“Others. Stronger than me. Cousin Nels, he talks . . . much, a little.”
“So that’s what you did—just fuck around with big oars? Or did you use all that training to get you some of them Nazis?”
“Ha. First the oars. Then the other.” With the opening made, Swede ventured further. “Four German bastards that I get for sure. Got. Three others maybe. You did the same, maybe. With some Japanese bastards?”
“Mebbe,” the American muttered with a shrug.
“Then, perhaps, we are the same? But now I think how good that we kill only fish.”
The American’s eyes narrowed. Finally he said, “Yeah.” After a moment he added: “That’s the only good part of it. Don’t matter if you kill fish. Don’t even matter to the fish, far as I know.”
Another long pause. Swede decided it was time for him to leave, that in any case Cousin Nels might be getting restless to walk up to the house. He started for the doorway.
“Well,” said Jones. “I ain’t eating Spam again tonight, I guess. Mebbe go grab a piece of real meat or something at the diner up the road. Come if you want.”
Here was the problem of not being paid! “Thank you. But I will not.”
“Don’t worry, I settled a good fish ticket just now, so I’ve got money.” Swede hesitated. “You understand, I shall pay you back?”
The man named Jones studied him, then nodded.
“Then yes! Sure! I will go tell Nels.”
“Afterward, up to you if you want to come, I’m going to grab a piece of ass down at Creek Street. Seventy-five cents for a drink in what they call the parlor, four to six bucks for a job, depending. I got money to lend anybody who killed a few Nazis. Suit yourself.”
Swede felt a rush of pleasure and gratitude. “Sure! Okay!”
10
CREEK STREET
The American fisherman Jones Henry started to knock with American assurance when the door opened by itself.
“Why come right in, boys. Miss Eva’ll be glad to see you.” The woman wore a maid’s apron over a bright blue dress. “Just make yourselves comfortable.”
Swede braced for red velvet everywhere, for heavy perfume, and for women barely clothed. Instead, the small room was mostly brown in both wallpaper and upholstery. The air, heated against the chill outside, smelled of coal dust. In a corner slumped two men, who glanced up just enough to take in the newcomers. A lace-covered table standing between their overstuffed chairs held two glasses, as well as a tasseled lamp with a dark yellow shade that glowed from the bulbs behind it. The place could have been the living room at Nels and Helga’s, or for that matter, at his parents’ back in Norway.
“You boys thirsty today?” asked the woman.
“Make it two,” said Jones Henry.
“Scotch or bourbon tonight, honey?”
“The second, I guess.” Jones turned to him. “Tell the lady which you want.”
What will this cost? Swede wondered. He started to say he wasn’t thirsty, but at a cool appraising look from Jones Henry, he declared, trying to sound experienced, “Ja, vell. Maybe yust . . . Scotch vhiskey? Dis time!”
The woman patted his cheek. “Just off the banana boat I see. Now aren’t you yust the blondest thing and look how red his face is.”
All his carefully rehearsed American pronunciation had abandoned him! He indeed felt himself blushing. It didn’t help that Jones Henry gave a dry laugh. Worse, the two men in the corner glanced up with something like amusement. One of them, with black eyebrows thick as fur, seemed familiar. Did then many Americans look like this?
He and Jones settled in two of the room’s other armchairs, away from the earlier arrivals. The cushions sank with his weight, even though he tried to sit upright.
“Still soppin’ out them bilges on the run, cuz?”
It was the Coast Guard officer! Instead of khaki uniform and a cap pulled down to his forehead, the official now wore a flowered shirt, while his bared head revealed dark hair combed back in a slick wave. Swede automatically scrambled from his chair and stood. “Sure! We clean often the bilge.”
“That’s news. Something just bite you there?” The others laughed. Swede sat again, feeling foolish.
“Leave the man be, Jimmy,” said the officer’s companion, an older man with a leathery face and graying hair. He turned to Jones Henry. “Your pink salmon come in yet?”
“Ain’t my pinks, I troll for kings and cohos.” Jones replied easily. “Leave the seiners and them damn fish traps to fight it out over pinks while I’m off to try for halibut.”
