The Big Hunger Read online

  One passenger got off at the Grapevine stop. When the journey was resumed there were seats for all. In the seat ahead of Julio, the tassel of the tam-o’-shanter bounced happily on a leather-jacketed shoulder. Across the aisle sat the Filipino and his American girl. She half-lay upon him, her cheek against his neck.

  It kept Julio Sal awake. Out of the corner of his eye he watched the twitch of the other Filipino’s shoulder, the restless sleepy searching of the girl’s head. In the rear, one of the Negroes began to snore. It was as effective as a lullaby, deep and soothing. Except for the driver and Julio Sal, everyone seemed asleep.

  At Bakersfield the driver announced a twenty-minute stopover. The lights came on and the mangled passengers yawned and gasped. The Filipino across the aisle wakened his girl companion and said something Julio could not hear. The girl smiled sleepily, crushing herself against him. The Filipino’s brown hand stroked her hair. It was a gesture of tenderness, and when he bent down to dip his lips into the girl’s blonde curls a pitying sneer tore the lips of Julio Sal.

  He watched the couple stretch to their feet, the Filipino straightening his rumpled coat, the girl yawning and straightening her hair. There was a moment of indecisiveness as the Filipino deliberated about his topcoat which was slung over the seat. He glanced about, as though wondering for its safety.

  Then he saw Julio Sal, and Julio sensed in the young man the swagger of a bantam cock. The smile of recognition on Julio’s face was also the smile of a warrior from the battlefield of love who had experienced much and profited thereby. Pushing a small black cigar into his mouth, the Filipino made way for his American girl and followed her down the aisle.

  Through the window Julio Sal watched them move with the others toward the station restaurant, tattered ribbons of fog flapping in the cold morning air. At the doorway they seemed in doubt. The Filipino talked rapidly. The girl shook her head. Then the Filipino pointed with his cigar at something across the street. Julio sat up in surprise as the two almost ran in that direction. Quickly Julio Sal stepped down from the bus and peered across the street.

  He was just in time to see the Filipino and the girl enter a hotel called The Valley Inn. So. At the desk they were registering. So. Now the clerk was leading them upstairs. So.

  Julio Sal leaned against a lamp post and lit a cigarette as one of the darkened windows of the two-story hotel suddenly blossomed with light. Then the curtain came down. So. Julio Sal inhaled deeply and shook his head.

  Said he, “Poor Filipino boy.”

  Poor Filipino boy. Julio Sal entered the restaurant and ordered a cup of coffee. He had seen it happen before. El Dorado Street in Stockton. California Street in San Francisco. Temple Street in Los Angeles. And now, a small hotel in Bakersfield. Everywhere, up and down the whole Pacific coast, at all hours of the day and night, the Filipino boy getting trapped by disease, running in and out of hotels, hurrying to the doctors, hurrying back to the girls. Helen too. Maybe it had all been for the best. Maybe what had happened between him and Helen was God’s way of sparing Julio Sal from the ravages of the clap.

  He drank his coffee and ordered a second cup. Some of the passengers were moving back to the bus. It was ten minutes to four o’clock in the morning. Julio kept glancing from the clock to the hotel across the street. The moments sped by.

  By now all the passengers except Julio and the couple across the street were aboard. With one minute to go, the stationmaster and the driver stood at the bus door and checked the time. Smoking a cigarette, Julio paced up and down. He was no longer alarmed about his fellow Filipino’s danger from the clap. He was more concerned that the Pinoy would miss the bus.

  Said the driver, “Ain’t you one of the passengers?”

  Said Julio, “Yes.”

  “Then what the hell you doing out here?”

  On tiptoe Julio peered over the hood of the bus for one last glance at the hotel. They were coming. Hand in hand, the Filipino and the girl were running across the street toward the station.

  Julio tossed away his cigarette and got aboard. He watched the panting couple come down the aisle and throw themselves into their seat. The doors closed, and the bus began to move out of the Bakersfield station. The tam-o’-shanter girl resumed her position on the shoulder of the blonde young man. Across the aisle, the American girl breathed heavily in the Filipino’s arms.

  The lights inside the bus went out. Then there was a flash of light as the Filipino struck a match and lit his cigar. The flame exposed a triumphant brown face that smiled with satanic majesty. It exasperated Julio Sal. More than ever he was determined to talk to this wayward countryman before matters got out of hand.

