The Grapes of Wrath

The man put his hat back on his head. He answered with inflexible humility, “Won’t you— can’t you see your way to cut off ten cents’ worth?”

Al said snarlingly, “Goddamn it, Mae. Give ’em the loaf.” The man turned toward Al. “No, we want ta buy ten cents’ worth of it. We got it figgered awful close, mister, to get to California.”

Mae said resignedly, “You can have this for ten cents.”

“That’d be robbin’ you, ma’am.”

“Go ahead— Al says to take it.” She pushed the waxpapered loaf across the counter. The man took a deep leather pouch from his rear pocket, untied the strings, and spread it open. It was heavy with silver and with greasy bills.

“May soun’ funny to be so tight,” he apologized. “We got a thousan’ miles to go, an’ we don’t know if we’ll make it.” He dug in the pouch with a forefinger, located a dime, and pinched in for it. When he put it down on the counter he had a penny with it. He was about to drop the penny back into the pouch when his eye fell on the boys frozen before the candy counter. He moved slowly down to them. He pointed in the case at big long sticks of striped peppermint. “Is them penny candy, ma’am?”

Mae moved down and looked in. “Which ones?”

“There, them stripy ones.”

The little boys raised their eyes to her face and they stopped breathing; their mouths were partly opened, their half-naked bodies were rigid.

“Oh— them. Well, no— them’s two for a penny.”

“Well, gimme two then, ma’am.” He placed the copper cent carefully on the counter. The boys expelled their held breath softly. Mae held the big sticks out.

“Take ’em,” said the man.

They reached timidly, each took a stick, and they held them down at their sides and did not look at them. But they looked at each other, and their mouth corners smiled rigidly with embarrassment.

“Thank you, ma’am.” The man picked up the bread and went out the door, and the little boys marched stiffly behind him, the red-striped sticks held tightly against their legs. They leaped like chipmunks over the front seat and onto the top of the load, and they burrowed back out of sight like chipmunks.

The man got in and started his car, and with a roaring motor and a cloud of blue oily smoke the ancient Nash climbed up on the highway and went on its way to the west.

From inside the restaurant the truck drivers and Mae and Al stared after them.

Big Bill wheeled back. “Them wasn’t two-for-a-cent candy,” he said.

“What’s that to you?” Mae said fiercely.

“Them was nickel apiece candy,” said Bill.

“We got to get goin’,” said the other man. “We’re droppin’ time.”

They reached in their pockets. Bill put a coin on the counter and the other man looked at it and reached again and put down a coin. They swung around and walked to the door.

“So long,” said Bill.

Mae called, “Hey! Wait a minute. You got change.”

“You go to hell,” said Bill, and the screen door slammed.

Mae watched them get into the great truck, watched it lumber off in low gear, and heard the shift up the whining gears to cruising ratio. “Al—” she said softly.

He looked up from the hamburger he was patting thin and stacking between waxed papers. “What ya want?”

“Look there.” She pointed at the coins beside the cups— two half-dollars. Al walked near and looked, and then he went back to work.

“Truck drivers,” Mae said reverently, “an’ after them shitheels.”

Flies struck the screen with little bumps and droned away. The compressor chugged for a time and then stopped. On 66 the traffic whizzed by, trucks and fine streamlined cars and jalopies; and they went by with a vicious whiz. Mae took down the plates and scraped the pie crusts into a bucket. She found her damp cloth and wiped the counter with circular sweeps. And her eyes were on the highway, where life whizzed by.

Al wiped his hands on his apron. He looked at a paper pinned to the wall over the griddle. Three lines of marks in columns on the paper. Al counted the longest line. He walked along the counter to the cash register, rang “No Sale,” and took out a handful of nickels.

“What ya doin’?” Mae asked.

“Number three’s ready to pay off,” said Al. He went on the third slot machine and played his nickels in, and on the fifth spin of the wheels the three bars came up and the jackpot dumped out into the cup. Al gathered up the big handful of coins and went back of the counter. He dropped them in the drawer and slammed the cash register. Then he went back to his place and crossed out the line of dots. “Number three gets more play’n the others,” he said. “Maybe I ought to shift ’em around.” He lifted a lid and stirred the slowly simmering stew.

“I wonder what they’ll do in California?” said Mae.

“Who?”

“Them folks that was just in.”

“Christ knows,” said Al.

“S’pose they’ll get work?”

“How the hell would I know?” said Al.