The Big Hunger Read online

  I went to my desk and found Zarathustra.

  At random I opened it, reading “They called God that which opposed and afflicted them, and verily, there was much hero-spirit in their worship.”

  Kissing mother, I rolled into bed.

  She went into her room. I heard her knees crackle as she knelt down; then the rattling of rosary beads.

  Washed in the Rain

  HAZEL CLIFTON IS George Clifton’s sister, and George Clifton is my boss down on the waterfront, at the California Fish Cannery. It was George who first told me about Hazel. I fell in love with her a long time before I saw her. I’m that way. I fall in love with women who don’t know it. Like Norma Shearer. I was in love with Norma Shearer my last two years at Santa Barbara High. I know it was love. But she was too far away. I never had the chance or the money to get close to her. Then she married that fellow, and all at once I wasn’t in love with her. But while it lasted it was love.

  I’m always falling in love with women a million miles away. It’s a jinx. It’s very strange. It’s because I’m really afraid when I get too close to women. I can’t talk or even breathe easy. I stammer and act like a fool. My tongue is a ball of glue. It’s a hunk of lead. It falls asleep at the bottom of my mouth. After the woman is gone it wakes up and says the things it should have said before the woman went away.

  George Clifton, I am going to talk to you now. I am going to ask you something. Do you remember that afternoon on the dock when we were sitting there and the two Mexican women were in the launch under us? They were laughing at us, and making wisecracks. They wanted us to jump into the launch and go for a sail. I wanted to go. I said I didn’t, but cripes! I did. I couldn’t say it, though. My tongue fell asleep, and as long as the two Mexican women smiled and made wisecracks, my tongue went on sleeping. That was all. The two women were disappointed and rowed away alone. And there we sat.

  Why didn’t you go with them? If you had jumped into the launch I would have too. But no, you didn’t. Then you gave me the raspberry. I mean about women. I had to say something. I had to defend myself. I mean about women. If I told you the truth, I couldn’t tell you anything, because I’ve never had anything to do with real women.

  So I told a lot of lies. They weren’t so bad. I could have told worse. I guess every fellow tells a few about women. Still, the lies I told you weren’t really lies at all. Those things never happened to me, but I told myself they did, and if I thought them the truth, they were the truth.

  I’ll show you what I mean. I told you I was a football star at Santa Barbara High last year. That was an awful lie. I went out for the Santa Barbara team four straight years, but I never did make the first team. I never even made the second team. As a matter of fact, I was only quarterback on the third team. When I told you Pop Warner came down and asked me to go to Stanford, that was another lie. But George, you don’t know me. I’m that way. Things like that did happen to me. I did make the first team. I was a star quarterback. Pop Warner did come down from Palo Alto and ask me to go to Stanford. He came every Saturday for four football seasons. I sat on the bench, and he used to whisper to me. He used to say:

  “Come to Stanford, Jordan. We need you up there. You’ll be on the first team, Jordan. I promise you that.”

  And listen, George Clifton. I told you I had a lot of girl friends at Santa Barbara High. I did. So help me, I did. But they weren’t the real McCoy. My father only made eighteen a week at the drugstore before he died, and you can’t have the real McCoy on that much money. I used to fake my girlfriends. It wasn’t so bad. It was just one jump behind the truth. When I told you I took a girl named Helen Purcell to the Santa Barbara Biltmore, it was the truth, but there isn’t any Helen Purcell that I know about. Oh, listen. I took hundreds of girls to the Santa Barbara Biltmore. This may sound like applesauce, but I took Norma Shearer to the Santa Barbara Biltmore. Almost every night in the week. I’ve danced a hundred dances with Norma Shearer, a hundred times on that Biltmore floor. Oh, it’s hooey. It’s fake. But it’s fake because I wanted to show you I am good enough for Hazel.

