The Road to Los Angeles (5 page)

Chapter Five

THE APARTMENT SMELLED of a steak cooking, and in the kitchen I heard them talking. Uncle Frank was there. I looked in and said hello and he said the same. He was sitting with my sister in the breakfast nook. My mother was at the stove. He was my mother's brother, a man of forty-five with grey temples and big eyes and little hairs growing out of his nostrils. He had fine teeth. He was gentle. He lived alone in a cottage across town. He was very fond of Mona and wanted to do things for her all the time but she rarely accepted. He always helped us with money, and after my father died he practically supported us for months. He wanted us to live with him, but I was against it because he could be bossy. When my father died he paid the funeral bill and even bought a stone for the grave, which was unusual because he never thought much of my father for a brother-in-law.

The kitchen overflowed with food. There was a bushel basket of groceries on the floor and the sink board was covered with vegetables. We had a big dinner. They did all the talking. I felt crabs all over me, and in my food. I thought of those living crabs under the bridge, groping in the darkness after their dead. There was that crab Goliath. He had been a great fighter. I remembered his wonderful personality; undoubtedly he had been the leader of his people. Now he was dead. I wondered if his father and mother searched for his body in the darkness and thought of the sadness of his lover, and whether she was dead too. Goliath had fought with slits of hatred in his eyes. It had taken a lot of BB shot to kill him. He was a great crab - the greatest of all contemporary crabs, including the Princess. The Crab People ought to build him a monument. But was he greater than me? No sir. I was his conqueror. To think of it! That mighty crab, hero of his people, and I was his conqueror. The Princess too — the most ravishing crab ever known - and I had killed her too. Those crabs wouldn't forget me for a long time to come. If they wrote history I would get a lot of space in their records. They might even call me the Black Killer of the Pacific Coast. Little crabs would hear about me from their forebears and I would strike terror in their memories. By fear I would rule, even though I was not present, changing the course of their existences. Some day I would become a legend in their world. And there might even be romantic female crabs fascinated by my cruel execution of the Princess. They would make me a god, and some of them would secretly worship me and have a passion for me.

Uncle Frank and my mother and Mona kept on talking. It looked like a plot. Once Mona glanced at me, and her glance said: We are ignoring you deliberately because we want you to be uncomfortable; furthermore, you'll have your hands full with Uncle Frank after the meal. Then Uncle Frank gave me a loose smile. I knew then it meant trouble.

After the dessert the women got up and left. My mother closed the door. The whole thing looked premeditated. Uncle Frank got down to business by lighting his pipe, pushing some dishes out of the way, and leaning toward me. He took the pipe out of his mouth and shook the stem under my nose.

He said, "Look here, you little sonofabitch; I didn't know you were a thief too. I knew you were lazy, but by God I didn't know you were a thieving little thief."

I said, "I'm not a sonofabitch, either."

"I talked to Romero," he said. "I know what you did."

"I warn you," I said. "In no uncertain terms I warn you to desist from calling me a sonofabitch again."

"You stole ten dollars from Romero."

"Your presumption is colossal, unvaunted. I fail to see why you permit yourself the liberty of insulting me by calling me a sonofabitch."

He said, "Stealing from your employer! That's a fine thing."

"I tell you again, and with utmost candor that, despite your seniority and our blood-relationship, I positively forbid you to use such opprobrious names as sonofabitch in reference to me."

"A loafer and a thief for a nephew! It's disgusting."

"Please be advised, my dear uncle, that since you choose to vilify me with sonofabitch I have no alternative but to point out the blood-fact of your own scurrilousness. In short, if I am a sonofabitch it so happens that you're the brother of a bitch. Laugh that off."

"Romero could've had you arrested. I'm sorry he didn't."

"Romero is a monster, a gigantic fraud, a looming lug. His charges of piracy amuse me. I fail to be moved by his sterile accusations. But I must remind you once more to curb the glibness of your obscenities. I am not in the habit of being insulted, even by relatives."

He said, "Shut up, you little fool! I'm talking about something else. What'll you do now?"

"There are myriad possibilities."

He sneered, "Myriad possibilities! That's a good one! What the devil are you talking about? Myriad possibilities!"

I took some puffs on my cigarette and said, "I presume I'll embark on my literary career now that I have had done with the Romero breed of proletarian."

"Your what?"

