Travels With Charley in Search of America

by John Steinbeck

  It is impossible to be in this high spinal country without giving thought to the first men who crossed it, the French explorers, the Lewis and Clark men. We fly it in five hours, drive it in a week, dawdle it as I was doing in a month or six weeks. But Lewis and Clark and their party started in St. Louis in 1804 and returned in 1806. And if we get to thinking we are men, we might remember that in the two and a half years of pushing through wild and unknown country to the Pacific Ocean and then back, only one man died and only one deserted. And we get sick if the milk delivery is late and nearly die of heart failure if there is an elevator strike. What must these men have thought as a really new world unrolled--or was the progress so slow that the impact was lost? I can't believe they were unimpressed. Certainly their report to the government is an excited and an exciting document. They were not confused. They knew what they had found.

  I drove across the upraised thumb of Idaho and through real mountains that climbed straight up, tufted with pines and deep-dusted with snow. My radio went dead and I thought it was broken, but it was only that the high ridges cut off the radio waves. The snow started to fall, but my luck held, for it was only a light gay snow. The air was softer than it had been on the other side of the Great Divide and I seemed to remember reading that the warm airs from over the Japanese current penetrate deep inland. The underbrush was thick and very green, and everywhere was a rush of waters. The roads were deserted except for an occasional hunting party in red hats and yellow jackets, and sometimes with a deer or an elk draped over the hood of the car. A few mountain cabins were incised into the steep slopes, but not many.

  I was having to make many stops for Charley's sake. Charley was having increasing difficulty in evacuating his bladder, which is Nellie talk for the sad symptoms of not being able to pee. This sometimes caused him pain and always caused him embarrassment. Consider this dog of great elan, of impeccable manner, of ton, enfin of a certain majesty. Not only did he hurt, but his feelings were hurt. I would stop beside the road and let him wander, and turn my back on him in kindness. It took him a very long time. If it had happened to a human male I would have thought it was prostatitis. Charley is an elderly gentleman of the French persuasion. The only two ailments the French will admit to are that and a bad liver.

  And so, while waiting for him and pretending to inspect plants and small water courses, I tried to reconstruct my trip as a single piece and not as a series of incidents. What was I doing wrong? Was it going as I wished? Before I left, I was briefed, instructed, directed, and brain-washed by many of my friends. One among them is a well-known and highly respected political reporter. He had been grassrooting with the presidential candidates, and when I saw him he was not happy, because he loves his country, and he felt a sickness in it. I might say further that he is a completely honest man.

  He said bitterly, "If anywhere in your travels you come on a man with guts, mark the place. I want to go to see him. I haven't seen anything but cowardice and expediency. This used to be a nation of giants. Where have they gone? You can't defend a nation with a board of directors. That takes men. Where are they?"

  "Must be somewhere," I said.

  "Well, you try to root a few out. We need them. I swear to God the only people in this country with any guts seem to be Negroes. Mind you," he said, "I don't want to keep Negroes out of the hero business, but I'm damned if I want them to corner the market. You dig me up ten white, able-bodied Americans who aren't afraid to have a conviction, an idea, or an opinion in an unpopular field, and I'll have the major part of a standing army."

  His obvious worry in this matter impressed me, so I did listen and look along the way. And it is true I didn't hear many convictions. I saw only two real-man fights, with bare fists and enthusiastic inaccuracy, and both of those were over women.

  Charley came back apologizing for needing more time. I wished I could help him but he wanted to be alone. And I remembered another thing my friend said.

  "There used to be a thing or a commodity we put great store by. It was called the People. Find out where the People have gone. I don't mean the square-eyed toothpaste-and-hair-dye people or the new-car-or-bust people, or the success-and-coronary people. Maybe they never existed, but if there ever were the People, that's the commodity the Declaration was talking about, and Mr. Lincoln. Come to think of it, I've known a few, but not many. Wouldn't it be silly if the Constitution had been talking about a young man whose life centers around a whistle, a wink, and Wildroot?"

  I remember retorting, "Maybe the People are always those who used to live the generation before last."

