They threw me off the hay truck about noon.
Great opening line. Introduces a character ("me") with action ("threw"). A play on naivity -- where someone might say "I didn't fall off the hay wagon last night," to mean that he isn't easily fooled, our narrator was literally thrown off a hay wagon. First person, past tense.
I had swung on the night before, down at the border, and as soon as I got up there under the canvas, I went to sleep.
A drifter. A tramp. He's getting around by informally hitching rides. Characterization, and location.
I needed plenty of that, after three weeks in Tia Juana, and I was still getting it when they pulled off to one side to let the engine cool.
More localization, more backstory, more characterization.
Then they saw a foot sticking out and threw me off.
He's careless. He's detected. Characterization.
I tried some comical stuff, but all I got was a dead pan, so that gag was out.
He's self-aware, and speaks in slang.
They gave me a cigarette, though, and I hiked down the road to find something to eat.
Characterization -- he manages to talk the unknown driver out of a cigarette. Our narrator can find a silver lining in some pretty grim circumstances. And he's an optimist. End of first paragraph. Short declarative sentences. Almost no description. The narrator doesn't care about anyone or anything but himself. Check the number of times he says "I."
That was when I hit this Twin Oaks Tavern.
A place. Non-standard English. The preceding paragraph told us how the narrator happened to be here -- pure random chance. The main location shows up in the first sentence of the second paragraph.
It was nothing but a roadside sandwich joint, like a million others in California.
Abbreviated description; we're in California. Probably southern California, since we know the narrator was coming up from the Mexican border.
There was a lunchroom part, and over that a house part, where they lived, and off to one side a filling station, and out back a half dozen shacks that they called an auto court.
Physical layout of the setting. No details; the reader can fill them in since there are a million just like it. An "auto court" is another name for a motel. Tourist cabins. The impression is bleak. New characters added: "they." Who "they" are is yet to be defined.
I blew in there in a hurry and began looking down the road. When the Greek showed, I asked if a guy had been by in a Cadillac.
The narrator is running a con. He's a natural play-actor. Who "the Greek" might be is undefined. Possibly one of the "they" from the last sentence.
He was to pick me up here, I said, and we were to have lunch.
We have a narrator who lies fluently, naturally, as his first choice. The story is being told by this narrator. That is to say, nothing is as it seems. The readers shouldn't believe a word he says.
Not today, said the Greek.
Indirect discourse.
He layed a place at one of the tables and asked me what I was going to have.
The Greek is apparently a waiter, perhaps the proprietor of this rundown gas-station-motel-lunch-counter somewhere in California.
I said orange juice, corn flakes, fried eggs and bacon, enchilada, flapjacks, and coffee.
In addition to not sleeping for three weeks, the narrator apparently didn't eat, either. Or, he asks for everything in hopes of getting something.
Pretty soon he came out with the orange juice and the corn flakes.
Not exactly what he asked for. End of second paragraph. Again, very short, simple sentences.
"Hold on, now. One thing I got to tell you. If this guy don't show up, you'll have to trust me for it. This was to be on him, and I'm kind of short myself."
The con is revealed. The narrator may have run this same swindle a thousand times before, at a thousand other lunch joints. First use of direct quotation in the story.
"Hokay, fill'm up."
I saw he was on, and quit talking about the guy in the Cadillac. Pretty soon I saw he wanted something.
The Greek knows he's being conned, and doesn't care. The narrator knows he knows, and stops even pretending. This is lovely characterization for both of 'em. The Greek speaks broken English, close to dialect.
"What you do, what kind of work, hey?"
"Oh, one thing and another, one thing and another. Why?"
"How old you?"
"Twenty-four."
"Young fellow, hey? I could use young fellow right now. In my business."
"Nice place you got here."
"Air. Is a nice. No fog, like in Los Angeles. No fog at all. Nice, a clear, all a time nice a clear."
"Must be swell at night. I can smell it now."
"Sleep fine. You understand automobile? Fix'm up?"
"Sure. I'm a born mechanic."
They're each lying to the other, for purposes unknown. I bet the Greek isn't there for the air, and I bet the narrator doesn't know the first thing about fixing cars. The narrator is a bum. The Greek is ... odd. Why does he need to expand on why he needs a young fellow? What could he possibly be talking about other than his business? Implies that the Greek is old.
He gave me some more about the air, and how healthy he's been since he bought this place, and how he can't figure it out, why his help won't stay with him. I can figure it out, but I stay with the grub.
Just like the Greek didn't buy the story about the guy in the Cadillac, the narrator isn't buying the story about the air. The narrator detects something about the Greek that means he would be a lousy boss. The readers aren't told, exactly, just that the narrator can figure out why no one wants to work for this guy.
"Hey? You think you like it here?"
There's the pitch. Notice that there are no dialog tags -- no "I said ... he said." No bits of business fiddling with coffee cups. No information about what the room looks like, where the door is, what color the tablecloths are (or even if there are tablecloths).
By that time I had put down the rest of the coffee, and lit the cigar he gave me. "I tell you how it is. I got a couple of other propositions, that's my trouble. But I'll think about it. I sure will do that all right."
Our narrator accepts the free meal, accepts a cigar (he's apparently good at bumming smokes -- he got a cigarette from the truck driver), and is on the verge of turning down the job offer. You know he's going to smoke that cigar and walk out and never look back. He's lying some more, though -- he doesn't have any other propositions. He's got no future at all except bumming from town to town and running penny-ante swindles. This is pure character building.
Linebreak. Change of scene. Even though we don't move an inch, and the time is about one second later.
A very simple sentence. It leads the new scene, and adds a new character: "her." "Her" has the position of power at the end of the sentence. So far we haven't learned a single name.
She had been out back, in the kitchen, but she came in to gather up my dishes.
Simple narration. Gives the person a job, a reason for being there. The other part of the "they" we were promised.
Except for the shape, she really wasn't any raving beauty, but she had a sulky look to her, and her lips stuck out in a way that made me want to mash them in for her.
The longest sentence so far. A beautiful shape, a sulky look, and lips. And "mash them in for her" is ambiguous. Does he want to kiss her, or punch her in the mouth? The overtone of violence is inescapable. And we are in the classic triangle by the end of page two. Plot has just arrived. The old husband, the young wife, and the glib young stranger.
Lies, poverty, violence, sex ... this is a dynamite setup. I don't see a wasted word in it.