Джеймс Кейн - The Moth

“And your father?”

“Will make it, where he’s going, without any help from us. And if you ask me, he will like it, when we ring him today — after we’ve gone and done it, to have that special call, all for himself — better than a super-duper production he won’t be able to attend.”

“Now that, that makes sense.”

“At last, I’m glad I thought of something that—”

But she slammed me down on the couch, the way she had when she was little, and began beating me up, and laughing, and at last I saw the little rowdy I had fallen for, when she was a kid, and I was. Then I hollered uncle and we didn’t wait, but went outside, without even a toothbrush, and got in my car, and started off on our life.

This story was some years growing and required help from more people than I can mention here, though I hereby tender them my very best thanks. I should like, however, to express my special debt to these: Frank F. Hill, formerly of the Union Oil Company, who conceived, tried, and developed the cement process for sealing water out of wells, a milestone as important to the oil business as the Whitney gin was to cotton, and who patiently instructed me in matters petrolic, both before and after completion of a script; Louis J. Brunei, of the Bishop company, who made valuable suggestions and opened doors for me that usually stay tightly closed; H. L. Eggleston and Wilton Shellshear, of the former Gilmore company, now part of General Petroleum, for the rationale of petroleum manufacture; Samuel E. Furman, of the Ohio company, who has wrestled out-of-control wells, and gave me the benefit of these grim experiences; David M. Anderson, C. M. Cotton, C. P. Cotton, and J. H. Abramson of the Jergins company, for geological fundamentals; J. C. Chuck, Bert Harrison, and Margery Proctor, of the Jerkins realty organization, for introductions, appointments, and field contacts of great value; A. L. Schmidt, of the Long Beach fire department, for methods of controlling burning wells; scores of superintendents, foremen, drillers, and roughnecks not known to me by name, for elucidation of drilling, cracking, and selling, as well as various shoves and seizures which prevented me, on more than one occasion, from getting killed; William Moran, George Seitz, Ike Person, as well as many boes, known to me only as Joe, Luke, or Don, for initiation, sometimes painful, into the life of jungles, box cars, missions, and flop joints; F. F. Phillips, of the Santa Fe Railroad, and Earle W. Smith, of the California Employment Service, for data on the floating population of the ’30s; Ernest Ballard, of St. James’s P. E. Church, Los Angeles, for checking musical episodes; John A. Wood, of Honor Brands, for methods of freezing foods; Evaristo Diaz, of the Murphy Friendly Fields, for information about fruit ranches; Maj. Lewis Simons, of The Citadel, for suggestions as to episodes centering in Charleston, S. C; Helen and Morris Markey, for checking Southern backgrounds; Thelma Jackman, of the Los Angeles Public Library, for her usual invaluable help on research; the late Vincent Lawrence, for story suggestions; my sister, Rosalie McComas, for checking episodes occurring in Maryland; my mother, Rose Mallahan Cain, for the musical background, acquired in childhood, that underlies a large part of the story.

J. M. C.