Second Generation Page 7

  “You’re in a lovely mood today,” she said to him.

  “Yeah.”

  “I didn’t mean to call you an ass. I lost my temper.”

  “Who the hell are you?” he asked angrily.

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m a guinea longshoreman, name of Dominick Salone.”

  “That’s the second time today I heard that word,” Barbara said. “What does it mean?”

  “What word?”

  “Guinea.”

  “Oh, Jesus Christ! You don’t know what a guinea is, you don’t know what a fink is, you don’t know what a goon is. You give me a load of horseshit about working at L and L and collecting money, and you drive a car that nobody makes eighteen a week could afford, and you talk the way some pisspot society dame talks. You spend the day here, and you tell me then you go out and put in an eight-hour shift at the store. That’s bullshit, and you know it.”

  “What if it is?” Barbara said tiredly.

  “I just don’t like to be conned.”

  “What do you think I am? Some kind of labor spy?”

  He threw away the cigarette and grinned. “If you are, they’re scraping the bottom of the barrel.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “I know you didn’t. Look, Nick, nobody else here worries about who I am. Nobody else objects to my buying food, and nobody else cares where the money comes from. Nobody even objects to the way I speak.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So?”

  “So I’m crazy. Since the first time I seen you, I can’t think of nothing else. Ah, shit!”

  “That’s expressive.”

  “I’m sorry. God damn it, you’re not like any dame I ever knew. I didn’t need this. You come in here with your heart bleeding, and you do your lady bountiful act, and then back to wherever the hell you come from—”

  “Come on, Nick.”

  “Don’t patronize me!” He turned on his heel and stalked back into the kitchen.

  She started to follow him, then stopped herself and shook her head, and she stood there staring at the cracked asphalt of the alleyway. He was not playing a game. No one there was playing a game. “And I’m not,” she pleaded to herself; but then, had she nothing to do with the fact that he was in love with her? A skinny, undernourished, uneducated Italian longshoreman had fallen in love with her. A brief, romantic flow of imagery flashed into her mind—her father’s conquest of her mother, the fishing boat captain from the wharf making his way up Nob Hill—and then she shivered and threw it off. The thought—which she had never actually entertained before—of being trapped down here in this bleak, dreary hopeless abyss of workingmen was not pleasant. She felt no more for Dominick Salone than she felt for Franco Guzie or any of the other longshoremen. He interested and intrigued her, and she had been direct and open with him. At first, the longshoremen had frightened her; they were different, they spoke another language, they wore old clothes, and very often they were rank with body odor. But then, after only a few days of working around the kitchen, she discovered that they were amazingly correct in their behavior toward her. They always apologized for strong language used in her presence, they forbore any of the sexual innuendoes that were commonplace among the set of her own class, and all in all, they treated her with respect. It had simply not occurred to her that Dominick or any of the others might become emotionally involved with her.

  She stood there in the alley for a few more minutes, trying to decide whether to go back into the kitchen and talk to Dominick again. Then she decided that it was best to leave it alone at this point, and she walked to where she had parked her car, got into it, and drove back to the Whittier house on Pacific Heights. She was tired; she would spend the afternoon curled up in a chair reading a book.

  Knox, the butler, opening the door for her, said, “Mr. Whittier would like to see you, Miss Lavette.”

  “Oh? When did he get back?”

  “Just about an hour ago.”

  Barbara went into the breakfast room. John Whittier was sitting at the table, dining on bacon and eggs and reading a newspaper. He rose as she entered and kissed her perfunctorily on the cheek.

  “Sit down, Barbara. Will you have some lunch?”

  “I’ll have coffee,” she said.

  “Help yourself. There’s a pot on the teacart there. I thought we’d have a chat, just the two of us. I never subscribed to the myth that servants don’t have ears. They damn well do, and big mouths also.”

  “Did you have a good trip?” Barbara asked, bringing her coffee back to the table.

  “Good enough. The wretched train takes forever.”

  “And Tom and Mother—are they well?”

  “Well enough when I left them. Your mother is determined to work your Aunt Leona for those dreary pictures that adorn her house. Did you know about her scheme to turn Russian Hill into a museum?”

  “She mentioned something about it in a letter.”

  Her conversation was listless. Whittier looked at her thoughtfully. “Are you well, Barbara?”

  “Perfectly well. Just a little tired. I thought I’d spend the afternoon with a book.”

  “Well, that will be a change.”

  She looked at him, wondering what was coming now.

  “Apparently it’s the first afternoon you decided to spend at home.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “According to Knox, you’ve been out each morning and back each night since we’ve been gone.”

  “Really. Is it part of Knox’s job to spy on me?”

  “He’s the butler. It’s his job to know what goes on in this house.”

  “Then you have a faithful servant. That should please you, John.”

  “I don’t think that tone is called for, Barbara.”

  “And I don’t think I have to account for my time,” she said coldly. “Thank you for the coffee.” She rose and started to leave.

  “One moment, Barbara.” She turned to him, trying to control herself, trying to repress the loathing she felt for him. “What happened to your car?” he asked.

