Sweet Thursday

by John Steinbeck

"Okay, I'll lay out the deck. When you're making a play for one of them babes, them amateurs, you got to do quite a lot of talking before you make the sack--ain't that right?"

  Doc smiled ruefully. "Right," he said.

  "Well, do you always mean every word of it?"

  Doc pinched his lower lip. "Why--why--I guess right at the moment I do."

  "But afterward?"

  "Afterward, if I were to think about it--"

  "That's what I mean," said Fauna. "So if you happen to tell a little teensy-beensy bit of baloney you don't blow your brains out."

  "You'd do well in the analysis business," said Doc. "What do you want me to do?"

  "This kid Suzy's lousy with new roses. She ain't a good hustler because of that streak of lady. I don't know if she'd make a good lady or not. I want her off my neck. Doc, would it do you any harm to make a play for her? I mean, like you do with them dames that come in here."

  "What good could that possibly do?" he asked.

  "Well, maybe I'm wrong, but the way I figure it, you can use new roses if you want to. If you made a pitch for the kid, like she was a lady, why, she might turn lady on you."

  "I still can't see what good it would do," said Doc.

  "It would get her the hell out of the Bear Flag," said Fauna. "She wouldn't want to congregate with no more floozies."

  "How about me?" said Doc.

  "You don't marry them others, do you?"

  "No, but--"

  "Take a whang at her, will you, Doc?" Fauna begged. "Can't do you no harm. Why, hell, she might scram out of here and take up typewriting or telephone operating. Will you do that for me, Doc?"

  He said, "It doesn't seem honest."

  Fauna changed her tack. "I was talking to her last night and she said she couldn't remember when a guy had treated her like a girl. What harm would that do?"

  "Might make her miserable."

  "Might make her fly the coop."

  "Maybe she likes it the way it is."

  "She don't. I tell you she's a blowed-in-the-glass lady. Look, Doc, you take her out to dinner and I'll buy the dinner. You don't have to make no pass. Just be nice to her."

  "I'll have to think about it."

  "Think you might do it?"

  "I might."

  "That's a good kid if you treat her right. You'd be doing me a big favor."

  "Suppose she won't go?"

  "She will. I won't give her no choice."

  Doc looked out the window and a warmth crept through him, and suddenly he felt better than he could remember feeling.

  "I'll think about it," he said.

  "I'll throw in three bottles of champagne whenever you say the word," said Fauna.

  After lunch Joe Elegant read Fauna his latest chapter. He explained the myth and the symbol. "You see," he said, "the grandmother stands for guilt."

  "Ain't she dead and buried?"

  "Yes."

  "That's a kind of a messy guilt."

  "It's the reality below reality," said Joe Elegant.

  "Balls!" said Fauna. "Listen, Joe, whyn't you write a story about something real?"

  "Maybe you can tell me about the art of writing?" he said.

  "I sure as hell can," said Fauna. "There's this guy, and he makes love to this dame."

  "Very original," said Joe.

  "When a man says words he believes them, even if he thinks he's lying."

  "For goodness' sake! What are you talking about?"

  "I bet I get rid of a certain person and put up a new gold star. You want to take that bet?"

  "How did Doc like the cake?" Joe Elegant asked.

  "He loved it," said Fauna.

  And this was the second event of that Sweet Thursday.

  21

  Sweet Thursday Was One Hell of a Day

  Fission took place in the Palace Flop house, and from there a chain reaction flared up in all directions. Cannery Row caught fire. Mack and the boys had the energy and the enthusiasm of plutonium. Only very lazy men could have done so much in so short a time. Oh, the meetings, the messages carried, the plans and counterplans! Mack had to make more and more raffle tickets. What started as a kind of gentle blackmail assumed the nature of an outpouring of popular love for Doc. People bought tickets, sold tickets, traded tickets. Emissaries covered the Southern Pacific Depot, the Greyhound Bus Station. Joe Blaikey, the constable, carried tickets in his pocket and canceled parking summonses if the lawbreaker bought a two-dollar chance on the Palace Flop house.

  Whitey No. 1 invaded the foreign and fancy purlieus of Pebble Beach and Carmel and the Highlands. Whitey No. 2's method was characteristically direct. The first man to refuse him got a rock through his windshield, and the news traveled.

