The Wayward Bus by John Steinbeck
"You'll get all dirty," said Ernest.
"You think I can get any dirtier than I am?" she asked.
He rested the pick head on the ground. "You wouldn't like to give me your phone number? I'd take you out."
"That was the truth," said Camille. "I don't live any place yet. I haven't got a number."
"Have it your own way," said Ernest.
"No, this is straight. Where are you going to stay?"
"Hollywood Plaza,"1 said Ernest.
"Well, if you're in the lobby about seven o'clock day after tomorrow, I might come by."
"Fair enough," said Ernest. "I'll take you to Musso-Franck's2 for dinner."
"I didn't say I would," she said. "I said I might. I don't know how I'm going to feel. If I don't show up, don't drop your watch. I'm too pooped to figure anything out."
"Fair enough," said Ernest. "I'll stick around till seven-thirty."
"You're a good guy," said Camille.
"I'm just another sucker," said Ernest. "Don't take those big ones. I'll bring those. You take the little ones."
She picked a rock up in each hand and walked toward the bus.
Juan went to the old fence and tore the posts out of the earth. He tore down eight of them, but alternate posts, so that the barbed wire would not fall down. He carried the posts down and went back for more.
The rose afterglow was turning pale pink and a duskiness settled on the valley. Juan set his jack against a post and under the flange of the wheel rim, and he lifted one side of the bus. As the wheel rose, Pimples filled the hole under the tires with rocks.
Juan took another bite and lifted again, and gradually one side of the bus rose out of the mud. Juan moved his jack to the other side and raised the other wheel.
Camille and Norma were carrying rocks to fill the holes, while Ernest dug them out.
Mildred asked, "What can I do?"
"Steady this post while I get a new pinch," said Juan. He was working furiously against the coming dark. His forehead was glistening with sweat. Pimples, on his knees in the mud, packed rocks under the wheels, and the other side of the bus rose out of the mud.
"Let's get it extra high," said Juan, "so we won't have to do it all over again. I'd like to have these posts in under the wheels."
It was almost dark when they were ready. Juan said, "I want everybody to give a push when I start. If we can just make three feet we'll be all right."
"How's the road ahead?" Pimples asked.
"It looked all right to me. God! You raised hell with your clothes."
Pimples' face was sick with disappointment. "It don't amount to nothing," he said. "What good is clothes?" His tone was so despondent that Juan stared at him in the half darkness.
A tight smile raised Juan's lips. "You'll have to take charge back here, Kit, while I drive. Make them throw their weight on it when I go ahead. You know how. You take charge back here, Kit."
Pimples threw down his shovel. "Come on, everybody," he shouted. "Come on, snap into it! I'll take the right side. Girls too. Everybody got to shove." He marshaled his people at the back of the bus. For a second he looked hungrily at Mrs. Pritchard sitting inside. "She'd just be in the way, I guess," he said.
Juan climbed into the bus. "Get out and give a shove," he said to Mr. Pritchard.
The engine started easily enough. Juan let it turn over for a moment. He eased it into compound-low and then he knocked twice on the side of the bus and heard Pimples knock back twice on the rear wall. He speeded his engine a little and let his clutch in. The wheels caught, slipped, groaned, and caught, and "Sweet heart" waddled drunkenly over the bed of rocks and climbed out onto the road. Juan pulled ahead out of the mud on the road and then he set his hand brake. He stood up and looked out the doorway.
"Just pile the tools in here on the floor," he said. "Come on, let's get moving."
He turned on his lights and the beam lighted the gravel road as far as the top of the little hill.
CHAPTER 22
Juan took the bus very slowly over the hill and down the water-scarred gravel road past the deserted house. As he turned, his headlights picked out the eyeless house and the broken windmill and the barn.
The night was very black, but a new breeze had come up, bearing the semenous smell of grass and the spice of lupine. The headlights tunneled the night over the road and an owl flew flashing in and out of the light. Far ahead a rabbit crossing the road looked into the lights so that its eyes glowed red, and then it hopped clear into the ditch.
Juan kept the bus in second gear and missed the waterscored ruts with his wheels. The inside of the bus was dark except for the dash lights. Juan let his eyes dart to the Virgin. "I ask only one thing," he said in his mind. "I gave up the other, but it would be nice if you could make it so she was sober when I get back."
