Fresno Stories

by William Saroyan

  We used to see him going down the highway fifty miles an hour, and my brother Mike used to look kind of sore and jealous.

  There he goes, Mike used to say. Where in hell do you think he’s going?

  Nowhere, I guess, I used to say.

  He’s in a pretty big hurry for a man who’s going nowhere.

  I guess he’s just turning her loose to see how fast she’ll go.

  She goes fast enough, Mike used to say. Where the hell can he go from here? Fowler, that’s where. That good-for-nothing town.

  Or Hanford, I used to say. Or Bakersfield. Don’t forget Bakersfield, because it’s on the highway. He could make it in three hours.

  Two, Mike used to say. He could make it in an hour and three quarters.

  Mike was twelve and I was ten, and in those days, 1918, a coupé was a funny-looking affair, an apple-box on four wheels. It wasn’t easy to get any kind of a car to go fifty miles an hour, let alone a Ford coupé, but we figured this man had fixed up the motor of his car. We figured he had made a racer out of his little yellow coupé.

  We used to see the automobile every day, going down the highway toward Fowler, and an hour or so later we used to see it coming back. On the way down, the car would be traveling like a bat out of hell, rattling and shaking and bouncing, and the man in the car would be smoking a cigarette and smiling to himself, like somebody a little crazy. But on the way back, it would be going no more than ten miles an hour, and the man at the wheel would be calm and sort of slumped down, kind of tired.

  He was a fellow you couldn’t tell anything about. You couldn’t tell how old he was, or what nationality, or anything else. He certainly wasn’t more than forty, although he might be less than thirty; and he certainly wasn’t Italian, Greek, Armenian, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, German, or any of the other nationalities we knew.

  I figure he’s an American, Mike used to say. I figure he’s a salesman of some kind. He hurries down the highway to some little town and sells something, and comes back, taking it easy.

  Maybe, I used to say.

  But I didn’t think so. I figured he was more likely to be a guy who liked to drive down the highway in a big hurry, just for the devil of it.

  Those were the years of automobile races: Dario Resta, Jimmie Murphy, Jimmie Chevrolet, and a lot of other boys who finally got killed in racetrack accidents. Those were the days when everybody in America was getting acquainted with the idea of speed. My brother Mike often thought of getting some money somewhere and buying a second-hand car and fixing it up and making it go very fast. Sixty miles an hour maybe. He thought that would be something to do. It was the money, though, that he didn’t have.

  When I buy my hack, Mike used to say, you’re going to see some real speed.

  You ain’t going to buy no hack, I used to say. What you going to buy a hack with?

  I’ll get money some way, Mike used to say.

  The highway passed in front of our house on Railroad Avenue, just a half-mile south of Rosenberg’s Dried Fruit Packing House. Rosenberg’s was four brothers who bought figs, dried peaches, apricots, nectarines, and raisins, and put them up in nice cartons and sent them all over the country, and even to foreign countries in Europe. Every summer they hired a lot of people from our part of town, and the women packed the stuff, and the men did harder work, with hand-trucks. Mike went down for a job, but one of the brothers told him to wait another year till he got a little huskier.

  That was better than nothing, and Mike couldn’t wait to get huskier. He used to look at the pulp-paper magazines for the advertisements of guys like Lionel Strongfort and Earl Liederman, them giants of physical culture, them big guys who could lift a sack of flour over their heads with one arm, and a lot of other things. Mike used to wonder how them big guys got that way, and he used to go down to Cosmos Playground and practice chinning himself on the crossbars, and he used to do a lot of running to develop the muscles of his legs. Mike got to be pretty solid, but not much huskier than he had been. When the hot weather came Mike stopped training. It was too hot to bother.

  We started sitting on the steps of our front porch, watching the cars go by. In front of the highway were the railroad tracks, and we could look north and south for miles because it was all level land. We could see a locomotive coming south from town, and we could sit on the steps of our front porch and watch it come closer and closer, and hear it too, and then we could look north and watch it disappear. We did that all one summer during school vacation.