  To the boys it had become a crusade. And the winning ticket, of course, with Doc's name on it, was in a tomato can, buried in the vacant lot. By tacit agreement no one mentioned the raffle to Doc. To Doc's friends Mack and the boys mentioned the rigging of the lottery, but to strangers--who cared? It was a perfect example of the collective goodness and generosity of a community.

  But if communities have a group Good Fairy they also have an Imp who works parallel with and sometimes in collaboration with the Good Fairy. Cannery Row's Imp saw the Good Fairy stirring to life, and he sprang to action. Into the ears of his clients he whispered a few words, and his constituents grinned with evil plea sure and their thoughts went like this: The Patron is a wise guy. He's a newcomer, nice clothes, makes his money off poor helpless wetbacks because he's smart. Lee Chong must have sold him the Palace Flop house and he's forgot it or he never knew it. Once Doc wins it the Patron won't dare make a move.

  It is such fun to outsmart a smart guy. The Imp of the Row had a good professional time and for once his job seemed almost virtuous. People bought more tickets from the Patron than from anyone else. They wanted to watch his face so they could compare it with his face when he found out.

  Now ordinarily Mack and the boys would have strung out the ticket sales over weeks, but time was breathing down their necks. If the Patron got his tax bill from the county their plan would blow up in their faces. They had to take a chance with Friday--Saturday was the deadline. The boys spread the word that there would be medium-heavy refreshments at the Palace Flop house on Saturday night and that contributions of any nature would be welcome.

  Mack called on Doc the afternoon of Sweet Thursday. "If you ain't doing anything Saturday night," he said, "I and the boys are throwing a little wing-ding. R.S.V.P."

  "Moi, je respond oui."

  "Come again?"

  "I'll be there," said Doc.

  Then Mack remembered a mission with which he had been entrusted. "I guess I could squirm it out of you, Doc, like I done once before," he said, "but I'll come right out in the open. When's your birthday?"

  A shudder went through Doc. "Please don't give me a party," he begged. "The last one you gave nearly ruined me."

  "This hasn't got nothing to do with a party--it's a bet," said Mack. "I stand to win a buck. When is it?" Mack prodded him.

  Doc picked the first date that came to him. "July fourth," he said.

  "Why, that's like the Fourth of July!"

  "A little," said Doc, and he felt greatly relieved.

  Later that afternoon Fauna and the girls called formally at the Palace Flop house in answer to the note Mack had sent asking them to drink a jolt of good stuff. Suzy did not attend. She had been quiet all morning, and then she mooned away on the path that leads along the sea to the light house on Point Pinos. She looked in the tide pools, and she picked a bunch of the tiny flowers that grow as close to the ocean as they can. Suzy was restless and unhappy. She felt excitement and nausea at the same time. She wanted to smile and she wanted to cry, and she was scared and happy and hopeless. Doc had asked her to have dinner with him, at Sonny Boy's on the pier, and Fauna had urged her to go.

  Suzy's first reaction had been violent. "I won't do it!" she said.

  "Sure you'll go," said Fauna. "I m
ay have to persuade you with a indoor-ball bat--but you'll go."

  "You can't make me."

  "Want to test that? Why, I've wore my brain down to the knuckles, trying to do something nice for you."

  "I ain't got nothing to wear," said Suzy.

  "Neither has Doc. If he can go like he does, what right's a chippy to get grand?"

  "But hell, Fauna, he's--he's got it inside. People like me got to put on a puff because they got nothing else. I'm afraid I'll turn mean because I don't know how to be nice."

  "Suzy," said Fauna, "I'm going to give you a piece of advice, and if you won't take it, I may just call Joe Blaikey and get you floated right out of town. Don't throw the first punch! Wait'll you're hit before you put up your dukes. Most of the time they ain't nobody laid a glove on you."

  "Suppose I could wear my suit? It's got a big spot," said Suzy.

  "Ask Joe Elegant to spot-clean it and press it. Tell him I said so."

  And thus it was that Suzy went walking out light house way on Sweet Thursday.

  The meeting in the Palace wasn't really necessary, for word of the raffle had got around and Fauna had bought ten tickets and made each girl buy one.

  Eddie had borrowed glasses from Wide Ida's--for once, with her permission. She was invited to the meeting too, and she brought two quarts of Pine Canyon whisky.