Mrs. Pritchard was not rigid any more. Her head swayed with the movement of the bus and she was dreaming. She was dressed in--what--what would she have on? Something light. It would have to be white. And she was taking Ellen through her little orchid house. "You wonder why I keep a few purple orchids?" she asked Ellen. "Well, everybody has relatives who like purple ones. Even you have, Ellen, you know that. But look over here. These are just coming--the lovely browns and greens. Elliott ordered those from Brazil. They came from a thousand miles up the Amazon."
On the floor of the bus the pickax clinked against the shovel.
Pimples leaned close to Juan's ear. "I could take her over, Mr. Chicoy. You're tired out. I'll drive if you want."
"No, thanks, Kit, you've had enough."
"But I ain't tired."
"It's all right," said Juan.
Mildred could see Juan's profile against the lighted road. "I wonder how long I can make the day last. Like a peppermint stick. I'll have to hold on to today until I can get another one as good."
Over the banging and the bouncing of the bus Mr. Pritchard listened for the breathing of Van Brunt. He could just barely see the face against the seat. He found that he hated this man because he was dying. He inspected his hatred in amazement. He felt that he could strangle this man easily and get it over with. "What kind of a thing am I?" he cried. "What makes these horrible things in me? Am I going crazy? Maybe I've been working too hard. Maybe this is a nervous breakdown."
He leaned close to make sure that the breathing of the sick man was not cut off. There would be a bad bruise in the roof of his mouth where the stick was wedged. He heard a little stir and saw that Ernest Horton had come back and taken the next seat.
"You want me to take over?"
"No," said Mr. Pritchard. "I guess everything's all right. What do you suppose it is?"
"It's a stroke," said Ernest. "I didn't mean to blast you today. I was just nervous."
"Just one of those days," said Mr. Pritchard. "When things are pretty bad my wife says, 'It'll be funny some time.' "
"Well, that's a good way to look at it if you can do it," said Ernest. "I'll be at the Hollywood Plaza if you want to give me a call. Or try that apartment some night--that number I gave you."
"I'm going to be all tied up, I'm afraid," said Mr. Pritchard. "I wish you'd look in at the plant some time, though. We might do business yet."
"We might at that," said Ernest.
Norma sat next to the window now and Camille was by her side. Norma leaned her elbow on the window sill and looked out at the fluttering dark. There was a little rim of lighter sky around the edge of a great dark cloud over the western mountains, and then as the cloud lifted the evening star1 shone out of it, clear and washed and steady.
"Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight, wish I may, wish I might, get the wish I wish tonight."
Camille turned her head sleepily. "What did you say?"
Norma was silent for a moment. Then she asked softly, "We'll see how it goes?"
"Yeah, we'll see how it goes," said Camille.
Far ahead and a little to the left a cluster of lights came into view--little light
Juan looked at them and called, "That's San Juan up ahead."
NOTES
CHAPTER 1
1 Hollywood: Center of the American film industry north of Los Angeles. First studio established there in 1911.
2 newspaper king: William Randolph Hearst (1863-1951), publisher of the San Francisco Examiner, built the palatial mansion San Simeon on a vast estate near U.S. Highway 1 along the California coast between San Francisco and Los Angeles.
3 Coca-Cola girls: The popular cola drink was often advertised on posters featuring fresh-faced women in provocative poses drawn by such artists as Leonetto Cappiello (1875-1942).
4 the big Greyhound busses: The Greyhound Bus Company was founded in 1914 and adopted its running dog logo in 1926. It was prominently featured in the movie It Happened One Night (1934), which won all five major Academy Awards (best picture, best actor, best actress, best director, best screenplay) the year of its release.
5 Clark Gable: (1901-1960) a popular actor voted the so-called King of Hollywood in 1938. He had recently returned from military service in Europe with the Eighth Air Force. He also starred in It Happened One Night. See note 4 above.
6 the race of Amudkins, who preceded the Atomites: Steinbeck coins names for two races--Amudkins or "kin to mud," a term that evokes the Genesis creation myth of Adam and Eve, and Atomites, or the race of people who live in an atomic age.
