“Hello.”
“Hello.”
“What’s the chances on a job?”
“No chances.”
“Why not?”
“Don’t need anybody.”
“That’s not the only reason.”
“There’s about forty-two other reasons, one of them is I can’t even make a living myself, but it’s all the reason that concerns you. Here’s a dime, kid. Better luck somewhere else.”
“I don’t want your dime. I want a job. If the clothes were better, that might help, mightn’t it?”
“If the clothes were good enough for Clark Gable in the swell gambling-house scene, that wouldn’t help a bit. Not a bit. I just don’t need anybody, that’s all.”
“Suppose I got better clothes. Would you talk to me?”
“Talk to you any time, but I don’t need anybody.”
“I’ll be back when I get the clothes.”
“Just taking a walk for nothing.”
“What’s your name?”
“Hook’s my name. Oscar Hook.”
“Thanks, Mr. Hook. But I’m coming back. I just got a idea I can talk myself into a job. I’m some talker.”
“You’re all that, kid. But don’t waste your time. I don’t need anybody.”
“Okay. Just the same, I’ll be back.”
He headed for the center of town, asked the way to the cheap clothing stores. At Los Angeles and Temple, after an hour’s trudge, he came to a succession of small stores in a Mexican quarter that were what he wanted. He went into one. The storekeeper was a Mexican, and two or three other Mexicans were standing around smoking.
“Mister, will you trust me for a pair of white pants and a shirt?”
“No trust. Hey, scram.”
“Look. I can have a job Monday morning if I can show up in that outfit. White pants and a white shirt. That’s all.”
“No trust. What you think this is, anyway?”
“Well, I got to get that outfit somewhere. If I get that, they’ll let me go to work Monday. I’ll pay you soon as I get paid off Saturday night.”
“No trust. Sell for cash.”
He stood there. The Mexicans stood there, smoked, looked out at the street. Presently one of them looked at him. “What kind of job, hey? What you mean, got to have white pants a white shirt a hold a job?”
“Filling station. They got a rule you got to have white clothes before you can work there.”
“Oh. Sure. Filling station.”
After a while the storekeeper spoke. “Ha! Is a joke. Job in filling station, must have a white pants, white shirt. Ha! Is a joke,”
“What else would I want them for? Holy smoke, these are better for the road, ain’t they? Say, a guy don’t want white pants to ride freights, does he?”
“What filling station? Tell me that.”
“Guy name of Hook, Oscar Hook, got a Acme station. Main near Twentieth. You don’t believe me, call him up.”
“You go to work there, hey?”
“I’m supposed to go to work. I told him I’d get the white pants and white shirt, somehow. Well—if I don’t get them, I don’t go to work.”
“Why you come to me, hey?”
“Where else would I go? If it’s not you, it’s another guy down the street. No place else I can dig up the stuff over Sunday, is there?”
“Oh.”
He stood around. They all stood around. Then once again the storekeeper looked up. “What size you wear, hey?”
He had a wash at a tap in the backyard, then changed there, between piled-up boxes and crates. The storekeeper gave him a white shirt, white pants, necktie, a suit of thick underwear, and a pair of shoes to replace his badly worn brogans. “Is pretty cold, nighttime, now. A thick underwear feel better.”
“Okay. Much obliged.”
“Can roll this other stuff up.”
“I don’t want it. Can you throw it away for me?”
“Is pretty dirty.”
“Plenty dirty.”
“You no want?”
“No.”
His heart leaped as the storekeeper dropped the whole pile into a rubbish brazier and touched a match to some papers at the bottom of it. In a few minutes, the denims and everything else he had worn were ashes.
He followed the storekeeper inside. “Okay, here is a bill, I put all a stuff on a bill, no charge you more than anybody else. Is six dollar ninety-eight cents, then is a service charge one dollar.”
All of them laughed. He took the “service charge” to be a gyp overcharge to cover the trust. He nodded. “Okay on the service charge.”
