Tad Wojnicki: Boutique Row

.

Cannery Row is shop-crazy. I skip the trinketry, chocolatery, and gadgetry, and then hop past the batikry, crotchetry, and towelry. A far cry from John Steinbeck. I schlep on. Now, Steinbeck arrives: Steinbeck Golf, Steinbeck Cooking College, and Steinbeck Fold and Fluff. Of course, also a Steinbeck Speakeasy—Steinbeck here, Steinbeck there, Steinbeck everywhere.

.

I schlep down Cannery Row.

.

I don't see a single cannery, much less a row, or hear the famous, ear-splitting whistle calling the fish cutters, staggering out of their tortilla flats. Years ago, by this time of day, all boats would have been in. The stinko gulch would be swarming with minimum-pay workers, Dead fish would make it alive. But today, the fish is gone. Fished out. With the fish, that life is gone, too—no warehouses, no whorehouses, no flophouses. No “reduction” plants around either, baking fish heads, tails, and guts into a fertilizer. When they cleaned the tanks, "the stench was so horrible it would wake one up in the night," Joe Bragdon, who lived here as a young man, told me. Today, no whistles, no stench, no canners --and no fish to can, either. Cannery Row is now a Boutique Row. Sale signs go up left and right. Staffs drag schlock to the sidewalk to trip the walker.

.

antiques shop

in snakeskin shoes

a shiny penny

.

I gulp my gall and join the fun. Fog helps, cottoning rough stuff, fuzzing strife, padding junk. Even the roars and vrooms get muffled, stifled, smothered. Soles smooth sidewalks to sumptuous breakfasts of coffee with bacon, waffles with shrimp, and croissants with chorizo, all treyf stuff.

.

I step into a joint that doesn't reek treyf. It's the Steinbeck Speakeasy. They serve dinner for breakfast. I don’t want anything to eat. No chow, just spirits. I plop down at the bar and get a shot of kosher vodka straight. The barfly next to me is a Kentucky businessman dispossessed by his wife.

.

beach bar

fog engulfs

each stool

.

"Headlights on!" a man at the door yells, tilting his head toward the parking lot. "Who drives a Porsche?" he adds, looking around. No guest is getting up. No one drinking at the bar drives a Porsche.

.

"Our dishwasher," the bartender yells back.

.

The barfly leans over.

.

"Don't you miss the good old days?” he asks.

.

“What ‘good old days’? Days of low pay? Days of indignity? Days of filth, stink, and discomfort? Were those days ‘good days,’ you think?” "I'm not so sure they were," I recall Joe Bragdon, thinking back.

.

weedy wave

the pelican picks

the splash

.

I quit the Steinbeck Speakeasy and join a wedding party at the Lover's Point. Gooseflesh dads and teeth-chattering moms join too, praying the fog would lift. A stretch limo pulls over. The bride gets out, breast-feeding a baby. Suddenly, so honest. So Steinbeck. So Cannery Row.

.

pebbles rattle

crushed under driftwood

beach wedding

.

.

by Tad Wojnicki

US/Taiwan

.

[Previously published as: "Boutique Row: Idiosyncratic Reflections of a Steinbeck Aficionado," in: 2008 NCUE Third Annual Conference on Language Teaching, Literature, Linguistics, Translation, and Interpretation. Chang Hua, Taiwan, 2008.]