  “Why don’t you ask Knox?”

  “I did. He says that your Buick disappeared, and that now you’re driving an old Ford station wagon.”

  “Then you have your answer. Now I’m driving an old Ford station wagon.” With that, she grabbed her purse and rushed out of the room, through the house, and out the front door. The station wagon was still parked in the driveway, where she had left it. She got into the car and suddenly burst into tears. She cried for a while. Then she felt better, relieved of what had been pent up inside her. She dried her eyes, turned the ignition key, and started the car. As she left the driveway, she saw in her rearview mirror that Knox was standing at the door, watching her.

  She had no destination in mind, no thought except a compelling desire never to return to John Whittier’s home. She drove through the park, and she found herself on 19th Avenue, heading south.

  ***

  Joe Lavette was curled up on his bed, reading, when Dan came into his room and sat down at the foot of the bed. He had rehearsed what he was going to say several times, and now he came directly to the point. “That day,” he began, “when you came home and told us that you had been made valedictorian of your class—that day something happened inside me. I can’t explain it, and I can’t explain to you why I couldn’t say anything. I can only say to you that I was so damn proud that if I had stayed there or tried to talk about it, I would have just gone to pieces, and that’s nothing that I wanted you or your mother to see. I couldn’t explain that to you, and I couldn’t explain it to your mother, either. I’ve led a strange life, Joe. You know about that. Did you ever wonder why I work as a hand on a fishing boat?”

  Joe stared at him uncertainly. “Yes,” h
e said at last.

  “Why didn’t you ever ask me?”

  “I couldn’t ask you something like that.”

  “You know,” Dan said miserably, “I have to get up my courage to talk to you. Not just to talk to you. But to talk to you like this.”

  “Why? Why, Pop?”

  “I don’t know. Jesus—” He stared at the bedspread and then looked up and met his son’s eyes. “I love you so much. How many times I wanted to say that, and I couldn’t say it. I loused up fourteen years of your life. All the time when you needed me, I wasn’t there. And now I feel so damned empty, hopeless.”

  Joe reached out and put his hand on his father’s. “Pop,” he said softly, “all that stuff about college and medical school—it’s not important.”

  “It’s important.”

  “No. No, it really isn’t. I see you come in after eighteen hours on that boat, so tired you can hardly stand up—it breaks my heart.”

  “Oh, no. No. Look, kid, I’m not an old man. You must not feel sorry for me. God damn it, no! I won’t have that! Do you know when my life began to make sense, not much sense, but some sense?”

  Joe shook his head.

  “When I got enough guts to do what I wanted to do, what I had to do, when I was able to walk out of that house on Russian Hill in San Francisco and throw it away and want no part of it. Being a fishing hand—that’s all right. I had to breathe a little. I could have dug ditches or cleaned toilets. It would still let me breathe a little. So if you want to go to college and medical school, you go. If you want to dig ditches, dig ditches. As long as you know what you have to do. It took me too long to find out.”

  After dinner that evening, after Joe had gone up to his room, leaving Dan and May Ling alone in the living room, May Ling asked Dan, “What did you say to Joe?”

  “We talked.”

  “I’m glad. It changed you, both of you, I mean the way you are with each other.”

  “You noticed that?”

  “Wouldn’t I?” May Ling smiled.

  “You’re a damn smart Chinese lady.”

  “Thank you, Danny. Not for deciding that I’m smart, but for talking to him. Are you going down to San Pedro tonight? It’s such a cold, wet night. I can’t bear the thought of your going out on that boat.”

  “I’m not going.”

  “Oh?”

  “I asked Pete Lomas for a week off, without pay.” When she made no comment, Dan said, “We can afford it.”

  “Of course we can.” Then she added, “We’re not poor. It’s time you had a vacation.”

  “I’m not taking a vacation.”

  “What is it, Danny?” she asked gently. “Do you want it again?”

  “Do I want what?”

  “The power and the glory.”

  “No. I want enough money to send the kid to medical school. Pete offered to sell me a half share in the boat. I don’t want that, either. He’s getting too old to fish. So am I.”

  “We have enough money. My father—”

  “I won’t take your father’s money. It may not seem like it, but Joe is my son.”

  May Ling rose and walked over to him and kissed him. “Dear Danny,” she said, “I love you very much. Do whatever you have to do.”

  “That’s what I said to the kid.”

  “I suppose it’s all you can say to anyone. Come to bed now.”

  They had started upstairs when they heard the car pull into the driveway. They paused, and then the doorbell rang.

  “It’s eleven o’clock,” May Ling said. She waited on the staircase while Dan went down into the living room, turned on the lights, and opened the door. Barbara stood there, smiling wanly. Dan stared at her, trying to make a reference of time and place, and then she was in his arms. He held her tightly, wordlessly. May Ling came down and closed the door behind her.

  Then Dan let go of her, and she turned to May Ling and took her hand in both of her own, and said, “Dear darlings, both of you. I can’t believe I’m here. I drove all the way down here from San Francisco and never stopped for anything but gas, and I kept having the nightmare that you wouldn’t be here and the house wouldn’t be here, because nothing ever stays the way it is—and now I’m starved. I haven’t eaten all day.”