  There goes locomotive S. P. 797, Mike used to say.

  Yes, sir.

  There goes Santa Fe 485321, I used to say. What do you figure is in that box-car, Mike?

  Raisins, Mike used to say. Rosenberg’s raisins, or figs, or dried peaches, or apricots. Boy, I’ll be glad when next summer rolls around, so I can go to work at Rosenberg’s and buy me that hack.

  Boy, I used to say.

  Just thinking of working at Rosenberg’s used to do something to Mike. He used to jump up and start shadow-boxing, puffing like a professional fighter, pulling up his tights every once in a while, and grunting.

  Boy.

  Boy, what he was going to do at Rosenberg’s.

  It was hell for Mike not to have a job at Rosenberg’s, making money, so he could buy his old hack and fix the motor and make it go sixty miles an hour. He used to talk about the old hack all day, sitting on the steps of the porch and watching the cars and trains go by. When the yellow Ford coupé showed up, Mike used to get a little sore, because it was fast. It made him jealous to think of that fellow in the fast car, going down the highway fifty miles an hour.

  When I get my hack, Mike used to say. I’ll show that guy what real speed is.

  We used to walk to town every once in a while. Actually it was at least once every day, but the days were so long every day seemed like a week and it would seem like we hadn’t been to town for a week, although we had been there the day before. We used to walk to town, and around town, and then back home again. There was nowhere to go and nothing to do, but we used to get a kick out of walking by the garages and used-car lots on Broadway, especially Mike.

  One day we saw the yellow Ford coupé in Ben Mallock’s garage on Broadway, and Mike grabbed me by the arm.

  There it is, Joe, he said. There’s that racer. Let’s go in.

  We went in and stood by the car. There was no one around, and it was very quiet.

  Then the man who owned the car stuck his head out from underneath the car. He looked like the happiest man in the world.

  Hello, Mike said.

  Howdy, boys, said the man who owned the yellow coupé.

  Something wrong? said Mike.

  Nothing serious, said the man. Just keeping the old boat in shape.

  You don’t know us, said Mike. We live in that white house on Railroad Avenue, near Walnut. We see you going down the highway every day.

  Oh, yes, said the man. I thought I’d seen you boys somewhere.

  My brother Mike, I said, says you’re a salesman.

  He’s wrong, said the man.

  I waited for him to tell us what he was, if he wasn’t a salesman, but he didn’t say anything.

  I’m going to buy a car myself next year, said Mike. I figure I’ll get me a fast Chevrolet.

  He did a little shadow-boxing, just thinking about the car, and then he got self-conscious, and the man busted out laughing.

  Great idea, he said. Great idea.

  He crawled out from under the car and lit a cigarette.

  I figure you go about fifty miles an hour, said Mike.

  Fifty-two to be exact, said the man. I hope to make sixty one of these days.

  I could see Mike liked the fellow very much, and I knew I liked him. He was younger than we had imagined. He was probably no more than twenty-five, but he acted no older than a boy of fifteen or sixteen. We thought he was great.

  Mike said, What’s your name?

  Mike could ask a question like that without sounding
silly.

  Bill, said the man. Bill Wallace. Everybody calls me Speed Wallace.

  My name’s Mike Flor, said Mike. I’m pleased to meet you. This is my brother Joe.

  Mike and the man shook hands. Mike began to shadow-box again.

  How would you boys like a little ride? Speed Wallace said.

  Oh boy, said Mike.

  We jumped into the yellow coupé, and Speed drove out of the garage, down Broadway, and across the railroad tracks in front of Rosenberg’s where the highway began. On the highway he opened up to show us a little speed. We passed our house in no time and pretty soon we were tearing down the highway forty miles an hour, then forty-five, then fifty, and pretty soon the speedometer said fifty-one, fifty-two, fifty-three, and the car was rattling like anything.

  By the time we were going fifty-six miles an hour we were in Fowler and the man slowed the car down, then stopped. It was very hot.

  How about a cold drink? he said.

  We got out of the car and walked into a store. Mike drank a bottle of strawberry, and so did I, and then the man said to have another. I said no, but Mike drank another.

