Chapter10 - The King's Highway

Rolling and rumbling northward at thirty miles per hour, the Pacific Coastal Highway was a pleasure to ride on, and with the convertible top down the rushing winds, with welcomed permission, whipped the family’s hair, and the sun deceptively and gently burned their flesh pink and healthy looking. With the adventure of Sydney’s arrest behind them, California had seemed kind again, and with blue sky above and crystal blue and green ocean below and to the left, and climbing majestic mountains high and to the right, it was a motorized trip through a gallery of nature’s best work.

After a hotel stay in Santa Barbara, it took a day and half of travel, east and north, to traverse the route over the hills and mountains. The car overheated three times in reaching the Salinas Valley on the other side. John was warned to bring extra water but he could not have brought enough to satisfy his radiator. Large wooden barrels mounted on the side of the highway for automobile water, were a fortunate rescue for the family more than once.

On the end of the third day since leaving Los Angeles, at a small town called San Louis Obispo, as the orange light of dusk began to overcome the bright yellow light of day, the car rolled up to a rather fancy hotel. John parked in front of the lobby and went inside to secure rooms while the boys and Thelma waited in the car. A minute or so later, a man walked out of the front doors and without taking his hand off the door handle, he scrutinized the car. Thelma felt his judgment right away, she knew it well enough. The man went back inside. John could be heard yelling argumentatively over the front desk and Thelma and the boys could see him pointing towards the car with emphasis. John stormed out of the front door of the hotel, cursing under his breath, and with his jaw clenched in frustration he climbed into the car and slammed the door. Using the car to vent his anger he started the engine, released the hand brake and accelerated with a stomping heavy foot over the gravel parking lot, spitting rocks with his rear tires that peppered the glass doors of the hotel. He drove for five miles without saying a word. The boys knew better than to ask why he was mad. Thelma knew what had happened and she knew that she should say nothing. She was not allowed to stay within the walls of that hotel, nanny to the boys or not, she was a “colored,” a “negro.”

Ten minutes later John spotted a sign on the side of the road, painted in white letters on short wooden planks nailed together on a post which read “CAMP 2 MILES AHEAD.”

“Good, they can’t deny us a stay where there are no walls, nor a roof for us to pollute with our family!” John said with anger and uncertainty.

As the Irwin’s car rolled off the highway and down a slope into the camp, the headlights were on as the sun was now below the mountains behind them.

“What the heck kind of camp is this John?” Thelma remarked.

“I do not know Thelma, I really did not have an expectation.” John replied.

There were no tents, no picnic tables, no grills, just cars and tarps drawn over poles, mattresses on the ground, children were all over the place and barefoot, most just standing around watching the new car pull in to the camp. There were so many vehicles, old cars and trucks, it was more like a parking lot than a camp. Another sign just inside the camp read: “ALL WORKERS MUST REGISTER WITH OFFICE.” John circled an area of cars that seemed to be parked in the center of the camp. Sydney remarked:

“Pa, they look like the boys from the jail!”

Thelma turned back to talk to Sydney and O.W., who were busily absorbing the sights of the camp ground.

“That is because these boys are very poor Sydney. Just like the boys that were in the Jail. No shoes, and not enough food, not like you two. We need to respect them while we are here and be kind and they will be kind in turn to us. I’m sure of it, all right then?”

The yellowish lights of the car reflected the faces of what seemed like every person in the camp. They wanted to see who would come to their camp with a new car with no dents, with electric headlamps, without furniture tied on the roof and pulling a small trailer. Every one who could stand and walk seemed to line the small roadway beside their individual encampments to watch the Irwins circle the camp looking for a place to park. John spoke softly to Thelma, as he watched the spectacle of himself being watched as a spectacle, to this new class of people he had never before known.

“These are the thinnest people I have ever seen, they are like toothpicks Thelma.”

“Yes John they are, just like walking sticks, shame.” Thelma responded.

John pulled into an empty spot near a large tree, between two other vehicles that formed part of a barricade around an open area where a large camp fire was established. Three men were standing next to his driver’s side door waiting to talk to him. The oldest of the three spoke first as John climbed out.

“How do you do stranger?”

“How do you do gentlemen?” John replied smiling respectfully.

