Tortilla Flat Read online

  Pilon, just back from Heaven, was, although he did not know it, singularly receptive of every bitter wind, toward every evil influence that crowded the night about him. True, his feet still moved toward Danny's house, but there was neither intention nor conviction in them. They awaited the littlest signal to turn about. Already Pilon was thinking how stupendously drunk he could get on two gallons of wine, and more, how long he could stay drunk.

  It was almost dark now. The dirt road was no longer visible, nor the ditches on either side. No moral conclusion is drawn from the fact that at this moment, when Pilon's impulses were balanced as precariously as a feather, between generosity and selfishness, at this very moment Pablo Sanchez happened to be sitting in the ditch at the side of the road, wishing he had a cigarette and a glass of wine.

  Ah, the prayers of the millions, how they must fight and destroy each other on their way to the throne of God.

  Pablo first heard footsteps, then saw a blurred figure, and then recognized Pilon. "Ai, amigo," he called enthusiastically. "What great burden is it thou carriest?"

  Pilon stopped dead and faced the ditch. "I thought you were in jail," he said severely. "I heard about a goose."

  "So I was, Pilon," Pablo said jocularly. "But I was not well received. The judge said the sentence did me no good, and the police said I ate more than the allowance for three men. And so," he finished proudly, "I am on parole."

  Pilon was saved from selfishness. True, he did not take the wine to Danny's house, but instantly he invited Pablo to share it at the rented house. If two generous paths branch from the high road of life and only one can be followed, who is to judge which is best?

  Pilon and Pablo entered the little house joyfully. Pilon lighted a candle and produced two fruit jars for glasses.

  "Health!" said Pablo.

  "Salud!" said Pilon.

  And in a few moments, "Salud!" said Pablo.

  "Mud in your eye!" said Pilon.

  They rested a little while. "Su servidor," said Pilon.

  "Down the rat-hole," said Pablo.

  Two gallons is a great deal of wine, even for two paisanos. Spiritually the jugs may be graduated thus: Just below the shoulder of the first bottle, serious and concentrated conversation. Two inches farther down, sweetly sad memory. Three inches more, thoughts of old and satisfactory loves. An inch, thoughts of bitter loves. Bottom of the first jug, general and undirected sadness. Shoulder of the second jug, black, unholy despondency. Two fingers down, a song of death or longing. A thumb, every other song each one knows. The graduations stop here, for the trail splits and there is no certainty. From this point on anything can happen.

  But let us go back to the first mark, which says serious and concentrated conversation, for it was at that place that Pilon made his coup. "Pablo," he said, "dost thou never get tired of sleeping in ditches, wet and homeless, friendless and alone?"

  "No," said Pablo.

  Pilon mellowed his voice persuasively. "So I thought, my friend, when I was a dirty gutter-dog. I too was content, for I did not know how sweet a little house is, and a roof, and a garden. Ah, Pablo, this is indeed living."

  "It's pretty nice," Pablo agreed.

  Pilon pounced. "See, Pablo, how would you like to rent part of my house? There would never be the cold ground for you any more. Never the hard sand under the wharf with crabs getting in your shoes. How would you like to live here with me?"

  "Sure," said Pablo.

  "Look, you will pay only fifteen dollars a month! And you may use all the house except my bed, and all the garden. Think of it, Pablo! And if someone should write you a letter, he will have some place to send it to."

  "Sure," said Pablo. "That's swell."

  Pilon sighed with relief. He had not realized how the debt to Danny rode on his shoulders. The fact that he was fairly sure Pablo would never pay any rent did not mitigate his triumph. If Danny should ever ask for money, Pilon could say, "I will pay when Pablo pays."

  They moved on to the next graduation, and Pilon remembered how happy he had been when he was a little boy. "No care then, Pablo. I knew not sin. I was very happy."

  "We have never been happy since," Pablo agreed sadly.

  4

  HOW JESUS MARIA CORCORAN, A GOOD MAN, BECAME AN UNWILLING VEHICLE OF EVIL.

  Life passed smoothly on for Pilon and Pablo. In the morning when the sun was up clear of the pine trees, when the blue bay rippled and sparkled below them, they arose slowly and thoughtfully from their beds.

  It is a time of quiet joy, the sunny morning. When the glittery dew is on the mallow weeds, each leaf holds a jewel which is beautiful if not valuable. This is no time for hurry or for bustle. Thoughts are slow and deep and golden in the morning.