The storekeeper hesitated. “Well, six ninety-eight. We no make a service charge.”
“Thanks.”
“See you keep a white pants clean till Monday morning.”
“I’ll do that. See you Saturday night.”
“Adios.”
Out in the street, he stuck his hand in his pocket, felt something, pulled it out. It was a $1 bill. Then he understood about the “service charge,” and why the Mexicans had laughed. He went back, kissed the $1 bill, waved a cheery salute into the store. They all waved back.
He rode a streetcar down to Mr. Hook’s, got turned down for the job, rode a streetcar back. In his mind, he tried to check over everything. He had an alibi, fantastic and plausible. So far as he could recall, nobody on the train had seen him, not even the other hoboes, for he had stood apart from them in the yards, and had done nothing to attract the attention of any of them. The denims were burned, and he had a story to account for the whites. It even looked pretty good, this thing with Mr. Hook, for anybody who had committed a murder would be most unlikely to make a serious effort to land a job.
But the questions lurked there, ready to spring at him, check and recheck as he would. He saw a sign, 5-COURSE DINNER, 35 CENTS. He still had ninety cents, and went in, ordered steak and fried potatoes, the hungry man’s dream of heaven. He ate, put a ten-cent tip under the plate. He ordered cigarettes, lit one, inhaled. He got up to go. A newspaper was lying on the table.
He froze as he saw the headline:
L. R. NOTT, R. R. MAN, KILLED.
IV
ON THE STREET, HE bought a paper, tried to open it under a street light, couldn’t, tucked it under his arm. He found Highway 101, caught a hay truck bound for San Francisco. Going out Sunset Boulevard, it unexpectedly pulled over to the curb and stopped. He looked warily around. Down a side street, about a block away, were the two red lights of a police station. He was tightening to jump and run, but the driver wasn’t looking at the lights. “I told them bums that air hose was leaking. They set you nuts. Supposed to keep the stuff in shape and all they ever do is sit around and play blackjack.”
The driver fished a roll of black tape from his pocket and got out. Lucky sat where he was a few minutes, then climbed down, walked to the glare of the headlights, opened his paper. There it was:
L. R. NOTT, R. R. MAN. KILLED The decapitated body of L. R. Nott, 1327 De Soto Street, a detective assigned to a northbound freight, was found early this morning on the track near San Fernando station. It is believed he lost his balance while the train was shunting cars at the San Fernando siding and fell beneath the wheels. Funeral services will be held tomorrow from the De Soto Street Methodist Church.
Mr. Nott is survived by a widow, formerly Miss Elsie Snowden of Mannerheim, and a son, L. R. Nott, Jr., 5.
He stared at it, refolded the paper, tucked it under his arm, walked back to where the driver was taping the air hose. He was clear, and he knew it. “Boy, do they call you Lucky? Is your name Lucky? I’ll say it is.”
He leaned against the trailer, let his eye wander down the street. He saw the two red lights of the police station-glowing. He looked away quickly. A queer feeling began to stir inside him. He wished the driver would hurry up.
Presently he went back to the headlights again, found the notice, re-read it. He recognized that feeling now; it was the old Sunday-night feeling tha
t he used to have back home, when the bells would ring and he would have to stop playing hide in the twilight, go to church, and hear about the necessity for being saved. It shot through his mind, the time he had played hookey from church, and hid in the livery stable; and how lonely he had felt, because there was nobody to play hide with; and how he had sneaked into church, and stood in the rear to listen to the necessity for being saved.
His eyes twitched back to the red lights, and slowly, shakily, but unswervingly he found himself walking toward them.
“I want to give myself up.”
“Yeah, I know, you’re wanted for grand larceny in Hackensack, New Jersey.”
“No, I—”
“We quit giving them rides when the New Deal come in. Beat it.”
“I killed a man.”
“You—?…When was it you done this?”
“Last night.”
“Where?”
“Near here. San Fernando. It was like this—”
“Hey, wait till I get a card…. Okay, what’s your name?