“Lucky for you. Pinks already two weeks late, still not in sight, seiners and canneries bitchin’ everywhere . . .”
“Their problem.”
The woman brought drinks for Jones and Swede on a tray set with a lace doily. Each was in a plain glass overloaded with cubes of ice. Swede’s first sip tasted strongly of the whiskey, but when he pushed down the ice the liquid mixed into a flavored water. A relief. He didn’t want to become drunk and turn even more foolish.
A door at the far end of the room opened and a plump woman came brusquely in.
“Evening, boys!” she declared. Red hair was piled on her head like a grand wedding cake. The clothes she wore were silky and light and covered
all of her body except for the top curve of her breasts. Swede stared in spite of himself. Fine large breasts! They quivered against the tight silk as she walked. He had to fumble his hands to cover a sudden erection. Like a schoolboy so many years ago. The memory made him want to laugh. Something was still the same! At least, his body remained young. In fact, despite all, how much luckier he was than many of the others. Yet, among all these lucky people, he had no need to feel guilty or apologetic.
“Coast Guard’s back in, I see. To grace my sitting room with its cutter’s chiefs. Ed Hancock dear, you’re always welcome. But that Jim Amberman, with eyebrows like to burn off his head. Jimmy, should I alert the shore patrol ahead of time?” She turned to Jones Henry. “And my goodness, Mr. Sourpuss with—is that a friend of yours, Jones honey?”
“He’s with me, you might say,” Jones growled. Swede again rose to his feet, although the others remained seated, and he inclined his head in as much of a bow as he dared.
The woman took his hand and shook it. “Well. Always a pleasure to have a gentleman in the house.” She glared cheerfully at the others. “Not like some I know. Now what’s your name, sir? I’m Miss Eva Tarkington, in case nobody’s bothered to tell you.”
“Arnie Skovkus once. But now I am calling myself Swede. Swede Scorden.”
“Well then, Swede dear it is. Welcome to my house. You’ll find it more refined than, say, two doors up at Lola’s. And don’t let them tell you that Dolly down the other way gives the boys any better of a time than right here.” She turned to the two in the corner. “Ain’t that right, boys? Tell him from the Coast Guard.”
The older man raised his glass. “No problem here, except I’m empty.”
“See to it,” Eva told the other woman, who hurried off.
In his daydreams, Swede had pictured whores as hard and thin, like Marlene Dietrich. Women who made men feel ashamed if they didn’t perform well. This lady wasn’t like that. Not with such gaily bouncing breasts. He’d barely looked at her face except to see that it was bright and cheerful, although no longer that of a girl. A second look showed that pink powder barely covered some wrinkles around her eyes and mouth.
“Well I have to say.” Miss Eva indicated Jones Henry. “Mr. Sourpuss might be short on smiles, but July Fourth he was the grandest sight you could imagine, all in his Marine uniform and medals at the parade. I even forgot it was raining cats and dogs when he marched by. Sit down, Swede honey, sit down. So now you boys catch fish together?” She spread her silks and settled into a chair beside him. To the two men across the room, she said, “Thought your boat was out on patrol for another week. I do keep up with the Coast Guard, you know.”
“Old story out there, Eva,”
said the older chief. “Needed to rescue some fishing boat. Engine failed. Pulled him off the rocks and then had to tow him in. We’ll go back out tomorrow.”
“Oh, you fishermen!” Eva exclaimed to Jones Henry. “You boys live in such danger out there, I can’t even imagine it. In the paper just yesterday—yes, I do read the papers—some poor fisherman up in Port Alexander, I think it was. His boat caught fire and sank, and he drowned.”
“Man keeps his boat like a shithouse, what do you expect?” muttered the eyebrow chief named Jim. “Then calls us to haul him in. Leave work we got to do, then overtime and no extra pay like the unions. Fishermen! They stayed sober enough to tend their engines, we’d get our real work done.”
Jones Henry started to rise. “Who you talking about there?”
