John Steinbeck - Sweet Thursday

“The seer? Sure, what about him?”

“Joe Blaikey had to pick him up.”

“What for?”

“Stealing. From the Safeway store. Joe hated to do it.”

“I’ll see what I can do. So long, Suzy.”

“You ain’t mad?”

“No, Suzy, but I’m sorry.”

“So’m I. But hell, you can’t have everything. So long, Doc. Hope you do good at La Jolla.”

When Doc crossed the street this time he hoped no one was watching. He went into the laboratory, walked to his cot, and lay down. He was sick with loss. He couldn’t think. Only one thing was sure: he had to go to La Jolla. If he didn’t he would die, because there would be nothing left in him to believe in, even to defend. He squinched his eyes closed and looked at the bright points of light swimming on his retinas.

There were footsteps on his porch and the snakes whirred their rattles but not violently.

Hazel opened the door and looked in. He saw Doc’s expression and the hope died out of him.

“No soap?” he asked.

“No soap,” said Doc.

“There got to be some way.”

“There isn’t,” said Doc.

“Anything I can do?”

“No. Yes, there is too. You know Joe Blaikey?”

“The cop? Sure.”

“Well, he picked up a man in the sand dunes. Find Joe and tell him I’m interested in the man. Tell him to be nice to him. I’ll be down to see him as soon as I can. Tell Joe the man is harmless.” Doc rolled on his side and dug in his pocket. “Here’s two dollars. Ask Joe to let you see the man and give him—no, stop at the Safeway and buy a dozen candy bars and take them to the seer and then give him the change.”

“Seer?”

“That’s the man’s name,” said Doc wearily.

“I’ll do her right now,” Hazel said proudly. He went out at a dogtrot.

Doc was arranging himself comfortably in his misery again when there was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” he cried.

There was no answer but a second knock and a wild buzzing from the snakes.

“Oh Christ!” said Doc. “I hope not schoolchildren on a culture tour.”

It was a telegram, a long one, collect. It said:

EUREKA! GREEK WORD MEANING I HAVE FOUND IT. YOU ARE NOW AN INSTITUTION. HAVE SET UP CEPHALOPOD RESEARCH SECTION AT CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY. YOU ARE IN CHARGE. SIX THOUSAND A YEAR AND EXPENSES. GET TO WORK ON YOUR DEVILFISH. AM MAKING ARRANGEMENTS FOR YOU TO READ PAPER IN CALIFORNIA ACADEMY SCIENCES AT END OF YEAR. ALL CLEARLY DEDUCTIBLE. CONGRATULATIONS. WISH I COULD HEAR YOUR WORDS WHEN YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR THIS WIRE.

Doc laid the telegram beside him on the cot. “The son-of-a-bitch,” he said.

Hazel sat on the end of the steel cot in the Monterey jail and looked with interest at the seer.

“Open up one of them Baby Ruths,” he said. “If you’re a friend of Doc’s, can’t nothing bad happen to you.”

“I don’t know him,” said the seer.

“Well, he knows you. That’s your good luck.”

“I don’t know any doctors.”

“He ain’t that kind. He’s a doctor of bugs and stuff like that.”

“Oh yes, I do remember. I gave him dinner.”

“And he give you candy bars.”

“I probably won’t eat them.”

“Why, for Chrissake, not?”

“Tell my friend Doc that greed poisoned me. I love candy bars. I stole only one at a time and eased my conscience of a little crime. But yesterday an appetite like a whip overcame me. I stole three. The manager of the Safeway says he knew I was stealing one at a time. He let it go. But when I took three he couldn’t let it pass. I don’t blame him. Who knows what I would have done next? Some other appetite might have driven me. I’ll punish myself by smelling these bars and not eating them.”

“I think you’re nuts!” said Hazel.

“I guess so. I have no basis of comparison so I don’t know how other people feel.”

“You talk a little like Doc,” said Hazel. “I don’t get none of it.”

“How is he?”

“Not too hot. He got troubles.”

“Yes, I could see that. I remember now. He wore loneliness like a shroud. I was afraid for him.”

“Jesus, you do talk like him! He got dame trouble.”

“That was bound to be. When a man is cold he looks for warmth. When he is lonely there’s only one cure. Why doesn’t he take the woman?”

“She won’t have him unless.”

“I see. Sometimes they’re that way.”

“Who?”

“Women. What do you mean, unless?”

Hazel looked at the seer with level penetrating eyes. This man talked like Doc. Maybe he could help. But with this thought there came also caution.

“I’d like to ask you something,” Hazel said.

“What?”

“Well, this ain’t none of it true. It’s a kind of a—a whatcha-macallit—”

“Hypothetical question?”

“I guess so.”

“S’pose there’s a guy and he’s in trouble.”

“Yes?”

“Well, he can’t get out of it. But he got a friend maybe he don’t know about.”

“That’s you,” said the seer.

“No it ain’t! It’s some other guy. I forget his name.” He hurried on. “Well, s’pose the guy’s in trouble and there’s one way he can get out but he can’t do it. You think his friend ought to do it?”

“Certainly.”

“Even if it hurt like hell?”

“Certainly.”

“Even if it might maybe not work?”

“Certainly. I don’t know what the situation is with your Doc, but I know how it should be with you. If you love him you must do anything to help him—anything. Even kill him to save him incurable pain. This is the highest and most terrible duty of friendship. I gather that what you must do is violent. You must first make sure it can be successful, and you must, second, make sure within yourself that you know you will be punished. It is quite possible that even if you are successful your friend will never speak to you again. That takes a lot of love—maybe the greatest love. Make sure you love him that much.”

Hazel caught his breath, “Hell, there ain’t no such guy. It’s hypa—it’s malarky, a kind of a riddle.”

“I guess you do love him that much,” the seer said.

No one knows how greatness comes to a man. It may lie in his blackness, sleeping, or it may lance into him like those driven fiery particles from outer space. These things, however, are known about greatness: need gives it life and puts it in action; it never comes without pain; it leaves a man changed, chastened, and exalted at the same time—he can never return to simplicity.

Under the black cypress tree Hazel writhed on the ground. From between his clenched teeth came little whimpers. As the night drew on and the moon went down, leaving blackness, so desolation fell on Hazel, so that he cried out against the agony of his greatness as that Other did, feeling forsaken.

Hour after hour the struggle went on, and only about three o’clock in the morning was Hazel saturated. Then he accepted it as he had accepted the poisoned presidency of the United States. He was calm, for there was no escape. If anyone had seen him it would have been a dull man who did not find him beautiful.

Hazel picked his chosen instrument from the ground—an indoor-ball bat. He crept like a night-colored cat out of the black shadow of the cypress tree.

In less than three minutes he returned. He lay on his stomach under the tree and wept.

Dr. Horace Dormody hated night calls, like everybody else, but Doc was his friend and he responded to the frenzied voice on the telephone. In the lab he looked at Doc’s white face and then at his right arm.