  "It don't cost hardly nothing," she explained.

  Formality took hold of the meeting. Agnes and Mabel kept their knees together when they sat down, and Fauna's look of thunder made Becky snap hers shut so quickly she spilled her drink.

  "She's going to be a wallager," said Mack. "I can't wait to see Doc's face when he wins."

  Wide Ida asked, "How you going to explain it to him he wins when he didn't buy no ticket?"

  "Why, we'll say a friend did it and don't want his name mentioned. I saw Doc a little while ago. He said he'd sure be here."

  Fauna said, "Did you find out when is his birthday?"

  "Sure. July fourth."

  Fauna exhaled with the sound of escaping gas. "Holy apples! He's a gone goose. He got a born-on Oregon boot. I never seen nothing work out so nice!"

  "What're you talking about?" said Mack.

  Fauna's eyes were misty. "Mack," she said huskily, "I don't want to horn in on your party, but why couldn't we make it an engagement party too?"

  "Who's engaged?"

  "Well, they ain't yet--but they will be."

  "Who?"

  "Doc and Suzy. It's right in their horoscopes."

  "S'pose they won't?"

  "They will," said Fauna. "You can just depend on that--they will!"

  The little group sat in silence, and then Mack said softly, "Did I say it was going to be a wallager? This here's a tom-wallager! They ain't been nothing so stupendous since the Second World War! You sure Doc'll go for it?"

  "You let me take care of that--and don't none of you blab it to him. One time I managed a fighter, Kiss of Death Kelly, welterweight. I'll have Doc in the ring."

  Eddie asked, "How about Suzy?"

  "Suzy's already in the ring," said Fauna.

  They parted quietly, but in their breasts a flame of emotion burned. There never was a day like that Sweet Thursday. And it wasn't over yet.

  22

  The Arming

  At four-thirty in the afternoon Fauna ordered Suzy to the office bedroom with full field equipment. Suzy dumped her clothes on Fauna's bed.

  "That's a hell of a way to keep wrinkles out," Fauna observed. She picked up the gray woolen skirt and jacket, laid them out, inspected them for spots, smelled them for cleaning fluid. "Nice piece of goods," she said.

  "Community chest," said Suzy. "I was in the charity ward."

  "Well, somebody wasn't." Her eyes noted the brown shoes. She went to the door and yelled, "Joe! Joe Elegant!"

  He looked in. "I'm not supposed to be on duty," he said.

  "I'm a thorn in the side of the worker," said Fauna. "You run up the street to Wildock's and get new heel taps on these here. Tell them to fix this scuffed place and give them a nice shine. Wait and bring them back."

  Joe complained as he went, but he went.

  Fauna said to Suzy, "You got any gloves?"

  "No."

  "I'll lend you some. Here--these white ones. And here's a handkerchief. I don't want no lipstick marks on it. Now you listen to me, Suzy girl--take care of your shoes, wear clean gloves, carry a white handkerchief, and keep your stocking seams straight. If you do that you can get away with murder. This here's a nice suit--the kind of cloth that the older it gets the better it looks--if your heels ain't run over. Call Becky in!"

  When Becky entered Fauna said, "Ain't you got a white pique dickey and cuffs?"

  "I just done them up."

  "I want you to lend them to Suzy. Get some thread and sew the cuffs in this here jacket."

  "She'll have to wash them."

  "She will."

  While Becky basted in the cuffs Fauna said, "Turn out your purse, Suzy." She inspected the pile on the bed. "You don't need that aspirin. Here, take my comb--throw that one away. Ain't nothing tackier than a comb missing teeth. Put these here Kleenex in. Here, use my compact and touch up that shine on your nose once in a while. Let's see your nails! Hmmm, pretty good. You washed your hair?"

  "Get her a wig," said Becky, and she bit the thread.

  "Don't get smart. Come on now--get off your behind and do something with her hair, and not fancy neither." To Suzy she said, "Becky got a light hand with hair. You can't take that coat. Community chest slipped up there." She tapped her teeth with a pencil and then went to her closet and brought out two baum martens that were biting each other's heads off. "Just hand these here bo' martens over your shoulder," Fauna said. "And if you lose them or hurt them I'll cut your tripes out. Now, where are we? No perfume. Douse some of this Florida water on--kind of old-fashioned and young-smelling."