7 the Sinatras, the Van Johnsons, the Sonny Tufts: Handsome matinee idols Frank Sinatra (1915-1998); Van Johnson (1916- ); and Sonny Tufts (1911-1970), the latter best known (if at all) for spanking Betty Hutton in the movie Cross My Heart (1946).
8 National Dollar Stores: A chain of dry goods stores mostly located in the western United States and the target of a strike by San Francisco garment workers in 1938.
9 Aztec calendar stone: Also known as the sun stone, the most important archaeological artifact discovered in Mexico. The original stone, with a diameter of about twelve feet and etched with hieroglyphics, was discovered in 1790 buried in the main square of Mexico City.
CHAPTER 2
1 penates: The Roman gods of the home.
2 Virgin of Guadalupe: According to tradition, the Virgin Mary appeared to a Mexican peasant named Juan Diego on December 9 and again on December 12, 1531. The Miracle of Guadalupe was formally recognized by the Vatican in 1709, and Juan Diego was canonized in 2002. Annual celebrations of "the Queen of Mexico," the protector of the poor and weak, are still held throughout the country on December 12.
3 out had gone St. Patrick and St. Bridget: St. Patrick (387-493), the patron saint of Ireland; and St. Bridget or Brigid or Bride (451?-525), the patroness of Ireland.
4 Guadalupana: The Virgin of Guadalupe. See note 2 above.
5 "Take Ford": Henry Ford (1863-1947) American automaker.
6 Kit Carson: (1809-1868) Western scout and frontiersman.
CHAPTER 3
1 He looked like Truman: Harry S Truman (1884-1972) thirty-third President of the United States (1945-1953).
2 little blue enamel bar with white stars on it: The Congressional Medal of Honor, the highest award for valor in combat against an enemy that may be given to an individual in the U.S. military.
3 Eugene Debs: Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926) American socialist leader and candidate for president in 1900, 1904, 1908, 1912, and 1920.
4 The Spanish war: The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) pitted the Republicans, assisted by leftists from around the world, against the Nationalists led by Francisco Franco (1892-1975) and supported by the Fascist regimes in Germany and Italy.
5 stolen private property: All private oil companies in Mexico, including foreign-owned ones, were ordered in March 1938 to sell their assets to the Mexican government, effectively nationalizing the petroleum industry.
6 Baby Ruth: A candy bar introduced in 1920 by the Curtiss Candy Company and ostensibly named after Baby Ruth Cleveland (d. 1904), the infant daughter of President Grover Cleveland (1837-1908). The baseball star Babe Ruth (1895-1948) was later prevented from using his own name on a candy bar on the grounds of copyright infringement.
CHAPTER 4
1 James Stewart: (1908-1991), American star of such films as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) and It's a Wonderful Life (1946), directed by Frank Capra. As a bomber pilot in World War II he was awarded the Air Medal and Distinguished Flying Cross.
2 Melrose Grotto: Located in the 5500 block of Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles adjacent to several sound studios.
3 RKO: Abbreviation for Radio-Keith-Orpheum Corporation, a major Hollywood studio and theater chain established in 1929.
4 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer: A major Hollywood studio headed by Samuel Goldwyn (1882-1974) and Louis B. Mayer (1885-1957). The studio had produced the film version of Tortilla Flat in 1942.
5 Santa Ana: Seat of Orange County in southern California, incorporated in 1886.
6 Rhett Butler: Clark Gable's most famous role as a scalawag in the film adaptation of Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind (1939).
7 "Bette Davis and Ingrid Bergman and Joan Fontaine": Bette Davis (1908-1989), Ingrid Bergman (1915-1982), and Joan Fontaine (1917- ) were Hollywood leading ladies.
CHAPTER 5
1 jabots: Decorative ruffles on the front of a dress.
2 ". . . I even figured out a little bag to carry them in.": The idea for this invention originated with Steinbeck. As he reminisced in 1954,"Some years ago I invented silk slip covers for the lapels of a dark suit to make it a dinner jacket. . . . It was for salesmen and for people who fly a lot and can't take much luggage. A lovely idea." See Steinbeck: A Life in Letters, ed. Elaine Steinbeck and Robert Wallsten (New York: Viking Press, 1975), p. 493.
