Cannery Row by John Steinbeck Read Free Book Online

“Hum!”
    Eddie said, “What kind of a party you think Doc’d like?”
    “What other kind is there?” said Jones.
    Mack mused, “Doc wouldn’t like this stuff from the winin’ jug.”
    “How do you know?” Hughie demanded. “You never offered him none.”
    “Oh, I know,” said Mack. “He’s been to college. Once I seen a dame in a fur coat go in there. Never did see her come out. It was two o’clock the last I looked—and that church music goin’. No—you couldn’t offer him none of this.” He filled his glass again.
    “This tastes pretty nice after the third glass,” Hughie said loyally.
    “No,” said Mack. “Not for Doc. Have to be whiskey— the real thing.”
    “He likes beer,” said Jones. “He’s all the time going over to Lee’s for beer—sometimes in the middle of the night.”
    Mack said, “I figure when you buy beer, you’re buying too much tare. Take 8 percent beer—why you’re spending your dough for 92 percent water and color and hops and stuff like that. Eddie,” he added, “you think you could get four five bottles of whiskey at La Ida next time Whitey’s sick?”
    “Sure,” said Eddie. “Sure I could get it but that’d be the end—no more golden eggs. I think Johnnie’s suspicious anyways. Other day he says, ‘I smell a mouse named Eddie.’ I was gonna lay low and only bring the jug for a while.”
    “Yeah!” said Jones. “Don’t you lose that job. If something happened to Whitey, you could fall right in there for a week or so ’til they got somebody else. I guess if we’re goin’ to give a party for Doc, we got to buy the whiskey. How much is whiskey a gallon?”
    “I don’t know,” said Hughie. “I never get more than a half pint at a time myself—at one time that is. I figure you get a quart and right away you got friends. But you get a half pint and you can drink it in the lot before— well before you got a lot of folks around.”
    “It’s going to take dough to give Doc a party,” said Mack. “If we’re going to give him a party at all it ought to be a good one. Should have a big cake. I wonder when is his birthday?”
    “Don’t need a birthday for a party,” said Jones.
    “No—but it’s nice,” said Mack. “I figure it would take ten or twelve bucks to give Doc a party you wouldn’t be ashamed of.”
    They looked at one another speculatively. Hughie suggested, “The Hediondo Cannery is hiring guys.”
    “No,” said Mack quickly. “We got good reputations and we don’t want to spoil them. Every one of us keeps a job for a month or more when we take one. That’s why we can always get a job when we need one. S’pose we take a job for a day or so—why we’ll lose our reputation for sticking. Then if we needed a job there wouldn’t nobody have us.” The rest nodded quick agreement.
    “I figure I’m gonna work a couple of months—November and part of December,” said Jones. “Makes it nice to have money around Christmas. We could cook a turkey this year.”
    “By God, we could,” said Mack. “I know a place up Carmel Valley where there’s fifteen hundred in one flock.”
    “Valley,” said Hughie. “You know I used to collect stuff up the Valley for Doc, turtles and crayfish and frogs. Got a nickel apiece for frogs.”
    “Me, too,” said Gay. “I got five hundred frogs one time.”
    “If Doc needs frogs it’s a setup,” said Mack. “We could go up the Carmel River and have a little outing and we wouldn’t tell Doc what it was for and then we’d give him one hell of a party.”
    A quiet excitement grew in the Palace Flophouse. “Gay,” said Mack, “take a look out the door and see if Doc’s car is in front of his place.”
    Gay set down his glass and looked out. “Not yet,” he said.
    “Well, he ought to be back any minute,” said Mack. “Now here’s how we’ll go about it. . . .”

8
    In April 1932 the boiler at the Hediondo Cannery blew a tube for the third time in two weeks and the board of