"My literary plans. My prose. I shall continue with my literary efforts. I'm a writer, you know."

"A writer! Since when did you become a writer? This is a new one. Go on, I've never heard this one before."

I told him, "The writing instinct has always lain dormant in me. Now it is in the process of metamorphosis. The era of transition has passed. I am on the threshold of expression."

He said, "Balls."

I took the new notebook out of my pocket and flipped the pages with my thumb. I flipped them so fast he couldn't read anything but he could see some writing in it. "These are notes," I said. "Atmospheric notes. I'm writing a Socratic symposium on Los Angeles Harbor since the days of the Spanish Conquest."

"Let's see them," he said.

"Nothing doing. Not until after publication."

"After publication! What talk!" I put the notebook back in my pocket. It smelled of crabs. "Why don't you buck up and be a man?" he said. "It would make your father happy up there."

"Up where?" I said.

"In afterlife." I'd been waiting for that.

"There is no afterlife," I said. "The celestial hypothesis is sheer propaganda formulated by the haves to delude the have-nots. I dispute the immortal soul. It is the persistent delusion of a hoodwinked mankind. I reject in no uncertain terms the hypothesis of God. Religion is the opium of the people. The churches should be converted to hospitals and public works. All we are or ever hope to be we owe to the devil and his bootleg apples. There are 78,000 contradictions in the bible. Is it God's word? No! I reject God! I denounce him with savage and relentless imprecations! I accept the universe godless. I am a monist!"

"You're crazy," he said. "You're a maniac."

"You don't understand me," I smiled. "But that's all right. I anticipate misunderstanding; nay, I look forward to the worst persecutions along the way. It's quite all right."

He emptied his pipe and shook his finger under my nose. "The thing for you to do is stop reading all these damn books, stop stealing, make a man out of yourself, and go to work."

I smashed out my cigarette. "Books!" I said. "And what do you know about books! You! An ignoramus, a Boobus Americanus, a donkey, a clod-hopping poltroon with no more sense than a polecat."

He kept still and filled his pipe. I didn't say anything because it was his turn. He studied me awhile while he thought of something.

"I've got a job for you," he said.

"What doing?"

"I don't know yet. I'll see."

"It has to fit my talents. Don't forget that I'm a writer. I've metamorphosed."

"I don't care what's happened to you. You're going to work. Maybe the fish canneries."

"I don't know anything about fish canneries."

"Good," he said. "The less you know the better. All it takes is a strong back and a weak mind. You've got both."

"The job doesn't interest me," I told him. "I'd rather write prose."

"Prose — what's prose?"

"You're a bourgeois Babbitt. You'll never know good prose as long as you live."

"I ought to knock your block off."

"Try it."

"You little bastard."

"You American boor."

He got up and left the table with his eyes flashing. Then he went into the next room and talked to Mother and Mona, telling them we had had an understanding and from now on I was turning over a new leaf. He gave them some money and told my mother not to worry about anything. I went to the door and nodded goodnight when he left. My mother and Mona looked at my eyes. They thought I'd come out of the kitchen with tears streaming down my face. My mother put her hands on my shoulders. She was sweet and soothing, thinking Uncle Frank had made me feel miserable.

"He hurt your feelings," she said. "Didn't he, my poor boy."

I pulled her arms off.

"Who?" I said. "That cretin? Hell, no!"

"You look like you've been crying."

I walked into the bedroom and looked at my eyes in the mirror. They were as dry as ever. My mother followed and started to pat them with her handkerchief. I thought, what the heck.

"May I ask what you're doing?" I said.

"You poor boy! It's all right. You're embarrassed. I understand. Mother understands everything."

"But I'm not crying!" She was disappointed and turned away.

Chapter Six

IT'S MORNING, TIME to get up, so get up, Arturo, and look for a job. Get out there and look for what you'll never find. You're a thief and you're a crab-killer and a lover of women in clothes closets. You'll never find a job!

Every morning I got up feeling like that. Now I've got to find a job, damn it to hell. I ate breakfast, put a book under my arm, pencils in my pocket, and started out. Down the stairs I went, down the street, sometimes hot and sometimes cold, sometimes foggy and sometimes clear. It never mattered, with a book under my arm, looking for a job.

