The Grapes of Wrath Page 15

  Behind them, moving slowly and evenly, but keeping up, came Pa and Noah—Noah the first-born, tall and strange, walking always with a wondering look on his face, calm and puzzled. He had never been angry in his life. He looked in wonder at angry people, wonder and uneasiness, as normal people look at the insane. Noah moved slowly, spoke seldom, and then so slowly that people who did not know him often thought him stupid. He was not stupid, but he was strange. He had little pride, no sexual urges. He worked and slept in a curious rhythm that nevertheless sufficed him. He was fond of his folks, but never showed it in any way. Although an observer could not have told why, Noah left the impression of being misshapen, his head or his body or his legs or his mind; but no misshapen member could be recalled. Pa thought he knew why Noah was strange, but Pa was ashamed, and never told. For on the night when Noah was born, Pa, frightened at the spreading thighs, alone in the house, and horrified at the screaming wretch his wife had become, went mad with apprehension. Using his hands, his strong fingers for forceps, he had pulled and twisted the baby. The midwife, arriving late, had found the baby’s head pulled out of shape, its neck stretched, its body warped; and she had pushed the head back and molded the body with her hands. But Pa always remembered, and was ashamed. And he was kinder to Noah than to the others. In Noah’s broad face, eyes too far apart, and long fragile jaw, Pa thought he saw the twisted, warped skull of the baby. Noah could do all that was required of him, could read and write, could work and figure, but he didn’t seem to care; there was a listlessness in him toward things people wanted and needed. He lived in a strange silent house and looked out of it through calm eyes. He was a stranger to all the world, but he was not lonely.

  The four came across the yard, and Grampa demanded, “Where is he? Goddamn it, where is he?” And his fingers fumbled for his pants button, and forgot and strayed into his pocket. And then he saw Tom standing in the door. Grampa stopped and he stopped the others. His little eyes glittered with malice. “Lookut him,” he said. “A jailbird. Ain’t been no Joads in jail for a hell of a time.” His mind jumped. “Got no right to put ’im in jail. He done just what I’d do. Sons-a-bitches got no right.” His mind jumped again. “An’ ol’ Turnbull, stinkin’ skunk, braggin’ how he’ll shoot ya when ya come out. Says he got Hatfield blood. Well, I sent word to him. I says, ‘Don’t mess around with no Joad. Maybe I got McCoy blood for all I know.’ I says, ‘You lay your sights anywheres near Tommy an’ I’ll take it an’ I’ll ram it up your ass,’ I says. Scairt ’im, too.”

  Granma, not following the conversation, bleated, “Pu-raise Gawd fur vittory.”

  Grampa walked up and slapped Tom on the chest, and his eyes grinned with affection and pride. “How are ya, Tommy?”

  “O.K.” said Tom. “How ya keepin’ yaself ?”

  “Full a piss an’ vinegar,” said Grampa. His mind jumped. “Jus’ like I said, they ain’t a gonna keep no Joad in jail. I says, ‘Tommy’ll come a-bustin’ outa that jail like a bull through a corral fence.’ An’ you done it. Get outa my way, I’m hungry.” He crowded past, sat down, loaded his plate with pork and two big biscuits and poured the thick gravy over the whole mess, and before the others could get in, Grampa’s mouth was full.

  Tom grinned affectionately at him. “Ain’t he a heller?” he said. And Grampa’s mouth was so full that he couldn’t even splutter, but his mean little eyes smiled, and he nodded his head violently.

  Granma said proudly, “A wicketer, cussin’er man never lived. He’s goin’ to hell on a poker, praise Gawd! Wants to drive the truck!” she said spitefully. “Well, he ain’t goin’ ta.”

  Grampa choked, and a mouthful of paste sprayed into his lap, and he coughed weakly.

  Granma smiled up at Tom. “Messy, ain’t he?” she observed brightly.

  Noah stood on the step, and he faced Tom, and his wideset eyes seemed to look around him. His face had little expression. Tom said, “How ya, Noah?”

  “Fine,” said Noah. “How a’ you?” That was all, but it was a comfortable thing.

  Ma waved the flies away from the bowl of gravy. “We ain’t got room to set down,” she said. “Jus’ get yaself a plate an’ set down wherever ya can. Out in the yard or someplace.”

  Suddenly Tom said, “Hey! Where’s the preacher? He was right here. Where’d he go?”

  Pa said, “I seen him, but he’s gone.”

  And Granma raised a shrill voice, “Preacher? You got a preacher? Go git him. We’ll have a grace.” She pointed at Grampa. “Too late for him—he’s et. Go git the preacher.”

  Tom stepped out on the porch. “Hey, Jim! Jim Casy!” he called. He walked out in the yard. “Oh, Casy!” The preacher emerged from under the tank, sat up, and then stood up and moved toward the house. Tom asked, “What was you doin’, hidin’?”

  “Well, no. But a fella shouldn’ butt his head in where a fambly got fambly stuff. I was jus’ settin’ a-thinkin’.”

  “Come on in an’ eat,” said Tom. “Granma wants a grace.”

  “But I ain’t a preacher no more,” Casy protested.

