“I know. I tol’ ’im, but he hit the kid right in the nose an’, Jesus, how the blood run down!”
“Don’ talk like that. It ain’t a nice way to talk.”
Winfield turned over. “That kid says we was Okies,” he said in an outraged voice. “He says he wasn’t no Okie ’cause he come from Oregon. Says we was goddamn Okies. I socked him.”
“Sh! You shouldn’. He can’t hurt you callin’ names.”
“Well, I won’t let ’im,” Winfield said fiercely.
“Sh! Get some sleep.”
Ruthie said, “You oughta seen the blood run down—all over his clothes.”
Ma reached a hand from under the blanket and snapped Ruthie on the cheek with her finger. The little girl went rigid for a moment, and then dissolved into sniffling, quiet crying.
In the sanitary unit Pa and Uncle John sat in adjoining compartments. “Might’s well get in a good las’ one,” said Pa. “It’s sure nice. ’Member how the little fellas was so scairt when they flushed ’em the first time?”
“I wasn’t so easy myself,” said Uncle John. He pulled his overalls neatly up around his knees. “I’m gettin’ bad,” he said. “I feel sin.”
“You can’t sin none,” said Pa. “You ain’t got no money. Jus’ sit tight. Cos’ you at leas’ two bucks to sin, an’ we ain’t got two bucks amongst us.”
“Yeah! But I’m a-thinkin’ sin.”
“Awright. You can think sin for nothin’.”
“It’s jus’ as bad,” said Uncle John.
“It’s a whole hell of a lot cheaper,” said Pa.
“Don’t you go makin’ light of sin.”
“I ain’t. You jus’ go ahead. You always gets sinful jus’ when hell’s a-poppin’.”
“I know it,” said Uncle John. “Always was that way. I never tol’ half the stuff I done.”
“Well, keep it to yaself.”
“These here nice toilets gets me sinful.”
“Go out in the bushes then. Come on, pull up ya pants an’ le’s get some sleep.” Pa pulled his overall straps in place and snapped the buckle. He flushed the toilet and watched thoughtfully while the water whirled in the bowl.
It was still dark when Ma roused her camp. The low night lights shone through the open doors of the sanitary units. From the tents along the road came the assorted snores of the campers.
Ma said, “Come on, roll out. We got to be on our way. Day’s not far off.” She raised the screechy shade of the lantern and lighted the wick. “Come on, all of you.”
The floor of the tent squirmed into slow action. Blankets and comforts were thrown back and sleepy eyes squinted blindly at the light. Ma slipped on her dress over the underclothes she wore to bed. “We got no coffee,” she said. “I got a few biscuits. We can eat ’em on the road. Jus’ get up now, an’ we’ll load the truck. Come on now. Don’t make no noise. Don’ wanta wake the neighbors.”
It was a few moments before they were fully aroused. “Now don’ you get away,” Ma warned the children. The family dressed. The men pulled down the tarpaulin and loaded up the truck. “Make it nice an’flat,” Ma warned them. They piled the mattress on top of the load and bound the tarpaulin in place over its ridge pole.
“Awright, Ma,” said Tom. “She’s ready.”
Ma held a plate of cold biscuits in her hand. “Awright. Here. Each take one. It’s all we got.”
Ruthie and Winfield grabbed their biscuits and climbed up on the load. They covered themselves with a blanket and went back to sleep, still holding the cold hard biscuits in their hands. Tom got into the driver’s seat and stepped on the starter. It buzzed a little, and then stopped.
“Goddamn you, Al!” Tom cried. “You let the battery run down.”
Al blustered, “How the hell was I gonna keep her up if I ain’t got gas to run her?”
Tom chuckled suddenly. “Well, I don’ know how, but it’s your fault. You got to crank her.”
“I tell you it ain’t my fault.”
Tom got out and found the crank under the seat. “It’s my fault,” he said.
“Gimme that crank.” Al seized it. “Pull down the spark so she don’t take my arm off.”
“O.K. Twist her tail.”
Al labored at the crank, around and around. The engine caught, spluttered, and roared as Tom choked the car delicately. He raised the spark and reduced the throttle.
Ma climbed in beside him. “We woke up ever’body in the camp,” she said.
“They’ll go to sleep again.”
Al climbed in on the other side. “Pa ’n’ Uncle John got up top,” he said. “Goin’ to sleep again.”
