Full of Life by John Fante Read Free Book Online

when they learned Joyce was pregnant.
    For two hours I loafed around. I drank beer at the Tuscany Club, and shot a game of pool with Reed Walker at the Sylvan Oaks. Reed was postmaster; he had been Joyce’s beau in high school. Not one person I met that afternoon was unaware of the coming child, not even Lou Sing, down in the faded brick buildings that comprised San Juan’s Chinatown. We sat in front of Lou’s herb shop and played chess, his many children shouting and playing in the street. At seven o’clock it was still daylight. The marquee lights went on at the San Juan Theater.
    Suddenly I was imbued with the spirit of Joyce, lonely for her. The town had done it, the knowing that she had played in these streets as a little girl, and I was full of quick obscure desire. I went to a pay station and telephoned her long distance. I told her my mission had been a failure, that I was coming home as soon as possible. She asked of the town, how it looked.
    “Remember the pepper tree in Mother’s back yard?” she asked. “Is it still there? Have they cut it down?” I told her I’d walk over and find out.
    “My first doll is buried under that tree. She died of knife wounds—scalped by the Indians.”
    “A horrible death.”
    “Her head was all broken in. The dog did it. I cried and cried.”
    I hung up and walked down Lincoln Street to the place Joyce had lived as a child. The house had been torn down years ago, and the city now used the land forparking bulldozers, scrapers and street-repair equipment. The pepper tree was still there. I stood under it, touched the trunk. I was very lonely for my wife. Ants crawled in the bark of the tree. I picked off two small red ants and put them in my mouth and chewed and swallowed them. Then I walked back to Mama’s house.
    Papa wasn’t there. The table was set in the kitchen—plates for three of us. Seated at the window, Mama was reciting the rosary. Twilight dimmed the room. She smiled without speaking, indicating that she had spoken to Papa. I waited for her to finish the beads. Dinner warmed on the stove: liver and bacon, peas cooked in onion, spinach and cheese. I sampled everything, drank a glass of wine, and waited. She told the last bead, kissed the cross, and put the rosary in her apron pocket.
    “What’d he say?”
    “Nothing. Not a word. He just walked out.”
    “Where is he?”
    She rolled her eyes and rocked her head. Papa was on the town, drinking to forget his troubles.
    “I don’t blame him, Mama.”
    “He took ten dollars.”
    “What’s the difference?”
    “He’ll drink brandy. He’ll spend it all.”
    “Good. He has it coming.”
    “Oh, I’m not worried. I said the rosary. He’ll be all right. But he’ll spend ten dollars.”
    I took out my wallet and gave her five new twenty-dollar bills.
    “I can’t take it,” she said. “You’ll need it for the baby.” She folded the money and put it inside her blouse. “I really shouldn’t take it. I don’t know what’s come over me.” I knew of course what would happen to that hundred. The moment I left town she would air mail it to my brother Jim, who was having a rough time in Susanville.
    She served my dinner. She had me alone, all to herself, and I prepared for it, feeling it coming on. Sure enough, she began making passes at me, those mother-passes that leave you helpless. She stood behind me and touched my hair. She fondled my ears. She let her arms drop over my shoulders, her palms rubbing my chest. I kept reaching for things, extricating myelf from every new hold. She finally took my left hand and began exploring the fingers. I tried tugging it away, gently, but she would not let go, kissing each finger. I felt great pity for her, for all women with their great consuming mother passion. Then she found a little mark on my neck where a cat had scratched me as a boy, and this brought a fresh facet of her loneliness, and she hurried to the trunk in the bedroom, and I knew it was coming, a