  The man drank four bottles of strawberry.

  Then we got into the car and he drove back very slowly, not more than ten miles an hour, talking all the time about the car, and how fine it was to be able to go down a highway fifty miles an hour.

  Do you make money? Mike said.

  Not a nickel, Speed said. But one of these days I’m going to build myself a racer and get into the County Fair races, and make some money.

  Boy, said Mike.

  He let us off at our house, and we talked about the ride for three hours straight

  It was swell. Speed Wallace was a great guy.

  In September the County Fair opened. There was a dirt track out there, a mile around. We read advertising cards on fences that said there would be automobile races out there this year.

  One day we noticed that the yellow Ford coupé hadn’t gone down the highway a whole week.

  Mike jumped up all of a sudden when he realized it.

  That guy’s in the races at the Fair, he said. Come on, let’s go.

  And we started running down Railroad Avenue.

  It was nine in the morning and the races wouldn’t begin till around two-thirty, but we ran just the same.

  We had to get to the Fair grounds early so we could sneak in. It took us an hour and a half to walk and run to the Fair Grounds, and then it took us two hours more to sneak in. We were caught twice, but finally we got in.

  We climbed into the grandstand and everything looked okey-dokey. There were two racing cars on the track, one black, and the other green.

  After a while the black one started going around the track. When it got around to where we were sitting we both jumped up because the guy at the wheel was the man who owned the yellow coupé. We felt swell. Boy, he went fast and made a lot of noise. And plenty of dust too, going around the corners.

  The races didn’t start at two-thirty, they started at three. The grandstands were full of excited people. Seven racing cars got in line. Each was cranked, and the noise they made was very loud and very exciting. Then the race started and Mike started acting like a crazy man, talking to himself, shadow-boxing, and jumping around.

  It was the first race, a short one, twenty miles, and Speed Wallace came in fourth.

  The next race was forty miles, and Speed Wallace came in second.

  The third and last race was seventy-five miles, seventy-five times around the track, and the thirtieth time around Speed Wallace got out in front, just a little way, but out in front just the same: then something went wrong, the inside front wheel of Speed Wallace’s racing car busted off and the car turned a furious somersault, away up into the air. Everybody saw Speed Wallace fly out of the car. Everybody saw the car smash him against the wooden fence.

  Mike started running down the grandstand, to get closer. I ran after him and I could hear him swearing.

  The race didn’t stop, but a lot of mechanics got Speed Wallace’s wrecked car out of the way, and carried Speed Wallace to an ambulance. While the other cars were going around the track for the seventieth time a man got up and told the people Speed Wallace had been instantly killed.

  Holy Christ.

  That fellow, Mike said, he got killed. That fellow who used to go down the highway in that yellow Ford coupé, he got killed, Joe. That fellow who gave us a ride to Fowler and bought us drinks.

  When it got dark, walking home, Mike started to cry. Just a little. I could tell he was crying from the way his voice sounded. He wasn’t really crying.

  You remember that swell guy, Joe, he said. He was the one who got killed.

  We started sitting on the steps of our front porch again, watching the cars go by, but it was sad. We knew the fellow in the yellow Ford coupé wouldn’t go down the highway again. Every once in a while Mike would jump up and start shadow-boxing, only it wasn’t the way it used to be. He wasn’t happy any more, he was sore, and it looked like he was trying to knock hell out of something in the world that caused such a lousy thing like that to happen to a guy like Speed Wallace.

  SWEETHEART SWEETHEART

  SWEETHEART

  One thing she could do was play the piano and sing. She couldn’t cook or anything like that. Anyhow she didn’t like to cook because she couldn’t make pastry anyway and that’s what she liked. She was something like the pastry she was always eating, big and soft and pink, and like a child although she was probably in her late thirties. She claimed she’d been on the stage. I was an actress three seasons, is what she told the boy’s mother. His mother liked the neighbor but couldn’t exactly figure her out. She was married and had no kids, that’s what his mother couldn’t figure out; and she spent all her time making dresses and putting them on and being very pretty.

