character. But if certain character traits, mixed with certain dreams, are subjected to the fire, sometimes…sometimes…

Ella, the waitress-manager of the Golden Poppy, was no less tired at ten in the morning than at midnight. She was always tired. She not only accepted this but thought everybody was that way. She could not conceive of feet that did not hurt, of a back that did not ache, or of a cook with a good disposition. At breakfast the row of gobbling mouths ruined her appetite and she never got it back. In the slack time around ten she cleaned and mopped the moist restaurant and swept the crumbs from under the counter stools.

Joe Blaikey came in for his morning coffee.

“Just making a fresh pot. Want to wait?” Ella said.

“Sure,” said Joe. “Say, Ella, you heard what happened down in Cannery Row Saturday night?”

“No. What?”

“I don’t know. There was a party. I was going to it. Time I got there it was over. Nobody wants to talk about it.”

“I didn’t hear,” said Ella. “Fight, you think?”

“Hell no. They’d talk about a fight. They love a fight. Everybody seems to feel kind of ashamed of something. Let me know if you hear anything, will you?”

“Okay. Coffee’s about ready, Joe.”

Suzy came in, dressed in her San Francisco suit—gray herringbone tweed, very neat and smart. She sat down on a stool.

“Hi,” said the cop.

“Hi,” said Suzy. “Cup of coffee.”

“Just going through the grounds now. Say, that’s a cute outfit,” said Ella.

“Frisco,” said Suzy.

“You moving out?”

“No,” said Suzy, “I’m staying.”

Joe said, “What happened down on the Row the other night?”

Suzy shrugged her shoulders.

“You won’t talk neither, huh?”

“Nope.”

“Damnedest thing I ever saw!” said Joe. “Mostly they’d break their necks to tell. Suzy, if anybody got killed you better spill it. You ever hear of that material-witness stuff?”

“Nobody got killed,” said Suzy. And then, “Your name’s Ella, ain’t it?”

“Till now.”

“Remember you said you wasn’t never off shift?”

“Well, I ain’t,” said Ella.

“Would you give me a try? Watch me a couple weeks. Then maybe you could go to a movie.”

“Sister, you come to the wrong place. This joint don’t make enough profit to hire no waitress.”

“I’ll do it for my meals, and I don’t eat much.”

Joe Blaikey looked away. It was his method of paying attention.

Ella said, “What’s the gag, sister?”

“No gag. I want a job and I’ll sling hash for my keep.”

Joe turned his head back slowly. “You’d better tell—” he suggested.

“Sure I’ll tell,” said Suzy. “I’m going to fix myself up and I ain’t going to run away to do it.”

“What made up your mind?”

“That ain’t none of your business. Is it against the law?”

“Happens so seldom it ought to be,” said Joe.

“Come on, Ella,” Suzy begged, “give me a break.”

Ella asked, “What do you think, Joe?”

Joe’s eyes went over Suzy’s face. He dwelt for a moment on the dyed hair. He said, “You’re letting your hair grow out?”

“Yeah.”

“Give her a break, Ella,” he said.

Ella smiled a tired smile. “In them clothes?”

“I’ll go change. Take me maybe fifteen minutes. I can cook too, Ella. I’m a pretty good fry cook.”

“Go change your clothes,” said Ella.

Joe Blaikey waited in the street for Suzy to come back. He moved up beside her. “Don’t bitch Ella up,” he said gently.

“I won’t.”

“You look excited.”

“Joe,” said Suzy, “you remember once you said if I wanted to blow this town you’d lend me the dough?”

“I thought you was staying.”

“I am. I wonder could you stake me not to blow town.”

“How much?”

“Twenty-five bucks.”

“Where you going to live?”

“I’ll let you know.”

Joe said, “I staked kids before. What the hell have I got to lose?”

“You’ll get it back.”

“I know I will,” said Joe.

The boiler that for many years had rested among the mallow weeds in the vacant lot between the Bear Flag and the grocery was the first boiler the Hediondo Cannery ever had, and the Hediondo was the first cannery Monterey ever had. When it was understood that pilchards could be placed raw in cans, doused with tomato sauce or oil, sealed and then cooked in live steam, a new industry came to Monterey. Hediondo started with small capital and skimped and pioneered its way first to success and finally to oblivion. Its first boiler for producing the cooking steam was the triumphant improvisation of William Randolph, engineer, fireman, and president. The boiler itself he got for nothing. It was the whole front end of a locomotive of the Pajaro Valley and Coast Railroad. This engine, encountering a split rail one night, leaped a trestle and dived twenty feet into a mudhole. The railroad company stripped its wheels and valves, whistle and bell, and left the great cylinder standing in the mud.

William Randolph found it, hauled it to Monterey, and set it in concrete at the new Hediondo Cannery. For years it produced low-pressure steam for cooking canned fish, while its tubes blew out at intervals and were replaced.

In 1932, when the cannery was rich and expanding, the old boiler was finally abandoned in the vacant lot to save a moving bill. Old Mr. Randolph was still alive and, although retired, he still hated waste. He stripped out the tubes, leaving only the big cylinder, sixteen feet long and seven feet in diameter. The smokestack was still on it, and its firedoor, two feet wide and eighteen inches high, still swung on rusty pins.

Many people had used the boiler for temporary shelter, but Mr. and Mrs. Sam Malloy [110] Mr. and Mrs. Sam Malloy: In chapter 8 of Cannery Row, the Malloys take up residence in this cast-off cannery boiler. were the first permanent residents. Mr. Malloy, who was good with his hands, after stripping out the remaining tubes, added a number of little comforts.

A boiler as a home has disadvantages as well as advantages. Some people would balk at getting down on hands and knees to crawl in through the firedoor. The floor, being rounded, makes for difficulty both in walking and in arranging furniture. The third inconvenience lies in a lack of light.