“This camp is closed to more workers Mr., we don’t need no more competition in here, there ain’t enough work.” The tallest of the two men had gotten right to the point.

“Oh don’t you folk worry, I’m not here to compete with you fellows. I was turned away from a hotel near here because of my boy’s colored nanny. I just thought this place might be a safe place for the four of us to bed down for the night.”

The two men looked at each other, then turned and walked away from John and engaged in a short discussion out of John’s ear-shot. John turned to the boys still sitting in the backseat.

“You boys just sit tight in there while I finish talking with these fellows.” He said with his authority voice.

The men turned around and came right up to John with their hands extended in friendship.

“Well then! That’s a different situation entirely. We take care of each other at this camp and friendly guests are welcome. That is if you can contribute to our welfare in a manner which is reasonable.” The older man said.

Within several minutes a small crowd had gathered around the car, several kids, boys and some black children, waiting to meet the newcomers.

“I would be happy to contribute what ever I can to your situation.” John offered.

John was now feeling relieved. Having worked for years with the poorer farmers of Kansas he was comfortable with the lower classes, but this was a new category of poor John had been unfamiliar with, vagabonds, homeless, the bottom feeders of society by no choice of their own. The older man continued while shaking John’s hand and a third man joined them who was wearing a guitar on his back.

“I’m Ned Wilkerson, this is Robert and this is Jimmy, we’re all three from Oklahoma and I’m happy to meet you, Mr. .”

“John Irwin sir and I’m happy to meet all your acquaintances. These are my boys Sydney and O.W., and over there is their nanny Thelma. Boys come on out and meet every body, Thelma come on out and be comfortable!”

Sydney and O.W. climbed out to meet the other children who were immediately crowding the boys with great curiosity. Within a few minutes a pack of boys, with Sydney and O.W. in the middle, ran off to somewhere in the camp while chatting and bragging and boasting and laughing and a handful of girls following behind.

After John set up his tiny campground next to the car and the four had washed in a nearby pond, Thelma and John sat close together, on a log facing the main camp fire and shared a large tin plate of beans under the fire light. John told their story with great attention from the others at the campfire listening closely, huddled around him. After his beans John went to the storage trunk of the car and brought back to the campfire a large box of food. He handed out all of it, canned peaches in syrup, sausages, apples and bananas that were accepted eagerly and gratefully. After nearly thirty people gathered around the fire became content with fresh sugar in their blood and food in the bellies, John revealed a large bag of roasted peanuts to pass around, of which the shells later became objects to throw at each other in a childish game enjoyed by all. A one gallon jug of home made peach wine was passed around. A sing-a-long ensued that lasted the rest of the night, one fellow had a guitar and another a mouth-harp and a night of Tennessee and Oklahoman folk music became some of the best entertainment Thelma and John had ever witnessed.

It was as if everyone loved each other. It was as if a clan was formed around a trusting bond that had developed through the sharing of food and song and without words, and it was understood that no one in this circle would harm any other. How could any person in this group turn on any other? How could any member of this encampment who suffers the same destitute economy, the same hungry stomach, the same dashed hopes, the omnipresent dirt and the weight of their footsteps on stones without shoes, they all share in the cruel words and the looks from the farm boss and his goons who tell them that “You can’t work on this day or on this week.”

In the morning the Irwins woke-up on top of blankets and piled upon by blankets. They were alerted to the sound of a rooster some good distance away. For a few moments, each were wondering where they were, before memories forced their recollection. Their heads laying towards the front grill of the car, their coats folded as pillows under them, as a clean morning dew covered the ground and dampened the tops of their covers. John lift himself up and rested on one elbow to take in the first visuals of the new day. The camp was half empty of the past nights inhabitants, as most of the men had climbed onto a flat-bed truck nearly two hours before, while the stars were still dazzling in the sky. John looked at his own tribe still asleep, and he noticed the head count on the ground was wrong, an additional fifth body lay with them. A girl had curled up along side O.W., John recalled her name was Sherry and that she lived with her mother and her “uncle.” O.W. shared his blanket with her and she was taking advantage and using most of it. “Adorable.” John contemplated. Then another surprise to John, two pair of the bare feet of his sons protruded from the bottoms of the blankets. They had both removed their shoes to be more like the other kids. Then they gave their shoes away without even asking John if they could, “Because I might have said no.” John thought to himself. John sat up and stared at the four boyish bare feet, beside him, exposed at the ankles below their blanket, as they continued to sleep. “I must be doing something right.” He thought and he smiled as he looked at the dirty toes of O.W. and Sydney and he felt paternal pride at these good humans he was raising.