  Becky stood behind Suzy's chair, brushing and combing and molding. "She got big ears," Becky said. "Maybe I can kind of hide them a little."

  "You got a nice hand with hair," Fauna said.

  The final briefing took place at six o'clock, with the bedroom door closed.

  "Turn around," said Fauna. "Keep your ankles close together. Now, walk! That's good. You got a real nice walk. Like I said, you're a good-looking kid if you work at it a little."

  Suzy looked at herself in the mirror and she smiled, for it seemed to her that she really was pretty, and the idea startled her and pleased her too, and when she looked pleased she was even prettier. Then her mouth turned down and blind panic came over her.

  "What's the matter?" Fauna demanded.

  "What can I talk about? Fauna, I don't want to go! I don't belong with a guy like Doc. Jesus, Fauna, tell him I'm sick. I ain't going."

  Fauna let her talk herself out and then she said quietly, "Maybe you'd like to cry now and get your eyes red after all my trouble? Go on, cry!"

  "I'm sorry," said Suzy. "You been nice. I ain't no good, Fauna. You're just wasting your time. I know what I'll do--minute he says something I don't understand I'll get mad. I'm scared."

  "'Course you're scared," said Fauna. "But if you didn't care nothing about Doc you wouldn't be scared. You didn't invent it. There ain't never been no dame went out first time with a guy she liked that wasn't scared. Maybe Doc's scared too."

  "Oh nuts!" said Suzy.

  Fauna said, "If I was your age with your face and shape and what I know, there wouldn't be no man in the world could get away! I got the know-how--but that's all I got. Oh well! I'm going to tell you a few thousand things, Suzy, that if you would listen you'd get anything you want. But hell, you won't listen! Nobody listens, and when they learn the hard way it's too late. Maybe it's a good thing--I don't know."

  "I'll listen."

  "Sure, but you won't learn. You know, Suzy, they ain't no way in the world to get in trouble by keeping your mouth shut. You look back at every mess you ever got in and you'll find your ton
gue started it."

  "That's true," said Suzy. "But I can't seem to stop."

  "You got to learn it like you learn anything else--just practice. Next thing is opinions. You and me is always busting out with opinions. Hell, Suzy, we ain't got no opinions! We just say stuff we heard or seen in the movies. We're scared we'll miss something, like running for a bus. That's the second rule: lay off opinions because you ain't really got any."

  "You got them numbered, huh?" said Suzy.

  "I should write a book," said Fauna. "If She Could, I Could. Now take number three. There don't hardly nobody listen, and it's so easy! You don't have to do nothing when you listen. If you do listen it's pretty interesting. If a guy says something that pricks up your interest, why, don't hide it from him. Kind of try to wonder what he's thinking instead of how you're going to answer him back."

  "You're sure putting the finger on me," Suzy said softly.

  "I only got a little more, but it's the hardest of all, and the easiest."

  "What number?"

  "I lost track. Don't pretend to be something you ain't, and don't make like you know something you don't, or sooner or later you'll fall on your ass. And there's one more part to this one, what ever number it is: they ain't nobody was ever insulted by a question. S'pose Doc says something and you don't know what it means. Ask him! The nicest thing in the world you can do for anybody is let them help you."

  Suzy was silent, looking down at her hands.

  Fauna said, "You got nice nails. How do you keep them so nice?"

  Suzy said, "That's easy. My grandma taught me. You keep a old lemon rind, and every time you wash your hands you scrounge your fingernails around in it. And then you shake a little face powder on your hand and you polish your nails on the ham of your hand and you push down the quick with a little piece of lemon wood."

  "See what I mean?" said Fauna.

  "What?"

  "I just asked you a question."

  Suzy blushed, "I sure fell into that."

  "No, you didn't. I wanted to know. It's best if you ask when you want to know."

  "Thanks," said Suzy. "You're a hell of a dame. I wonder if I could learn?"

  "You can if you just remember a lot of things: first, you got to remember you're Suzy and you ain't nobody else but Suzy. Then you got to remember that Suzy is a good thing--a real valuable thing--and there ain't nothing like it in the world. It don't do no harm just to say that to yourself. Then, when you got that, remember that there's one hell of a lot Suzy don't know. Only way she can find out is if she sees it, reads it, or asks it. Most people don't look at nothing but themselves, and that's a rat race."