The Grapes of Wrath

Casy pushed the long boards into the fire and the flames licked up around them and leaped up toward the meat again. The house cracked loudly as the cooler night air contracted the wood. Casy said quietly, “I gotta see them folks that’s gone out on the road. I got a feelin’ I got to see them. They gonna need help no preachin’ can give ’em. Hope of heaven when their lives ain’t lived? Holy Sperit when their own sperit is downcast an’ sad? They gonna need help. They got to live before they can afford to die.”

Joad cried nervously, “Jesus Christ, le’s eat this meat ’fore it’s smaller’n a cooked mouse! Look at her. Smell her.” He leaped to his feet and slid the pieces of meat along the wire until they were clear of the fire. He took Muley’s knife and sawed through a piece of meat until it was free of the wire. “Here’s for the preacher,” he said.

“I tol’ you I ain’t no preacher.”

“Well, here’s for the man, then.” He cut off another piece. “Here, Muley, if you ain’t too goddamn upset to eat. This here’s jackrabbit. Tougher’n a bull-bitch.” He sat back and clamped his long teeth on the meat and tore out a great bite and chewed it. “Jesus Christ! Hear her crunch!” And he tore out another bite ravenously.

Muley still sat regarding his meat. “Maybe I oughtn’ to a-talked like that,” he said. “Fella should maybe keep stuff like that in his head.”

Casy looked over, his mouth full of rabbit. He chewed, and his muscled throat convulsed in swallowing. “Yes, you should talk,” he said. “Sometimes a sad man can talk the sadness right out through his mouth. Sometimes a killin’ man can talk the murder right out of his mouth an’ not do no murder. You done right. Don’t you kill nobody if you can help it.” And he bit out another hunk of rabbit. Joad tossed the bones in the fire and jumped up and cut off the wire. Muley was eating slowly now, and his nervous little eyes went from one to the other of his companions. Joad ate scowling like an animal, and a ring of grease formed around his mouth.

For a long time Muley looked at him, almost timidly. He put down the hand that held the meat. “Tommy,” he said. Joad looked up and did not stop gnawing the meat. “Yeah?” he said, around a mouthful.

“Tommy, you ain’t mad with me talkin’ about killin’ people? You ain’t huffy, Tom?”

“No,” said Tom. “I ain’t huffy. It’s just somepin that happened.”

“Ever’body knowed it was no fault of yours,” said Muley. “Ol’ man Turnbull said he was gonna get you when ya come out. Says nobody can kill one a his boys. All the folks hereabouts talked him outa it, though.”

“We was drunk,” Joad said softly. “Drunk at a dance. I don’ know how she started. An’ then I felt that knife go in me, an’ that sobered me up. Fust thing I see is Herb comin’ for me again with his knife. They was this here shovel leanin’ against the schoolhouse, so I grabbed it an’ smacked ’im over the head. I never had nothing against Herb. He was a nice fella. Come a-bullin’ after my sister Rosasharn when he was a little fella. No, I liked Herb.”

“Well, ever’body tol’ his pa that, an’ finally cooled ’im down. Somebody says they’s Hatfield blood on his mother’s side in ol’ Turnbull, an’ he’s got to live up to it. I don’t know about that. Him an’ his folks went on to California six months ago.”

Joad took the last of the rabbit from the wire and passed it around. He settled back and ate more slowly now, chewed evenly, and wiped the grease from his mouth with his sleeve. And his eyes, dark and half closed, brooded as he looked into the dying fire. “Ever’body’s goin’ west,” he said. “I got me a parole to keep. Can’t leave the state.”

“Parole?” Muley asked. “I heard about them. How do they work?”

“Well, I got out early, three years early. They’s stuff I gotta do, or they send me back in. Got to report ever’ so often.”

“How they treat ya there in McAlester? My woman’s cousin was in McAlester an’ they give him hell.”

“It ain’t so bad,” said Joad. “Like ever’place else. They give ya hell if ya raise hell. You get along O.K. les’ some guard gets it in for ya. Then you catch plenty hell. I got along O.K. Minded my own business, like any guy would. I learned to write nice as hell. Birds an’ stuff like that, too; not just word writin’. My ol’ man’ll be sore when he sees me whip out a bird in one stroke. Pa’s gonna be mad when he sees me do that. He don’t like no fancy stuff like that. He don’t even like word writin’. Kinda scares ’im I guess. Ever’ time Pa seen writin’, somebody took somepin away from ’im.”

“They didn’t give you no beatin’s or nothin’ like that?”

“No, I jus’ tended my own affairs. ’Course you get goddamn good an’ sick a-doin’ the same thing day after day for four years. If you done somepin you was ashamed of, you might think about that. But, hell, if I seen Herb Turnbull comin’ for me with a knife right now, I’d squash him down with a shovel again.”