On the El Camino Real, the Kings Highway, the road became more straight, less bumpy as the gravel road became consistent and well packed. The labor camp was an education for the boys and for John and Thelma. John was glad that racist bastard at the hotel in San Louis Obispo turned them away. “Funny how things can work out for the better like that.” John thought of the men and women of the camp as he steered gently north between two mountain ranges:

“Hard. Rough. Weathered faces on those people. And those coats, the coats on the men, they sleep in them, they wear them like a turtle wears his shell, torn, barely warm enough, pockets ripped, those coats are serious possessions to those men. Those faces. With those bones showing through, bones like their histories written on the book covers instead of inside on their pages. Hope. They have hope and they should not. Not with all that beating they have taken. Amazing hope, buckets of hope that continue to be pulled out of a well of despair. Those children have hope, the hope I guess, that is allowed by the presence of innocence, hope from inspiration of seeing their fathers fight every day for work, for nickels a day, nickels of hope. Those women. How those women tend to all those children. They each seemed to have several children. Those women carry the babies always, those babies that sleep nearly all the time, hungry, still without hope, to their advantage. Those women, those thin women so devoted to those families, with daughters they scrap around to make them pretty with whatever they can find, a piece of ribbon blows out of a nice car on the highway and becomes a cherished possession to tie the hair of a young thin girl coming of age. A single shoe might be found and those women or those daughters will take it, keep it and hope that they will find the other. Hope. Hope. Jesus H. Christ they have to have a hell of a lot of hope. My god.”

This dry channel in a valley between the mountains was also a fertile farming land and workers bent over within eyeshot of the highway to pick and till and plant the fruits of someone else’s entrepreneurship. It looked miserable to the Irwins as the day was at least ninety degrees and there was hardly a breeze visible in the fields of leafy vegetables, perhaps lettuce, growing more than a foot high.

Seven hours that day to Soledad, a speck of a town that encircles the crossroads of the Kings Highway, with a diner, a small hotel with cottages, and a Standard Oil filling station. Thelma and John were able to share a cottage and the boys another, as there were only two available. This time John concealed the car from the view of the manager and requested Thelma wear her large and floppy wicker hat to avoid being seen for who she is by the manager. So for the first time in many days Thelma and John could actually be alone without fear of having to hide within their own walls. In the morning John got final directions to Monterey from a cook at the diner. The realtor John had spoken with over the telephone from Salina had given him local directions but neglected to mention a short-cut over the Carmel Valley range. Arroyo Secco Road became Carmel Valley road headed west and northerly over winding hills and narrow bridges crossing creeks.

After four hours of traversing the small winding road, refilling the radiator, stopping for lunch, a scare came upon the family as a seemingly derelict car full of men came swerving down the Monterey highway, headed south directly at the Irwins. Thelma saw them first and let out a frightful scream that made everybody jump. John immediately slowed down to make a fast decision as what to do. The driver of the car coming down the hill was not looking forward. John saw his gruff and heavy face tipping a bottle into his mouth, three other men in the convertible car were holding buckets and nets on poles out of the side of the car. The men were actually laughing as their car faced a head on collision with John and the family. John quickly turned the wheel right and ran the car off the road and straight forward into a drainage ditch. The boys were thrown to one side, and Thelma’s head hit the front dash board. Behind the car, the trailer in tow, turned over and scraped loudly into the gravel and grass. The engine clinkered out with a sputter and steam rose from the radiator cap. The four men roared by them without stopping, their laughter heard by the Irwins as the noise of their own impact in the grassy ditch settled into silence.

“Is everyone all right?” John shouted out.

“Uh, I guess so pa.” O.W. replied, riled, unsure.

“I think so pa.” Said Sydney.

“Oh my head, oh it’s bleeding John!” Thelma was alarmed.

“Oh sweet, here let me see dear, uhh Thelma, show me your forehead!”

