The Bear Flag was shorthanded the night of the memorial meeting for dead members sponsored by the Rattlesnake Club of Salinas. Helen and Wisteria were doing sixty days for a lady fight that is still discussed with admiration in Cannery Row.
When the last Rattlesnake had gone and the big front door was closed, the girls wandered wearily into the Ready Room, sat down, and kicked off their shoes. Becky said, “One of them Rattlesnakes tonight called us an institution and a landmark.”
Agnes said acidly, “We get a few more like Suzy and it’ll be a institution all right. I got an uncle in a institution. He goes right on fighting the battle of San Juan Hill. Where is Suzy?”
“I’m right here,” said Suzy, entering. “I was getting that cracked record out of the jukebox. Am I pooped! Let’s put it in the sack.”
“Before Fauna gives us good night? You crazy?” Mabel said. “She’d bust a gut.”
Becky sighed. “What a night! This is one time the group rate paid off. Them Rattlesnakes ain’t turned a trick since midnight but they sure was active.”
“They was going fine until they run out of liquor,” said Mabel. “That new stuff Wide Ida sent in must be made of jumping beans.”
Suzy said, “I figured if that short one told me once more how his little boy cut a worm in two with a shovel—”
“Oh, you got it too, huh? Know what the little bastard said? Only four years old too. He said, ‘I cut a wum.’ Now if he said he cut a camel I could listen to it three or four times.”
“That bald one!” said Mabel. “Did his wife have an operation! They turned her inside out. Sounded like they was pelting her. He got crying so hard I never did find out what she had.”
“A malignant artichoke,” said Becky. “I made him say it slow.”
Agnes asked, “Say, who is this guy Sigmund Ki they was singing about?”
“Never heard of him,” said Becky. “I once knew a dame said she was the original Frankie though.”
“I’ve personally knew three original Frankies,” said Mabel. “Suzy, you got to stop arguing with the customers.”
Suzy said, “If that’s the live members of the Rattlesnake Club, the dead ones is what I call dead. I can scream twice at a rubber lizard and then the hell with it.”
Fauna came out of the bedroom office and stood in the doorway, rubbing lotion into her hands. She had changed to a peach-colored dressing gown. She said seriously, “Young ladies, you can make fun of the Rattlesnakes if you want to, but if you ever get in the administration end you will welcome good solid citizens like them. Why, there was some very important people here from Salinas! I give them a good rate, but you notice there’s no busted furniture. Them free-spending sailors last Saturday night cost me eighty-five dollars in repairs. That nice boy give Becky a five-dollar tip—but he busted two windows and run off with the deer-antler halltree.”
Suzy said, “God, I’m sleepy.”
Fauna said sharply, “Suzy, I got one rule: never let the sun rise on a cross word or an unbalanced book.” She scratched her nose with a pencil. “I just wish there was more Rattlesnakes,” she said.
“I wish there was more dead members,” Suzy said.
“That’s a cross word, Suzy!” said Fauna. “The birds are chirping happily, so why can’t we? Now let’s relax. Who wants a beer?”
Becky said, “If I say I want it I’ll have to get it for everybody. My dogs are tired! You know what I was dancing? A quadrille!”
Fauna said dryly, “I seen you. I’ll have to give you some lesson, I guess. You done a kootch quadrille. It ain’t your feet should be tired. After all the posture lessons I give you, you still dance like a harlot.”
“What’s a harlot?” Becky asked.
“A whore,” said Mabel.
“Oh, harlot, huh?” said Becky.
Agnes said, “Fauna, I want you should tell Suzy when she goes on errands she should come back. She stayed over Doc’s about an hour while the Rattlesnakes was really active.”
Suzy asked, “Say, Fauna, what’s wrong with Doc?”
“Wrong? Ain’t nothing wrong with him,” said Fauna. “He’s one of the nicest fellas ever lived on Cannery Row. You’d think he’d turn bitter the way everybody hustles him. Wide Ida gets him to analyze her booze, Mack and the boys throw the hook into him for every dime that sticks out, a kid cuts his finger on the Row and he goes to Doc to get it wrapped up. Why, when Becky got in a fight with that Woodman of the World and got bit in the shoulder, she might of lost her arm if it wasn’t for Doc. Show her the scar, Becky.”
Suzy asked, “Don’t Doc never come here?”
“No, he don’t. But don’t let nothing ever give you the idea he’s strange. There’s girls goes in there with fur coats and stuff and he plays that churchy kind of music. Doc’s all right. He gets what he wants. Dora said every girl made a play for him. I put a stop to that.”
“Why’d you do that?” Suzy asked.
“I’m saving him—that’s why. You look at them gold stars over there—every star, one of my girls has married well.”
Suzy said, “Who marries hustlers?”
“Now that’s a bad attitude to take,” Fauna said coldly. “That’s the kind of attitude I try to discourage. You look at that third star from the end over there. I admit she’s kind of snooty, but why shouldn’t she be? She’s a reader in a big church in San Luis Obispo. I tell you, my girls marry, and marry well!”
Suzy said, “What’s that got to do with Doc?”
“I got him staked out for Miss Right,” said Fauna. “Someday I’ll draw a bead on him.”
“Hell,” said Suzy, “he said he don’t want to marry nobody.”
“Watch your language, Suzy,” said Fauna. And then with interest she asked, “How’d you get along with him?”
“We got in a hassle,” said Suzy. “He made me mad and I made him mad. All them goddam bugs—and a paper about nervous breakdowns in devilfish! Someday a guy in a white coat’s going to tap him on the shoulder.”
Fauna said, “Don’t believe it! Why, some of them bugs he gets as much as ten bucks for.”
“Not apiece?” said Suzy.
Fauna went on, “Why he takes an old beat-up cat he paid a quarter for and he shoots red and blue and yellow paint in it and he gets fifteen bucks for it.”
“Why, for Chrissake?” Suzy asked.
“Suzy, if you don’t watch your language I’ll wash out your mouth. Now you just get up and bring the beer for that. You’re an ignorant girl but I’ll be goddamned if I’ll let you get common.”
Suzy went out, and Fauna said, “I wonder if she might be for Doc—she’s got an awful big mouth. She’d talk her way out of an apple dumpling.”
Suzy came back with a tray of beer bottles.
Becky said, “Fauna, why don’t you read Suzy’s horoscope?”
“You mean stars and like that?” said Suzy. “What for?”
Becky said, “To see if you’re going to marry Doc.”