Tom drove toward the main gate. The watchman came out of the office and played his flashlight on the truck. “Wait a minute.”
“What ya want?”
“You checkin’ out?”
“Sure.”
“Well, I got to cross you off.”
“O.K.”
“Know which way you’re goin’?”
“Well, we’re gonna try up north.”
“Well, good luck,” said the watchman.
“Same to you. So long.”
The truck edged slowly over the big hump and into the road. Tom retraced the road he had driven before, past Weedpatch and west until he came to 99, then north on the great paved road, toward Bakersfield. It was growing light when he came into the outskirts of the city.
Tom said, “Ever’ place you look is restaurants. An’ them places all got coffee. Lookit that all-nighter there. Bet they got ten gallons a coffee in there, all hot!”
“Aw, shut up,” said Al.
Tom grinned over at him. “Well, I see you got yaself a girl right off.”
“Well, what of it?”
“He’s mean this mornin’, Ma. He ain’t good company.”
Al said irritably, “I’m goin’ out on my own purty soon. Fella can make his way lot easier if he ain’t got a fambly.”
Tom said, “You’d have yaself a fambly in nine months. I seen you playin’ aroun’.”
“Ya crazy,” said Al. “I’d get myself a job in a garage an’ I’d eat in restaurants——”
“An’ you’d have a wife an’ kid in nine months.”
“I tell ya I wouldn’.”
Tom said, “You’re a wise guy, Al. You gonna take some beatin’ over the head.”
“Who’s gonna do it?”
“They’ll always be guys to do it,” said Tom.
“You think jus’ because you——”
“Now you jus’ stop that,” Ma broke in.
“I done it,” said Tom. “I was a-badgerin’ him. I didn’ mean no harm, Al. I didn’ know you liked that girl so much.”
“I don’t like no girls much.”
“Awright, then, you don’t. You ain’t gonna get no argument out of me.”
The truck came to the edge of the city. “Look a them hotdog stan’s—hunderds of ’em,” said Tom.
Ma said, “Tom! I got a dollar put away. You wan’ coffee bad enough to spen’ it?”
“No, Ma. I’m jus’ foolin’.”
“You can have it if you wan’ it bad enough.”
“I wouldn’ take it.”
Al said, “Then shut up about coffee.”
Tom was silent for a time. “Seems like I got my foot in it all the time,” he said. “There’s the road we run up that night.”
“I hope we don’t never have nothin’ like that again,” said Ma. “That was a bad night.”
“I didn’ like it none either.”
The sun rose on their right, and the great shadow of the truck ran beside them, flicking over the fence posts beside the road. They ran on past the rebuilt Hooverville.
“Look,” said Tom. “They got new people there. Looks like the same place.”
Al came slowly out of his sullenness. “Fella tol’ me some a them people been burned out fifteen-twenty times. Says they jus’ go hide down the willows an’ then they come out an’ build ’em an
other weed shack. Jus’ like gophers. Got so use’ to it they don’t even get mad no more, this fella says. They jus’ figger it’s like bad weather.”
“Sure was bad weather for me that night,” said Tom. They moved up the wide highway. And the sun’s warmth made them shiver. “Gettin’ snappy in the mornin’,” said Tom. “Winter’s on the way. I jus’ hope we can get some money ’fore it comes. Tent ain’t gonna be nice in the winter.”
Ma sighed, and then she straightened her head. “Tom,” she said, “we gotta have a house in the winter. I tell ya we got to. Ruthie’s awright, but Winfiel’ ain’t so strong. We got to have a house when the rains come. I heard it jus’ rains cats aroun’ here.”
“We’ll get a house, Ma. You res’ easy. You gonna have a house.”
“Jus’ so’s it’s got a roof an’ a floor. Jus’ to keep the little fellas off ’n the groun’.”
“We’ll try, Ma.”
“I don’ wanna worry ya now.”
“We’ll try, Ma.”
“I jus’ get panicky sometimes,” she said. “I jus’ lose my spunk.”
“I never seen you when you lost it.”
“Nights I do, sometimes.”
There came a harsh hissing from the front of the truck. Tom grabbed the wheel tight and he thrust the brake down to the floor. The truck bumped to a stop. Tom sighed. “Well, there she is.” He leaned back in the seat. Al leaped out and ran to the right front tire.
