The Grapes of Wrath

“Cut her down some,” Tom said. “You gonna burn her right down to the hub caps. What’s eatin’ on Granma?”

“I don’t know. ’Member the las’ couple days she’s been airy-nary, sayin’ nothin’ to nobody? Well, she’s yellin’ an’ talkin’ plenty now, on’y she’s talkin’ to Grampa. Yellin’ at him. Kinda scary, too. You can almos’ see ’im a-settin’ there grinnin’ at her the way he always done, a-fingerin’ hisself an’ grinnin’. Seems like she sees him a-settin’ there, too. She’s jus’ givin’ him hell. Say, Pa, he give me twenty dollars to hand you. He don’ know how much you gonna need. Ever see Ma stand up to ’im like she done today?”

“Not I remember. I sure did pick a nice time to get paroled. I figgered I was gonna lay aroun’ an’ get up late an’ eat a lot when I come home. I was goin’ out and dance, an’ I was gonna go tom-cattin’— an’ here I ain’t had time to do none of them things.”

Al said, “I forgot. Ma give me a lot a stuff to tell you. She says don’t drink nothin’, an’ don’ get in no arguments, an’ don’t fight nobody. ’Cause she says she’s scairt you’ll get sent back.”

“She got plenty to get worked up about ’thout me givin’ her no trouble,” said Tom.

“Well, we could get a couple beers, can’t we? I’m jus’ a-ravin’ for a beer.”

“I dunno,” said Tom. “Pa’d crap a litter of lizards if we buy beers.”

“Well, look, Tom. I got six dollars. You an’ me could get a couple pints an’ go down the line. Nobody don’t know I got that six bucks. Christ, we could have a hell of a time for ourselves.”

“Keep ya jack,” Tom said. “When we get out to the coast you an’ me’ll take her an’ we’ll raise hell. Maybe when we’re workin’—” He turned in the seat. “I didn’ think you was a fella to go down the line. I figgered you was talkin’ ’em out of it.”

“Well, hell, I don’t know nobody here. If I’m gonna ride aroun’ much, I’m gonna get married. I’m gonna have me a hell of a time when we get to California.”

“Hope so,” said Tom.

“You ain’t sure a nothin’ no more.”

“No, I ain’t sure a nothin’.”

“When ya killed that fella— did— did ya ever dream about it or anything? Did it worry ya?”

“No.”

“Well, didn’ ya never think about it?”

“Sure. I was sorry ’cause he was dead.”

“Ya didn’t take no blame to yourself?”

“No. I done my time, an’ I done my own time.”

“Was it— awful bad— there?”

Tom said nervously, “Look, Al. I done my time, an’ now it’s done.

I don’ wanna do it over an’ over. There’s the river up ahead, an’ there’s the town. Let’s jus’ try an’ get a con-rod an’ the hell with the res’ of it.”

“Ma’s awful partial to you,” said Al. “She mourned when you was gone. Done it all to herself. Kinda cryin’ down inside of her throat. We could tell what she was thinkin’ about, though.”

Tom pulled his cap down low over his eyes. “Now look here, Al.

S’pose we talk ’bout some other stuff.”

“I was jus’ tellin’ ya what Ma done.”

“I know— I know. But— I ruther not. I ruther jus’— lay one foot down in front a the other.”

Al relapsed into an insulated silence. “I was jus’ tryin’ to tell ya,” he said, after a moment.

Tom looked at him, and Al kept his eyes straight ahead. The lightened truck bounced noisily along. Tom’s long lips drew up from his teeth and he laughed softly. “I know you was, Al. Maybe I’m kinda stir-nuts. I’ll tell ya about it sometime maybe. Ya see, it’s jus’ somepin you wanta know. Kinda interestin’. But I got a kind a funny idear the bes’ thing’d be if I forget about it for a while. Maybe in a little while it won’t be that way. Right now when I think about it my guts gets all droopy an’ nasty feelin’. Look here, Al, I’ll tell ya one thing— the jail house is jus’ a kind a way a drivin’ a guy slowly nuts. See? An’ they go nuts, an’ you see ’em an’ hear ’em, an’ pretty soon you don’ know if you’re nuts or not. When they get to screamin’ in the night sometimes you think it’s you doin’ the screamin’— an’ sometimes it is.”

Al said, “Oh! I won’t talk about it no more, Tom.”

“Thirty days is all right,” Tom said. “An’ a hunderd an’ eighty days is all right. But over a year— I dunno. There’s somepin about it that ain’t like nothin’ else in the worl’. Somepin screwy about it, somepin screwy about the whole idea a lockin’ people up. Oh, the hell with it! I don’ wanna talk about it. Look a the sun a-flashin’ on them windas.”

The truck drove to the service-station belt, and there on the right-hand side of the road was a wrecking yard— an acre lot surrounded by a high barbed-wire fence, a corrugated iron shed in front with used tires piled up by the doors, and price-marked. Behind the shed there was a little shack built of scrap, scrap lumber and pieces of tin. The windows were windshields built into the walls. In the grassy lot the wrecks lay, cars with twisted, stove-in noses, wounded cars lying on their sides with the wheels gone. Engines rusting on the ground and against the shed. A great pile of junk; fenders and truck sides, wheels and axles; over the whole lot a spirit of decay, of mold and rust; twisted iron, half-gutted engines, a mass of derelicts.