  It was past midnight. They sat in the kitchen, Barbara and Dan and May Ling, and for an hour Barbara had eaten her fill and narrated the history of her life during the six weeks since she had left Sarah Lawrence College. “So here I am,” she said, “and every day since I got back to California, I told myself that I would come down here to see you, and that’s simply the way it was. I sat in my car outside that hateful house, and then I began to drive, and I just kept on driving. I should have come before, but each day I worked in the soup kitchen, it became more and more the center of my existence, and now I won’t go back to John Whittier’s house. I’ll never go back there. That’s over.”

  “Do you have any money?” Dan asked her.

  “That makes no difference,” May Ling said quickly. “She doesn’t need money to stay here with us.”

  “I have a hundred dollars or so in my purse. That’s left over from what I got for Sandy. You do forgive me for that,” she said to Dan. “It’s rotten to sell a gift—she was so beautiful—but I had to. Anyway, I have an allowance of forty dollars a week. The bank takes care of that. They send it to me, or I can pick it up there.”

  “You’re still under age,” Dan said. “Jean could cut off the allowance.”

  “She wouldn’t do that. Mother’s not vindictive.”

  “To what end?” May Ling asked. “Barbara’s old enough to live alone.”

  “It’s not that simple. Jean is Whittier’s wife, and sooner or later, someone’s going to uncover Barbara at that soup kitchen. That will make one hell of a front-page story, and they’ll both hit the ceiling. Are you going back there?” he asked his daughter.

  “I have to,” Barbara said. “I can’t walk out of it now. As crazy as it sounds, my forty dollars a week and whatever else I add to it keeps that place going. Oh, they get other food, but not enough. You can’t imagine how poor those men are, how hungry. I know the union has other kitchens, but this one is my own burden.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I keep asking myself that. I feel guilty, but why doesn’t Tom feel guilty? No, it’s not only guilt. It’s because, because now everything is very real. I romanticize it, but believe me, Daddy, I know where I am and I know what I’m doing. I don’t look at it through rose-colored glasses. Those longshoremen are crude and ignorant and very often nasty, and I’m not even sure I like them or being around them. But they’re right, and they’re fighting for their lives, and that waterfront is a filthy slave market—and I am not talking out of hearsay. For almost six weeks, I’ve been there and watched it and listened to them. Do you know what the shapeup is?”

  Dan nodded.

  “Of course you do. Well, they’re not nature’s noblemen. A lot of them are just drifters and plain bums, but they’re human, and they work on the docks because there’s no work anywhere else. Well, they shape up on the docks at dawn, even before six o’clock in the morning, and they stand there shivering in the cold until the foreman comes to hire his gang. And he takes those who kick back to him out of the pitiful few dollars they earn, and sometimes they don’t pay in money but with a brass check, which the longshoreman has to cash in some wretched bar. And every bartender is a nickel man—”

  “What’s that?” May Ling asked.

  “It means that the bartender takes a nickel out of every dollar’s worth of the brass check he cashes, and he won’t take the brass check unless the longshoreman buys a drink first, and the trick is to get them drinking. When it’s over, they have nothing, and their wives and kids can starve. And each day it’s the same, shape up and pray to God you’ll be lucky enough to fi
nd a day of work, even for a brass check. And if they’re lucky enough to be paid in real money, they can work nine or ten hours for four dollars. They talk to me. They tell me about men who have dropped dead from exhaustion. There’s the loading hook, and they have to keep up with that hook, without even the time off to empty their bladders. You know, the people from the bakery union bring us their stale bread. I’ve seen longshoremen empty the tin bowls of stew we cook for them into tin cans they bring with them. All they eat is the two slices of bread each man gets. The rest goes home to feed their kids. So I’m not being romantic, am I? When I think of the Embarcadero now, I always think of it as they do, in one single phrase: the shithole of creation. And the ships tied up there belong to John Whittier and my mother.”

  “Suppose they belonged to me,” Dan said. “Some of them did once. How would you feel then?”

  Barbara thought about it for a while. “They were your ships once?”

  “Some of them. I didn’t use the shapeup. I used steady gangs. They worked better that way.”

  “If they were your ships,” Barbara said, “I don’t think I’d feel much different.”

  “The point is that you’re Jean’s daughter, and Jean is Whittier’s wife. It has to explode. Do you want that?”

  “I don’t care.”

  “What about college?”

  “I don’t know whether I want to go back. I really don’t know.”

  “I want you to go back,” Dan said.

  “Daddy, listen to me. I’m not the same, and I don’t think I’ll ever be the same again. I don’t truly know who I am or what I want, but I can’t imagine myself back there at Sarah Lawrence.”

  “I think,” May Ling said, “that we’re all too tired to imagine anything properly. I think, Danny, you should call Whittier and tell him that Barbara is here, and then we should go to bed. We’ll open a cot for you in the living room, Barbara. Is that all right?”

  “I’m so tired I could sleep on the floor.”