“Great big nail,” he called.
“We got any tire patch?”
“No,” said Al. “Used it all up. Got patch, but no glue stuff.”
Tom turned and smiled sadly at Ma. “You shouldn’ a tol’ about that dollar,” he said. “We’d a fixed her some way.” He got out of the car and went to the flat tire.
Al pointed to a big nail protruding from the flat casing. “There she is!”
“If they’s one nail in the county, we run over it.”
“Is it bad?” Ma called.
“No, not bad, but we got to fix her.”
The family piled down from the top of the truck. “Puncture?” Pa asked, and then he saw the tire and was silent.
Tom moved Ma from the seat and got the can of tire patch from underneath the cushion. He unrolled the rubber patch and took out the tube of cement, squeezed it gently. “She’s almos’ dry,” he said. “Maybe they’s enough. Awright, Al. Block the back wheels. Le’s get her jacked up.”
Tom and Al worked well together. They put stones behind the wheels, put the jack under the front axle, and lifted the weight off the limp casing. They ripped off the casing. They found the hole, dipped a rag in the gas tank and washed the tube around the hole. And then, while Al held the tube tight over his knee, Tom tore the cement tube in two and spread the little fluid thinly on the rubber with his pocket knife. He scraped the gum delicately. “Now let her dry while I cut a patch.” He trimmed and beveled the edge of the blue patch. Al held the tube tight while Tom put the patch tenderly in place. “There! Now bring her to the running board while I tap her with a hammer.” He pounded the patch carefully, then stretched the tube and watched the edges of the patch. “There she is! She’s gonna hold. Stick her on the rim an’ we’ll pump her up. Looks like you keep your buck, Ma.”
Al said, “I wisht we had a spare. We got to get us a spare, Tom, on a rim an’ all pumped up. Then we can fix a puncture at night.”
“When we get money for a spare we’ll get us some coffee an’ side-meat instead,” Tom said.
The light morning traffic buzzed by on the highway, and the sun grew warm and bright. A wind, gentle and sighing, blew in puffs from the southwest, and the mountains on both sides of the great valley were indistinct in a pearly mist.
Tom was pumping at the tire when a roadster, coming from the north, stopped on the other side of the road. A brown-faced man dressed in a light gray business suit got out and walked across to the truck. He was bareheaded. He smiled, and his teeth were very white against his brown skin. He wore a massive gold wedding ring on the third finger of his left hand. A little gold football hung on a slender chain across his vest.
“Morning,” he said pleasantly.
Tom stopped pumping and looked up. “Mornin’.”
The man ran his fingers through his coarse, short, graying hair. “You people looking for work?”
“We sure are, mister. Lookin’ even under boards.”
“Can you pick peaches?”
“We never done it,” Pa said.
“We can do anything,” Tom said hurriedly. “We can pick anything there is.”
The man fingered his gold football. “Well, there’s plenty of work for you about forty miles north.”
“We’d sure admire to get it,” said Tom. “You tell us how to get there, an’ we’ll go a-lopin’.”
“Well, you go north to Pixley, that’s thirty-five or -six miles, and you turn east. Go about six miles. Ask anybody where the Hooper ranch is. You’ll find plenty of work there.”
“We sure will.”
“Know where there’s other people looking for work?”
“Sure,” said Tom. “Down at the Weedpatch camp they’s plenty lookin’ for work.”
“I’ll take a run down there. We can use quite a few. Remember now, turn east at Pixley and keep straight east to the Hooper ranch.”
“Sure,” said Tom. “An’ we thank ya, mister. We need work awful bad.”
“All right. Get along as soon as you can.” He walked back across the road, climbed into his open roadster, and drove away south.
Tom threw his weight on the pump. “Twenty apiece,” he called. “One—two—three—four—” At twenty Al took the pump, and then Pa and then Uncle John. The tire filled out and grew plump and smooth. Three times around, the pump went. “Let ’er down an’ le’s see,” said Tom.
Al released the jack and lowered the car. “Got plenty,” he said. “Maybe a little too much.”
They threw the tools into the car. “Come on, le’s go,” Tom called. “We’re gonna get some work at last.”
Ma got in the middle again. Al drove this time.
“Now take her easy. Don’t burn her up, Al.”