  “Aw, come on. Give her a grace. Don’t do you no harm, an’ she likes ’em.” They walked into the kitchen together.

  Ma said quietly, “You’re welcome.”

  And Pa said, “You’re welcome. Have some breakfast.”

  “Grace fust,” Granma clamored. “Grace fust.”

  Grampa focused his eyes fiercely until he recognized Casy. “Oh, that preacher,” he said. “Oh, he’s all right. I always liked him since I seen him —” He winked so lecherously that Granma thought he had spoken and retorted, “Shut up, you sinful ol’ goat.”

  Casy ran his fingers through his hair nervously. “I got to tell you, I ain’t a preacher no more. If me jus’ bein’ glad to be here an’ bein’ thankful for people that’s kind and generous, if that’s enough—why, I’ll say that kinda grace. But I ain’t a preacher no more.”

  “Say her,” said Granma. “An’ get in a word about us goin’ to California.” The preacher bowed his head, and the others bowed their heads. Ma folded her hands over her stomach and bowed her head. Granma bowed so low that her nose was nearly in her plate of biscuit and gravy. Tom, leaning against the wall, a plate in his hand, bowed stiffly, and Grampa bowed his head sidewise, so that he could keep one mean and merry eye on the preacher. And on the preacher’s face there was a look not of prayer, but of thought; and in his tone not supplication, but conjecture.

  “I been thinkin’,” he said. “I been in the hills, thinkin’, almost you might say like Jesus went into the wilderness to think His way out of a mess of troubles.”

  “Pu-raise Gawd!” Granma said, and the preacher glanced over at her in surprise.

  “Seems like Jesus got all messed up with troubles, and He couldn’t figure nothin’ out, an’ He got to feelin’ what the hell good is it all, an’ what’s the use fightin’ an’figurin’. Got tired, got good an’ tired, an’ His sperit all wore out. Jus’ about come to the conclusion, the hell with it. An’ so He went off into the wilderness.”

  “A—men,” Granma bleated. So many years she had timed her responses to the pauses. And it was so many years since she had listened to or wondered at the words used.

  “I ain’t sayin’ I’m like Jesus,” the preacher went on. “But I got tired like Him, an’ I got mixed up like Him, an’ I went into the wilderness like Him, without no campin’ stuff. Nighttime I’d lay on my back an’ look up at the stars; morning I’d set an’ watch the sun come up; midday I’d look out from a hill at the rollin’ dry country; evenin’ I’d foller the sun down. Sometimes I’d pray like I always done. On’y I couldn’ figure what I was prayin’ to or for. There was the hills, an’ there was me, an’ we wasn’t separate no more. We was one thing. An’ that one thing was holy.”

  “Hallelujah,” said Granma, and she rocked a little, back and forth, trying to catch hold of an ecstasy.

  “An’ I got thinkin’, on’y it wasn’t thinkin’, it was deeper down than th
inkin’. I got thinkin’ how we was holy when we was one thing, an’ mankin’ was holy when it was one thing. An’ it on’y got unholy when one mis’able little fella got the bit in his teeth an’ run off his own way, kickin’ an’ draggin’ an’fightin’. Fella like that bust the holiness. But when they’re all workin’ together, not one fella for another fella, but one fella kind of harnessed to the whole shebang—that’s right, that’s holy. An’ then I got thinkin’ I don’t even know what I mean by holy.” He paused, but the bowed heads stayed down, for they had been trained like dogs to rise at the “amen” signal. “I can’t say no grace like I use’ ta say. I’m glad of the holiness of breakfast. I’m glad there’s love here. That’s all.” The heads stayed down. The preacher looked around. “I’ve got your breakfast cold,” he said; and then he remembered. “Amen,” he said, and all the heads rose up.

  “A—men,” said Granma, and she fell to her breakfast, and broke down the soggy biscuits with her hard old toothless gums. Tom ate quickly, and Pa crammed his mouth. There was no talk until the food was gone, the coffee drunk; only the crunch of chewed food and the slup of coffee cooled in transit to the tongue. Ma watched the preacher as he ate, and her eyes were questioning, probing and understanding. She watched him as though he were suddenly a spirit, not human any more, a voice out of the ground.

  The men finished and put down their plates, and drained the last of their coffee; and then the men went out, Pa and the preacher and Noah and Grampa and Tom, and they walked over to the truck, avoiding the litter of furniture, the wooden bedsteads, the windmill machinery, the old plow. They walked to the truck and stood beside it. They touched the new pine side-boards.

  Tom opened the hood and looked at the big greasy engine. And Pa came up beside him. He said, “Your brother Al looked her over before we bought her. He says she’s all right.”

  “What’s he know? He’s just a squirt,” said Tom.

  “He worked for a company. Drove truck last year. He knows quite a little. Smart aleck like he is. He knows. He can tinker an engine, Al can.”

  Tom asked, “Where’s he now?”

  “Well,” said Pa, “he’s a-billygoatin’ aroun’ the country. Tom-cattin’ hisself to death. Smart-aleck sixteen-year-older, an’ his nuts is just a-eggin’ him on. He don’t think of nothin’ but girls and engines. A plain smart aleck. Ain’t been in nights for a week.”