3 Puebla, Cuernavaca, Tasco, Acapulco: Popular tourist destinations in Mexico.
4 volcano: Paricutin volcano, 220 miles west of Mexico City, first erupted in a level cornfield and remained in continuous eruption from 1943 until 1952.
CHAPTER 7
1 Lions Club: A fraternal business organization founded in 1917.
2 Bob Hope, or, better, Bing Crosby: In the four "Road" musical comedies released prior to publication of Steinbeck's novel (Road to Singapore [1940], Road to Zanzibar [1941], Road to Morocco [1942], and Road to Utopia [1946]) Bob Hope (1903-2003) and Bing Crosby (1904-1977) play a pair of scheming partners, with Crosby's character in the end always winning the love of the female lead. Crosby was the top Hollywood box-office draw five consecutive years (1944-1948); Hope was fifth in 1946 and sixth in 1947. In one of his wartime dispatches to the New York Herald Tribune ( July 26, 1943), Steinbeck insisted that "When the time for recognition of service to the nation in wartime comes to be considered, Bob Hope should be high on the list" (American and Americans and Selected Nonfiction, ed. Susan Shillinglaw and Jackson J. Benson [New York: Viking, 2002], pp. 293-95).
3 Time and Newsweek: Among the most important news developments at the time the novel appeared concerned the Chinese Civil War, waged between Communist forces loyal to Mao Tse-tung and the Nationalists loyal to Chiang Kai-shek, and the negotiations between the Hindu-dominated Congress Party and Moslem League to establish self-government in India. The same month Steinbeck's novel appeared, in fact, the government of Great Britain announced it would withdraw its colonial representatives in June 1948, eventually permitting partition into India and Pakistan.
4 stags: Male-only parties.
5 new treatment: Alexander Fleming (1881-1955), Howard W. Florey (1898-1968), and Ernst B. Chain (1906-1979) shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1945 for developing penicillin as an antibiotic.
6 Captain Hornblower: None of the five books by C. S. Forester (1899-1966) featuring the intrepid Captain Horatio Hornblower published between 1937 and 1946 was entitled Captain Hornblower, though the most recent volumes in the series were entitled Commodore Hornblower (1945) and Lord Hornblower (1946).
7 and a L
8 the short stories of Saroyan: William Saroyan (1908-1981) was an American writer and, like Steinbeck, a native of California. Ironically, he wrote an unused screen treatment of The Wayward Bus a decade later.
CHAPTER 8
1 Bellodgia: A perfume with a floral scent, named after the Italian town of Bellagio on Lake Como.
2 a Camel advertisement: Cigarette brand first marketed by R. J. Reynolds Company in 1913.
3 "Oakes murder trial": The British aristocrat Sir Harry Oakes (b. 1874) was murdered under mysterious circumstances in Nassau on July 8, 1943. His son-in-law Freddie de Marigny was charged with the crime but found not guilty at trial the following November. The murder has never been solved.
4 The Two Fifty-Three Thousand Clubs: A fictional fraternal organization. As Steinbeck wrote in America and Americans (p. 360), "Americans have developed scores of orders, lodges and encampments, courts. . . . All were and perhaps still are aristocratic and most secret and therefore exclusive. They seemed to fulfill a need for grandeur against a background of commonness, for aristocracy in the midst of democracy."
CHAPTER 9
1 "Wee Kirk i' the Heather": The chapel at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, burial sites of such writers as Theodore Dreiser and L. Frank Baum and such movie stars as W. C. Fields and Jean Harlow. Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman were married there in 1940.
2 "radar": An acronym for "radio detection and ranging," patented in England in 1935.
3 "Nances": Nancies, or sissies.
4 "Hart, Schaffner and Marx": A men's clothing company founded in 1887.
5 "Beverly Wilshire": A fashionable "hotel to the stars" in Beverly Hills opened in 1928.
6 "a missionary like Spencer Tracy": As usual, Pimples is confused. He apparently refers to Keys of the Kingdom (1944), starring Gregory Peck (1916-2003), not Spencer Tracy (1900-1967); the movie was set during the Chinese Civil War, not the Japanese occupation. Tracy had earlier starred in the movie adaptation of Steinbeck's novel Tortilla Flat (1942).