What job, Arturo? Ho ho! A job for you? Think of what you are, my boy! A crab-killer. A thief. You look at naked women in clothes closets. And you expect to get a job! How funny! But there he goes, the idiot, with a big book. Where the devil are you going, Arturo? Why do you go up this street and not that? Why go east - why not go west? Answer me, you thief! Who'll give you a job, you swine - who? But there's a park across town, Arturo. It's called Banning Park. There are a lot of beautiful eucalyptus trees in it, and green lawns. What a place to read! Go there, Arturo. Read Nietzsche. Read Schopenhauer. Get into the company of the mighty. A job? fooey! Go sit under a eucalyptus tree reading a book looking for a job.

And still a few times I did look for a job. There was the fifteen cents store. For a long time I stood out in front looking at a pile of peanut brittle in the window. Then I walked in.

"The manager, please."

The girl said, "He's downstairs."

I knew him. His name was Tracey. I walked down the hard stairs, wondering why they were so hard, and at the bottom I saw Mr Tracey. He was fixing his yellow tie at a mirror. A nice man, that Mr Tracey. Admirable taste. A beautiful tie, white shoes, blue shirt. A fine man, a privilege to work for a man like that. He had something; he had
el vital
. Ah, Bergson! Another great writer was Bergson. "Hello, Mr Tracey."

"Eh, what do you want?"

"I was going to ask you —"

"We have application blanks for that. But it won't do any good. We're all filled up."

I went back up the hard stairs. What curious stairs! So hard, so precise! Possibly a new invention in stair-making. Ah, mankind! What'll you think of next! Progress. I believe in the reality of Progress. That Tracey. That lowdown, filthy, no-good sonofabitch! Him and his stupid yellow necktie standing in front of a mirror like a goddamn ape: that bourgeois Babbitt scoundrel. A yellow necktie! Imagine it. Oh, he didn't fool me. I knew a thing or two about that fellow. One night I was there, down at the harbor, and I saw him. I hadn't said anything, but I guess I'd seen him down there in his car, potbellied as a pig, with a girl at his side. I saw his fat teeth in the moonlight. He sat there under his belly, a thirty-dollar-a-week moron of a fat Babbitt bastard with a hanging gut and a girl at his side, a slut, a bitch, a whore beside him, a scummy female. Between his fat fingers he held the girl's hand. He seemed ardent in his piggish way, that fat bastard, that stinking, nauseating, thirty-dollar-a-week moron of a rat, with his fat teeth looming in the moonlight, his big pouch squashed against the steering wheel, his dirty eyes fat and ardent with fat ideas of a fat love affair. He wasn't fooling me; he could never fool me. He might fool that girl, but not Arturo Bandini, and under no circumstances would Arturo Bandini ever consent to work for him. Some day there would be a reckoning. He might plead, with his yellow necktie dragging in the dust, he might plead with Arturo Bandini, begging the great Arturo to accept a job, and Arturo Bandini would proudly kick him in the belly and watch him writhe in the dust. He'd pay, he'd pay!

I went out to the Ford plant. And why not? Ford needs men. Bandini at the Ford Motor Company. A week in one department, three weeks in another, a month in another, six months in another. Two years, and I would be director in chief of the Western Division.

The pavement wound through white sand, a new road heavy with monoxide gas. In the sand were brown weeds and grasshoppers. Bits of seashell sparkled through the weeds. It was man-made land, flat and in disorder, shacks unpainted, piles of lumber, piles of tin cans, oil derricks and hot dog stands, fruit stands and old men on all sides of the road selling popcorn. Overhead the heavy telephone wires gave off a humming sound whenever there was a lull in the traffic noise. Out of the muddy channel bed came the rich stench of oil and scum and strange cargo.

I walked along the road with others. They flagged rides with their thumbs. They were beggars with jerking thumbs and pitiful smiles, begging crumbs-on-wheels. No pride. But not I - not Arturo Bandini, with his mighty legs. Not for him this mooching. Let them pass me by! Let them go ninety miles an hour and fill my nose with their exhausts. Some day it would all be different. You will pay for this, all of you, every driver along this road. I will not ride in your automobiles even if you get out and plead with me, and offer me the car to keep as my own, free and without further obligation. I will die on the road first. But my time will come, and then you will see my name in the sky. Then you shall see, every one of you! I am not waving like the others, with a crooked thumb, so don't stop. Never! But you'll pay, nevertheless.