The Ninth Wave

by Eugene Burdick

  And she sensed something of what Mike was unable to transmit to her. She knew that he did not care about the fruit and vegetables and trees and greenness that would come from the desert. She knew that what he wanted was to fight the white still sand, to cut the hot dead surface with bright strips of water, to rip it with tractors, to make it yield. When that was done he would no longer be interested. She understood why he had not wanted to buy land that was already worked or easy to develop.

  She understood why he did not need an expert, not for the farm land or anything else. He went at a problem directly, like a physical assault, reaching for the heart of it. Then he reordered the whole thing, reshaped it, made it his. He did not want an expert around to take the edge off the victory. She was certain that he was right about the desert and the water.

  Dimly she knew that her own excitement lacked something powerful and violent that Mike felt. But what she did feel was sufficient to make her tense, expectant, excited.

  "Let's go and call Morris, my brother," Georgia said. "He can find out if this land is for sale and how much it costs. Are you sure we could get the water in here?"

  Mike grinned at her and nodded his head. He threw the butt of the cigar into a cholla and it caught on the spikes, A thin blue spiral of smoke rose in the hot still air; foreign, different from everything else, it was like a sign of domination. Mike turned and got in the car.

  On the way back to Los Angeles they stopped at a drive-in outside of Barstow. It was a huge red and gold affair, built in a great clump of eucalyptus trees. It was late afternoon when they stopped. Mike and Hank went inside.

  The carhops were all girls and they wore cowboy outfits with red pants that tucked into white cowboy boots. Their jackets were cut short and buttoned tightly in front. Two inches of flesh showed between the pants and the jacket. The pants were very tight.

  Most of the cars were filled with Mexicans, six or seven in each car. The trays fastened to the windows were filled with beer bottles. The Mexicans pressed their faces against the windows and watched the carhops. From one of the cars came the sound of singing in Spanish.

  "You look busy," Georgia said when the carhop gave her a menu.

  "Usual Saturday night crowd," the girl said. Her face was heavily made up, as if she were a starlet getting ready to go on a set. Her hair was a bright peroxide blond. "They're mostly Mexicans. They bring 'em up to do the stoop labor. They can't get in the regular bars in town so they all chip in and buy a car together and spend Saturday night in the drive-ins." She looked around quickly and leaned forward. "Fact is, honey, they're all horny. They just like to see a girl's ass wobble is all. It's these outfits. The boss orders them from one of those fancy places in Hollywood. They cost a hundred and seventy-five bucks each and they fit across your ass so tight that it feels like a girdle. The boss does it because it brings in the Mexican trade. He only hires blondes because he says they like blondes better. I had to dye my hair. I'd be sore except that the Mexicans always leave big tips." She smiled and touched her hair softly. "What're you gonna have? Hamburger's good here."

  "Three hamburgers and three beers," Georgia said.

  Hank and Mike came out and got in the car.

  "Mike, if everything goes all right, who will work the farm?" Georgia asked. "Mexicans? Like the men in those cars?"

  Mike glanced at the other cars. The Mexicans stared out, their brown faces gently sweating, their mouths open and singing softly. The leaves flickered, moved by a sudden breeze, and the faces became more distinct in the green light.

  The peroxided carhop went to the closest car and picked up the empty bottles.

  "You can't just sit here," she said in a hard voice. "You have to have something on your tray."

  She tapped her booted foot on the asphalt. The Mexicans talked in Spanish. They ordered another round of beers. When the carhop turned around she winked at Georgia.

  "Sure, we'll use Mexicans or whoever can do the work," Mike said. "Maybe we can use machines for most of it. But there aren't any machines invented that will pick things like lettuce or melons or artichokes. So we'll use Mexicans, I guess."

  "Have you made any plans for them?" Georgia asked. "I mean for their families? Like housing facilities, laundries, that sort of thing."

  "Now, Georgia, don't go getting' sentimental," Hank said. "Don't expect Mike to elect a governor, bring in irrigation, raise the biggest crops in the world and also take care of the Mexicans. Not old Mike, not old Mike the big wheeler and dealer."

  Mike looked at both of them uncomprehendingly.

  "That's right," he said. "You can't plan for people. They come or they don't. If they don't come you raise your wages."

  "Maybe we should plan something for them," Georgia said. "I'll talk to Morrie about it."

  "No you won't talk to Morrie about it," Mike said. "That's one thing you can't plan. You can plan roads and irrigation and parity prices, but you can't plan for people. They're not like a road, for example. Any engineer can tell you what is the best topping and how much rolling and scraping a road needs. But you can't do that for people. You don't plan for them. You just make them an offer and see if they take it or not."

  The carhop brought them the beer and hamburgers. They ate quickly. Before they were finished the Mexicans in the next car had finished their beers. They tooted their horn for the carhop. When she took the tray from their car, there were three one-dollar bills on it. As she walked back to the drive-in, she held the tray low so Georgia could see the size of the tip.

  Mike paid their bill and they swung out on the road that led to Los Angeles.

  CHAPTER 18

  Memories

  On the table in front of Cromwell was an untouched martini.

