Sweet Thursday Page 11

  Agnes lifted her left leg and blew on her toenails. "Like this color?" she asked.

  "It's nice," said Becky. "Looks a little like you was rotting. Say, where in hell is Suzy? She'll find out when Fauna says three o'clock she means three o'clock. Gee, Fauna's a funny name."

  Mabel said, "Her name used to be Flora. What is a fauna anyway? I never knew nobody named that."

  "Oh, it's like a baby deer," said Becky. "I don't think Suzy'll be here long. She's kind of nuts--got a nuts look in her eye. Goes out walking."

  Mabel said, "Well, it's two minutes to three. Suzy better get here."

  On the stroke of three a door opened and Fauna came in from her bedroom. A silver headband was tied around her orange hair, and it made her look like a certain social leader recently deceased. Fauna had the elegance found only in the drawing rooms of the old rich and in haute monde brothels. She was heavy but she moved with light, deft steps. She carried a large basket.

  "Where's Suzy?" she asked.

  "I don't know," said Mabel.

  "Well, look in her room."

  Mabel went out.

  Fauna moved to the Parcheesi board. "Somebody's been shooting craps with the Parcheesi dice," she said.

  "How'd you know?" Becky asked.

  "There's two bucks in the corner bucket. I don't want gambling in the Ready Room. If a young lady wants to run a few passes with a customer, that's different, but I don't want to find no more pencil marks on the lump sugar either. Gambling's a vice. I knew many a good hooker with a future that's throwed it away on games of chance."

  "Hell, Fauna, you play poker," said Becky.

  "Poker ain't a game of chance," said Fauna. "And you watch your language, Becky. Vulgarity gives a hookshop a bad name." She took a linen tablecloth from her basket and spread it over the Parcheesi board. Then she laid out a napkin, a plate, wineglasses, and a heap of flat silver.

  Mabel and Suzy came in.

  Fauna said, "I don't like my young ladies to be late." She took a teacher's pointer from her basket. "Now, what young lady wants to be first?"

  Agnes said, "I'll do her."

  "You done it yesterday," said Mabel. "Goddam it, it's my turn!"

  Fauna said sternly, "Young ladies, suppose some nice dumb young fellow was to hear you. Now, Mabel--" She indicated the items on the tablecloth with a pointer, and Mabel began, like a child reciting poetry, "Oyster fork...salad fork...fish fork...roast fork...savory fork...dessert fork...plate...dessert knife...savory knife...roast knife...fish knife--"

  "Good!" said Fauna. "Now here." And Mabel went on, "Water...white wine...claret...burgundy...port...brandy."

  "Perfect," said Fauna. "Which side does the salad go on?"

  "Left side, so you can get your sleeve in the gravy."

  Fauna was deeply gratified. "By God, that's good! I wouldn't be surprised if Mabel wasn't one of them stars before too long." She indicated the gold stars on the wall.

  "What are they?" Suzy asked.

  Fauna said proudly, "Every one of them stars represents a young lady from the Bear Flag that married, and married well. That first star's got four kids and her husband's manager of an A and P. Third from the end is president of the Salinas Forward and Upward Club and held the tree on Arbor Day. Next star is high up in the Watch and Ward, sings alto in the Episcopal church in San Jose. My young ladies go places. Now, Suzy--"

  "Huh?"

  "What's that?"

  "That funny kind of fork?"

  "What's it for?"

  "I don't know."

  "Cooperate, Suzy. What do you eat with it?"

  Suzy mused, "You couldn't get much mashed potatoes on it. Pickles maybe?"

  "It's a clam fork," said Fauna. "Now say it. Clam fork."

  Suzy said vehemently, "I wouldn't eat a clam if you was to give me a scoop shovel."

  "What a mug!" said Agnes.

  Suzy turned on her. "I ain't no mug!"

  Mabel cried, "Double negative! Double negative!"

  "What you talking about?" said Suzy.

  Mabel said, "When you say you ain't no mug, that means you're a mug."

  Suzy started for her. "Who's a mug?"

  Fauna bellowed, "If certain young ladies don't come to order they're going to get a paste in the puss! Now--posture. Where's the books?"

  Agnes said, "I think Joe Elegant's reading them."