  Charley was pretty stiff. I had to help him into the cab of Rocinante. And we proceeded up the mountain. A very light dry snow blew like white dust on the highway, and the evening was coming earlier now, I thought. Just under the ridge of a pass I stopped for gasoline in a little put-together, do-it-yourself group of cabins, square boxes, each with a stoop, a door, and one window, and no vestige of a garden or gravel paths. The small combined store, repair shop, and lunch room behind the gas pumps was as unprepossessing as any I have ever seen. The blue restaurant signs were old and autographed by the flies of many past summers. "Pies like mother would of made if mother could of cooked." "We don't look in your mouth. Don't look in our kitchen." "No checks cashed unless accompanied by fingerprints." The standard old ones. There would be no cellophane on the food here.

  No one came to the gas pump, so I went into the lunch room. A sound of a quarrel came from the back room, which was probably the kitchen--a deep voice and a lighter male voice yammering back and forth. I called, "Anybody home?" and the voices stopped. Then a burly man came through the door, still scowling from the fracas.

  "Want something?"

  "Fill-up of gas. But if you have a cabin, I might stay the night."

  "Take your pick. Ain't a soul here."

  "Can I have a bath?"

  "I'll bring you a bucket of hot water. Winter rates two dollars."

  "Good. Can I get something to eat?"

  "Baked ham and beans, ice cream."

  "Okay. I've got a dog."

  "It's a free country. The cabins are all open. Take your pick. Sing out if you need something."

  No effort had been spared to make the cabins uncomfortable and ugly. The bed was lumpy, the walls dirty yellow, the curtains like the underskirts of a slattern. And the close room had a mixed aroma of mice and moisture, mold and the smell of old, old dust, but the sheets were clean and a little airing got rid of the memories of old inhabitants. A naked globe hung from the ceiling and the room was heated by kerosene stove.

  There was a knock on the door, and I admitted a young man of about twenty, dressed in gray flannel slacks, two-tone shoes, a polka-dotted ascot, and a blazer with the badge of a Spokane high school. His dark, shining hair was a masterpiece of overcombing, the top hair laid back and criss-crossed with long side strands that just cleared the ears. He was a shock to me after the ogre of the lunch counter.

  "Here's your hot water," he said, and his was the voice of the other quarreler. The door was open, and I saw his eyes go over Rocinante and linger on the license plate.

  "You really from New York?"

  "Yep."

  "I want to go there sometime."

  "Everybody there wants to come out here."

  "What for? There's nothing here. You can just rot here."

  "If it's rotting you want, you can do it any place."

  "I mean there's no chance for advancing yourself."

  "What do you want to advance toward?"

  "Well, you know, there's no theater and no music, no one to--talk to. Why it's even hard to get late magazines unless you subscribe."

  "So you read The New Yorker?"

  "How did you know? I subscribe."

  "And Time magazine?"

  "Of course."

  "You don't have to go anywhere."

  "Beg pardon?"

  "You've got the world at your fingertips, the world of fashion, of art, and the
world of thought right in your own back yard. Going would only confuse you further."

  "One likes to see for one's self," he said. I swear he said it.

  "That your father?"

  "Yes, but I'm more like an orphan. All he likes is fishing and hunting and drinking."

  "And what do you like?"

  "I want to get ahead in the world. I'm twenty years old. I've got to think of my future. There he is yelling for me. He can't say anything without yelling. You going to eat with us?"

  "Sure."

  I bathed slowly in the crusted galvanized bucket. For a moment I thought of digging out New York clothes and putting on a puff for the boy, but I dropped that one and settled for clean chino slacks and a knitted shirt.

  The burly proprietor's face was red as a ripe raspberry when I went into the lunch counter. He thrust his jaw at me. "As if I ain't carrying enough trouble, you got to be from New York."

  "Is that bad?"

  "For me it is. I just got that kid quieted down and you put burrs under his blanket."

  "I didn't give New York a good name."

  "No, but you come from there and now he's all riled up again. Oh, hell, what's the use? He's no damn good around here. Come on, you might as well eat with us out back."

  Out back was kitchen, larder, pantry, dining room--and the cot covered with army blankets made it bedroom too. A great gothic wood stove clicked and purred. We were to eat at a square table covered with white, knife-scarred oilcloth. The keyed-up boy dished up bowls of bubbling navy beans and fat-back.

  "I wonder if you could rig me a reading light?"

