E. B. Cooke. 1) A Williams College alumnus and graduate; 2) a graduate of the Harvard School of Business.
As far as I’m concerned, and from where I sit, it’s live and let live, I always say. What better way is there to ensure domestic peace and tranquility?
I was born in the Valley, in February, 1910, and as many of my class, my military class, 1910, that means I learned Spanish from day one. Ranch Spanish, obviously. In college, at Williams, I spent my summers in Spain, Havana, Mexico, and so on. I’m saying this not as a brag, not entirely, but only to clear up any misconception. I’m Valley-born and I know the gringada just as intimately as I know la raza.
Well now, since I can hear and see and know the difference between right and wrong, to live and let, as I said, I don’t think that Becky Escobar’s leaving, abandoning, divorcing Ira is bad or good. A matter of complete indifference to me.
Regarding Ira’s political career, it must be on its fifth or sixth year or term, whatever, but that’s nothing to me either. Boys like Ira are in long supply and there’s even more now than there were ten, twelve years ago, let’s say. As for Ira, I’d say he was competent in a narrow, restrictive way.
Too, today’s Becky Escobar—and I say this privately and publicly, since it doesn’t matter to me, anyway—Becky is a different proposition, not the same Becky at all. At all. And I like her more, too. She’s … she’s her own person, know what I’m saying here?
Oh, she’s always been nice, pleasant, tractable, let’s say, but when I look at her, I see some bearing, some direction. Carriage, that’s the word I was looking for … Sure of herself, too. Who she is, that she’s aware of that, see?
If at one time she sat—and will you listen to me talk this way?—if at one time she worshipped at my niece Sammie Jo’s feet, they now treat each other as equals, something which Sammie Jo likes, by the way. My niece, as Churchill used to say of Russia, is a paradox wrapped inside an etcetera … So what I’m saying is that Sammie Jo hated—despised, really—the way Becky, the old Becky, would abase, would efface, erase even, her own character to go around pleasing other people. And this to please those leeches in the Music Club.2
Well, as for Sammie Jo, she prefers for people to be themselves, not the way other people would like for them to be. You do understand that, don’t you?
The listener is not hard of hearing. Informant Cooke’s tic is not to be taken as a penchant for corroboration, in any way or case. The listener believes that these huhs, rights, etc. are breathing spaces as Cooke goes from topic to topic. A manner of speech tied, it is obvious to the listener, to Cooke’s character and personality. Indifference, then, to everything but his own person. In this way, not different from most egoists.
As for Sammie Jo, she’s loved one man in her life, young Rafe Buenrostro. And who would’ve thought they’d ever marry? No one. Not here. In the Valley.
Her sad, unhappy life has been due to her father’s idea of improving on an empire. That brother-in-law of mine … and no, it isn’t an indiscretion if I speak of Noddy this way. I started it, so I’ll end it here. But let’s get back to Becky.
Becky, and here, above all, frankness must be brutal, home truths, then: Becky’s gotten hold of an elm tree of a woman friend and protector in Viola Barragán. And even if Becky neither knows nor appreciates it yet, she’s a young Viola Barragán. A seedling, let’s say. She’s sharp, handsome, honest, and as one must be in business, tough. She’s got the future in her hands, she does. What I’m saying is not some cliché or other, these aren’t set phrases; make no mistake on that score.
But aside from all this, that future that I … that I presage, don’t you know, is being claimed here with all the confidence of one who has known, dealt with Becky at first hand. That first year after her divorce, she’d go with Viola to all the businesses in Viola’s corporation.
And here we are, halfway through the second year, and what do we see? Well, there’s Becky administering various of the business enterprises: the hamburger chain, the Shopping Bags, that massive trailer park which, by all accounts, holds some nine-hundred place units …
With that number of trailers I’ve already told you about, more or less indirectly, Viola’s investment in that venture is substantial. You see, the average range of those mobile homes goes from nine to eleven-five when bought in those large lots. That is a very serious amount of money. And Becky? She’s the one who rules that little-wheeled kingdom. The café chain, and there’s eleven of those, that’s a rift of gold right there. Oh, yes. You see, Viola, with Becky’s advice, has added chicken and a salad, etcetera. The Shopping Bags are frosting on the cake, let us say.