John slipped and referred to Thelma with endearment, in front of the boys. But they already knew and did not react to the verbal truth from their father. Kids are intuitive geniuses that seldom need direct instruction to know what is going on. Sydney had figured it out months ago and shared his suspicions with O.W.. Neither boy had a problem with their pa loving Thelma, because they loved Thelma also, she was their mother, the only mother they can remember having. The only problem they had with Thelma is the problem that the world had with Thelma, her skin.

“I think it it’s not bad John, there is only this little bit of blood and I do not feel hurt, just shaken-up.” Thelma said.

“We were lucky everyone. Those men were not even looking. That driver does not even know he ran us off the road.” John said.

“They looked like a car full of hobos pa.” Sydney offered.

“Yes, drunk hobos out for a Sunday morning excursion of some kind with nets and buckets. Strange.”

A milk delivery wagon with four horses pulled the Model T out of the ditch for the Irwins and a short trip up and over the long hill into Monterey was their last leg of the journey.

As the car crested the hill, heading north, they could see the bay, they could see a blue green expanse of water bordered by bright yellow beach and shining white surf. The bay, in a shape of a half-moon, seemed like it was welcoming visitors in with its arms reaching out towards the ocean to pull them in. John, the boys and Thelma couldn’t take their eyes off the sight of it.

John found the realtor’s office across the street from the city hall. Within minutes the Irwins were following close behind the realtor’s car to a home near the downtown area. Cortes Street was a block or so from the wharf and the smell of fish, Sardine predominantly, permeated in the breeze. The Arts and Crafts Bungalow house faced west and from its porch could be seen the buildings of downtown Monterey, to the right, the masts of fishing boats waved back and forth in the wavy waters of the bay just a few hundred feet away. Perpetually above, seagulls cried out and drifted on the gentle winds above the rooftops of the squarely laid-out neighborhood. Across the street from the Irwins new home was a two story wooden home busy with children running in and out and around the building. John and Thelma speculated this was a day care operation but they soon learned that indeed it was a large Italian family of fourteen children living under one roof.

The relief felt by John and Thelma and the boys could be seen in their faces, the concern was over, the mystery of uplifting themselves and setting down in a very different place was over. Monterey was a either a large town or a small city but it was filled with people of all kinds.

Black people walked and shopped in the same stores as whites and Thelma could not have been happier, at last she could go by a dress without having to enlist someone to buy one for her, after standing outside a shop and spying a dress she liked from the window. On the same block where the Irwins lived, in a small “shotgun house,” its back yard abutted the Irwins backyard and a black couple with a little girl lived there. When Thelma realized the woman hanging up clothes behind them was not a maid but actually lived there in the same neighborhood as white folks, she was disbelieving and early on that same evening brought them vanilla cake and soda-pop. With Louise and Moses Walker and little Sandra, she quickly had friends and right in her own backyard, someone to talk to in confidence, someone to share her common background with. Moses built a gate between the two back-yards so visiting would be easy and his daughter Sandra could avoid the street.

Chinese people were a first sight for the Irwins as there was a large community of Chinese living in a community on the western side of the city, near the bay side. It was clear by their public tasks that they were a servant class. The women could be seen carrying laundry baskets or groceries and towing children around town, sometimes they would be escorting white children, who were dressed well, while their own children would be without shoes. The Chinese men worked the Sardine nets, and did surf fishing in the rocky shallows along the bay, and worked in the several fish canneries along side poor whites and blacks.

In this time and place, if your parents are not white, then you learn at home if you can, and if your parents have knowledge they can teach you, the rare tools of reading and writing and math. In most cases the parents of the minority classes do not have those basic tools. What your parents can teach you is what they do know, like the history of your own family, the stories passed on from their parents, the local geography, who is the president, but not who is the senator or who is the governor. Your father can teach you how to buy and sell or how to trade up and what not to do, who not to labor for and what to expect from the ruling class, the “ownership class.” Some of the most important lessons your parents can teach you are how to stay out of trouble when you’re growing up, how to spot white boys that appear to be “trouble waiting for a place to happen.” It is a sure thing that the boy of a white man, who is mean and racist, is himself a mean racist emulating his own father. Blaming the minority community is popular. Individual blame for minor crimes is common, the black man, the Chinese man, or their sons are easy prey for scapegoating. The sheriff will lock these people up in the County Jail in Salinas on a rumor and nothing more.

