John Steinbeck - Cannery Row

Men all do about the same things when they wake up. Mack’s process was loosely the one all of them followed. And soon they had all come to the fire and complimented Hazel. Hazel stuck his pocket knife into the muscles of the chicken.

“He ain’t going to be what you’d call tender,” said Hazel. “You’d have to cook him about two weeks to get him tender. How old about do you judge he was, Mack?”

“I’m forty-eight and I ain’t as tough as he is,” said Mack.

Eddie said, “How old can a thicken get, do you think— that’s if nobody pushes him around or he don’t get sick?”

“That’s something nobody isn’t ever going to find out,” said Jones. It was a pleasant time. The jug went around and warmed them.

Jones said, “Eddie, I don’t mean to complain none. I was just thinkin’. S’pose you had two or three jugs back of the bar. S’pose you put all the whiskey in one and all the wine in another and all the beer in another—”

A slightly shocked silence followed the suggestion. “I didn’t mean nothing,” said Jones quickly. “I like it this way—” Jones talked too much then because he knew he had made a social blunder and he wasn’t able to stop. “What I like about it this way is you never know what kind of a drunk you’re going to get out of it,” he said, “You take whiskey,” he said hurriedly. “You more or less know what you’ll do. A fightin’ guy fights and a cryin’ guy cries, but this—” he said magnaminously— “why you don’t know whether it’ll run you up a pine tree or start you swimming to Santa Cruz. It’s more fun that way,” he said weakly.

“Speaking of swimming,” said Mack to fill in the indelicate place in the conversation and to shut Jones up. “I wonder whatever happened to that guy McKinley Moran. Remember that deep sea diver?”

“I remember him,” said Hughie. “I and him used to hang around together. He just didn’t get much work and then he got to drinking. It’s kind of tough on you divin’ and drinkin’. Got to worryin’ too. Finally he sold his suit and helmet and pump and went on a hell of a drunk and then he left town. I don’t know where he went. He wasn’t no good after he went down after that Wop that got took down with the anchor from the Twelve Brothers. McKinley just dove down. Bust his eardrums, and he wasn’t no good good after that. Didn’t hurt the Wop a bit.”

Mack sampled the jug again. “He used to make a lot of dough during Prohibition,” Mack said. “Used to get twenty-five bucks a day from the government to dive lookin’ for liquor on the bottom and he got three dollars a case from Louie for not findin’ it. Had it worked out so he brought up one case a day to keep the government happy. Louie didn’t mind that none. Made it so they didn’t get in no new divers. McKinley made a lot of dough.”

“Yeah,” said Hughie. “But he’s like everybody else — gets some dough and he wants to get married. He got married three times before his dough run out. I could always tell. He’d buy a white fox fur piece and bang I — next thing you’d know, he’s married.”

“I wonder what happened to Gay,” Eddie asked. It was the first time they had spoken of him.

“Same thing, I guess,” said Mack. “You just can’t trust a married guy. No matter how much he hates his old lady why he’ll go back to her. Get to thinkin’ and broodin’ and back he’ll go. You can’t trust him no more. Take Gay,” said Mack. “His old lady hits him. But I bet you when Gay’s away from her three days, he gets it figured out that it’s his fault and he goes back to make it up to her.”

They ate long and daintily, spearing out pieces of chicken, holding the dripping pieces until they cooled and then gnawing the musded meat from the bone. They speared the carrots on pointed willow switches and finally they passed the can and drank the juice. And around them the evening crept in as delicately as music. The quail called each other down to the water. The trout jumped in the pool. And the moths came down and fluttered about the pool as the daylight mixed into the darkness. They passed the coffee can about and they were warm and fed and silent. At last Mack said, “God damn it. I hate a liar.”

“Who’s been lyin’ to you?” Eddie asked.

“Oh, I don’t mind a guy that tells a little one to get along or to hop up a conversation, but I hate a guy that lies to himself.”

“Who done that?” Eddie asked.

“Me,” said Mack. “And maybe you guys. Here we are,” he said earnestly, “the whole God damn shabby lot of us. We worked it out that we wanted to give Doc a party. So we come out here and have a hell of a lot of fun. Then we’ll go back and get the dough from Doc. There’s five of us, so we’ll drink five times as much liquor as he will. And I ain’t sure we’re doin’ it for Doc. I ain’t sure we ain’t doin’ it for ourselves. And Doc’s too nice a fella to do that to. Doc is the nicest fella I ever knew. I don’t want to be the kind of a guy that would take advantage of him. You know one time I put the bee on him for a buck. I give him a hell of a story. Right in the middle I seen he knew God damn well the story was so much malarky. So right in the middle I says, ‘Doc, that’s a fuggin’ lie!’ And he put his hand in his pocket and brought out a buck. ‘Mack,’ he says, ’I figure a guy that needs it bad enough to make up a lie to get it, really needs it,’ and he give me the buck. I paid him that buck back the next day. I never did spend it. Just kept it overnight and then give it back to him.”

Hazel said, “There ain’t nobody likes a party better than Doc. We’re givin’ him the party. What the hell is the beef?”

“I don’t know,” said Mack, “I’d just like to give him something when I didn’t get most of it back.”

“How about a present?” Hughie suggested. “S’pose we just bought the whiskey and give it to him and let him do what he wants.”

“Now you’re talkin’,” said Mack. “That’s just what we’ll do. We’ll just give him the whiskey and fade out.”

“You know what’ll happen,” said Eddie. “Henri and them people from Carmel will smell that whiskey out and then instead of only five of us there’ll be twenty. Doc told me one time himself they can smell him fryin’ a steak from Cannery Row clear down to Point Sur. I don’t see the percentage. He’d come out better if we give him the party ourselves.”

Mack considered this reasoning, “Maybe you’re right,” he said at last. “But s’pose we give him something except whiskey, maybe cuff links with his initials.”

“Oh, horse shit,” said Hazel. “Doc don’t want stuff like that.”

The night was in by now and the stars were white in the sky. Hazel fed the fire and it put a little room of light on the beach. Over the hill a fox was barking sharply. And now in the night the smell of sage came down from the hills. The water thudded on the stones where it went out of the deep pool.

Mack was mulling over the last piece of reasoning when the sound of footsteps on the ground made them turn. A man dark and large stalked near and he had a shotgun over his arm and a pointer walked shyly and delicately at his heel.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he asked.

“Nothing,” said Mack.

“The land’s posted. No fishing, hunting, fires, camping. Now you just pack up and put that fire out and get off this land.”

Mack stood up humbly. “I didn’t know, Captain,” he said. “Honest we never seen the sign, Captain.”

“There’s signs all over. You couldn’t have missed them.”.

“Look, Captain, we made a mistake and we’re sorry,” said Mack. He paused and looked closely at the slouching figure. “You are a military man, aren’t you, sir? I can always tell. Military man don’t carry his shoulders the same as ordinary people. I was in the army so long, I can always tell.”