The Grapes of Wrath Page 14

  “Don’t yell,” said Tom. “Let’s creep up on ’em, like,” and he walked so fast that the dust rose as high as his waist. And then he came to the edge of the cotton field. Now they were in the yard proper, earth beaten hard, shiny hard, and a few dusty crawling weeds on the ground. And Joad slowed as though he feared to go on. The preacher, watching him, slowed to match his step. Tom sauntered forward, sidled embarrassedly toward the truck. It was a Hudson Super-Six sedan, and the top had been ripped in two with a cold chisel. Old Tom Joad stood in the truck bed and he was nailing on the top rails of the truck sides. His grizzled, bearded face was low over his work, and a bunch of six-penny nails stuck out of his mouth. He set a nail and his hammer thundered it in. From the house came the clash of a lid on the stove and the wail of a child. Joad sidled up to the truck bed and leaned against it. And his father looked at him and did not see him. His father set another nail and drove it in. A flock of pigeons started from the deck of the tank house and flew around and settled again and strutted to the edge to look over; white pigeons and blue pigeons and grays, with iridescent wings.

  Joad hooked his fingers over the lowest bar of the truck side. He looked up at the aging, graying man on the truck. He wet his thick lips with his tongue, and he said softly, “Pa.”

  “What do you want?” old Tom mumbled around his mouthful of nails. He wore a black, dirty slouch hat and a blue work shirt over which was a buttonless vest; his jeans were held up by a wide harness-leather belt with a big square brass buckle, leather and metal polished from years of wearing; and his shoes were cracked and the soles swollen and boat-shaped from years of sun and wet and dust. The sleeves of his shirt were tight on his forearms, held down by the bulging powerful muscles. Stomach and hips were lean, and legs, short, heavy, and strong. His face, squared by a bristling pepper and salt beard, was all drawn down to the forceful chin, a chin thrust out and built out by the stubble beard which was not so grayed on the chin, and gave weight and force to its thrust. Over old Tom’s unwhiskered cheek bones the skin was as brown as meerschaum, and wrinkled in rays around his eye-corners from squinting. His eyes were brown, black-coffee brown, and he thrust his head forward when he looked at a thing, for his bright dark eyes were failing. His lips, from which the big nails protruded, were thin and red.

  He held his hammer suspended in the air, about to drive a set nail, and he looked over the truck side at Tom, looked resentful at being interrupted. And then his chin drove forward and his eyes looked at Tom’s face, and then gradually his brain became aware of what he saw. The hammer dropped slowly to his side, and with his left hand he took the nails from his mouth. And he said wonderingly, as though he told himself the fact, “It’s Tommy—” And then, still informing himself, “It’s Tommy come home.” His mouth opened again, and a look of fear came into his eyes. “Tommy,” he said softly, “you ain’t busted out? You ain’t got to hide?” He listened tensely.

  “Naw,” said Tom. “I’m paroled. I’m free. I got my papers.” He gripped the lower bars of the truck side and looked up.

  Old Tom laid his hammer gently on the floor and put his nails in his pocket. He swung his leg over the side and dropped lithely to the ground, but once beside his son he seemed embarrassed and strange. “Tommy,” he said, “we are goin’ to California. But we was gonna write you a letter an’ tell you.” And he said, incredulously, “But you’re back. You can go with us. You can go!” The lid of a coffee pot slammed in the house. Old Tom looked over his shoulder. “Le’s supprise ’em,” he said, and his eyes shone with excitement. “Your ma got a bad feelin’ she ain’t never gonna see you no more. She got that quiet look like when somebody died. Almost she don’t want to go to California, fear she’ll never see you no more.” A stove lid clashed in the house again. “Le’s supprise ’em,” old Tom repeated. “Le’s go in like you never been away. Le’s jus’ see what your ma says.” At last he touched Tom, but touched him on the shoulder, timidly, and instantly took his hand away. He looked at Jim Casy.

  Tom said, “You remember the preacher, Pa. He come along with me.”

  “He been in prison too?”

  “No, I met ’im on the road. He been away.”

  Pa shook hands gravely. “You’re welcome here, sir.”