  "Hell, I turn off the generator when we go to bed. I can give you a coal-oil lamp. Pull up. Got a canned baked ham in the oven."

  The moody boy served the beans listlessly.

  The red-faced man spoke up. "I thought he'd just finish high school and that would be the end of it, but not him, not Robbie. He took a night course--now get this--not in high school. He paid for it. Don't know where he got the money."

  "Sounds pretty ambitious."

  "Ambitious my big fat foot. You don't know what the course was--hairdressing. Not barbering-- hairdressing--for women. Now maybe you see why I got worries."

  Robbie turned from carving the ham. The slender knife was held rigidly in his right hand. He searched my face for the look of contempt he expected.

  I strove to look stern, thoughtful, and noncommittal all at once. I pulled at my beard, which is said to indicate concentration. "Whatever I say, one or the other of you is going to sic the dog on me. You've got me in the middle."

  Papa took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "By God, you're right," he said, and then he chuckled and the tension went out of the room.

  Robbie brought the plates of ham to the table and he smiled at me, I think in gratitude.

  "Now that we got our hackles down, what do you think of this hairdressing beautician stuff?" Papa said.

  "You're not going to like what I think."

  "How do I know if you don't say it?"

  "Well, okay, but I'm going to eat fast in case I have to run for it."

  I went through my beans and half my ham before I answered him.

  "All right," I said. "You've hit on a subject I've given a lot of thought to. I know quite a few women and girls--all ages, all kinds, all shapes--no two alike except in one thing--the hairdresser. It is my considered opinion that the hairdresser is the most influential man in any community."

  "You're making a joke."

  "I am not. I've made a deep study of this. When women go to the hairdresser, and they all do if they can afford it, something happens to them. They feel safe, they relax. They don't have to keep up any kind of pretense. The hairdresser knows what their skin is like under the make-up, he knows their age, their face-liftings. This being so, women tell a hairdresser things they wouldn't dare confess to a priest, and they are open about matters they'd try to conceal from a doctor."

  "You don't say."

  "I do say. I tell you I'm a student of this. When women place their secret lives in the hairdresser's hands, he gains an authority few other men ever attain. I have heard hairdressers quoted with complete conviction in art, literature, politics, economics, child care, and morals. "

  "I think you're kidding but on the level."

  "I'm not smiling when I say it. I tell you that a clever, thoughtful, ambitious hairdresser wields a power beyond the comprehension of most men."

  "Jesus Christ! You hear that, Robbie? Did you know all that?"

  "Some of it. Why, in the course I took there was a whole section on psychology."

  "I never would of thought of it," Papa said. "Say, how about a little drink?"

  "Thanks, not tonight. My dog's not well. I'm going to push on early and try to find a vet."

  "Tell you what--Robbie will rig up a reading light for you. I'll leave the generator on. Will you want some breakfast?"

  "I don't think so. I'm going to get an early start."

  When I came to my cabin after trying to help Charley in his travail, Robbie was tying a trouble light to the iron frame of my sad bed.

  He said quietly, "Mister, I don't know if you believe all that you said, but you sure gave me a hand up."

  "You know, I think most of it might be true. If it is, that's a lot of responsibility, isn't it, Robbie?"

  "It sure is," he said solemnly.

  It was a restless night for me. I had rented a cabin not nearly as comfortable as the one I carried with me, and once installed I had interfered in a matter that was none of my business. And while it is true that people rarely take action on advice of others unless they were going to do it anyway, there was the small chance that in my enthusiasm for my hairdressing thesis I might have raised up a monster.

  In the middle of the night Charley awakened me with a soft apologetic whining, and since he is not a whining dog I got up immediately. He was in trouble, his abdomen distended and his nose and ears hot. I took him out and stayed with him, but he could not relieve the pressure.

  I wish I knew something of veterinary medicine. There's a feeling of helplessness with a sick animal. It can't explain how it feels, though on the other hand it can't lie, build up its symptoms, or indulge in the pleasures of hypochondria. I don't mean they are incapable of faking. Even Charley, who is as honest as they come, is prone to limp when his feelings are hurt. I wish someone would write a good, comprehensive book of home dog medicine. I would do it myself if I were qualified.