  It started the day I saw Hazel Clifton’s picture. That day I went to George’s office and asked him to give me a lift home. The minute I stepped inside, I saw that picture. It was the whole room. It was small, it stood up like a book end, but it was the whole room. That was Hazel Clifton. She was standing under a palm tree, holding a bouquet of gladiolas. Phew! She was a beauty. She was perfect. I fell hard for her. I didn’t know who she was, and I didn’t care. But I was in love with her. Like my crush on Norma Shearer. I only saw Norma Shearer in pictures, but I was in love with her. That sounds like hooey, but it’s true. When I saw Hazel Clifton standing in the picture holding the bouquet of gladiolas, I fell for her like a ton of bricks.

  I picked up the picture and looked at it. George came in and saw me. I said:

  “Say George! You sure know how to pick them!”

  He laughed.

  “Frank,” he said. “That’s not my girl. That’s my sister.”

  I said, “Your sister! Boy! She’s sure swell!”

  I could hardly believe it. The two didn’t look very much alike. George Clifton is about thirty-eight. The girl in the picture was about nineteen. She was slender and not very tall. George is a big fellow. He weighs two hundred and stands six feet high. The only resemblance was the hair. The picture was multi-colored, and Hazel’s hair was blonde, like George’s.

  I wanted to ask him if the girl in the picture was married, but I didn’t have to ask. George must have read my mind, because when he said it, I turned as red as a beet. I mean, when he said:

  “No, Frank. She’s not married.”

  A fellow always asks a lot of questions about a pretty girl. Well, I wanted to. But I couldn’t. He was her brother, and I didn’t want to be snoopy. I put the picture down as if I was through with it, but I got another look at it over my shoulder when we went out the door. I was in love with that girl. I know it was love. I had a million questions buzzing in my brain like a million hornets, and when that happens, you’re in love. Like the time with Norma Shearer. I had a million questions then, too. I bought all the movie magazines I could afford, and I even wrote in and asked questions about her.

  But I didn’t have to ask many questions this time. George opened up about his sister Hazel while he was driving me home. She was in Los Angeles, studying at USC. She was studying music. She was twenty. This was her second year in college. Her mother and father were dead, so George was putting her through school.

  Oh, I found out everything. She must have been a wonder in high school. She went to high school here in the harbor. In her last year she was president of the student body. She was a swell tennis player—captain of the girls’ team. But the big thing was her music. She was so fine that in summer she gave lessons, and George said that last summer she made two hundred and fifty bucks.

  She was popular in college, too. In her freshman year, seven sororities bid for her. Finally she picked Zeta Alpha Nu. And that November when I first saw her picture, she was vice president of her sorority and president of the sophomore class.

  I couldn’t hear enough about that Hazel Clifton. It tickled me pink that she was getting along so swell. George said some day she would be a great musician. I knew he was right. I felt it. Once I had the same feeling about Norma Shearer. Norma Shearer was not a star then, but I knew she’d be one some day. I was right.

  Then George said Hazel was almost engaged to marry Phil Mannix. It practically spoiled everything for me. I mean, Phil Mannix is the star Trojan quarterback, and football stars have always been my jinx. This may not make sense, but if it hadn’t been for football stars at Santa Barbara High, things wouldn’t have been so tough for me. I hate the big shots—the stars. For four years they made me sit on the bench. This Phil Mannix is more than a star. He’s a whole football team. He made a ninety-five-yard run against Notre Dame last year, and was picked on the All-American team because of it. When George told
me about Mannix, it hurt. It was an old hurt, and it hurt in the same place, with that same queer ache I got the day I read that Norma Shearer married that fellow. It hurt right in the middle of my throat, as if somebody punched me on the Adam’s apple.

  George drove up in front of my place, and we talked about the big game two weeks away. Southern California was playing Stanford. It was the last game of the season. I hadn’t thought much about it, but now I wanted Stanford to win.

  George asked me how I thought it would come out.

  I said, “I hope Stanford wins by a thousand touchdowns.”

  George, he laughed. I stood on the curb and watched his car turn the corner. He was a block away. I could still hear him laughing. It made me so mad I couldn’t eat any supper that night, and my mother thought I was sick.

  Hazel Clifton, you will never know how much I love you! There is no way of telling you. I can’t tell you. But if we were married, I could tell you.