But racism has evolved to a new and more pleasant, yet devious and hidden, level of hatred. When John was a boy in Chicago a black man could not walk on the street if he were not in his own neighborhood, never mind being able to use services or restaurants. But here in Monterey he sees them sharing services and streets with the white community. It is as if the whites have grown to accept the minority of color other than white as equal humans. Humans yes, but deserving of equal human treatment no. If any product or public service is in short supply, it becomes reserved for whites, like the beef and the liquor, and the wine or cheese, or milk and clean water, or the teachers for their children, firefighting for their burning homes, or doctors who will treat “coloreds and chinks.” The minority community adapts by building unto itself a society behind walls and doors to service themselves. If one black woman knows how to read, she teaches five black children several days a week, in any environment available, perhaps in a barn, on bails of hay odorized by manure if need be.

It is people like John and Thelma, Sydney and O.W. who break the mold of these cultures. The racism would not end without people like them, bringing a colored family into their home for an evening of food and stories. Allowing their children to play together. They would share in each other by sharing necessities like clothing and foods, housing, and babysitting, even music and story. Sharing of these consumables serve to break the cultural walls that keep racism from passing beyond, through doorways, breaking walls that maintain and fester the ignorance that precedes distrust and hatred.

O.W. and Sydney made friends quickly, especially with the twelve boys of the Garafalo family across the street. At three fifteen, every weekday afternoon, the kids would flood the streets as the school, on the hill, let out the wild animals. The Garafalo house became an out of control kid zone, not safe for adults, and rampant with yelling and throwing, fighting and laughing for six hours or until darkness.

Mrs. Garafalo wore a light blue billowy dress in which on her heavy body, seemed to float like a boat of the ice breaking class. The color of her dress closely resembled the paint on the fishing trawlers anchored nearby. She sported a mustache that was not long enough to require a combing, but too long to shave off without the change being noticed by all who know her. A day or two after the Irwins moved in across the street from the Garafalos, John was standing at rest on the front porch holding a cup of morning coffee and he noticed Mrs. Garafalo had emerged from her domestic prison, nursing babies, one on each breast and somehow simultaneously nursing her stomach with a chicken leg. John sat on the top step of the porch and sipped his coffee and watched with interest. Then, while chewing her chicken breakfast she screamed something incomprehensible in an angry tone at one of the kids below her, and chunks of partially chewed chicken meat launched outward over the side of her second floor porch. “Holy shit!” John said to himself confident he was alone. Then she strolled her large globe shaped body back inside, babies and chicken and all. Then the scene got more interesting for John’s amusement. A flock of approximately thirty seagulls came swooping down upon the chicken parts spit-out by Mrs. Garafalo. But they had not flown from the sky above, they had been waiting, stalking the Garafalo home for the moment of just such an occurrence. Mrs. Garafalo would occasionally come out on the second floor porch to chastise one of kids. Holding a baby, or two, to her breasts she would yell down to the street with the range and impact of a foghorn. One of the children’s names would sound out in anger and the sound echoed down Cortes St. and penetrated the walls of every house in the vicinity. In almost every instance of these soundings from above, she would get the name of the child behaving badly, wrong, causing a return call from below by the falsely accused child, correcting her. But it didn’t matter which child she was yelling at, not really, and she never figured out that one generic name for all would have sufficed.

Thelma was enrolled, with little coercion, by several black mothers to teach reading and writing to their children. A daily endeavor she learned to love to do, and did well. She purchased readers for each of the kids, and a large chalk board. She would assemble all the children in her backyard, on logs for seats. The children would enter through the Walkers front door in the morning and leave the same way in the afternoon. Thelma thought this best to avoid the ire of white people in the neighborhood who might not appreciate that John was using his house to teach colored children.

John had been in Monterey for two weeks and felt settled enough to look for his next job, hopefully related to banking or accounting. The Monterey Home Credit Company was his first stop. A two story building with a Mexican style adobe facade on its front and rooftop of terra cotta shingles. He waited just a few minutes at the desk of the floor manager for a gentlemen to approach him from the bottom of the stairway from the second floor.

“Mr. Irwin I presume!” The man cordially approached and extended a hand.

