Books: The Bowery of Monterey

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Most of the rest of Cannery Row is given over to an account of Mack's party for Doc. But little anecdotes of Monterey life slip in between the chapters: the story of William, the bouncer at the brothel, who was high-hatted by Mack's gang (said Mack, "I hate a pimp") and disconsolately stuck an ice pick in his heart; the story of Mr. & Mrs. Malloy, who in 1935 moved into an abandoned boiler in a vacant lot on Cannery Row, and quarreled because Mrs. Malloy wanted curtains for the windows that weren't there; the true story of Josh Billings, the famed humorist, who died in Monterey and whose insides, removed by a local undertaker, got carelessly scattered around town.

Saturnalia. Mack's party for Doc was premature. To finance it the boys collected 500 frogs (for which Doc would pay 5¢ apiece), then traded the frogs to Lee Chong for liquor which they drank while waiting for Doc to show up. When he finally arrived, his house was a shambles. But no Steinbeck story of Monterey could end on so grim a note. All Cannery Row cooperated to make up for the destruction by giving the music-loving old scientist a party they could enjoy, and the book ends with the sound of revelry by night, a saturnalia of middle-aged harlots, party-crashing fishermen, aging racketeers, fighting, weeping, embracing, dancing and reading verse.

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