And as I just said, Becky is the director of those businesses. I’d bet dollars to doughnuts that Ira couldn’t carry that load … no puede con los liachos, eh? Talent’s the trick, and drive, too, knowing your personnel, to show, receive common courtesies, tact … That’s necessary; did I say necessary? Essential is the word. Well, Ira’s not the one, hasn’t got the knack, the talent. He’s got other things going for him, and you can’t deny that, but he’s missing that little something, el toque, that Becky’s developed to a high degree. Learned that from Viola. Either that, or she was born to administrate—a gift.
The change, maybe it’s best not to call it that. The discovery of her own persona, who she was, as a person, well, that opened up the floodgates, the whole dam, really. And it had to be opened in order to fulfill its mission, carry out its assignment …
The listener, attentive as ever, suspects that E.B.C. has gone off the track here. Slightly, but off. The listener has full confidence in the reader and knows the reader will get the drift.
The children? Fine, as far as I know. The oldest, a boy, is no longer enrolled at St. John’s. Becky placed him in public school. The girl’s no longer at Scholastics either. She’s at St. Ann’s, here in Klail. Becky’s old school …
Socially, I imagine I see her and Jehu once a month, the old rendimiento de cuentas … the settling of accounts payable and receivable. It’s business, but social, too.
As for Jehu, he and I’ve always respected each other, and that is not only a truth, it is a completely verifiable fact. If Noddy Perkins and I agree on anything, and there isn’t much to hang on to, both Noddy and I recognize Jehu’s talents and contributions. As Jehu says, though, praise is a great thing, but a raise is even better.
And as I said to you over the phone, I was a witness to their wedding. Jehu himself asked me to serve.
A seventy-two-year-old witness ought to count for something, don’t you think? (E.B.C.’s laughter).
Yes, Jehu is well-paid, and why shouldn’t he be? By the way, Jehu took himself out of Viola’s accounts, a valued account, too. Jehu said it would be improper. So, he himself went out to the main office, picked out Esther Bewley and trained her for the job. That’s Esther’s office, across the hall, personal office and everything as associate director of current accounts.
Jehu’s been named cashier, my old job. I just come in here for coffee, something to do … This old office used to be the board room. I heard Jehu’s name here for the first time; he was at the Savings and Loan then … As far as the Bank, as far as I’m concerned, as one of the owners, what Jehu did in withdrawing from Viola Barragán’s accounts is enough to inspire confidence in anyone. Shows you how he’s grown as a banker and as a person. That’s right, as a person.
Hmmm. I remember my sister Fredericka, who’s no longer with us, how she resisted Jehu’s hiring. It wasn’t Jehu, it was the idea of what he was …
Jehu would’ve made a fine lawyer, just like that non-practicing cousin of his … my nephew now, right? In-law, but a nephew … Anyway, Jehu’s grown. He asked, first me and then Noddy, if it wouldn’t be better if he were transferred to Klail Savings or to our branch in Jonesville … soon after the Escobars’ divorce … Well, about a week later, the three of us met in Noddy’s office, a Friday, if I’m not mistaken … end of the week, end of the quarter … Anyway, Noddy mixed some highballs and after this and that, Noddy broached the subject of the transfer and said, “No, I don’t want you to go out there.”
Said that Jehu would stay put—you know Noddy—and that he’d talked to me—he had—and that he’d phoned Junior Klail and I don’t know who else, maybe my sister Anna Faye too; that we had agreed he was to stay at the Bank.
Years back we knew he was a Buenrostro, and here we were, the Cookes, about to hire him … Well, there are only two Cookes left now, Anna Faye and I, since Freddie died of uterine cancer. Freddie came around though, although if anyone has ever been born a Mexican-hater, if there is such a thing as being born that way, Fredericka certainly was. Once, just once, Jehu and I talked on this, and Jehu attributed Freddie’s … her discomfort with Mexicans, as good, old-fashioned guilt. Talking to me that way, about my own sister, but then I had brought the subject up in the first place … And he wasn’t being flippant either; he also said it didn’t matter, that the land, this land, the Valley, all of this, would be here when we were all dead. He then laughed and said, “When the state has withered away.” Noddy it was who christened Jehu as The Uncommon Banker … he is that, all right.
Since we do get on, although just barely when he was first hired, I’ve learned that I’ll get an honest answer; cool, perhaps, but an honest one. One day, out of the blue—well, perhaps he’d considered it deeply, but out of the blue for me—he said that Ira needed an eighteen-year-old girl. You know, someone around that age, without character. Terrible thing to say, but there it is …