The Grapes of Wrath

“I guess cops push ’im aroun’ so much he’s still spinning.” Tom asked, “Why would they push a fella like that aroun’?”. The young man stopped his work and looked in Tom’s eyes. “Chris’ knows,” he said. “You jus’ come. Maybe you can figger her out. Some fellas says one thing, an’ some says another thing. But you jus’ camp in one place a little while, an’ you see how quick a deputy sheriff shoves you along.” He lifted a valve and smeared compound on the seat.

“But what the hell for?”

“I tell ya I don’ know. Some says they don’ want us to vote; keep us movin’ so we can’t vote. An’ some says so we can’t get on relief. An’ some says if we set in one place we’d get organized. I don’ know why. I on’y know we get rode all the time. You wait, you’ll see.”

“We ain’t no bums,” Tom insisted. “We’re lookin’ for work. We’ll take any kind a work.”

The young man paused in fitting the brace to the valve slot. He looked in amazement at Tom. “Lookin’ for work?” he said. “So you’re lookin’ for work. What ya think ever’body else is lookin’ for? Di’monds? What you think I wore my ass down to a nub lookin’ for?” He twisted the brace back and forth.

Tom looked about at the grimy tents, the junk equipment, at the old cars, the lumpy mattresses out in the sun, at the blackened cans on fire-blackened holes where the people cooked. He asked quietly, “Ain’t they no work?”

“I don’ know. Mus’ be. Ain’t no crop right here now. Grapes to pick later, an’ cotton to pick later. We’re a-movin’ on, soon’s I get these here valves groun’. Me an’ my wife an’ my kids. We heard they was work up north. We’re shovin’ north, up aroun’ Salinas.”

Tom saw Uncle John and Pa and the preacher hoisting the tarpaulin on the tent poles and Ma on her knees inside, brushing off the mattresses on the ground. A circle of quiet children stood to watch the new family get settled, quiet children with bare feet and dirty faces. Tom said, “Back home some fellas come through with han’bills— orange ones. Says they need lots a people out here to work the crops.”

The young man laughed. “They say they’s three hunderd thousan’ us folks here, an’ I bet ever’ dam’ fam’ly seen them han’bills.”

“Yeah, but if they don’ need folks, what’d they go to the trouble puttin’ them things out for?”

“Use your head, why don’cha?”

“Yeah, but I wanta know.”

“Look,” the young man said. “S’pose you got a job a work, an’ there’s jus’ one fella wants the job. You got to pay ’im what he asts. But s’pose they’s a hunderd men.” He put down his tool. His eyes hardened and his voice sharpened. “S’pose they’s a hunderd men wants that job. S’pose them men got kids, an’ them kids is hungry. S’pose a lousy dime’ll buy a box a mush for them kids. S’pose a nickel’ll buy at leas’ somepin for them kids. An’ you got a hunderd men. Jus’ offer ’em a nickel— why, they’ll kill each other fightin’ for that nickel. Know what they was payin’ las’ job I had? Fifteen cents an hour. Ten hours for a dollar an’ a half, an’ ya can’t stay on the place. Got to burn gasoline gettin’ there.” He was panting with anger, and his eyes blazed with hate. “That’s why them han’bills was out. You can print a hell of a lot of han’bills with what ya save payin’ fifteen cents an hour for fiel’ work.”

Tom said, “That’s stinkin’.”

The young man laughed harshly. “You stay out here a little while, an’ if you smell any roses, you come let me smell, too.”

“But they is work,” Tom insisted. “Christ Almighty, with all this stuff a-growin’: orchards, grapes, vegetables— I seen it. They got to have men. I seen all that stuff.”

A child cried in the tent beside the car. The young man went into the tent and his voice came softly through the canvas. Tom picked up the brace, fitted it in the slot of the valve, and ground away, his hand whipping back and forth. The child’s crying stopped. The young man came out and watched Tom. “You can do her,” he said. “Damn good thing. You’ll need to.”

“How ’bout what I said?” Tom resumed. “I seen all the stuff growin’.”