  Four hours later the bus reached the Fresno depot. Fresno, slightly more than the halfway point to Sacramento. Daylight now, hot valley daylight, the bus reeking of human smells.

  The Filipino and his girl companion gathered their belongings. It was the end of their journey. Julio watched the couple step down and enter the station. So they were gone. It was just as well. He could do nothing for the boy. Let him learn the hard, brutal American way, as he, Julio Sal, had done.

  Meanwhile, twenty minutes for breakfast. He was hot and sticky, sweat fastening the underclothes to his skin like an adhesive. In six hours he would be in Sacramento. For what? Julio Sal knew not. At any rate he would see his paesano Goldberg in Sacramento. He would stay with Goldberg a few days, for old times’ sake.

  He stepped from the bus and walked into the men’s washroom. He pulled off his coat and necktie, filled a washbowl with water, and soaped his bristled face. It worked a miracle in his soul. Scratching the cold water from his face with a paper towel, he felt his spirit rise like a flexed biceps. He felt stronger, and he was grateful for a sense of hunger in his tight little belly. With a pocket comb in his hand, he turned to the mirror that ran the length of the wall.

  In the mirror he saw another Filipino beside himself. It was his fellow-passenger. He too was combing his hair.

  The man nodded.

  “Hello,” said Julio Sal.

  “Ya.”

  “Long ride,” said Julio. “Tired.”

  “Ya.”

  Each parted his hair at the same moment. Julio smiled.

  “For you, is most pleasant trip,” he said.

  “Ya.”

  “You have most beautiful wife.”

  The Pinoy’s comb stopped in mid-air.

  “Wife?” He shook his head. “Not wife.”

  “Alla same, better,” said Julio Sal. “No?”

  The stranger resumed his coiffure abruptly.

  “Is my business.”

  He shoved the comb into the upper pocket of his coat and brushed off his trousers with quick angry slaps. He seemed to wait for Julio Sal to say more.

  Said Julio, “Sometime, American woman is good for Pinoy. Other time, she is bad.”

  The stranger looked at Julio Sal contemptuously.

  “You talk like damn fool,” he said. “Is no such thing as good woman. American, Chinee, Mexican, New York, San Francisco, Reno. Is all the same thing. No good.”

  It was good to hear a man talk like that. Julio Sal put his comb away and stretched out his hand. “Name of Julio Sal,” he said.

  “Name of Nick Fabria, Pismo Beach.”

  They shook hands.

  “You smart man, Nick.”

  Fabria grinned. “Damn toot. Nobody make a monkey from Nick Fabria.”

  “American woman also smart too,” said Julio “Maybe already she catch without you know it.”

  Said Nick Fabria, “Is not possible. Nobody catch Nick Fabria.”

  “Maybe.”

  “No maybe. This girl, I catch myself. She is my sister-in-law.”

  “Sister-in-law? That is good?”

  “Good?” said Fabria. “Is perfect. Here—” He dug into his coat pocket. “Have cigar. Compliments, Nick Fabria.”

  They shook hands again.

  “I give you advice,” Nick said. “Free. When you
marry, catch ’urn wife with sister. Kill both stones with same bird. Goo’bye.”

  He tossed his hand in a salute and was gone through the swinging doors.

  A moment later Julio Sal followed. At the other end of the waiting room he saw Nick Fabria and his sister-in-law moving toward the street entrance. The girl clung tightly to Nick’s arm. He walked gallantly on high-heeled oxfords, a camel’s hair polo coat flung dramatically over his shoulder, his hat tipped over the back of his head, bosky puffs of blue cigar smoke tumbling in his wake.

  Julio Sal walked to the restaurant counter and ordered a cup of coffee Long after the coffee had cooled before him, he sat there studying the cigar Nick had given him, turning it in his fingers. In six hours he would be in Sacramento.

  Mary Osaka, I Love You

  IT HAPPENED IN Los Angeles, in the fall of that breathless year. It happened in the kitchen of the Yokohama Café, and it happened during the dinner hour, when Segu Osaka, her ferocious father, was up front minding the customers and the cash register. It happened very quickly. Mary Osaka, her arms full of dishes, came into the kitchen and laid the dishes on the sink board. Mingo Mateo was washing dishes at the sink. He was slushing out a batch of soup bowls.

  Said he, “Mary Osaka, I love you very much.”