  Pablo and Pilon in their blue jeans and blue shirts walked in comradeship into the gulch behind the house, and after a little time they returned to sit in the sun on the front porch, to listen to the fish horns on the streets of Monterey, to discuss in wandering, sleepy tones the doings of Tortilla Flat; for there are a thousand climaxes on Tortilla Flat for every day the world wheels through.

  They were at peace there on the porch. Only their toes wriggled on the warm boards when the flies landed on them.

  "If all the dew were diamonds," Pablo said, "we would be very rich. We would be drunk all our lives."

  But Pilon, on whom the curse of realism lay uneasily, added, "Everybody would have too many diamonds. There would be no price for them, but wine always costs money. If only it would rain wine for a day, now, and we had a tank to catch it in."

  "But good wine," interjected Pablo. "Not rotgut swill like the last you got."

  "I didn't pay for it," said Pilon. "Someone hid it in the grass by the dance hall. What can you expect of wine you find?"

  They sat and waved their hands listlessly at the flies. "Cornelia Ruiz cut up the black Mexican yesterday," Pilon observed.

  Pablo raised his eyes in mild interest. "Fight?" he asked.

  "Oh, no, the black one did not know Cornelia got a new man yesterday, and he tried to come in. So Cornelia cut him."

  "He should have known," Pablo said virtuously.

  "Well, he was down in the town when Cornelia got her new man. The black one just tried to go in through the window when she locked the door."

  "The black one is a fool," said Pablo, "Is he dead?"

  "Oh, no. She just cut him up a little bit on the arms. Cornelia was not angry. She just didn't want the black one to come in."

  "Cornelia is not a very steady woman," said Pablo. "But still she has masses sung for her father, ten years dead."

  "He will need them," Pilon observed. "He was a bad man and never went to jail for it, and he never went to confession. When old Ruiz was dying the priest came to give him solace, and Ruiz confessed. Cornelia says the priest was white as buckskin when he came out of the sickroom. But afterward that priest said he didn't believe half what Ruiz confessed."

  Pablo, with a cat-like stroke, killed a fly that landed on his knee. "Ruiz was always a liar," he said. "That soul will need plenty of masses. But do you think a mass has virtue when the money for that mass comes out of men's pockets while they sleep in wine at Cornelia's house?"

  "A mass is a mass," said Pilon. "Where you get two-bits is of no interest to the man who sells you a glass of wine. And where a mass comes from is of no interest to God. He just likes them, the same as you like wine. Father Murphy used to go fishing all the time, and for months the Holy Sacrament tasted like mackerel, but that did not make it less holy. These things are for priests to explain. They are nothing for us to worry about. I wonder where we could get some eggs to eat. It would be good to eat an egg now."

  Pablo tilted his hat down over his eyes to keep the sun from bothering him. "Charlie Meeler told me that Danny is with Rosa Martin, that Portagee girl."

  Pilon sat upright in alarm. "Maybe that girl will want to marry Danny. Those Portagees always want to marry, and they love money. Maybe when they are married Danny will
bother us about the rent. That Rosa will want new dresses. All women do. I know them."

  Pablo too looked annoyed. "Maybe if we went and talked to Danny--" he suggested.

  "Maybe Danny has some eggs," said Pilon. "Those chickens of Mrs. Morales are good layers."

  They put on their shoes and walked slowly toward Danny's house.

  Pilon stooped and picked up a beer bottle cap and cursed and threw it down. "Some evil man has left it there to deceive people," he said.

  "I tried it last night," said Pablo. He looked into a yard where the green corn was ripe and made a mental note of its ripeness.

  They found Danny sitting on his front porch, behind the rose bush, wriggling his toes to keep the flies off.

  "Ai, amigos," he greeted them listlessly.

  They sat down beside him and took off their hats and their shoes. Danny took out a sack of tobacco and some papers and passed them to Pilon. Pilon looked mildly shocked, but made no comment.

  "Cornelia Ruiz cut up the black Mexican," he said.

  "I heard about it," said Danny.

  Pablo spoke acidly. "These women, there is no virtue in them any more."

  "It is dangerous to lie with them," said Pilon. I have heard that there is one young Portagee girl here on the Flat who can give a man something to remember her by, if he goes to the trouble to get it."