“Ben Fuller.”
“No middle name?”
“They call me Lucky.”
“Lucky like in good luck?”
“Yes, sir…. Lucky like in good luck.”
Brush Fire
HE BANGED SPARKS WITH his shovel, coughed smoke, cursed the impulse that had led him to heed that rumor down in the railroad yards that CCC money was to be had by all who wanted to fight this fire the papers were full of, up in the hills. Back home he had always heard them called forest fires, but they seemed to be brush fires here in California. So far, all he had got out of it was a suit of denims, a pair of shoes, and a ration of stew, served in an army mess kit. For that he had ridden twenty miles in a jolting truck out from Los Angeles to these parched hills, stood in line an hour to get his stuff, stood in line another hour for the stew, and then labored all night, the flames singeing his hair, the ground burning his feet through the thick brogans, the smoke searing his lungs, until he thought he would go frantic if he didn’t get a whiff of air.
Still the thing went on. Hundreds of them smashed out flames, set backfires, hacked at bramble, while the bitter complaint went around: “Why don’t they give us brush hooks if we got to cut down them bushes? What the hell good are these damn shovels?” The shovel became the symbol of their torture. Here and there, through the night, a grotesque figure would throw one down, jump on it, curse at it, then pick it up again as the hysteria subsided.
“Third shift, this way! Third shift, this way. Bring your shovels and turn over to shift number four. Everybody in the third shift, right over here.”
It was the voice of the CCC foreman, who, all agreed, knew as much about fighting fires as a monkey did. Had it not been for the state fire wardens, assisting at critical spots, they would have made no progress whatever.
“All right. Answer to your names when I call them. You got to be checked off to get your money. They pay today two o’clock, so yell loud when I call your name.”
“Today’s Sunday.”
“I said they pay today, so speak up when I call your name.”
The foreman had a pencil with a little bulb in the end of it which he flashed on and began going down the list.
“Bub Anderson, Lonnie Beal, K. Bernstein, Harry Deever….” As each name was called there was a loud “Yo,” so when his name was called, Paul Larkin, he yelled “Yo” too. Then the foreman was calling a name and becoming annoyed because there was no answer. “Ike Pendleton! Ike Pendleton!”
“He’s around somewhere.”
“Why ain’t he here? Don’t he know he’s got to be checked off?”
“Hey, Ike! Ike Pendleton!”
He came out of his trance with a jolt. He had a sudden recollection of a man who had helped him to clear out a brier patch a little while ago, and whom he hadn’t seen since. He raced up the slope and over toward the fire.
Near the brier patch, in a V between the main fire and a backfire that was advancing to meet it, he saw something. He rushed, but a cloud of smoke doubled him back. He retreated a few feet, sucked in a lungful of air, charged through the backfire. There, on his face, was a man. He seized the collar of the denim jacket, started to drag. Then he saw it would be fatal to take this man through the backfire that way. He tried to lift, but his lungful of air was spent: he had to breathe or die. He expelled it, inhaled, screamed at the pain of the smoke in his throat.
He fell on his face beside the man, got a little air there, near the ground. He shoved his arm under the denim jacket, heaved, felt the man roll solidly on his back. He lurched to his feet, ran through the backfire. Two or three came to his aid, helped him with his load to the hollow, where the foreman was, where the air was fresh and cool.
“Where’s his shovel? He ought to have turned it over to—”
“His shovel! Give him water!”
“I’m gitting him water; but one thing at a time—”
“Water! Water! Where’s that water cart?”
The foreman, realizing belatedly that a life might be more important than the shovel tally, gave orders to “work his arms and legs up and down.” Somebody brought a bucket of water, and little by little Ike Pendleton came back to life. He coughed, breathed with long shuddering gasps, gagged, vomited. They wiped his face, fanned him, splashed water on him.