“Don’t you start anything in my house!” snapped Eva, suddenly all business. “Sit back down, Jones Henry! And Jimmy, you apologize this instant. My stars, talk about too much booze, coming from you!”
“You ever seen me take a drop at sea? Never will.”
Eva adjusted one of her scarves as she settled back. “One thing I don’t need here, boys, is trouble with the police. What with all this talk in City Council about closing us down. And that minister from his pulpit every Sunday, which people tell me all about, since that’s certainly not the church I go to. What would all the boys from the boats and the logging camps do if we weren’t here? You tell me now!”
“Simmer down, Eva,” said the older of the chiefs. “We all know that preacher’s got numb nuts. Give you some news there. I hear he says if he can’t get the Council to act on what he calls bawdy houses, he’s leaving town.”
“That’s what I’ll call good riddance!” She turned to Swede. “Bawdy! Can you tell me what you see here that’s bawdy?”
The older chief laughed. “You heard what happened at Ida Mae’s last weekend?”
“That was five doors up. I hardly know the woman except by sight. Maybe the paper called it a shoot-out. I did hear a shot or two but nobody was hurt I hear—just boys letting off steam.”
“Had to take ’em to the hospital, I hear. Not that they weren’t released soon after.”
“Well, Ed dear, I never have to worry about you. But I’m here to make a living just like everybody else.” She turned to Jones and Swede. “Don’t mind those two. They’re in no rush. It’ll be midnight before they make up their minds, and maybe they won’t get out of those chairs even then. Now, are you coming to visit and drink a few?—which is all right, I pride myself on my hospitality. Not like some houses around here. Or for something more?”
Jones Henry gestured toward his companion. “Take him back there with you. I ain’t in a hurry tonight.” He winked. “Or mebbe I’ll go with Angie when she’s through bringing drinks.”
“I don’t mind having a rest, dear. You’re not going to make me jealous.” She turned to Swede and suddenly stroked his fly. He erected so immediately that she chuckled. “Now that’s a response! Don’t need to guess what’s on your mind tonight!”
Her eyes were both shrewd and merry, he thought. The few wrinkles under her powder didn’t matter. “I should like to go with you. Now! If it is convenient.”
She took his hand. “You just come along then.” She led him back into the house through the door from which she had entered.
Before his eyes had adjusted to the shape of a bed in the near darkness, she was unbuttoning his shirt, and he’d already begun to breathe heavily. Her hair, unpinned, flowed around his face.
He barely reached the bed before he ejaculated. When he started to apologize, she patted his bare thigh. “My goodness, what a man! Now just relax. You’ve got a whole hour so let’s see what more we can do.” Indeed, by the time that Angie’s discreet knock on the door signaled the approach of the hour’s end, she had helped him muster back his manhood and he lay back relaxed and content.
The evening left Swede feeling better about himself than he had in weeks. He slept aboard the boat that night. When Nels came aboard before daybreak to start another couple of days’ fishing, for once Swede was not already awake to greet him. With a yawn and a grin he began the day’s work slowly.
When they next delivered to the cannery at the end of the week, Swede began his tour of the premises as in times previous. He proceeded to the sliming line and greeted the foreman with the friendly humility that had always worked before. This day, however, the man seemed uneasy and disinclined to talk. All at once, two large men appeared. When he started to walk away, they flanked him.
“Up at the office, they want to see you,” one of them said. Their impelling motion left him no choice. The gate to the management space he had never dared to enter now opened automatically at a buzzer, and the two men conducted him past the desk of a frowning secretary to the glassed-in office. Miles Jackson, boss of the whole cannery, sat behind a desk flanked by radio boxes that crackled with static. His wiry neck jutted from a collar stiff enough to have been starched.
“The man delivers exclusive to us or we dump him,” he stated into a microphone in his hand. “Yeah, right now. If he ain’t ours, no credit for him today or any other.”
There were two swivel chairs in front of his desk, along with a simple straight-back chair. Jackson indicated the latter. “Sit him there. Then wait outside.” Back into the microphone: “Fuck how desperate he is. This ain’t the Salvation Army. Desperate short of sinking, that is.”