“Yes, hello, I’m John Irwin, pleasure to meet you sir.” John stood and the two shook hands.

“I’m Theodore Wexley and I’m the principle manager of the bank, what can I do for you today?”

“Well I have just moved to the peninsula from Salina, Kansas and am an experienced accountant and home and farm loan manager and broker and . .”

“Lets you and I go upstairs to my office, right this way.”

Wexley interrupted John and then with his hand on John’s shoulder he directed him up the stairs to his office. In thirty minutes John had a new position at the bank. A position created to correspond with a ground breaking on a new housing development in which many buyers were expected to flock to from San Francisco. It was dizzying to John. Like an amazing hammer of luck had struck him on the head. He was to have dinner with Theodore Wexley this very evening at a downtown restaurant, to “get further acquainted.”

The Portefino restaurant was not what John had expected. Wooden and rustic, sprawling with multiple levels, and decking and railings for a large and wide outdoor dining area, and a view from almost every table of the bay, and the small port of Monterey. Inside it was plush with carpeting and electric lighting from stained glass ceiling lamps over every table. Theodore Wexley had already been seated and the maitre d’ led John to his table. Mr. Wexley seemed very comfort at his table, and this made it apparent to John that he ate here on a regular basis.

“Mr. Irwin good evening Sir! Welcome to one of my favorite hide-outs.”

“Mr. Wexley sir good evening to you. My, this place is certainly an interesting establishment!” John smiled and looked about further.

“It’s almost forty years old. It used to be a sort of a bunk house for sailors and traders using the port.” Wexley explained.

“That explains the rather colonial look of the place from the outside, I suppose.” John did not know what he was talking about, but it sounded right.

Mr. Wexley leaned forward over the table and in a low quite voice informed John of a treat to follow.

“This place serves wine John. I’ve ordered a bottle of white produced from a local winery in Carmel. The sheriff eats here too so there is no worry about violating that god-damned prohibition!”

Their waiter then brought out two green glass Coca-Cola bottles already opened on a tray and poured delicately into blue glasses. The two men smiled before reaching for their glasses, and they would have grimaced with glee like grown children if they were not supposed to be containing themselves, for fear of spilling the beans to a busy-body that might be watching from elsewhere in the dining room.

John received a history of Monterey from his new boss over a large four course dinner with wine to wash everything down. He told John how Monterey used to be the capitol of California, and that the American navy defeated the Mexicans, “right down there,” he turned and pointed to a small area of the harbor next to the pier, “with one open launch boat and four men.” The story goes, they came on shore and without a shot, had found the barracks of the Mexican regiment empty, as they were off hunting in the mountains for some banditos. The Hotel Del Monte and country club seemed an important place to Mr. Wexley, having burned down once already, he spoke of it fondly. He told of the “trouble with the Chinese,” as if they somehow did not pull their weight. He told of a great fire some fifteen years back which had swept through their encampment, a town of sorts, of wooden shacks on the seashore, reducing the entire area to cinders. After that, most of them left, some went to work in the canneries. “I remember the smell,” he said, of the drying squid and abalone and halibut that drifted through the streets of the entire area. “They pretty much fished out the bay and sold it to San Francisco and China!” His contempt was clear even after they had left years ago. He told of the religious “fruit-cakes,” that formed the Pacific Grove sanctuary, not long ago, on the western end of the peninsula. He informed John of where the best brothel was, behind the Bear House building on Cannery Row and without shame, he made it apparent that he was a customer. He let John know there were at least three “decent moon shiners,” operating in town and to see him and he would introduce him to the one he uses.

Plates were cleared away and the men had consumed eight “Coca-Cola,” bottles, and they leaned back in their chairs to allow their bellies to protrude under the table cloth. Mr. Wexley then became serious and looked John right in the eyes without blinking.

“What I have not told John, is about the most important aspect of your new job. Two names, the Del Monte Properties Company and the Pacific Improvement Company and you’ll be hearing those names daily in your new position at the bank. It’s a land deal set up by a partnership of those two consortiums. The principle owner of the most of the land in the forest area is Samuel F.B. Morse.”

Wexley watched John’s face to see if he would recognize the name. John’s eyebrows rose with fascination.