  Charley was a really sick dog, and due to get sicker unless I could find some way to relieve the growing pressure. A catheter would do it, but who has one in the mountains in the middle of the night? I had a plastic tube for siphoning gasoline, but the diameter was too great. Then I remembered something about pressure causing muscular tension which increases the pressure, etc., so that the first step is to relax the muscles. My medicine chest was not designed for general practice, but I did have a bottle of sleeping pills-- Seconal, one and a half grains. But how about dosage? That is where the home medicine book would be helpful. I took a capsule apart and unloaded half of it and fitted it together again. I slipped the capsule back beyond the bow in Charley's tongue where he could not push it out, then held up his head and massaged it down his throat. Then I lifted him on the bed and covered him. At the end of an hour there was no change in him, so I opened a second capsule and gave him another half. I think that, for his weight, one and a half grains is a pretty heavy dose, but Charley must have a high tolerance. He resisted it for three quarters of an hour before his breathing slowed and he went to sleep. I must have dozed off too. The next thing I knew, he hit the floor. In his drugged condition his legs buckled under him. He got up, stumbled, and got up again. I opened the door and let him out. Well, the method worked all right, but I don't see how one medium-sized dog's body could have held that much fluid. Finally he staggered in and collapsed on a piece of carpet and was asleep immediately. He was so completely out that I worried over the dosage. Bu
t his temperature had dropped and his breathing was normal and his heart beat was strong and steady. My sleep was restless, and when dawn came I saw that Charley had not moved. I awakened him and he was quite agreeable when I got his attention. He smiled, yawned, and went back to sleep.

  I lifted him into the cab and drove hell for leather for Spokane. I don't remember a thing about the country on the way. On the outskirts I looked up a veterinary in the phone book, asked directions, and rushed Charley into the examination room as an emergency. I shall not mention the doctor's name, but he is one more reason for a good home book on dog medicine. The doctor was, if not elderly, pushing his luck, but who am I to say he had a hangover? He raised Charley's lip with a shaking hand, then turned up an eyelid and let it fall back.

  "What's the matter with him?" he asked, with no interest whatever.

  "That's why I'm here--to find out."

  "Kind of dopey. Old dog. Maybe he had a stroke."

  "He had a distended bladder. If he's dopey, it's because I gave him one and a half grains of Seconal."

  "What for?"

  "To relax him."

  "Well, he's relaxed."

  "Was the dosage too big?"

  "I don't know."

  "Well, how much would you give?"

  "I wouldn't give it at all."

  "Let's start fresh--what's wrong with him?"

  "Probably a cold."

  "Would that cause bladder symptoms?"

  "If the cold was there--yes, sir."

  "Well, look--I'm on the move. I'd like a little closer diagnosis."

  He snorted. "Look here. He's an old dog. Old dogs get aches and pains. That's just the way it is."

  I must have been snappish from the night. "So do old men," I said. "That doesn't keep them from doing something about it." And I think for the first time I got through to him.

  "Give you something to flush out his kidneys," he said. "Just a cold."

  I took the little pills and paid my bill and got out of there. It wasn't that this veterinary didn't like animals. I think he didn't like himself, and when that is so the subject usually must find an area for dislike outside himself. Else he would have to admit his self-contempt.

  On the other hand, I yield to no one in my distaste for the self-styled dog-lover, the kind who heaps up his frustrations and makes a dog carry them around. Such a dog-lover talks baby talk to mature and thoughtful animals, and attributes his own sloppy characteristics to them until the dog becomes in his mind an alter ego. Such people, it seems to me, in what they imagine to be kindness, are capable of inflicting long and lasting tortures on an animal, denying it any of its natural desires and fulfillments until a dog of weak character breaks down and becomes the fat, asthmatic, befurred bundle of neuroses. When a stranger addresses Charley in baby talk, Charley avoids him. For Charley is not a human; he's a dog, and he likes it that way. He feels that he is a first-rate dog and has no wish to be a second-rate human. When the alcoholic vet touched him with his unsteady, inept hand, I saw the look of veiled contempt in Charley's eyes. He knew about the man, I thought, and perhaps the doctor knew he knew. And maybe that was the man's trouble. It would be very painful to know that your patients had no faith in you.