  He could smell its chilled, lemon-scented surface. It was a thin odor and he knew the sensation of thirst and tightness in his chest would be eased when he drank. But he waited. He looked at the Board members; made himself smile.

  Kelly put his hand around his old-fashioned glass, started to lift it and then thought of a joke.

  "Did you hear the one about the woman who saw the bull outside the kitchen window?" Kelly said. "Well, the woman is mixing bread . . . "

  Kelly took his hand away from his glass without drinking and Cromwell felt a sharp disappointment. He did not look down, but he turned the cold thin stem. Saliva gathered around the back of his mouth; dry, cottony flecks that stuck to his teeth. He opened his mouth, worked his lips. Costello, the Mexican, lifted his old-fashioned and took a sip. Cromwell raised his glass and drank half the martini. The cold tasteless liquid flowed through dry passages and into his stomach with a soft stunning sensation. Instantly it was in his blood. His head cleared, a nervousness disappeared, the saliva vanished from his mouth. He bent forward eagerly to hear the rest of Kelly's story.

  "And there the woman is, kneading and kneading away at the bread and muttering, 'Damn that husband of mine; never around when I want him,'" Kelly said.

  Kelly lifted his hand and smashed it down on the table. They all laughed. Cromwell finished his drink and signaled to the waitress for another round. The Jonathon Club dining room was slowly filling. Cromwell looked at the Board men.

  Kelly was the strongest member, he thought. Costello was a Mexican with a bland face and a pattern of smallpox scars across his nose. He claimed to have great influence with the Mexican voters and no one could prove whether he did or didn't. Franwich was a small wiry farmer from the north of the state and he was very attractive to the prohibitionists. He was reputed to be the most corrupt member of the Board. Smithies was from the north. He was a huge sprawling man. Buttons, belts and suspenders dug into his flesh like strings that held his baggy shape together. But the flesh edged around its bonds. The suspenders disappeared in fat. The tips of his shirt collar stuck out from a drooping roll of flesh. His mouth was a pink gash among folds of flesh. He had an enormous knowledge of California politics and he was scrupulously honest.

  "I remember your father, Cr
omwell," Kelly said. "I went to San Francisco once to see him. Just before he died. Wanted to get him to invest in a pet project of mine. You were just out of law school then."

  "I remember," Cromwell said. "It was your avocado idea."

  The other men at the table laughed and Kelly's face tightened up defensively.

  "That's right. And it was a hell of a good idea," Kelly said.

  Cromwell remembered how shocked his mother had been by Kelly. Cromwell's father had brought Kelly to dinner just once at their home in Atherton and after that his mother had refused to entertain Kelly again.

  Kelly came to San Diego from Dublin. He stepped off a ship in San Diego Harbor in 1910, and two weeks later he was in the avocado business. He looked at the crisp green skin of the avocado, tasted its bland rich flesh and it seemed the most exotic and beautiful of fruit. In 1910 avocado trees were used mostly for decoration and only Mexicans and bums ate the fruit. Kelly bought 250 acres of avocados. After working twelve hours a day in a foundry, he went out to the grove and tended his trees. On Sundays he worked in the hot dry soil, digging irrigation grooves, hoeing around the trees, trimming the limbs back. He wore out his cheap Dublin tweeds, bought cheap blue denims and wore out three suits before the trees bore fruit.

  The fruit came out heavy and green, hanging with a peculiar richness from the thin branches. Kelly used to stand and stare at the trees, lifting the fruit delicately with his stubby fingers, unable to believe that dirt and water and sun could do anything so wonderful. The California sun burned his hands mottled brown and his neck cherry red and wove tiny triangles of bloodshot in the corners of his eyes and he forgot entirely about Dublin and its rain and mist and cold.

  But no one wanted the avocados. The Mexicans bought a few and squashed them up with onions and ate them on folded tortillas. And the bums from the harbor drifted out on sunny days and stole avocados and spooned their bellies full and fell asleep beside Kelly's trees. Most of the avocados rotted in great stinking heaps; going soft and flowing together and making a brown-green mound that hummed with flies and gave off a queer sweet smell that was enough to make strangers vomit when they first caught wind of it.

  Kelly decided to make cold cream out of the avocados. For months he ground the flesh of the avocados into a thick paste, mixed it with perfume and musk and preservative. But the paste always turned brown and stank. Until one day a druggist told him about a new preservative and he added it to the avocado paste and the paste stayed green and sweet. Then Kelly sold the cold cream from door to door. He sold it in white pots with a little brochure which told women how the oil would rejuvenate the skin of the face and neck and hands. One day something happened, and like a breeze the knowledge of avocado cold cream spread all over California and movie stars and housewives and great women were using it. The magazines ran articles showing pictures of Kelly mixing the cold cream and quoting him as saying "It's nature's way to nourish the skin."