  Pablo made disapproving clucking noises with his tongue. He spread his hands in front of him. "What is a man to do?" he asked. "Is there no one to trust?"

  They watched Danny's face and saw no alarm appear there.

  "This girl's name is Rosa," said Pilon. "I would not say her last name."

  "Oh, you mean Rosa Martin," Danny observed with very little interest. "Well, what can you expect of a Portagee?"

  Pablo and Pilon sighed with relief.

  "How are Mrs. Morales' chickens getting along?" Pilon asked casually.

  Danny shook his head sadly. "Every one of those chickens is dead. Mrs. Morales put up some string beans in jars, and the jars blew up, and she fed the beans to the chickens, and those chickens all died, every one."

  "Where are those chickens now?" Pablo demanded.

  Danny waved two fingers back and forth in negation. "Someone told Mrs. Morales not to eat those chickens or she would be sick, but we scraped the insides good and sold them to the butcher."

  "Has anybody died?" Pablo asked.

  "No. I guess those chickens would have been all right."

  "Perhaps you bought a little wine with the money from those chickens?" Pilon suggested.

  Danny smiled cynically at him. "Mrs. Morales did, and I went to her house last night. That is a pretty woman in some lights, and not so old either."

  The alarm came back to Pablo and Pilon.

  "My Cousin Weelie says she is fifty years old," Pilon said excitedly.

  Danny spread his hands. "What is it how old in years she is?" he observed philosophically. "She is lively, that one. She owns her house and has two hundred dollars in the bank." Then Danny became a little embarrassed. "I would like to make a present to Mrs. Morales."

  Pilon and Pablo regarded their feet and tried by strenuous mental effort to ward off what was coming. But their effort had no value.

  "If I had a little money," said Danny, "I would buy her a box of big candy." He looked meaningly at his tenants, but neither one answered him. "I would need only a dollar or two," he suggested.

  "Chin Kee is drying squids," Pilon observed. "Perhaps you could cut squids for half a day."

  Danny spoke pointedly. "It would not look well for a man who owns two houses to cut squids. But perhaps if a little rent were ever paid--"

  Pilon arose angrily. "Always the rent," he cried. "You would force us into the streets--into the gutters, while you sleep in your soft bed. Come, Pablo," Pilon said angrily, "we will get money for this miser, this Jew."

  The two of them stalked off.

  "Where will we get money?" Pablo asked.

  "I don't know," said Pilon. "Maybe he won't ask again." But the inhuman demand had cut deep into their mental peace. "We will call him 'Old Jew' when we see him," said Pilon. "We have been his friends for years. When he was in need, we fed him. When he was cold, we clothed him."

  "When was that?" Pablo asked.

  "Well, we would have, if he needed anything and we had it. That is the kind of friends we were to him. And now he crushes our friendship into the ground for a box of big candy to give to an old fat woman."

  "Candy is not good for people," said Pablo.

  So much emotion had exhausted Pilon. He sat down in the ditch beside the road and put his chin in his hands and was disconsolate.

  Pablo sat down too, but he only did it to rest, for his friendship with Danny was not as old and beautiful as Pilon's was.

  The bottom of the ditch was choked with dry grass and bushes. Pilon, staring downward in his sorrow and resentment, saw a human arm sticking out from under a bush. And then, beside the arm, a half-full gallon bottle of wine. He clutched Pablo's arm and pointed.

  Pablo stared. "Maybe he is dead, Pilon."

  Pilon had got his breath and his fine clear vision again. "If he is dead, the wine will do him no good. He can't be buried with it."

  The arm stirred, swept back the bushes, and disclosed the frowsy face and red stubble beard of Jesus Maria Corcoran. "Ai, Pilon. Ai, Pablo," he said hazily. "Que tomas?"

  Pilon leaped down the bank on him. "Amigo, Jesus Maria! You are not well!"

  Jesus Maria smiled sweetly. "Just drunk," he murmured. He rose to his knees. "Come have a drink, my friends. Drink deep. There is plenty more."

  Pilon tilted the bottle over his elbow. He swallowed four times and over a pint left the jug. Then Pablo took the bottle from him, and Pablo played with it as a cat plays with a feather. He polished the mouth with his sleeve. He smelled the wine. He took three or four preliminary sips and let a few drops run all around his mouth, to tantalize himself. At last, "Madre de Dios, que vino!" he said. He raised the jug and the red wine gurgled happily down his throat.