  Mary Osaka reached up with two firm brown hands and held the face of Mingo Mateo to the light. “And I love you, too, Mingo. Didn’t you know?”

  She kissed him. Mingo Mateo felt the blood and bones melting out of his shoes, and they were very expensive shoes, the very best, with square toes, made of pigskin, costing twelve dollars a pair, three days’ wages. “I’ve loved you since you came here three months ago,” she said. “But—oh, Mingo! we can’t. We mustn’t. It’s impossible!”

  Mingo dried his hands on a dish towel and got his breath. “Is possible,” he said. “Is absolutely possible. Everything is possible!”

  There wasn’t time to answer. The swinging doors crashed open, and Segu Osaka rushed into the kitchen waving thick fingers and shouting: “Helly up, helly up. Bling ’em chop suey two times, bling ’em tea one time, alla same, helly up, yes!”

  On the other side of the kitchen Vincente Toletano dug out two orders of chop suey from the big cauldron on the stove and threw them on the serving tray. Vincente Toletano was a proud Filipino, a somber, brooding man, who, but for the scarcity of work during those times, would have spat upon a Japanese rather than work for him. After Mary hurried away with the orders, Vincente Toletano was alone with his countryman, Mingo Mateo.

  Said Vincente: “Mingo, my friend, I see you make passionate love with this Japanese girl. You are a crazy man, Mingo. Also, you are a disgrace to the whole Filipino nation.”

  Mingo Mateo turned around. He folded his arms and glared, chin jutting, at Vincente Toletano. Said he: “Toletano, thank you ever so much if you mind your own business. For why you peek like a sneak, if you see I make love with this wonderful girl?”

  Said Vincente: “I have right to peek. This girl, she is Japanese woman. Is not good for you to make kiss with this kind of woman. Better for you to wash your mouth with soap.”

  Mingo smiled. “She is very beautiful, eh, Vincente? You are jealous little bit, maybe?”

  Vincente turned his lips as though an evil taste fell upon them. “You are a fool, Mingo. You make sickness in my stomach. I make challenge. If you kiss some more with Mary Osaka, I quit this job.”

  “Quit,” Mingo shrugged. “I no care when you quit. But me—ah, I never quit making kiss with Mary Osaka.”

  Vincente’s voice changed. It was threatening now, soft and menacing, as he leaned forward with his hands gripping the table that separated them.

  “How you like if I tell Filipino Federated Brotherhood? How you like that, Mingo? How you like when I stand before Brotherhood and point finger and say to Federated Brotherhood, ‘This man, this Mingo Mateo, he is make love with Japanese girl!’ How you like that, Mingo?”

  “I no care,” said Mingo. “Tell whole world. It only make me more happy.”

  Vincente Toletano had more to say, but Mary was back in the kitchen again. “Pork chow mein on two,” she called, crossing to Mingo.

  Vincente threw two platters on the table and spooned out the order. Mary was talking, and what she said made Vincente splash chow mein crazily.

  “It can’t happen, Mingo. You know how Papa feels about you. About Vincente. About all Filipinos.” She was standing very close to Mingo, a small, snug girl, whose black hair reached, sleek and lovely, to his nostrils.

  “Smell good,” he said, sniffing the bright blackness. “It make no difference about your papa. I no love your papa. I love you, Mary Osaka.”

  “You don’t know Papa,” she smiled.

  “I know,” said Mingo. “We have little talk.”

  Here was his opportunity, for the swinging doors flew open and Segu Osaka charged into the kitchen waving his short arms. “Helly up, quick. Bling ’em chow mein two times, chasso, chasso!” His quick black eyes lashed at Mary, at Mingo, at Vincente. Popping himself on the forehead with his open palm, he rushed back to the dining room. They could hear him muttering in Japanese something about Filipinos.

  Suddenly without shame Mingo Mateo dropped to his knees and threw his arms around the slim waist of Mary Osaka. He clung to her, his face tight against her.

  “Oh, Mary Osaka,” he panted, “please, you be my wife?”

  “Mingo, be careful!”

  She tore herself away, dragging him so that he walked a little on his knees after her before letting go. When she had disappeared with the two orders of chow mein, there was Mingo Mateo on his knees, sitting on his heels, and across the room with lips curled in disgust stood Vincente Toletano. His face said, “Finished.” His cold eyes said much more than that.

