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For

ED RICKETTS

who knohy or should

The people, places and events in this book are, of course, fictitious and fabrications

Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poeht, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dreaathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses Its inhabitants are, as the amblers, and sons of bitches,” by which he h another peephole he els and

In thewhen the sardine fleet has made a catch, the purse-seiners waddle heavily into the bay blowing their whistles The deep-laden boats pull in against the coast where the canneries dip their tails into the bay The figure is advisedly chosen, for if the canneries dipped their e from the other end would beThen cannery whistles scream and all over the towndown to the Row to go to work Then shining cars bring the upper classes down: superintendents, accountants, owners who disappear into offices Then from the town pour Wops and Chinamen and Polaks, men and women in trousers and rubber coats and oilcloth aprons They co to clean and cut and pack and cook and can the fish The whole street ruroans and screams and rattles while the silver rivers of fish pour in out of the boats and the boats rise higher and higher in the water until they are empty The canneries rumble and rattle and squeak until the last fish is cleaned and cut and cooked and canned and then the whistles screa, smelly, tired Wops and Chinale out and droop their ways up the hill into the town and Cannery Row becoical Its norust under the black cypress tree coirls froe for a bit of sun if there is any Doc strolls froical Laboratory and crosses the street to Lee Chong’s grocery for two quarts of beer Henri the painter noses like an Airedale through the junk in the grass-grown lot for some part or piece of wood orThen the darkness edges in and the street light comes on in front of Dora’s — the laht in Cannery Row Callers arrive at Western Biological to see Doc, and he crosses the street to Lee Chong’s for five quarts of beer

How can the poeht, the tone, the habit and the dream — be set down alive? When you collect marine animals there are certain flat worms so delicate that they are almost impossible to capture whole, for they break and tatter under the touch You must let them ooze and crawl of their oill onto a knife blade and then lift theht be the way to write this book — to open the page and to let the stories crawl in by themselves

Chapter I

Lee Chong’s grocery, while not a model of neatness, was a miracle of supply It was sle roo he needed or wanted to live and to be happy — clothes, food, both fresh and canned, liquor, tobacco, fishing equipe, caps, pork chops You could buy at Lee Chong’s a pair of slippers, a silk kiar You could work out co did not keep could be had across the lot at Dora’s

The grocery opened at dawn and did not close until the last wandering vagrant di was avaricious He wasn’t, but if one wanted to spend money, he was available Lee’s position in the community surprised him as much as he could be surprised Over the course of the years everyone in Cannery Roed him money He never pressed his clients, but when the bill becae, Lee cut off credit Rather than walk into the town up the hill, the client usually paid or tried to

Lee was round-faced and courteous He spoke a stately English without ever using the letter R When the tong ere going on in California, it happened now and then that Lee found a price on his head Then he would go secretly to San Francisco and enter a hospital until the trouble blew over What he did with his et it Maybe his wealth was entirely in unpaid bills, But he lived well and he had the respect of all his neighbors He trusted his clients until further trust became ridiculous Sometimes he e in good will if in no other way It was that ith the Palace Flophouse and Grill Anyone but Lee Chong would have considered the transaction a total loss

Lee Chong’s station in the grocery was behind the cigar counter The cash register was then on his left and the abacus on his right Inside the glass case were the brown cigars, the cigarettes, the Bull Durham, the Duke’s mixture, the Five Brothers, while behind him in racks on the ere the pints, half pints and quarters of Old Green River, Old Town House, Old Colonel, and the favorite — Old Tennessee, a blended whiskey guaranteed four hbothood as Old Tennis Shoes Lee Chong did not stand between the whiskey and the customer without reason Some very practical minds had on occasion tried to divert his attention to another part of the store Cousins, nephews, sons and daughters-in-laaited on the rest of the store, but Lee never left the cigar counter The top of the glass was his desk His fat delicate hands rested on the glass, the fingersring on the er of his left hand was his only jewelry and with it he silently tapped on the rubber changebeen worn Lee’s old when he slasses and since he looked at everything through them, he had to tilt his head back to see in the distance Interest and discounts, addition, subtraction he worked out on the abacus with his little restless sausage fingers, and his brown friendly eyes roved over the grocery and his teeth flashed at the customers

On an evening when he stood in his place on a pad of newspaper to keep his feet warm, he contemplated with humor and sadness a business deal that had been consummated that afternoon and reconsurocery, if you walk catty-cornered across the grassgrown lot, threading your way areat rusty pipes thrown out of the canneries, you will see a path worn in the weeds Follow it past the cypress tree, across the railroad track, up a chicken ith cleats, and you will co tireat big roofed rooentleman named Horace Abbeville Horace had tives and six children and over a period of years he had rocery debt second to none in Monterey That afternoon he had corocery and his sensitive tired face had flinched at the shadow of sternness that crossed Lee’s face Lee’s fat finger tapped the rubber uess I owe you plenty dough,” he said simply