  "Damn it," said Fauna, "I picked them books special so's nobody'd take them. What's he reading them for? Breeder's Journal, California Civil Code, and a novel by Sterling North--what the hell is there to read? Well, we'll just have to use the basket, I guess. Agnes, put the basket on your head."

  Fauna inspected her. "Now look here, young ladies," she said. "Just because you got your ankles together and your hips flang forward--that don't necessarily mean posture. Agnes, tuck in your butt! Posture's a state of mind. Real posture is when a young lady's flat on her ass and still looks like she got books on her head."

  There came a knock on the door and Joe Elegant handed Fauna a note. She read it and sighed with plea sure. "That Mack," she said. "What a gent! I guess he'd drain the embalming fluid off his dead grandma, but he'd do it nice."

  "Is his grandma dead?" Agnes asked.

  "Who knows?" said Fauna. "Listen to this, young ladies. 'Mack and the boys request the plea sure of your company at their joint tomorrow aft. to drink a slug of good stuff and talk about something important. Bring the girls. R.S.V.P.'" Fauna paused. "He could of yelled outside the window, but not Mack--he requests the plea sure of our company." She sighed. "What a gent! If he wasn't such a bum I'd aim one of you young ladies at him."

  Agnes asked, "What's the matter with Mack's grandma?"

  "I don't even know he's got a grandma," said Fauna. "Now when we go over there tomorrow, you young ladies keep your traps shut and just listen." She mused, "Something important--well, it might be like Mack needs twenty bucks, so just keep your heads shut and let me do the thinking."

  Suddenly Fauna beat her forehead with the heel of her hand. "I nearly forgot! Joe Elegant baked a great big goddam cake. Suzy, you take four cold cans of beer and that cake and go over and give them to Doc to cheer him up."

  "Okay," said Suzy. "But it'll probably molt in his stomach."

  "His stomach ain't none of your business," said Fauna.

  And when Suzy had gone Fauna said, "I wisht I could stick up a star for that kid. She don't hardly pull her own weight here."

  16

  The Little Flowers of Saint Mack

  Doc laid ten big starfish out on a shelf, and he set up a line of eight glass dishes half filled with sea water. Although he was inclined to carelessness in his living arrangements his laboratory technique was immaculate. The making of the embryo series gave him plea sure. He had done it hundreds of time before, and he felt a safety in the known thing--no speculation here. He did certain things and certain other things followed. There is comfort in routine.

  His old life came back to him--a plateau of contentment with small peaks of excitement but none of the jagged pain of original thinking, none of the loneliness of invention. His phonograph played softly, played the safe and certain fugues of Bach, clear as equations. As he worked, a benign feeling came over him. He liked himself again as he once had; liked himself as a person, the way he might like anyone else. The self-hatred which poisons so many people and which had been irritating him was gone for the time. The top voice of his mind sang peacefulness and order, and the raucous middle voice was gentle; it mumbled and snarled but it could not be heard. The lowest voice of all was silent, dreaming of a warm safe sea.

  The rattlesnakes in their wire cage suddenly lifted their heads, felt the air with their forked tongues, and then all four set up a dry buzzing rattle. Doc looked up from his work as Mack came in.

  Mack glanced at the cage. "Them new snakes ain't got used to me yet," he said.

  "Takes a little time," said Doc. "You haven't been here much."

  "Didn't feel no welcome here," said M
ack.

  "I'm sorry, Mack. I guess I've been off my feed. I'll try to do better."

  "You going to let up on them devilfish?"

  "I don't know."

  "They was making you sick."

  Doc laughed, "It wasn't the octopi. I guess it was trying to think. I'd got out of the habit."

  "I never got the habit," said Mack.

  "That's not true," said Doc. "I never knew anyone who devoted more loving thought to minusculae."

  "I never even heard of them," said Mack. "Say, Doc, what do you think of the Patron--your honest, spit-in-the-lake opinion?"

  "I don't think I understand him. We're kind of different."

  "You ain't kidding," said Mack. "He ain't honest."

  Doc said, "I'd call that expert testimony."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean you bring some experience to bear."

  "Oh, I know what you mean," said Mack earnestly, "but you search your heart, Doc, and see if I ain't dishonest in a kind of honest way. I don't really fool nobody--not even myself. And there's another thing--I know when I'm doing it. Joseph and Mary can't tell the difference."