“You mean the Sam Morse of the telegraph?” John cleared his throat and asked.

“Heh, not exactly. It’s his cousin Samuel F.B. Morse, always use his full name, with the initials in all correspondence and even when you speak it. He likes it. We’ll be kissing his petootie, if you know what I mean.” Wexley replied.

“Do you mean like, hello Mr. Samuel F.B. Morse, how do you do?”

“No, no no, not that formal in person, just Mr. Morse when talking directly to him. Or even better Mr. Morse sir.”

“You may meet him tomorrow, I plan on driving you up to the new lodge at Pebble Beach, it’s our little castle on the hill, you’ll love it. You golf Irwin?”

“Uh, no, I never tried it, I’m embarrassed to say.”

“You’ll golf and love it. But you’ll need practice and instruction before we let you lose on the course with Morse. We don’t want you to slow down the play.” Wexley winked and smiled at John.

“Taxes John, California has them, the Fed now has them and there is talk of a tax on consumables like tobacco and even food. Mr. Morse’s taxes and the taxes of the Del Monte Properties Company must not reach ridiculous levels, and must not connect to each other.”

“I think I understand.” John responded slowly.

“Good! Play your cards right and your life here will be extremely comfortable. Your boys will have the best. The best college, cars, homes, and later retirement in high class.” Mr. Wexley had a gleam in his eye.

John felt as if he were in a dream. Coaxed by the wine, his excitement about the possibility of being a wealthy man felt like a golden butterfly in his stomach. He finished his final glass of wine as his eyes watered from inebriation and lust for the material goods of modernity being offered him, seemingly out of the sky, and being dropped into his lap. After a pause of a minute or so for reflection, Mr. Wexley added an important note.

“There is one more thing John, before we go to our respective homes and families. I reached your former employer this afternoon, after you left my office. He was glad to lend you accolades as to your loyalty, and your years of consistent work, and he noted that your personal skills with clientele would be greatly missed at the Home Trust Company.”

“And I shall miss Mr. Auburn, he became a good friend, like family, as well as a great boss.” John buttered the topic.

“He finished our conversation by voicing concern about a certain deed to a nearby farm land, and a mystery which would cause serious trouble, federal trouble, for someone who has crossed state lines.” Mr. Wexley watched for John’s reaction.

John’s butterfly of hope, which moments before had tickled his stomach pleasantly, fast became a brick and shock overcame his body as the reality of the words he was hearing set in. He grew pale in an instant. He had no words. He was not comfortable lying to anyone in person. But Mr. Wexley was not going to let him have to lie. Mr. Wexley had a plan for John and John’s possible deviant dealings in Kansas will work for Theodore Wexley.

“Enough said John. Your past is your past. Your record is good enough for me. I just wanted you to know, that the Kansas Home Trust Company, is wondering about you. Mr. Morse has connections which can protect you should anything, that may let us say, interfere with your new career, as it rises here in California. But on the flip side of the coin, John, Mr. Morse can make almost anything happen. He is very well connected, nationally.”

The implication was ominous, threatening and it sickened John so that on his way home he vomited in a set of shrubs on the side of a building. Bent over in the night and heaving his guts onto the ground, he was half in disbelief and half in cold cruel reality. He was entrapped by his recent decision to help a poor farming family in Kansas out of an impossible situation. What he thought would be his one time only venture into crime for the good of one family out of thousands, has become a brutal rope reaching to the west coast to remind him and to tie him to the past. When he finished emptying his entire dinner into the shrubs, he pulled out a handkerchief to clean himself and he sat on the street curb and pondered.

“I am a good man. I am compassionate. I didn’t want to harm anyone, not like those land grabbing bastards at the banks. Now look what I’ve gotten myself into. This Wexley bastard will own me. Fuck! I’ll do his dirty work or go to prison. I don’t care about the money, the fancy homes and cars he said I would have. What is Thelma going to think? What about when the boys are grown and they learn, they will eventually, that I helped land tycoons break the law to get even richer than they already were. How can I send Sydney and O.W. to college on money earned through dirty-work? Is this what California is going to be like? They are no better than those railroad bastards and the banking bastards back home. Home? Oh shit, this is home. We can’t go back! Now it makes sense . . the Kings lousy fucking Highway! Certainly not mine.”