  Grabbing his high-crowned chef’s hat, Toletano flung it to the floor. He stood upon it, wiped his feet upon it, while his fingers fought and burst the strings of his apron, which he ripped away.

  “Already I am quit,” he said. “Is too much for one Filipino to see.”

  But the eyes of Mingo Mateo were on the swinging doors. Half-kneeling, half-sitting, he watched them go thump-thump, thump-thump, before coming to a stop. His hands hung loosely at his sides. His chin lay like a heavy stone against his chest.

  Vincente Toletano crossed to him. “My countryman!” he sneered, and he seized the head of Mingo Mateo by the hair, turning the face upward toward him. Deliberately he slapped Mingo first across one cheek, then the other. Now he held the face toward him again. Calmly he spat upon it.

  “Fooey!” he said, pushing Mingo. “Disgrace to the good name of the Filipino people.”

  Mingo did not resist, did not speak. The tears fell from his eyes and slithered down his brown cheeks. Vincente was gone; the alley door slammed loudly behind him. Mingo staggered to his feet. He washed his face with cold water, pulling the flesh at his cheeks with long fingers, running his hands through his hair, clenching his teeth against a surge of grief that shook his body like a fit of coughing. When Mary Osaka returned to the kitchen, she found him that way, his head bent down and smothered in his hands, his sobs louder than the sound of the running water that was coming from the faucet.

  She put down a trayful of dishes and took him in her arms. The curve of her neck fitted his forehead like a nest as he leaned heavily upon her. She stroked his wet hair with spread fingers; she smoothed his thin shoulders with small, eager palms.

  “You mustn’t. Mingo, you mustn’t.”

  “Nothing good in this world but you,” he choked. “Is better to die without my Mary. Make no difference what Vincente say, or your papa, or anybody.”

  Vincente? She looked about and realized the cook was gone. All at once Mingo was erect, tense, his eyes aflame, his two hands on her shoulders, the fingers hurting her flesh as he held her at arms’ length.

  “Mary! Why we care? Filipino, he say is disgrace to marry Japanese. Japanese, he say is disgrace to marry Fil
ipino. Is lie, big lie, whole thing. For in the heart is what count, and the heart of Mingo Mateo say alla time, boom boom boom for Mary Osaka.”

  The face of Mary Osaka brightened, and the eyes of Mary Osaka were drenched with delight. “Oh, Mingo!”

  Eagerly he spoke. “We marry, yes? No?”

  “Yes!”

  He caught his breath, held back a giddy laugh, and fell at her feet, his knees booming on the floor. He kissed her hands and pulled them across his lips. He was pecking quick kisses on the tips of her fingers when Segu Osaka bounced into the kitchen.

  “Helly up, helly up!”

  There was Mingo Mateo at his daughter’s feet.

  Said Mingo Mateo, “Mr. Osaka, if you please—”

  Said Osaka; “No no no. Get ’em out. Fire. Go. Out!”

  Not tall, Osaka, but squat and powerful. His fists were quickly inside Mingo’s collar. There was a tearing of cloth, with Mingo’s face a thickish blue as Osaka dragged him sacklike across the floor and out the kitchen door.

  “But Mr. Osaka! Is love! Is marriage!”

  “No no no. No no no.”

  Sprawled in the alley, Mingo saw the stumpy little man slam the door, heard it bolted. Inside, Osaka spluttered violent Japanese, and Mary answered with equal vehemence. Mingo jumped to his feet and rushed the door, kicking it, drumming it with knuckles.

  “Don’t hurt her,” he shouted. “Don’t touch!”

  The voices inside grew louder. Desperately he flung himself against the door. The wood panel splintered, the bolt and hinges creaked. For a moment the voices were silent.

  Then a piercing cry cut the night as Segu Osaka shrieked: “Help, police! Help!”

  Mingo paused, glanced up and down the alley. The moonlight illumined a canyon of fire escapes and garbage tins leading to a bright street fifty yards away. Osaka still screamed. Now there were other voices and the sound of running feet inside the kitchen.

  Mary’s voice rose above the noise. “Run, Mingo, run!

  Pulling off his apron, Mingo threw it into a garbage can. Upstairs a window howled, opened. The frail head and shoulders of Mary Osaka’s mother peered out. She did not speak, only looked down at him nervously, her hands clutching her mouth. He backed into the darkness and ran toward the street, his feet filling the alley with tiny echoes.