  Casy said, “Glad to be here. It’s a thing to see when a boy comes home. It’s a thing to see.”

  “Home,” Pa said.

  “To his folks,” the preacher amended quickly. “We stayed at the other place last night.”

  Pa’s chin thrust out, and he looked back down the road for a moment. Then he turned to Tom. “How’ll we do her?” he began excitedly. “S’pose I go in an’ say, ‘Here’s some fellas want some breakfast,’ or how’d it be if you jus’ come in an’ stood there till she seen you? How’d that be?” His face was alive with excitement.

  “Don’t le’s give her no shock,” said Tom. “Don’t le’s scare her none.”

  Two rangy shepherd dogs trotted up pleasantly, until they caught the scent of strangers, and then they backed cautiously away, watchful, their tails moving slowly and tentatively in the air, but their eyes and noses quick for animosity or danger. One of them, stretching his neck, edged forward, ready to run, and little by little he approached Tom’s legs and sniffed loudly at them. Then he backed away and watched Pa for some kind of signal. The other pup was not so brave. He looked about for something that could honorably divert his attention, saw a red chicken go mincing by, and ran at it. There was the squawk of an outraged hen, a burst of red feathers, and the hen ran off, flapping stubby wings for speed. The pup looked proudly back at the men, and then flopped down in the dust and beat its tail contentedly on the ground.

  “Come on,” said Pa, “come on in now. She got to see you. I got to see her face when she sees you. Come on. She’ll yell breakfast in a minute. I heard her slap the salt pork in the pan a good time ago.” He led the way across the fine-dusted ground. There was no porch on this house, just a step and then the door; a chopping block beside the door, its surface matted and soft from years of chopping. The graining in the sheathing wood was high, for the dust had cut down the softer wood. The smell of burning willow was in the air, and, as the three men neared the door, the smell of frying side-meat and the smell of high brown biscuits and the sharp smell of coffee rolling in the pot. Pa stepped up into the open doorway and stood there blocking it with his wide short body. He said, “Ma, there’s a coupla fellas jus’ come along the road, an’ they wonder if we could spare a bite.”

  Tom heard his mother’s voice, the remembered cool, calm drawl, friendly and humble. “Let ’em come,” she said. “We got a’plenty. Tell ’em they got to wash their han’s. The bread is done. I’m jus’ takin’ up the side-meat now.” And the sizzle of the angry grease came from the stove.

  Pa stepped inside, clearing the door, and Tom looked in at his mother. She was lifting the curling slices of pork from the frying pan. The oven door was open, and a great pan of high brown biscuits stood waiting there. She looked out the door, but the sun was behind Tom, and she saw only a dark figure outlined by the bright yellow sunlight. She nodded pleasantly. “Come in,” she said. “Jus’ lucky I made plenty bread this morning.”

  Tom stood looking in. Ma was heavy, but not fat; thick with childbearing and work. She wore a loose Mother Hubbard of gray cloth in which there had once been colored flowers, but the color was washed out now, so that the small flowered pattern was only a little lighter gray than the background. The dress came down to her ankles, and her strong, broad, bare feet moved quickly and deftly over the floor. Her thin, steel-gray hair was gathered in a sparse wispy knot at the back of her head. Strong, freckled arms were bare to the elbow, and her hands were chubby and delicate, like those of a plump little girl. She looked out into the sunshine. Her full face was not soft; it was controlled, kindly. Her hazel eyes seemed to have experienced all possible tragedy and to have mounted pain and suffering like steps into a high calm and a superhuman understanding. She seemed t
o know, to accept, to welcome her position, the citadel of the family, the strong place that could not be taken. And since old Tom and the children could not know hurt or fear unless she acknowledged hurt and fear, she had practiced denying them in herself. And since, when a joyful thing happened, they looked to see whether joy was on her, it was her habit to build up laughter out of inadequate materials. But better than joy was calm. Imperturbability could be depended upon. And from her great and humble position in the family she had taken dignity and a clean calm beauty. From her position as healer, her hands had grown sure and cool and quiet; from her position as arbiter she had become as remote and faultless in judgment as a goddess. She seemed to know that if she swayed the family shook, and if she ever really deeply wavered or despaired the family would fall, the family will to function would be gone.