  A neat little factory grew up beside the grove and Kelly stopped working at the foundry. He bought newspaper ads and the white pots started to carry a gold label. He picked up 2500 acres in Seal Beach and planned to plant it to avocados. He bought a car and had cases of Irish whisky shipped over directly from Dublin. But he still worked in the groves; his head bare, and grinning as his face and chest were burnt by the sun. The Mexicans who worked the groves laughed and thought he was crazy; made mad by the sun. He roared and bellowed among the trees, jabbing his shovel at the irrigation canals, softly testing the fruit, kicking the dry rich soil.

  Then one night a Hollywood starlet woke up, ran her pink tongue over a cupid-bow mouth made tender by avocado cold cream. She swallowed some of the cold cream. She died the next morning, screaming in agony. Like a dropping breeze, the avocado cold cream business vanished, although Kelly went from door to door again, arguing and scolding and fighting with the women, telling them that the cold cream was wonderful. He would reach into the pots and scoop out huge fingerfuls of the green paste and eat it to show them it was harmless, but they were not buying.

  Kelly went broke trying to save his avocado cold cream. He believed in it fanatically, blindly, with an Irish single-mindedness. He spent money on newspaper ads and he hauled seven different people into court for libeling his product. Finally he lost his original avocado grove when he couldn't meet the mortgage.

  In the end it made no difference, for they found oil on the land he owned at Seal Beach. With a canny insight he refused to sell the land to Standard or Shell or Richfield or anyone. He held on to it and as the land sprouted derricks and black tank farms, he grew rich.

  For five years he tried to revive interest in the avocado cold cream business. He poured a million dollars into it. He bought new avocado groves and raised the largest, greenest and richest avocados in California. But women would not use his cold cream and Kelly hated them for their reluctance. Finally avocados became a popular food and Kelly, mollified by this, gave up the cold cream idea.

  "Some talk the Democrats might run you for governor, John," Smithies said.

  He moved in his chair; his body sighed against its braces; the flesh heaved and shifted. The other Board people looked sharply at Cromwell.

  Cromwell let the clean chill of the gin and vermouth pour around his teeth. Five minutes before he had been old and defenseless; aware of aching bones and a shortness of breath. And now they were waiting to see what he would say, their faces expectant. He felt confident, alert.

  "With Warren going to the Supreme Court, the situation is a little peculiar," Cromwell said.

  "This is a hard year to figure out," Smithies said, his eyes half closed. "Maybe a Democrat will have a chance. Not much of a chance, but a chance."

  "What about Daigh?" Cromwell asked. ''The Republicans will run him, won't they?"

  The Board members paused, looked at Smithies.

  "They'll run him and he'll get the Republican nomination," Smithies said flatly. It was not a conjecture or a guess or an opinion. It was a fact. They all accepted it.

  "How could a Democrat win?" Cromwell said.

  The waitress brought their food. Smithies looked down at the breaded veal cutlet, the bread and butter, the string beans. He took one bite and then talked through the food.

  "Depends on the Democrat, John," Smithies said. "Now you've got two things in your favor. First, you've got a good name. Everybody knows the Cromwells, even if they don't know you. Second thing is you can speak. You're an orator. That helps."

  It helps? Cromwell thought. Is that all it does? I don't believe it. It's everything.

  With part of his mind Cromwell listened to Smithies talk, but a part of his mind reached back and uncovered an old memory . . . he had learned to speak at a speech class at Stanford. He was tall and awkward and he hated Stanford. He hated the girls, the fraternities, the dances, the football games, the classes. He was depressed by everything about the university.

  In the speech class everyone had to give a short talk. Cromwell watched with dread as his turn approached. When he stood up in front of the class and looked at all the strange hostile faces his mind seemed to fall into fragments, to go to pieces. They were ready to laugh, ready to hoot him out of the room.

  His first words came out cracked and strained. They fell senselessly from his lips. The smiles in the class grew broader. Then he felt a wave of anger; an intense and personal hatred for every person in the class. The anger chilled him; ordered his thoughts, calmed him.

  He forgot his prepared speech and began to talk very slowly and deliberately. He did not know where the words came from, but they were orderly and sharp. He did not hesitate once.

  He talked about the idleness and stupidity and irresponsibility of college students. He reminded them of the beer parties and the careless way in which they squandered the money given to them by their families. He scolded them. He was sure he was ruining himself, but it didn't matter. The anger was like a white spiky growth that kept prodding him. He felt righteous and sustained;
even if he were ruined.

  Gradually the faces in the class came into focus and then, with a slight shock, he saw that they had stopped smiling. The boys were watching him attentively and one girl had tears in her eyes. The other girls were looking down at their hands or out of the window. Slowly he realized that they were angry, but not with him. They were angry with themselves or the system or something, but not with him. He did not know how he knew this, but he did. His words made them angry and disturbed, but not with him.

  Then, recklessly, Cromwell tried something else. He told the class how they could restore good moral standards on the campus. Without anticipating the words or forming a definite argument his words became reassuring, calm, placating. The angry look left their faces and a sort of relief flowed back into the room. Intuitively, beyond words, he sensed that he had destroyed something that held them together; a common pride or bond or knowledge. And surely, as if he had always known how, he wove them back together; stitched up the common injury. Just a word here, an inflection there and the sureness came back to their faces, the confidence returned. And they were grateful to him.