Soon, in spite of efforts to keep him where he was, he fought to his feet, reeled around with the hard, terrible vitality of some kind of animal. “Where’s my hat? Who took my hat?” They clapped a hat on his head, he sat down suddenly, then got up and stood swaying. The foreman remembered his responsibility. “All right, men, give him a hand, walk him down to his bunk.”
“Check him off!”
“Check the rest of us! You ain’t passed the P’s yet!”
“O.K. Sing out when I call. Gus Ritter!”
“Yo!”
When the names had been checked, Paul took one of Ike’s arms and pulled it over his shoulder; somebody else took the other, and they started for the place, a half mile or so away on the main road, where the camp was located. The rest fell in behind. Dawn was just breaking as the little file, two and two, fell into a shambling step.
“Hep!… Hep!”
“Hey, cut that out! This ain’t no lockstep.”
“Who says it ain’t?”
When he woke up, in the army tent he shared with five others, he became aware of a tingle of expectancy in the air. Two of his tent mates were shaving; another came in, a towel over his arm, his hair wet and combed.
“Where did you get that wash?”
“They got a shower tent over there.”
He got out his safety razor, slipped his feet in the shoes, shaved over one of the other men’s shoulders, then started out in his underwear. “Hey!” At the warning, he looked out. Several cars were out there, some of them with women standing around them, talking to figures in blue denim.
“Sunday, bo. Visiting day. This is when the women all comes to say hello to their loved ones. You better put something on.”
He slipped on the denims, went over to the shower tent, drew towel and soap, stripped, waited his turn. It was a real shower, the first he had had in a long time. It was cold, but it felt good. There was a comb there. He washed it, combed his hair, put on his clothes, went back to his tent, put the towel away, made his bunk. Then he fell in line for breakfast—or dinner, as it happened, as it was away past noon. It consisted of corned beef, cabbage, a boiled potato, apricot pie, and coffee.
He wolfed down the food, washed up his kit, began to feel pretty good. He fell into line again, and presently was paid, $4.50 for nine hours’ work, at fifty cents an hour. He fingered the bills curiously. They were the first he had had in his hand since that day, two years before, when he had run away from home and begun this dreadful career of riding freights, bumming meals, and sleeping in flophouses.
He realized with a start they were the first bills he had ever ear
ned in his twenty-two years; for the chance to earn bills had long since departed when he graduated from high school and began looking for jobs, never finding any. He shoved them in his pocket, wondered whether he would get the chance that night to earn more of them.
The foreman was standing there, in the space around which the tents were set up, with a little group around him. “It’s under control, but we got to watch it, and there’ll be another call tonight. Any you guys that want to work, report to me eight o’clock tonight, right here in this spot.”
By now the place was alive with people, dust, and excitement. Cars were jammed into every possible place, mostly second-, third-, and ninth-hand, but surrounded by neatly dressed women, children, and old people, come to visit the fire fighters in denim. In a row out front, ice-cream, popcorn, and cold-drink trucks were parked, and the road was gay for half a mile in both directions with pennants stuck on poles, announcing their wares. Newspaper reporters were around too, with photographers, and as soon as the foreman had finished his harangue, they began to ask him questions about the fire, the number of men engaged in fighting it, and the casualties.
“Nobody hurt. Nobody hurt at all. Oh, early this morning, fellow kind of got knocked out by smoke, guy went in and pulled him out, nothing at all.”
“What was his name?”
“I forget his name. Here—here’s the guy that pulled him out. Maybe he knows his name.”
In a second he was surrounded, questions being shouted at him from all sides. He gave them Ike’s name and his own, and they began a frantic search for Ike, but couldn’t find him. Then they decided he was the main story, not Ike, and directed him to pose for his picture. “Hey, not there; not by the ice-cream truck. We don’t give ice cream a free ad in this paper. Over there by the tent.”
He stood as directed, and two or three in the third shift told the story all over again in vivid detail. The reporters took notes, the photographers snapped several pictures of him, and a crowd collected. “And will you put it in that I’m from Spokane, Washington? I’d kind of like to have that in, on account of my people back there. Spokane, Washington.”