  Maybe you’d say I was a fool the night I put on my hat and coat and went up the street to the high school. I’d never been there before, but since you went to school there, I wanted to see what it was like. I was in love all right. I could smell it in the air. It was a swell night and the street lamps were bright. I thought of you all the time. The smell of the grass on the high school lawn made me think of you. I went up the stairs to the main entrance and thought of how you used to walk in and out of those big doors. Then I pretended I was a big football star leaving the stadium. As soon as you saw me, you hollered and came running.

  “Oh Frank!” you said. “I love you!”

  I said, “Hazel, I love you.”

  I picked you up and let you feel my shoulder pads.

  You said, “Oh Frank! I love you!”

  I said, “Kiss me, Hazel. I love you.”

  Just then the coach came out of the stadium. I was a big star and he thought a lot of me.

  “Here! Here!” he said, winking at you. “What do you mean by stealing the heart of the greatest young quarterback in California?”

  I got red and said, “Aw, coach. Roll over and die, will you?”

  “Frank,” he said. “If I catch you breaking training rules, I’ll make you warm the bench in Saturday’s game.”

  I said, “Horse collar! Put me on the bench, and you’ll lose that game.”

  He said, “Quit your kidding, Frank. You don’t know how true that is.”

  Then you said again, “Oh Frank, I love you so much.”

  And I said, “Hazel, I’ll always love you.”

  Those are the things I said to Hazel Clifton the night I sat on the high school steps. I must have sat there for two hours. Finally the janitor came by on one of his rounds. He saw me and kicked me out of the yard.

  Things got to be different at the cannery between me and George Clifton. He started acting strange. He was willing to talk about the football game, but he wouldn’t talk about Hazel. He knew I was in love with Hazel. I gave it away by the way I looked at him when he talked. He wouldn’t speak about her. All he talked about was Phil Mannix,

  I hated that Mannix. George knew why. He kept talking about him. He kept saying Phil Mannix could beat the whole Stanford team, all by himself. I thought Stanford was going to lose, but I didn’t let on. I gave it away, though. I mean, about Mannix. I let George find out I hated him because of Hazel.

  I said, “If somebody kicks Phil Mannix below the belt, it’ll suit me fine.”

  Another time I said, “I think Phil Mannix is yellow. The only reason he gets away for long runs is on account of the interference he gets.”

  But one day George called my bluff. I was trucking some boxes past the office. He was in there. He called me. I put down my truck and went in.

  “Say,” he said. “If you’re so sure Stanford is going to win Saturday’s game, why don’t you bet some money on them?”

  I couldn’t bet much. I only made fifteen a week. George, he made sixty. He had me on the spot. I wasn’t going to back out, though. I had to pay rent and grocery bills, but I wasn’t going to back out.

  “Okay,” I said. “How much do you want to bet?”

  George said, “I’m not betting. How much do you want to bet?”

  I said, “How about four bits, even money?”

  He broke out laughing.

  “Four bits!” he said. “My God! I thought you wanted to bet some real money!”

  “Well,” I said. “Just what do you call real money?”

  He said, “How about fifty bucks?”

  He didn’t bat an eye. Oh, he had me on the spot that time.

  I said, “How can I bet fifty? I only make fifteen a week.”

  “Well,” he said. “If you lose, you can pay me off each week. That’s fair enough, isn’t it?”

  I told him I would think about it. I went back to work, trucking the boxes. The bet worried me all afternoon. I almost went nuts. Finally, I couldn’t stand it. At two o’clock I went back to his office. He was writing on the typewriter. He didn’t hear me come in. Hazel’s picture was on the desk. He didn’t see me staring at it, but he must have felt me staring at it, because he turned around. It must have made him mad, my staring at the picture.

  “What do you want?” he said.

  “I’ll take that bet,” I said.

  “You’ll do what?” he said. “You’ll do what?”

  I said it again. I said, “I’ll take that bet.”

  Ah man! I had him on the spot this time. His mouth dropped open, and he pretended he didn’t remember.

  “Oh!” he said. “You mean the Stanford game.”

  Ah man!

  I said, “Yeah, George, that’s what I mean.”

  “Okay,” he said. “It’s a bet.”