Swede sat stiffly but suppressed a smile. This was how a cannery manager should talk. At last, whatever the circumstance, he was in the office of management, where he belonged.
Finally Miles Jackson turned to him. “Okay, my friend. We’ve watched you snooping around all these weeks. Which one you with? I figured you’d find out for yourself that nobody here needs to organize.”
“Organize?”
“Unions, unions! We’re not as dumb as you might think.”
“Unions, sir?”
“CIO or that damned AFL? Go back and tell your bosses, we’ve got no place up here for unions. We’ve watched you people pulling the country apart since the war ended. Close the mines and every damn thing else. Block longshore unloading all the way to Seattle and up here. My cannery workers are seasonal and I take good care of them. We don’t want you union spies and organizers up here. Watch out. We’re ready to get mad about it.”
Swede rose, pleasantly excited, and extended his hand. “Sir, I am Arnie Skovkus, now named Swede Scorden, to make my name easy to say in America. I am now fishing with my cousin here, Nels Knutsen. But back in the old country I vas cannery manager. With my father. I am happy to be in this cannery. I wish to work here. I vill help to make this cannery good running!”
The man studied him, but did not offer his hand. “I’ve got somebody in town can check on that, so don’t bullshit me, son.” Finally, he said, “Sit back down. Take that other chair with the arms to it, if you want. Stay there quiet for a minute.” He walked out to one of the women at a desk, but Swede saw through the glass that the man kept watching him all the time that he spoke to her. She picked up a phone and spoke into it.
“What’s your name again?” Jackson demanded through the door. “Your original one?” Swede needed to spell it for him. The manager relayed the information to his secretary, then faced Swede with narrowed eyes. “Don’t think I’ll forget if you’re lying. You got any papers to prove who you are?”
“Yes! Back at the house I have papers. House in town. Where I stay with Nels Knutsen. And Helga.”
“I knew you were on Nels’s boat. But Nels ain’t necessarily that bright about things other than fishing. Cousin, eh? Cannery, huh? Canning what?”
“Herring. Also we salted the fish. And torsk, how is it called here? Cowdfisk?”
“Yeah. Cod. I take it you speak Norwegian?”
“Ja. And Swedish.”
“If you check out, I just fired a man this morning. Let’s see what I hear and what papers you’ve got. Call my secretary to make an app
ointment back here in a couple of days.”
“I will run to house immediately and then run back with the papers. If that is convenient, sir.”
“Go-getter, eh?” Jackson glanced at his secretary, who was still on the phone. She nodded. The wrinkles around his mouth expanded. “Ever heard of Horatio Alger?” He chuckled and consulted his watch. “Hour and a half before I go home for dinner. Up to you.”
The time for the mile run to town and the mile back was extended by only a few minutes to gather his papers and to give Helga a breathless assurance that nothing was wrong on the boat but that he must hurry. He arrived back at the cannery with thirty minutes to spare.
Jackson’s secretary hit the buzzer to open the office gate, then gestured for him to sit in a chair by her desk. Swede sat straight, controlling his breath, trying to keep from panting. When her head was turned, he passed a sleeve across his face to absorb some of the perspiration that wouldn’t stop flowing. He watched Miles Jackson’s movements behind the glass of his office, keeping a steady gaze to catch his attention when he turned.
The manager neither turned nor glanced his way. In fact, he left in another direction and never returned.
At last the secretary, a stern older woman with graying hair in a stiff permanent of finger waves, turned to him. “I’ll take whatever you brought for Mr. Jackson. But he’s checked you out now so it doesn’t matter.” Her smile creased, warming the look on her face. “Even your war record. Very impressive, young man. Mr. Jackson said that if you really want to work here, be at the office at seven next Monday morning. Shall he expect you?”
“Yes!”
She held out her hand. “I’m Mrs. Lacey. See you at 7:00 a.m. next Monday and we’ll sign you in.” She appeared to think a moment, then added, “I lost a son in this terrible war. About your age. He’d be a fine young man now.” It sobered him in a moment.
WARRIORS Page 15
