Run River by Joan Didion Read Free Book Online

that fall they did not have as many parties. Possibly due to his failure to comprehend that three speeches at dinners at the Sutter Club in Sacramento and a large picnic attended mainly by various branches of the candidate’s family did not in 1938 constitute an aggressive political campaign, he was defeated in the November general election by the Democratic candidate, a one-time postal clerk named Henry (“Hank”) Catlin. Henry Catlin made it clear that the “Gentleman Incumbent” was in the pay of Satan as well as of the Pope, a natural enough front populaire since the Vatican was in fact the workshop of the Devil. In neighborhoods of heavy Mexican penetration, however, Henry Catlin would abandon this suggestion in favor of another: that Walter Knight had been excommunicated for marrying out of the Church and other sins, and he could send his Protestant daughter to Catholic schools until hell froze over and it wouldn’t make a whit of difference. “I don’t know how you folks think a family man ought to behave,” he was frequently heard to remark at picnics and rallies. Quite aside from Walter Knight’s not inconsiderable personal liabilities, he was, as well, the representative of “the robber land barons” and the “sworn foe of the little fellow.” Henry Catlin, on the other hand, stood up for the little fellow and for his Human Right to a Place in the Sun, and if he failed to quote Progress and Poverty , it was only because he had not heard of Henry George.
    On the night of the election, Lily and Edith Knight sat in the living room alone and listened to the returns on the radio. Although the shape of Walter Knight’s political future was clear by ten o’clock, Edith Knight waited until the last votes had been reported before she folded her needlepoint and stood up.
    “Don’t cry,” she said to Lily. “It’s nothing for you to cry about.”
    “I’m not.”
    “I can see you are. It’s your age. You’re going through that mopey phase.”
    “He can’t be Governor now. He couldn’t lose this election and ever get nominated.”
    Edith Knight looked at Lily a long time.
    “He never could have been,” she said finally. “Never in this world.”
    From the stair landing, she added: “But don’t you dare pay any mind to what those Okies said about him. You hear?”
    Lily nodded, staring intently at the red light on the radio dial.
    She was still crying when Henry Catlin came on the radio to accept his sacred burden. He explained in his Midwestern accent how humbling it was to be the choice of the people—of all the people, you folks who really work the land, you folks who know the value of a dollar because you bleed for every one you get—to be the choice of the people to help lead them into California’s great tomorrow, the new California, Culbert Olson’s California, the California of jobs and benefits and milk and honey and 160 acres for everybody equably distributed, the California that was promised us yessir I mean in Scripture.
    “Well,” Walter Knight said, taking off his hat. “Lily.”
    She had meant to be upstairs before he came, and did not know what to say. “I’m sorry,” she said finally.
    “No call to be sorry, no call for that at all. We’re in the era of the medicine men. We’re going to have snake oil every Thursday. Dr. Townsend is going to administer it personally, with an unwilling assist from Sheridan Downey.”
    She could tell that he was a little drunk.
    “Snake oil,” he repeated with satisfaction. “Right in your Ham and Eggs. According to Mr. Catlin, we are starting up a golden ladder into California’s great tomorrow.”
    “I heard him.”
    Humming “We Are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder,” Walter Knight opened the liquor cupboard, took out a bottle, and then, without opening it, lay down on the couch and closed his eyes.
    “Different world, Lily. Different rules. But we’ll beat them at their own game. You know why?” He opened his eyes and looked at