Free The Road to Los Angeles by John Fante

wrapped in heavy oilskins, their feet cased in rubber boots ankle-deep in fish guts.

    The stench was too much. All at once I was sick like the sickness from hot water and mustard. Another ten steps across the room and I felt it coming up, my breakfast, and I bent over to let it go. My insides rushed out in a chunk. Shorty laughed. He pounded my back and roared. Then the others started. The boss was laughing at something, and so did they. I hated it. The women looked up from their work to see, and they laughed. What fun! On company time, too! See the boss laughing! Something must be taking place. Then we will laugh too. Work was stopped in the cutting room. Everybody was laughing. Everybody but Arturo Bandini.

    Arturo Bandini was not laughing. He was puking his guts out on the floor. I hated every one of them, and I vowed revenge, staggering away, wanting to be out of sight somewhere. Shorty took me by the arm and led me toward another door. I leaned against the wall and got my breath. But the stench charged again. The walls spun, the women laughed, and Shorty laughed, and Arturo Bandini the great writer was heaving again. How he heaved! The women would go home tonight and talk about it at their houses. That new fellow! You should have seen him! And I hated them and even stopped heaving for a moment to pause and delight over the fact that this was the greatest hatred of all my life.

    "Feel better?" Shorty said.

    "Of course," I said. "It was nothing. The idiosyncrasies of an artistic stomach. A mere nothing. Something I ate, if you will."

    "That's right!"

    We walked into the room beyond. The women were still laughing on company time. At the door Shorty Naylor turned around and put a scowl on his face. Nothing more. He merely scowled. All the women stopped laughing. The show was over. They went back to work.

    Now we were in the room where the cans were labeled. The crew was made up of Mexican and Filipino boys. They fed the machines from flat conveyor lines. Twenty or more of them, my age and more, all of them pausing to see who I was and realizing that a new man was about to go to work.

    "You stand and watch," Shorty said. "Pitch in when you see how they do it."

    "It looks very simple," I said. "I'm ready right now."

    "No. Wait a few minutes."

    And he left.

    I stood watching. This was very simple. But my stomach would have nothing to do with it. In a moment I was letting go again. Again the laughter. But these boys weren't like the women. They really thought it was funny to see Arturo Bandini having such a time of it.

    That first morning had no beginning and no end. Between vomitings I stood at the can dump and convulsed. And I told them who I was. Arturo Bandini, the writer. Haven't you heard of me? You will! Don't worry. You will! My book on California fisheries. It is going to be the standard work on the subject. I spoke fast, between vomitings.

    "I'm not here permanently. I'm gathering material for a book on California fisheries. I'm Bandini, the writer. This isn't essential, this job. I may give my wages to charity: the Salvation Army."

    And I heaved again. Now there was nothing in my stomach except that which never came out. I bent over and choked, a famous writer with my arms around my waist, squirming and choking. But nothing would come. Somebody stopped laughing long enough to yell that I should drink water. Hey writer! Dreenk water! So I found a hydrant and drank water. It came out in a stream while I raced for the door. And they laughed. Oh that writer! What a writer he was! See him write!

    "You get over it," they laughed.

    "Go home," they said. "Go write book. You writer. You too good for feesh cannery. Go home and write book about puke."

    Shrieks of laughter.

    I walked outside and stretched out on a pile of fish nets hot in the sun between two buildings away from the main road that skirted the channel. Over the hum from the machinery I could hear them laughing. I didn't care, not at all. I felt