  She looked out into the sunny yard, at the dark figure of a man. Pa stood near by, shaking with excitement. “Come in,” he cried. “Come right in, mister.” And Tom a little shame-facedly stepped over the doorsill.

  She looked up pleasantly from the frying pan. And then her hand sank slowly to her side and the fork clattered to the wooden floor. Her eyes opened wide, and the pupils dilated. She breathed heavily through her open mouth. She closed her eyes. “Thank God,” she said. “Oh, thank God!” And suddenly her face was worried. “Tommy, you ain’t wanted? You didn’ bust loose?”

  “No, Ma. Parole. I got the papers here.” He touched his breast.

  She moved toward him lithely, soundlessly in her bare feet, and her face was full of wonder. Her small hand felt his arm, felt the soundness of his muscles. And then her fingers went up to his cheek as a blind man’s fingers might. And her joy was nearly like sorrow. Tom pulled his underlip between his teeth and bit it. Her eyes went wonderingly to his bitten lip, and she saw the little line of blood against his teeth and the trickle of blood down his lip. Then she knew, and her control came back, and her hand dropped. Her breath came out explosively. “Well!” she cried. “We come mighty near to goin’ without ya. An’ we was wonderin’ how in the worl’ you could ever find us.” She picked up the fork and combed the boiling grease and brought out a dark curl of crisp pork. And she set the pot of tumbling coffee on the back of the stove.

  Old Tom giggled, “Fooled ya, huh, Ma? We aimed to fool ya, and we done it. Jus’ stood there like a hammered sheep. Wisht Grampa’d been here to see. Looked like somebody’d beat ya between the eyes with a sledge. Grampa would a whacked ’imself so hard he’d a throwed his hip out—like he done when he seen Al take a shot at that grea’ big airship the army got. Tommy, it come over one day, half a mile big, an’ Al gets the thirty-thirty and blazes away at her. Grampa yells, ‘Don’t shoot no fledglin’s, Al; wait till a growed-up one goes over,’ an’ then he whacked ’imself an’ throwed his hip out.”

  Ma chuckled and took down a heap of tin plates from a shelf.

  Tom asked, “Where is Grampa? I ain’t seen the ol’ devil.”

  Ma stacked the plates on the kitchen table and piled cups beside them. She said confidentially, “Oh, him an’ Granma sleeps in the barn. They got to get up so much in the night. They was stumblin’ over the little fellas.”

  Pa broke in, “Yeah, ever’ night Grampa’d get mad. Tumble over Winfield, an’ Winfield’d yell, an’ Grampa’d get mad an’ wet his drawers, an’ that’d make him madder, an’ purty soon ever’body in the house’d be yellin’ their head off.” His words tumbled out between chuckles. “Oh, we had lively times. One night when ever’body was yellin’ an’ a-cussin’, your brother Al, he’s a smart aleck now, he says, ‘Goddamn it, Grampa, why don’t you run off an’ be a pirate?’ Well, that made Grampa so goddamn mad he went for his gun. Al had ta sleep out in the fiel’ that night. But now Granma an’ Grampa both sleeps in the barn.”

  Ma said, “They can jus’ get up an’ step outside when they feel like it. Pa, run on out an’ tell ’em Tommy’s home. Grampa’s a favorite of him.”

  “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 a 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 a’ 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 meanmad. 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’ 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 she 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 tight 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 fight in’ ’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 drooped 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 dar
k 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.

  Behind him hobbled Granma, who had survived only because she was as mean as her husband. She had held her own with a shrill ferocious religiosity that was as lecherous and as savage as anything Grampa could offer. Once, after a meeting, while she was still speaking in tongues, she fired both barrels of a shotgun at her husband, ripping one of his buttocks nearly off, and after that he admired her and did not try to torture her as children torture bugs. As she walked she hiked her Mother Hubbard up to her knees, and she bleated her shrill terrible war cry: “Pu-raise Gawd fur vittory.”

  Granma and Grampa raced each other to get across the broad yard. They fought over everything, and loved and needed the fighting.