The Spirit of Cannery Row

[mallorys_camera]

The store was brilliant over the holiday weekend. As though we had our own little counterfeiting machine stashed in the back alcove next to the vacuum cleaner and the bags of styrofoam peanuts I haven’t had time to recycle yet. Endless tide of customers. "What an amazing idea for a store!" they’d all say. "Is this a chain?" And then they’d grab things off the shelf and stand in line for ten minutes to give me money. Proof of the business model. Indeed, the limiting factors were the size of the physical space (tiny,) the temperamental nature of the modem through which I process credit cards and my own hand/eye coordination as I slap purchases with Slow Burn labels (branding!) and bubble-wrap.

When the smoke died down, we’d cleared $2500. Pure profit.

I was exhausted at the end of each day but slept poorly. Kept waking in a sweat around one in the morning. I’d pour myself a shot of bourbon and try to bore myself back to sleep by watching the Food Network. Thomas Jefferson invented French fries. Who knew? The ambitious folk at Jolly Rancher (a candy company in continuous operation since 1939) created a 4000 pound lollipop last year that took fifty workers six months to complete. I bet that’s gonna look good on their resumes. Insomnia at Casa Chaos is fraught with peril since it would be a bad thing to wake up Ben or any of the animals. They’d all immediately begin to demand attention and I don’t want to pay attention to anything. I’m attentioned out.

Last week I made a secret trip to the bookstore and grabbed The Best American Short Stories 2003 off the shelf. Of course, I haven’t had time to dip into it. But I carry it with me everywhere like a talisman. I wonder if I’m ever gonna find the time to write anything else ever again?

In the middle of the cash register rush yesterday, this large, pale cowlike woman marches into the store and confronts me. "Call the police!" she demands.

"Why?" I ask, blinking and smiling neutrally.

"A man just tried to assault my daughter on the beach!"

The daughter, a veritable troglodyte, a miniature version of her mother only heavier, pastier and sprouting cupcake breasts, stands right behind her mother, glaring self-righteously and somehow triumphantly.

This is the post Carlie fallout.

"How awful for you!" I say, making my voice all oozy and sympathetic.

"He’s still there!"

Damned if she didn’t stand there glaring for a full fifteen minutes till the store was momentarily empty and then march me outside to point him out. As I suspected, it was one of the homeless guys who lives in the tunnels under the ancient cannery alongside El Torito. The one who carries ancient tattered paperbacks in his pocket, histories of the Nazi party pre-Kristallnacht, the birth of the American space program, and on sunny days sits on the bench next to the Steinbeck statue, reading them.

"Oh, my gosh," I say. "How scary for you both. You go on with your day. I’ll call."

Of course, I had no intention of calling. I like the bums who live around here. Really, they’re the only true descendents of Steinbeck’s Cannery Row.

In ten minutes the tourons will forget all about it, I thought. They’ll find other diversions. They’ll buy a candy apple as big as the kid’s head coated with marshmallows, chocolate and peanuts. Or maybe one of those tee-shirts depicting a monstrously fat woman with a chihuahua stuck up the crack of her ass and a caption: "Has anybody seen my dog?"

But fifteen minutes later they were back. This time with the father. "Did you call the police?" he asked. "What did they say?"

Now, there’s something that never fails to amaze me, and this is it: you get these reasonably normal-looking – handsome even – men married to these dour mountains of flesh. What is it about people from the Central Valley? Do they all get married at nineteen?

"Oh, I’m so sorry," I say. "The store has been so busy. I just haven’t had time." And this is actually true. But I’m wondering why they somehow think it’s my responsibility to take care of this for them. I mean, they haven’t even bought anything from me.

The man is standing there, looking a little confused and I suddenly feel sorry for him. He’s a nice-looking guy with a pleasant face. Fireman, I’m thinking. Or maybe plumber. What must it be like to be a decent guy waking up every morning to those faces at the breakfast table?

"Here," I say to the troglodyte daughter. "I want to give you a present." And I thrust one of those packages of chocolate golf balls at her. I’d ordered the chocolate golf balls for the hoards I anticipated descending around the time of the PGA golf tournament only those hoards never descended and now I was stuck with them.

The girl’s face broke out in a smirk. She grabbed them from my hand. She didn’t even say thank you.

Comments

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Well, thanks. Sniveling in public is liberating somehow.