The Grapes of Wrath

“Let them goddamn cops run over me, an’ me do nothin’?”

“No, looka here. I’ll come for ya tonight. Maybe I’m wrong. There’s stools aroun’ all a time. I’m takin’ a chancet, an’ I got a kid, too. But I’ll come for ya. An’ if ya see a cop, why, you’re a goddamn dumb Okie, see?”

“That’s awright if we’re doin’ anythin’,” said Tom.

“Don’ you worry. We’re doin’ somepin’, on’y we ain’t stickin’ our necks out. A kid starves quick. Two-three days for a kid.” He went back to his job, spread the compound on a valve seat, and his hand jerked rapidly back and forth on the brace, and his face was dull and dumb.

Tom strolled slowly back to his camp. “Bull-simple,” he said under his breath.

Pa and Uncle John came toward the camp, their arms loaded with dry willow sticks, and they threw them down by the fire and squatted on their hams. “Got her picked over pretty good,” said Pa. “Had ta go a long ways for wood.” He looked up at the circle of staring children. “Lord God Almighty!” he said. “Where’d you come from?” All of the children looked self-consciously at their feet.

“Guess they smelled the cookin’,” said Ma. “Winfiel’, get out from under foot.” She pushed him out of her way. “Got ta make us up a little stew,” she said. “We ain’t et nothin’ cooked right sence we come from home. Pa, you go up to the store there an’ get some neck meat. Make a nice stew here.” Pa stood up and sauntered away.

Al had the hood of the car up, and he looked down at the greasy engine. He looked up when Tom approached. “You sure look happy as a buzzard,” Al said.

“I’m jus’ gay as a toad in spring rain,” said Tom.

“Looka the engine,” Al pointed. “Purty good, huh?”

Tom peered in. “Looks awright to me.”

“Awright? Jesus, she’s wonderful. She ain’t shot no oil nor nothin’.” He unscrewed a spark plug and stuck his forefinger in the hole. “Crusted up some, but she’s dry.”

Tom said, “You done a nice job a pickin’. That what ya want me to say?”

“Well, I sure was scairt the whole way, figgerin’ she’d bust down an’ it’d be my fault.”

“No, you done good. Better get her in shape, ’cause tomorra we’re goin’ out lookin’ for work.”

“She’ll roll,” said Al. “Don’t you worry none about that.” He took out a pocket knife and scraped the points of the spark plug.

Tom walked around the side of the tent, and he found Casy sitting on the earth, wisely regarding one bare foot. Tom sat down heavily beside him. “Think she’s gonna work?”

“What?” asked Casy.

“Them toes of yourn.”

“Oh! Jus’ settin’ here a-thinkin’.”

“You always get good an’ comf’table for it,” said Tom.

Casy waggled his big toe up and his second toe down, and he smiled quietly. “Hard enough for a fella to think ’thout kinkin’ hisself up to do it.”

“Ain’t heard a peep outa you for days,” said Tom. “Thinkin’ all the time?”

“Yeah, thinkin’ all the time.”

Tom took off his cloth cap, dirty now, and ruinous, the visor pointed as a bird’s beak. He turned the sweat band out and removed a long strip of folded newspaper. “Sweat so much she’s shrank,” he said. He looked at Casy’s waving toes. “Could ya come down from your thinkin’ an’ listen a minute?”

Casy turned his head on the stalk-like neck. “Listen all the time. That’s why I been thinkin’. Listen to people a-talkin’, an’ purty soon I hear the way folks are feelin’. Goin’ on all the time. I hear ’em an’ feel ’em; an’ they’re beating their wings like a bird in a attic. Gonna bust their wings on a dusty winda tryin’ ta get out.”

Tom regarded him with widened eyes, and then he turned and looked at a gray tent twenty feet away. Washed jeans and shirts and a dress hung to dry on the tent guys. He said softly, “That was about what I was gonna tell ya. An’ you seen awready.”

“I seen,” Casy agreed. “They’s a army of us without no harness.” He bowed his head and ran his extended hand slowly up his forehead and into his hair. “All along I seen it,” he said. “Ever’ place we stopped I seen it. Folks hungry for side-meat, an’ when they get it, they ain’t fed. An’ when they’d get so hungry they couldn’ stan’ it no more, why, they’d ast me to pray for ’em, an’ sometimes I done it.” He clasped his hands around drawn-up knees and pulled his legs in. “I use’ ta think that’d cut ’er,” he said. “Use’ ta rip off a prayer an’ all the troubles’d stick to that prayer like flies on flypaper, an’ the prayer’d go a-sailin’ off, a-takin’ them troubles along. But don’ work no more.”

Tom said, “Prayer never brought in no side-meat. Takes a shoat to bring in pork.”

“Yeah,” Casy said. “An’ Almighty God never raised no wages. These here folks want to live decent and bring up their kids decent. An’ when they’re old they wanta set in the door an’ watch the downing sun. An’ when they’re young they wanta dance an’ sing an’ lay together. They wanta eat an’ get drunk and work. An’ that’s it— they wanta jus’ fling their goddamn muscles aroun’ an’ get tired. Christ! What’m I talkin’ about?”