  We shook on it.

  I may be a crazy fool; I may fall in love with women who don’t know it; I may do a lot of crazy things, but I got a conscience. I had my mother to support and rent to pay and groceries to buy, and there I was with a whole month’s wages bet on a football game.

  That was Wednesday. I didn’t sleep Wednesday night. Thursday night I didn’t sleep either. I got up at two o’clock and took a walk to the high school. There was a white fog that night, and the fog suited me. It covered me up. I went behind the high school and sat on the bench in the tennis court. That made me feel better. I was making this bet for Hazel Clifton. She was like the fog. She suited me. As long as I sat there, I was glad I made the bet. But as soon as I was out of the fog and inside my room and under the covers I got nervous again. I heard my mother snoring in the next room. It nearly drove me crazy.

  Stanford won that game. They pulled the biggest upset in years. They beat the holy living hell out of those Trojans. I listened to the game over the radio in the barber shop. I nearly passed out from the excitement. Oh, you Stanford! Oh, you red and white Cardinals! It was an avalanche. The Trojans were three to one favorites, but they were smashed. The Stanford line stopped Phil Mannix in his tracks, and the Stanford backfield went on a rampage with trick plays and end runs and forward passes, and at the final gun there wasn’t anything left. The Trojans were mopped up. The final score was Southern California 3, Stanford 21.

  After the game, I stopped in front of the Harbor Haberdashery and looked at the men’s suits in the window. I was rich now. I was fifty bucks in the clear. I wanted to buy some clothes. But I saw a sign in the window that gave me an idea.

  I went inside and talked prices with the clerk. The prices were high, but I ordered what I’ve always wanted to have, ever since I was a kid, and that was a letterman’s sweater from Stanford University. I knew I could never go to school and earn one because my father was dead and I had to support my mother. School days were over. I ordered a white, wool-knitted, v-necked sweater with the big “S” of Stanford right on the chest. The clerk said the sweater wouldn’t be ready for two weeks. That was all right with me. Any time was all right with me.

  The night I got my sweater something happened. Hazel Clifton came home
for Christmas vacation. Phil Mannix came with her. I read about it in the harbor paper. I couldn’t miss it, because it was all over the front page.

  It made me so mad I couldn’t see straight, because all week I’d been asking George Clifton when Hazel would be home, and he kept telling me he didn’t know. But there it was, all over the front page. I never felt so lousy in my life.

  I put on my new sweater and looked in the mirror. And there I was…I wasn’t so hot. I was just a fifteen-dollar-a-week cannery stiff trying to hide it. No wonder George Clifton didn’t want me to meet his sister.

  I couldn’t stand it. I hung around the house for a while, but everything got on my nerves. Finally I grabbed my cap and went outside. It was raining, the first rain of the first rain of that winter. Man! How it came down! I was ruining that white sweater, but I didn’t care. And I didn’t care if people saw me, either. A lot of people know me in the harbor, and they know I’m not from Stanford, but I didn’t care. I didn’t give a darn. The rain could drown me, for all I cared. The rain was coming from the north, and I flopped along, right against it, face first. I was soaking wet before I went two blocks.

  At the boulevard stop there was a big black lake of rain in the gutter. I was going to wade right through it, shoes and all, but the signal was against me, so I had to wait. The water oozed out of my shoes.

  While I was waiting for the signal to change, a yellow sport roadster came alongside the curb. It came to beat the band. It plowed through that lake of water. I got soaked all over.

  I yelled, “Hey! What the hell!”

  But the side-curtains of the roadster were up, and the driver didn’t hear me. The water splashed my face and almost washed my cap off. It was black and greasy and it tasted like asphalt and oil. The whole front of my sweater smeared with a black smudge. I got sore. I stepped off the curb and waded to the side of the car and pushed my face against the side-curtains.

  I couldn’t see much. But I saw enough. The driver was Phil Mannix. I knew him from pictures in the paper. The girl was Hazel Clifton. I knew her from the picture in George’s office. They drove away before I got a chance to say anything. I stood in the street there and shook my fist and cussed a blue streak. But they didn’t hear me.