Sweet Thursday by John Steinbeck Read Free Book Online Page A

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    Over Doc and Mack a golden melancholy settled like autumn leaves, melancholy concocted equally of Old Tennis Shoes and old times, of friends lost and friends changed. And both of them knew they were avoiding one subject, telling minor stories to avoid a major one. But at last they were dry, and their subject confronted them.
    Doc opened with considerable bravery. “What do you think of the new owner over at the grocery?”
    â€œOh, he’s all right,” said Mack. “Kind of interesting. The only trouble is he can’t never take Lee Chong’s place. There was never a friend like Lee Chong,” Mack said brokenly.
    â€œYes, he was wise and good,” said Doc.
    â€œAnd tricky,” said Mack.
    â€œAnd smart,” said Doc.
    â€œHe took care of a lot of people,” said Mack.
    â€œAnd he took a few,” said Doc.
    They volleyed Lee Chong back and forth, and their memories built virtues that would have surprised him, and cleverness and beauty too. While one told a fine tale of that mercantile Chinaman the other waited impatiently to top the story. Out of their memories there emerged a being scarcely human, a dragon of goodness and an angel of guile. In such a way are the gods created.
    But the bottle was empty now, and its emptiness irritated Mack, and his irritation oozed toward Lee Chong’s memory.
    â€œThe son-of-a-bitch was sneaky,” said Mack. “He should of told us he was going to sell out and go away. It wasn’t friendly, doing all that alone without his friends to help.”
    â€œMaybe that’s what he was afraid of,” said Doc. “Lee wrote to me about it. I couldn’t advise him—I was too far away—so he was safe.”
    â€œYou can’t never find out what a Chink’s got on his mind,” said Mack. “Doc, who would of thought he was what you might say—plotting?”
    Oh, it had been a shocking thing. Lee Chong had operated his emporium for so long that no one could possibly have foreseen that he would sell out. He was so mixed up in the feeding and clothing of Cannery Row that he was considered permanent. Who could have suspected the secret turnings of his paradoxical Oriental mind, which seems to have paralleled the paradoxical Occidental mind?
    It is customary to think of a sea captain sitting in his cabin, planning a future grocery store not subject to wind or bottom-fouling. Lee Chong dreamed while he worked his abacus and passed out pints of Old Tennis Shoes and delicately sliced bacon with his big knife. He dreamed all right—he dreamed of the sea. He did not share his plans or ask advice. He would have got lots of advice.
    One day Lee Chong sold out and bought a schooner. He wanted to go trading in the South Seas. He dreamed of palms and Polynesians. In the hold of his schooner he loaded the entire stock of his store—all the canned goods, the rubber boots, the caps and needles and small tools, the fireworks and calendars, even the glass-fronted showcases where he kept gold-plated collar buttons and cigarette lighters. He took it all with him. And the last anyone saw of him, he was waving his blue naval cap from the flying bridge of his dream ship as he passed the whistle buoy at Point Pinos into the sunset. And if he didn’t go down on the way over, that’s where he is now—probably lying in a hammock under an awning on the rear deck, while beautiful Polynesian girls in very scanty clothes pick over his stock of canned tomatoes and striped mechanics’ caps.
    â€œWhy do you suppose he done it?” Mack asked.
    â€œWho knows?” said Doc. “Who knows what lies deep in any man’s mind? Who knows what any man wants?”
    â€œHe won’t be happy there,” said Mack. “He’ll be lonely out among them foreigners. You know, Doc, I figured it out. It was them goddam movies done it. You remember, he used to close up every Thursday night. That’s