  "I think that might be true," said Doc.

  "What I'm wondering is--well, I don't think the Patron wants any trouble around here, do you?"

  "Nobody wants any trouble."

  "He's got a stake here," Mack went on. "If the whole Row took a scunner to him, why, he just couldn't take that chance, don't you think?"

  "If I knew what you were talking about, it might help," said Doc.

  "I'm just trying to figure something," said Mack.

  "Well, if you mean that the Patron is in kind of a sensitive position--"

  "That's what I do mean," said Mack. "He can't afford to have no enemies."

  "Nobody wants enemies," said Doc.

  "I know. But he could get his ass in a sling. He got a business and he's got property."

  "I see what you mean," said Doc. "You're going to pressure him and you want to know what he'll do. What are you going to try to take away from him, Mack?"

  "I'm just thinking," said Mack.

  "I never knew you to think idly. When you think, somebody gets hurt."

  "I never hurt nobody, Doc."

  "Well, not bad. I will say your bite is not deadly."

  Mack was uneasy. He had not intended the conversation to turn to him. He changed the subject.

  "Say, Doc, did you hear? The whole country club took a loyalty oath on the eighteenth green. Whitey No. 2 was caddying. Them members all took off their hats and swore they would not destroy the U.S. government."

  "I'm glad," said Doc. "I was worried. Did the caddies take the oath too?"

  "Some of them did, but not Whitey. He's kind of an idealist, you might say. He says if he gets an idea to burn down the Capitol he don't want no perjury rap to stand in his way. They won't let him caddy no more."

  "Does he want to burn down the Capitol?" Doc asked.

  "Well, no. He says he don't want to now, but he don't know what he'll want to do next month. He gives us quite a talk about it. Says he was a Marine, went through a lot of fighting for the country, figures he's got a kind of personal interest. He don't want nobody to tell him what to do."

  Doc laughed. "So he can't carry golf clubs anymore because of his ideals?"

  "They say he's a security risk," said Mack. "Whitey claims he ain't got a good enough memory to be a security risk. Besides, they don't talk about nothing out there on the golf course except money and dames."

  Doc said, "Heroes always get punished at first."

  "Speaking of dames, Doc--"

  "Let's," said Doc.

  "What ever happened to that swell-looking babe in the fur coat used to come over?"

  "She's not been very well."

  "That's too bad," said Mack. "What's she got?"

  "Oh, something obscure. Can't seem to track it down."

  "I guess with that kind of dough--"

  "What do you mean?"

  "I seen it happen so many times," said Mack. "You take a dame and she's married to a guy that's making twenty-five bucks a week. You can't kill her with a meat ax. She's got kids and does the washing--may get a little tired but that's the worse that can happen to her. But let the guy get raised to seventy-five bucks a week and she begins to get colds and take vitamins."

  "That's a new theory of medicine," said Doc.

  "It ain't new. Hell, just use your eyes. Guy gets up to a hundred a week and this same dame reads Time magazine and she's got the newest disease before she even finished the page. I've knew dames that can give doctors cards, spades, and big casino about medicine. They got stuff called allergy now. Used to call it hay fever--made you sneeze. Guy that figured out allergy should of got a patent. A allergy is, you get sick when there's something you don't want to do. I've knew dames that was allergic to dishwater. Married guy starts making dough--he's got a patient on his hands."

  "You sound cynical," said Doc.

  "No, I ain't. You just look around and show me one well dame with her old man in the chips."

  Doc chuckled. "You think that's what happened to my friend?"

  "Oh, hell no," said Mack. "That's big stuff. When you get dough like that it's different. She got to have something that don't nobody know what it is. She can't have nothing common that you can take salts for. She goes around puzzling doctors. They stand around her and they shake their heads and they scratch and they never seen nothing like her case before."

  "I haven't heard you go on like this for a long time," said Doc.

  "You ain't been in the mood to listen. You think them doctors is honest?"

  "I haven't any reason to doubt it. Why?"

  "I bet I could fix rich dames up," said Mack. "At least for a while."

  "How would you go about it?"

