The Grapes of Wrath

“A course,” said Pa. “I should of did it before.” He went out the door and crossed the yard, swinging his hands high.

Tom watched him go, and then his mother’s voice called his attention. She was pouring coffee. She did not look at him. “Tommy,” she said hesitantly, timidly.

“Yeah?” His timidity was set off by hers, a curious embarrassment.

Each one knew the other was shy, and became more shy in the knowledge.

“Tommy, I got to ask you— you ain’t mad?”

“Mad, Ma?”

“You ain’t poisoned mad? You don’t hate nobody? They didn’ do nothin’ in that jail to rot you out with crazy mad?”

He looked sidewise at her, studied her, and his eyes seemed to ask how she could know such things. “No-o-o,” he said. “I was for a little while. But I ain’t proud like some fellas. I let stuff run off’n me. What’s a matter, Ma?”

Now she was looking at him, her mouth open, as though to hear better, her eyes digging to know better. Her face looked for the answer that is always concealed in language. She said in confusion, “I knowed Purty Boy Floyd. I knowed his ma. They was good folks. He was full of hell, sure, like a good boy oughta be.” She paused and then her words poured out. “I don’ know all like this— but I know it. He done a little bad thing an’ they hurt ’im, caught ’im an’ hurt him so he was mad, an’ the nex’ bad thing he done was mad, an’ they hurt ’im again. An’ purty soon he was mean-mad. They shot at him like a varmint, an’ he shot back, an’ then they run him like a coyote, an’ him a-snappin’ an’ a-snarlin’, mean as a lobo. An’ he was mad. He wasn’t no boy or no man no more, he was jus’ a walkin’ chunk a mean-mad. But the folks that knowed him didn’t hurt ’im. He wasn’ mad at them. Finally they run him down an’ killed ’im. No matter how they say it in the paper how he was bad— that’s how it was.” She paused and licked her dry lips, and her whole face was an aching question. “I got to know, Tommy. Did they hurt you so much? Did they make you mad like that?”

Tom’s heavy lips were pulled right over his teeth. He looked down at his big flat hands. “No,” he said. “I ain’t like that.” He paused and studied the broken nails, which were ridged like clam shells. “All the time in stir I kep’ away from stuff like that. I ain’ so mad.”

She sighed, “Thank God!” under her breath.

He looked up quickly. “Ma, when I seen what they done to our house—”

She came near to him then, and stood close; and she said passionately, “Tommy, don’t you go fightin’ ’em alone. They’ll hunt you down like a coyote. Tommy, I got to thinkin’ an’ dreamin’ an’ wonderin’. They say there’s a hun’erd thousand of us shoved out. If we was all mad the same way, Tommy— they wouldn’t hunt nobody down—” She stopped.

Tommy, looking at her, gradually dropped his eyelids, until just a short glitter showed through his lashes. “Many folks feel that way?” he demanded.

“I don’t know. They’re jus’ kinda stunned. Walk aroun’ like they was half asleep.”

From outside and across the yard came an ancient creaking bleat. “Pu-raise Gawd fur vittory! Pu-raise Gawd fur vittory!”

Tom turned his head and grinned. “Granma finally heard I’m home. Ma,” he said, “you never was like this before!”

Her face hardened and her eyes grew cold. “I never had my house pushed over,” she said. “I never had my fambly stuck out on the road. I never had to sell— ever’thing— Here they come now.” She moved back to the stove and dumped the big pan of bulbous biscuits on two tin plates. She shook flour into the deep grease to make gravy, and her hand was white with flour. For a moment Tom watched her, and then he went to the door.

Across the yard came four people. Grampa was ahead, a lean, ragged, quick old man, jumping with quick steps and favoring his right leg— the side that came out of joint. He was buttoning his fly as he came, and his old hands were having trouble finding the buttons, for he had buttoned the top button into the second buttonhole, and that threw the whole sequence off. He wore dark ragged pants and a torn blue shirt, open all the way down, and showing long gray underwear, also unbuttoned. His lean white chest, fuzzed with white hair, was visible through the opening in his underwear. He gave up the fly and left it open and fumbled with the underwear buttons, then gave the whole thing up and hitched his brown suspenders. His was a lean excitable face with little bright eyes as evil as a frantic child’s eyes. A cantankerous, complaining, mischievous, laughing face. He fought and argued, told dirty stories. He was as lecherous as always. Vicious and cruel and impatient, like a frantic child, and the whole structure overlaid with amusement. He drank too much when he could get it, ate too much when it was there, talked too much all the time.