  Who for? his mother would ask his sister. She would be busy in the kitchen getting food cooked or making bread and talking in English, which she couldn’t talk well but which she liked to talk when she was talking about the neighbor, she said. What for, she’s so anxious to be pretty? And then in Italian she’d say, But my, how nice she plays the piano. She’s a good neighbor to have.

  They’d just moved from one side of town to the other, from Italian town to where the Americans were. This lady was one of them, an American, so his mother guessed that was the way they were, like fancy things to eat, sweet and creamy and soft and pink.

  The neighbor used to come over a lot because, she said, it was so refreshing to be among real people.

  You know, Mrs. Amendola, she used to say, it’s a pleasure to have a neighbor like you. It’s so wonderful the way you take care of all your wonderful children without a husband. All your fine growing girls and boys.

  Oh, his mother used to laugh, the kids are good. I feed them and take care of them. Headache, toothache, trouble at school, I take care of everything; and his mother roared with laughter. Then his mother looked at the neighbor and said, They’re my kids. We fight, we yell, we hit each other, but we like each other. You no got children?

  No, the neighbor said. The boy became embarrassed. His mother was so boisterous and abrupt and direct. It was about the third time she’d asked if the neighbor had no children. What she meant, he knew, was, How come you haven’t got any? A big woman like you, full of everything to make children?

  The neighbor used to come over often when her husband was away. He covered the valley from Bakersfield to Sacramento, selling hardware. Sometimes his wife went with him, but most often not.

  She preferred not to because travel was so difficult. And yet whenever she didn’t go that meant that she would be in the house alone, and that made her lonely, so she used to visit the Italian family.

  One night she came over sobbing and his mother put her arms around the neighbor as if she was one of his mother’s kids, and comforted her.

  But one thing he noticed that kind of puzzled him; she wasn’t really crying. It wasn’t
honest-to-God crying: it was something else; she wasn’t hurt or sorry or in pain or anything; it seemed like she just felt like crying, so she cried, just the same as if she might have felt like buying a dozen cream puffs and eating them. That’s the impression he got.

  Oh, Mrs. Amendola, she said. I was sitting all alone in the house when all of a sudden I began to remember all the years and then I got scared and started to cry. Oh, I feel so bad, she said and then smiled in a way that seemed awfully lovely to the boy and awfully strange. She looked around at his sister, and then, smiling, she looked at him and he didn’t know what to do. She looked a long time. It wasn’t a glance. And he knew right away something he didn’t understand was going on. She was awfully lovely, big and soft and full of everything, and he felt embarrassed. Her arms were so full.

  The little kids were all in bed, so it was only his mother and his sister and him. His mother said, You be all right. You sit with us and talk, you be fine. What’s the matter?

  I feel so sad, the neighbor said. When I remember all the years gone by, the times when I was a little girl, and then when I was almost grown-up at high school, and then on the stage, I feel so lonely.

  Oh, you be all right, his mother said. You like a glass of wine?

  His mother didn’t wait for her to answer. She got out the bottle and poured two drinks, one for herself and one for the neighbor.

  Drink wine, his mother said. Wine is good.

  The neighbor sipped the wine.

  Oh, it’s wonderful, she said. You’re a wonderful family, Mrs. Amendola. Won’t you come to my house for a visit? I’d like to show you the house.

  Oh, sure, his mother said. His mother wanted to see what her house looked like. So they all went to the house next door and room by room the neighbor showed them the house. It was just like her, like cream puffs. Soft and warm and pink all except his room. He had his own room, bed and everything. There was something fishy somewhere, the boy thought. Americans were different from Italians, that’s all he knew. If he slept in one bed and she in another, something was funny somewhere. Her room was a place in another world. It was so like a woman that he felt ashamed to go in. He stood in the doorway while his mother and sister admired the beautiful room, and then the neighbor noticed him and took his hand. He felt excited and wished he was with her that way alone and in another world. The neighbor laughed and said, But I want you to admire my room, too, Tommy. You’re such an intelligent and refined boy.