The Road to Los Angeles by John Fante Read Free Book Online Page B

the others, with a crooked thumb, so don't stop. Never! But you'll pay, nevertheless.

    They wouldn't give me a ride. He killed crabs, that fellow up there ahead. Why give him a ride? He loves paper ladies in clothes closets. Think of it! So don't give him a ride, that Frankenstein, that toad in the road, that black spider, snake, dog, rat, fool, monster, idiot. They wouldn't give me a ride; all right — so what! And see if I care! To hell with all of you! It suits me fine. I love to walk on these God-given legs, and by God I'll walk. Like Nietzsche. Like Kant. Immanuel Kant. What do you know about Immanuel Kant? You fools in your V-8s and Chevrolets!

    When I got to the plant I stood among the others. They moved about in a thick clot before a green platform. The tight faces, the cold faces. Then a man came out. No work today, fellows. And yet there was a job or two, if you could paint, if you knew about transmissions, if you had experience, if you had worked in the Detroit plant.

    But there was no work for Arturo Bandini. I saw it at a glance, and so I wouldn't let them refuse me. I was amused. This spectacle, this scene of men before a platform amused me. I'm here for a special reason, sir: a confidential mission, if I may say so, merely checking conditions for my report. The president of the United States of America sent me. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, he sent me. Frank and I — we're like that! Let me know the state of things on the Pacific Coast, Arturo; send me firsthand facts and figures; let me know in your own words what the masses are thinking out there.

    And so I was a spectator. Life is a stage. Here is drama, Franklin old Kid, old Pal, old Sock; here is stark drama in the hearts of men. I'll notify the White House immediately.

    A telegram in code for Franklin. Frank: unrest on the Pacific Coast. Advise send twenty thousand men and guns, population in terror. Perilous situation. Ford plant in ruins. Shall take charge personally. My word is law here. Your old buddy, Arturo.

    There was an old man leaning against the wall. His nose was running clear to the tip of his chin, but he was blissful and didn't know it. It amused me. Very amusing, this old man. I'll have to make a note of this for Franklin; he loves anecdotes. Dear Frank: you'd have died if you'd have seen this old man! How Franklin will love this, chuckling as he repeats it to members of his cabinet. Say boys, did you hear the latest from my pal Arturo out on the Pacific Coast? I strolled up and down, a student of mankind, a philosopher, past the old man with the riotous nose. The philosopher out of the West contemplates the human scene.

    The old man smiled his way and I smiled mine. I looked at him and he looked at me. Smile. Evidently he didn't know who I was. No doubt he confused me with the rest of the herd. Very amusing this, great sport to travel incognito. Two philosophers smiling wistfully at one another over the fate of man. He was genuinely amused, his old nose running, his blue eyes twinkling with quiet laughter. He wore blue overalls that covered him completely. Around his waist was a belt that had no purpose whatever, a useless appendage, merely a belt supporting nothing, not even his belly, for he was thin. Possibly a whim of his, something to make him laugh when he dressed in the morning.

    His face beamed with a larger smile, inviting me to come forward and deliver an opinion if I liked; we were kindred souls, he and I, and no doubt he saw through my disguise and recognized a person of depth and importance, one who stood out from the herd.

    "Not much today," I said. "The situation, as I see it, grows more acute daily."

    He shook his head with delight, his old nose running blissfully, a Plato with a cold. A very old man, maybe eighty, with false teeth, skin like old shoes, a meaningless belt and a philosophic smile. The dark mass of men moved around us.

    "Sheep!" I said. "Alas, they are sheep! Victims of Comstockery and the American