  "Well, sir, first I'd hire me a deaf-and-dumb assistant. His job is just to set and listen and look worried. Then I'd get me a bottle of Epsom salts and I'd put in a pretty little screw-cap thing and I'd call it Moondust. I'd charge about thirty dollars a teaspoonful, and you got to come to my office to get it. Then I'd invent me a machine you strap the dame in. It's all chrome and it lights colored lights every minute or so. It costs the dame twelve dollars a half-hour and it puts her through the motions she'd do over a scrub board. I'd cure them! And I'd make a fortune too. Of course they'd get sick right away again, so I'd have something else, liked mixed sleeping pills and wake-up pills that keeps you right where you was when you started."

  Doc said, "Thank God you haven't got a license to practice!"

  "Why?"

  "As a matter of fact, I don't know why," said Doc. "How about preventive medicine?"

  "You mean how to keep them from getting sick?"

  "Yes."

  "That's easy," said Mack. "Stay broke!"

  Doc sat silent for a while. He glanced at the starfish and saw the reproductive fluid beginning to ooze from between their rays. "Say, Mack," he asked, "did you come over to try to get something out of me?"

  "I don't think so," said Mack. "If I did I've forgot what it was. I'm sure glad you got over it, Doc."

  "Got over what?"

  "Oh, them goddam sooplapods."

  "Look, Mack!" Sudden anger welled up in Doc. "Don't get any funny ideas. I am going to write that paper. I am going to La Jolla for the spring tides."

  "All right, Doc, all right. Have it your own way."

  But back in the Palace Flop house Mack reported to the boys, "Seemed like he was better, but he ain't over the hump yet. We got to help him not to write that goddam paper."

  17

  Suzy Binds the Cheese

  Suzy was light on her feet. She was up the stairs and knocking on the door of Western Biological before the snakes rattled. Doc called, "Come in," without looking up from his microscope.

  Suzy stood in the doorway. She held a gigantic flop cake on one hand and carried a paper bag of canned beer in the other. "How do you do?" she said formally.

/>   Doc looked up. "Oh, hello. For God's sake, what's that?"

  "A cake. Joe Elegant made it."

  "Why?" Doc asked.

  "I think Fauna told him to."

  "Well, I hope you like cake," said Doc.

  Suzy laughed. "I don't think this is a eating cake. This is a looking cake. Fauna sent you some beer."

  "That's more like it," said Doc. "What's Fauna want?"

  "Nothing."

  "That's funny."

  "Where shall I put the cake?" said Suzy.

  Now Doc looked at Suzy and Suzy looked at Doc and they both had the same thought and they burst into laughter. Tears streamed from Suzy's eyes. "Oh Lord!" said Suzy. "Oh Lord!" She laughed with her mouth wide and her eyes pinched shut. Doc slapped his leg and threw back his head and roared. And the laughter was so pleasant they tried to keep it going after its momentum was spent.

  "Oh Lord," said Suzy, "I got to wipe my eyes." She put the cake down on top of the rattlesnake cage, and hysterical rattling filled the room. Suzy jumped back. "What's that?"

  "Rattlesnakes."

  "What you got them for?"

  "I take their venom and sell it."

  "I'd hate to live with a bunch of dirty snakes."

  "They're not dirty. They even change their skins. That's more than people do."

  "I hate them," said Suzy, and she shuddered.

  "You wouldn't, once you knew them."

  "Well I ain't likely to get to know them," said Suzy. "They're dirty."

  Doc leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. He said, "You know, this interests me. Snakes are cleaner than most animals. Wonder why you call them dirty?"

  Suzy looked at him levelly. "You want to know why?"

  "Sure I do."

  "Because you run Fauna down."

  "Wait a minute," said Doc. "What's that got--I did not!"

  "You said Fauna's trying to get something out of you. She just done it to be nice."

  Doc nodded his head slowly. "I see. So you got even by calling snakes dirty."

  "You got it, mister. Nobody don't run Fauna down when I'm around."

  "It was just a joke," said Doc.

  "Didn't sound like no joke to me."

  "Why, Fauna's one of my best friends," said Doc. "Let's have a can of beer and make peace."

  "Okay," said Suzy. "You make the first move."

  Doc said, "Tell Joe Elegant it's an incredible cake."

  "Got marshmallow frosting," said Suzy.

  "And tell Fauna the beer saved my life."

  Suzy's face relaxed. "Okay," she said. "I guess that's okay. Where's the opener?"