Read Online The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck - Free Book Online Page B

three slices of ham. “Lettuce and cheese,” he said, “lettuce and cheese. When a man marries he lives in the trees.” He mortared the top slices of bread with mayonnaise from a jar, pressed the lids down on the sandwiches, and trimmed the bits of lettuce and ham fat from the edges. Now a carton of milk and a square of waxed paper for wrapping. He was folding the ends of the paper neatly when a key rattled in the front door and Marullo came in, wide as a bear and sack-chested so that his arms seemed short and stood out from his body. His hat was on the back of his head so that his stiff iron-gray bangs showed like a cap. Marullo’s eyes were wet and sly and sleepy, but the gold caps on his front teeth shone in the light from the cold counter. Two top buttons of his pants were open, showing his heavy gray underwear. He hooked little fat thumbs in the roll of his pants under his stomach and blinked in the half-darkness.
    “Morning, Mr. Marullo. I guess it’s afternoon.”
    “Hi, kid. You shut up good and quick.”
    “Whole town’s shut. I thought you’d be at mass.”
    “No mass today. Only day in the year with no mass.”
    “That so? I didn’t know that. Anything I can do for you?”
    The short fat arms stretched and rocked back and forth on the elbows. “My arms hurt, kid. Arthritis. . . . Gets worse.”
    “Nothing you can do?”
    “I do everything—hot pads, shark oil, pills—still hurts. All nice and shut up. Maybe we can have a talk, eh, kid?” His teeth flashed.
    “Anything wrong?”
    “Wrong? What’s wrong?”
    “Well, if you’ll wait a minute, I’ll just take these sandwiches to the bank. Mr. Morphy asked for them.”
    “You’re a smart kid. You give service. That’s good.”
    Ethan went through the storeroom, crossed the alley, and knocked on the back door of the bank. He passed the milk and sandwiches in to Joey.
    “Thanks. You didn’t need to.”
    “It’s service. Marullo told me.”
    “Keep a couple of Cokes cold, will you? I got dry zeros in my mouth.”
    When Ethan returned, he found Marullo peering into a garbage can.
    “Where do you want to talk, Mr. Marullo?”
    “Start here, kid.” He picked cauliflower leaves from the can. “You cutting off too much.”
    “Just to make them neat.”
    “Cauliflower is by weight. You throwing money in the garbage. I know a smart Greek fella owns maybe twenty restaurants. He says the big secret is watch the garbage cans. What you throw out, you don’t sell. He’s a smart fella.”
    “Yes, Mr. Marullo.” Ethan moved restlessly toward the front of the store with Marullo behind him bending his elbows back and forth.
    “You sprinkling good the vegetables like I said?”
    “Sure.”
    The boss lifted a head of lettuce. “Feels dry.”
    “Well, hell, Marullo, I don’t want to waterlog them—they’re one-third water now.”
    “Makes them look crisp, nice and fresh. You think I don’t know? I start with one pushcart—just one. I know. You got to learn the tricks, kid, or you go broke. Meat, now—you paying too much.”
    “Well, we advertise Grade A beef.”
    “A, B, C—who knows? It’s on the card, ain’t it? Now, we going to have a nice talk. We got dead wood on our bills. Anybody don’t pay by the fifteenth—off the books.”
    “We can’t do that. Some of these people have been trading here for twenty years.”
    “Listen, kid. Chain stores won’t let John D. Rockefeller charge a nickel.”
    “Yes, but these people are good for it, most of them.”
    “What’s ‘good for it’? It ties up money. Chain stores buy car-loads. We can’t do that. You got to learn, kid. Sure—nice people! Money is nice too. You got too much meat scraps in the box.”
    “That was fat and crust.”
    “Okay if you weigh before you trim. You got to look after number one. You don’t look after number one, whose’ll do it? You got to learn, kid.” The gold teeth did not glitter now, for the lips were tight little traps.
    Anger splashed up