  Pilon's hand was out long before Pablo had to breathe again. Pilon turned a soft and admiring countenance to his friend Jesus Maria. "Hast thou discovered a treasure in the woods?" he asked. "Has some great man died and named thee in his will, my little friend?"

  Jesus Maria was a humanitarian, and kindness was always in him. He cleared his throat and spat. "Give me a drink," he said. "My throat is dry. I will tell you how it was." He drank dreamily, like a man who has so much wine that he can take his time in drinking it, can even spill a little without remorse. "I was sleeping on the beach two nights ago," he said. "Out on the beach near Seaside. In the night the little waves washed a rowboat to the shore. Oh, a nice little rowboat, and the oars were there. I got in and rowed it down to Monterey. It was easily worth twenty dollars, but trade was slow, and I only got seven."

  "Thou hast money left?" Pilon put in excitedly.

  "I am telling you how it was," Jesus Maria said with some dignity. "I bought two gallons of wine and brought them up here to the woods, and then I went to walk with Arabella Gross. For her I bought one pair of silk drawers in Monterey. She liked them--so soft they were, and so pink. And then I bought a pint of whisky for Arabella, and then after a while we met some soldiers and she went away with them."

  "Oh, the thief of a good man's money!" Pilon cried in horror.

  "No," said Jesus Maria dreamily. "It was time she went anyway. And then I came here and went to sleep."

  "Then thou hast no more money?"

  "I don't know," said Jesus Maria. "I will see." He fished in his pocket and brought out three crumpled dollar bills and a dime. "Tonight," he said, "I will buy for Arabella Gross one of those little things that goes around higher up."

  "You mean the little silk pockets on a string?"

  "Yes," said Jesus Maria, "and not so little as you might think either." He coughed to clear his throat.

  Instantly Pilon was filled with solicitude. "It
is the night air," he said. "It is not good to sleep out in the open. Come, Pablo, we will take him to our house and cure this cold of his. The malady of the lungs has a good start, but we will cure it."

  "What are you talking about?" said Jesus Maria. "I'm all right."

  "So you think," said Pilon. "So Rudolfo Kelling thought. And you yourself went to his funeral a month ago. So Angelina Vasquez thought. She died last week."

  Jesus Maria was frightened. "What do you think is the matter?"

  "It is sleeping in this night air," Pilon said sagely. "Your lungs will not stand it."

  Pablo wrapped the wine jug in a big weed, so disguising it that anyone passing would have been consumed with curiosity until he knew what that weed contained.

  Pilon walked beside Jesus Maria, touching him now and then under the elbow to remind him that he was not a well man. They took him to their house and laid him on a cot, and although the day was warm, they covered him with an old comforter. Pablo spoke movingly of those poor ones who writhed and suffered with tuberculosis. And then Pilon pitched his voice to sweetness. He spoke with reverence of the joy of living in a little house. When the night was far gone, and all the talk and wine were gone, and outside the deadly mists clung to the ground like the ghosts of giant leeches, then one did not go out to lie in the sickly damp of a gulch. No, one got into a deep, soft, warm bed and slept like a little child.

  Jesus Maria went to sleep at this point. Pilon and Pablo had to wake him up and give him a drink. Then Pilon spoke movingly of the mornings when one lay in one's warm nest until the sun was high enough to be of some use. One did not go shivering about in the dawn, beating one's hands to keep them from freezing.

  At last Pilon and Pablo moved in on Jesus Maria as two silent hunting Airedales converge on their prey. They rented the use of their house to Jesus Maria for fifteen dollars a month. He accepted happily. They shook hands all around. The jug came out of its weed. Pilon drank deeply, for he knew his hardest task was before him. He said it very gently and casually, while Jesus Maria was drinking out of the bottle.

  "And you will pay only three dollars on account now."

  Jesus Maria put down the bottle and looked at him in horror. "No," he exploded. "I made a promise to Arabella Gross to buy one of those little things. I will pay the rent when it is time."

  Pilon knew he had blundered. "When you lay on that beach at Seaside, God floated the little rowboat to you. Do you think the good God did it so you could buy silk drawers for a cannery slut? No! God did it so you would not die from sleeping on the ground in the cold. Do you think God is interested in Arabella's breasts? And besides, we will take a two-dollar deposit, " he went on. "For one dollar you can get one of those things big enough to hold the udders of a cow."