There were tears in Mack’s eyes. “You done fine, Hazel baby,” he said. “Couldn’t nobody do better. Who helped you?”
“Joe Elegant,” said Hazel. “What a nice guy!”
Whitey No. 2 moved up at Mack’s imperceptible signal. “You want I should go now?”
“Right now,” said Mack softly. “Kick the bejeezus out of him.”
Hazel moved proudly in on their soft talk. “Mr. Joe Elegant presents his compliments,” he said. “He is sorry he cannot attend as he had to leave town on business. Let’s see—is that all?—yep, that’s all.”
“We’ll thank him when he comes back,” said Mack grimly.
The guests looked at Hazel with stricken eyes, and no one laughed. One glance at Mack’s jutting chin and doubled fists stopped that impulse.
“Get on with it,” Wide Ida growled.
Mack pulled himself together, advanced to the curtain, and turned to face the guests.
“Fellow citizens,” he said, “right here in Cannery Row lives a guy that there can’t nobody want a better friend. For years we have took his bounty without sharing nothing back at him. Now this guy needs a certain article that runs into dough. Therefore it is the pleasure of I and the boys to raffle off the Palace Flop house to buy a microscope for Doc. We got three hundred and eighty bucks. Curtain!”
Doc shouted, “Mack! You’re crazy!”
“Shut up!” said Mack. “Curtain.”
The cloth was pulled aside to reveal Johnny Carriaga dressed in an aluminum supporter and a pair of blue paper wings. Johnny brandished his bow. “I-am-Cupid-God-of-Love!” he shouted. Then the winning ticket slipped from his palm and fluttered to the floor. Johnny scrambled after it, yelling, “I-draw-a-bead-on-unexpected-hearts.” He grabbed the ticket and turned to Mack. “What do I do now?” he asked.
Mack gave up. “Oh, what the hell!” Then he shouted, “Is that the ticket you have drawn, Cupid?”
“I have plucked from the many.” Johnny hadn’t been near the bowl but he yelled it anyway.
“Give it to me, you little bastard,” said Mack quietly. “Friends,” he said, “do my eyes deceive me? This is a surprise! Well, well! Folks, it gives me great pleasure to announce that the Palace Flop house has passed into the hands of Doc.”
Doc was jarred toward sobriety. He moved close to Mack. “You’re crazy!” he said.
“Like a fox,” said Mack.
“Who told you you owned it? I didn’t tell.”
“How do you mean, Doc?”
“I didn’t think Chong told anybody but me. He was afraid you’d do something like this.”
Mack said, “Let’s you and I step outside.”
Under the lanterns they faced each other. Doc popped the champagne cork and handed the bottle to Mack, who cupped his mouth over the glistening foam.
“What was you saying, Doc?” he asked quietly.
“Chong wanted you and the boys to have a home. He deeded it to you and put up the money for ten years’ taxes.”
“Well, whyn’t he tell us?”
“He was afraid if you knew you owned it you’d mortgage it or sell it and then you wouldn’t have a home.”
Mack was shaken. “Doc,” he said, “would you do me the favor? Don’t tell the boys.”
“Why, sure.”
“Shake on it?”
“Shake! Have a drink.”
Suddenly Mack laughed. “Doc,” he said, “I and the boys want to ask will you rent the joint to us?”
“Sure I will, Mack.”
“I hope they never find out. They’d skin me,” said Mack.
“Wouldn’t it be simpler if we just forgot the raffle?”
“No, sir!” said Mack. “Chong was right. I wouldn’t trust the boys not to sell her sometime when they need a buck. I wouldn’t trust myself.”
The visit of Old Jingleballicks had put Doc’s system to an outrageous test. Meals had been infrequent, sleep fitful, emotions on stilts, and the intake of alcohol enormous. The raffle had jarred him out of a pleasant swimming state into something resembling sobriety, but not very closely. A fog of unreality like a dream feeling was not in him but all around him. He went inside the Palace and saw the dwarfs and monsters and the preposterous Hazel all lighted by the flickering lanterns. None of it seemed the fabric of sweet reality. The music was deafening. Old Jay danced by, clutching a pale brunette to his stomach as though she were a pain—a disgusting sight, and as unreal as the rest.
Anyone untrained in tom-wallagers might well have been startled at this tom-wallager. Eddie waltzed to the rumba music, his arms embracing an invisible partner. Wide Ida lay on the floor wrestling with Whitey No. 2, at each try displaying acres of pink pan ties, while a wild conga line of dwarfs and animals milled about. Johnny Carriaga ran wild. Standing on a box, he fired at random but not at unsuspecting hearts. Mrs. Alfred Wong had a rubber-tipped arrow stuck between her shoulderblades. Then Johnny winged a lantern, and it crashed in flames and set fire to three dwarfs, so that they had to be put out with a punch bowl.
Mack and Doc were swept into the conga line. To Doc the room began to revolve slowly and then to rise and fall like the deck of a stately ship in a groundswell. The music roared and tinkled. Hazel beat out rhythm on the stove with his sword until Johnny, aiming carefully, got a bull’s-eye on Hazel. Hazel leaped in the air and came down on the oven door, scattering crushed ice all over the floor. One of the guests had got wedged in the grandfather clock. From the outside the Palace Flop house seemed to swell and subside like rising bread.
Doc cupped his hands close to Mack’s ear. “Where’s Fauna and the girls?” he shouted.
“Later,” Mack cried.
“What?”
“Coming later,” and he added, “Better get here pretty soon before the joint burns down.”
“What?”
“Skip it,” Mack shouted.
At this point Whitey No. 1 fought his way to Mack’s side and yelled, “Mack, they’re coming!”
Mack rushed to the Espaldas Mojadas and raised both hands at them. Johnny aimed his last arrow at the guitarón and took the fret out clean.
“Hold it!” Mack screamed.
The music stopped, and silence fell on the room. Then the unrealest part of all began to happen.
Very softly the sound of a sweet muted trumpet whispered, and the crazy thing was playing the “Wedding March”[108] from Lohengrin, and even as Doc listened the sly brass began playing with it, slid into minors, took a short rhythm ride, and moaned away at blues. The dancers were very still, almost stuffed. Doc found the source of the music—Cacahuete Rivas in the corner of the room, muting his trumpet with a damp sponge.
Then in this dream the paint-splashed curtain was pulled aside, and Fauna, the witch, came through the door, straddling a broom.
Doc thought, God! I’d hate to testify about this. I’d get the booby-hatch!
Fauna barked, “This here’s a very happy occasion.” She looked around. “Doc, come here.”
He moved vaguely toward her.
Four girls from the Bear Flag came through the door, dressed in blinding colors. They ranged themselves two on each side of the door, facing inward, holding their beribboned whisky bottles to make an arch.
Fauna dismounted from her broom and ripped off her black wrapper, displaying a sheath of silver lamé. In her hand miraculously appeared a silver wand tipped with a gold star. She struck a pose, riding on her toes as though prepared for flight. “I am your fairy godmother,” she shouted. “I bring you Snow White, the bride!”
Then Suzy appeared in the doorway, a transformed Suzy in a wedding gown. The silver crown was on her head, and from its points a veil was suspended. She looked lovely and young and excited. Her lips were parted.
108
“Wedding March”…