They drove on through the sunny morning fields. The mist lifted from the hilltops and they were clear and brown, with black-purple creases. The wild doves flew up from the fences as the truck passed. Al unconsciously increased his speed.
“Easy,” Tom warned him. “She’ll blow up if you crowd her. We got to get there. Might even get in some work today.”
Ma said excitedly, “With four men a-workin’ maybe I can get some credit right off. Fust thing I’ll get is coffee, ’cause you been wanting that, an’ then some flour an’ bakin’ powder an’ some meat. Better not get no side-meat right off. Save that for later. Maybe Sat’dy. An’ soap. Got to get soap. Wonder where we’ll stay.” She babbled on. “An’ milk. I’ll get some milk ’cause Rosasharn, she ought to have milk. The lady nurse says that.”
A snake wriggled across the warm highway. Al zipped over and ran it down and came back to his own lane.
“Gopher snake,” said Tom. “You oughtn’t to done that.”
“I hate ’em,” said Al gaily. “Hate all kinds. Give me the stomach-quake.”
The forenoon traffic on the highway increased, salesmen in shiny coupés with the insignia of their companies painted on the doors, red and white gasoline trucks dragging clinking chains behind them, great square-doored vans from wholesale grocery houses, delivering produce. The country was rich along the roadside. There were orchards, heavy leafed in their prime, and vineyards with the long green crawlers carpeting the ground between the rows. There were melon patches and grain fields. White houses stood in the greenery, roses growing over them. And the sun was gold and warm.
In the front seat of the truck Ma and Tom and Al were overcome with happiness. “I ain’t really felt so good for a long time,” Ma said. “’F we pick plenty peaches we might get a house, pay rent even, for a couple mon
ths. We got to have a house.”
Al said, “I’m a-gonna save up. I’ll save up an’ then I’m a-goin’ in a town an’ get me a job in a garage. Live in a room an’ eat in restaurants. Go to the movin’ pitchers ever’ damn night. Don’ cost much. Cowboy pitchers.” His hands tightened on the wheel.
The radiator bubbled and hissed steam. “Did you fill her up?” Tom asked.
“Yeah. Wind’s kinda behind us. That’s what makes her boil.”
“It’s a awful nice day,” Tom said. “Use’ ta work there in McAlester an’ think all the things I’d do. I’d go in a straight line way to hell an’ gone an’ never stop nowheres. Seems like a long time ago. Seems like it’s years ago I was in. They was a guard made it tough. I was gonna lay for ’im. Guess that’s what makes me mad at cops. Seems like ever’ cop got his face. He use’ ta get red in the face. Looked like a pig. Had a brother out west, they said. Use’ ta get fellas paroled to his brother, an’ then they had to work for nothin’. If they raised a stink, they’d get sent back for breakin’ parole. That’s what the fellers said.”
“Don’ think about it,” Ma begged him. “I’m a-gonna lay in a lot a stuff to eat. Lot a flour an’ lard.”
“Might’s well think about it,” said Tom. “Try to shut it out, an’ it’ll whang back at me. They was a screwball. Never tol’ you ’bout him. Looked like Happy Hooligan. Harmless kinda fella. Always was gonna make a break. Fellas all called him Hooligan.” Tom laughed to himself.
“Don’ think about it,” Ma begged.
“Go on,” said Al. “Tell about the fella.”
“It don’t hurt nothin’, Ma,” Tom said. “This fella was always gonna break out. Make a plan, he would; but he couldn’ keep it to himself an’ purty soon ever’body knowed it, even the warden. He’d make his break an’ they’d take ’im by the han’ an’ lead ’im back. Well, one time he drawed a plan where he’s goin’ over. ’Course he showed it aroun’, an’ ever’body kep’ still. An’ he hid out, an’ ever’body kep’ still. So he’s got himself a rope somewheres, an’ he goes over the wall. They’s six guards outside with a great big sack, an’ Hooligan comes quiet down the rope an’ they jus’ hol’ the sack out an’ he goes right inside. They tie up the mouth an’ take ’im back inside. Fellas laughed so hard they like to died. But it busted Hooligan’s spirit. He jus’ cried an’ cried, an’ moped aroun’ an’ got sick. Hurt his feelin’s so bad. Cut his wrists with a pin an’ bled to death ’cause his feelin’s was hurt. No harm in ’im at all. They’s all kinds a screwballs in stir.”
The Grapes of Wrath Page 49