  Grampa, fumbling with his chest, had succeeded in buttoning the buttons of his blue shirt into the buttonholes of his underwear. His fingers felt that something was wrong, but did not care enough to find out. His fingers went down to try to figure out the intricacies of the buttoning of his fly. “I was worse,” he said happily. “I was much worse. I was a heller, you might say. Why, they was a camp meetin’ right in Sallisaw when I was a young fella a little bit older’n Al. He’s just a squirt, an’ punkin-soft. But I was older. An’ we was to this here camp meetin’. Five hunderd folks there, an’ a proper sprinklin’ of young heifers.”

  “You look like a heller yet, Grampa,” said Tom.

  “Well, I am, kinda. But I ain’t nowheres near the fella I was. Jus’ let me get out to California where I can pick me an orange when I want it. Or grapes. There’s a thing I ain’t never had enough of. Gonna get me a whole big bunch a grapes off a bush, or whatever, an’ I’m gonna squash ’em on my face an’ let ’em run offen my chin.”

  Tom asked, “Where’s Uncle John? Where’s Rosasharn? Where’s Ruthie an’ Winfield? Nobody said nothin’ about them yet.”

  Pa said, “Nobody asked. John gone to Sallisaw with a load a stuff to sell: pump, tools, chickens, an’ all the stuff we brung over. Took Ruthie an’ Winfield with ’im. Went ’fore daylight.”

  “Funny I never saw him,” said Tom.

  “Well, you come down from the highway, didn’ you? He took the back way, by Cowlington. An’ Rosasharn, she’s nestin’ with Connie’s folks. By God! You don’t even know Rosasharn’s married to Connie Rivers. You ’member Connie. Nice young fella. An’ Rosasharn’s due ’bout three-four-five months now. Swellin’ up right now. Looks fine.”

  “Jesus!” said Tom. “Rosasharn was just a little kid. An’ now she’s gonna have a baby. So damn much happens in four years if you’re away. When ya think to start out west, Pa?”

  “Well, we got to take this stuff in an’ sell it. If Al gets back from his squirtin’ aroun’, I figgered he could load the truck an’ take all of it in, an’ maybe we could start out tomorra or day after. We ain’t got so much money, an’ a fella says it’s damn near two thousan’ miles to California. Quicker we get started, surer it is we get there. Money’s a-dribblin’ out all the time. You got any money?”

  “On’y a couple dollars. How’d you get money?”

  “Well,” said Pa, “we sol’ all the stuff at our place, an’ the whole bunch of us chopped cotton, even Grampa.”

  “Sure did,” said Grampa.

  “We put ever’thing together—two hundred dollars. We give seventy-five for this here truck, an’ me an’ Al cut her in two an’ built on this here back. Al was gonna grind the valves, but he’s too busy messin’ aroun’ to get down to her. We’ll have maybe a hunderd an’ fifty when we start. Damn ol’ tires on this here truck ain’t gonna go far. Got a couple of wore out spares. Pick stuff up along the road, I guess.”

  The sun, driving straight down, stung with its rays. The shadows of the truck bed were dark bars on the ground, and the truck smelled of hot oil and oilcloth and paint. The few chickens had left the yard to hide in the tool shed from the sun. In the sty the pigs lay panting, close to the fence where a thin shadow fell, and they complained shrilly now and then. The two dogs were stretched in the red dust under the truck, panting, their dripping tongues covered with dust. Pa pulled his hat low over his eyes and squatted down on his hams. And, as though this were his natural position of thought and observation, he surveyed Tom critically, the new but aging cap, the suit, and the new shoes.

  “Did you spen’ your money for them clothes?” he asked. “Them clothes are jus’ gonna be a nuisance to ya.”

  “They give ’em to me,” said Tom. “When I come out they give ’em to me.” He took off his cap and looked at it with some admiration, then wiped his forehead with it and put it on rakishly and pulled at the visor.

  Pa observed, “Them’s a nice-lookin’ pair a shoes they give ya.”

  “Yeah,” Joad agreed. “Purty for nice, but they ain’t no shoes to go walkin’ aroun’ in on a hot day.” He squatted beside his father.

  Noah said slowly, “Maybe if you got them side-boards all true on, we could load up this stuff. Load her up so maybe if Al comes in——”

  “I can drive her, if that’s what you want,” Tom said. “I drove truck at McAlester.”

  “Good,” said Pa, and then his eyes stared down the road. “If I ain’t mistaken, there’s a young smart aleck draggin’ his tail home right now,” he said. “Looks purty wore out, too.”

  Tom and the preacher looked up the road. And randy Al, seeing he was being noticed, threw back his shoulders, and he came into the yard with a swaying strut like that of a rooster about to crow. Cockily, he walked close before he recognized Tom; and when he did, his boasting face changed, and admiration and veneration shone in his eyes, and his swagger fell away. His stiff jeans, with the bottoms turned up eight inches to show his heeled boots, his three-inch belt with copper figures on it, even the red arm bands on his blue shirt and the rakish angle of his Stetson hat could not build him up to his brother’s stature; for his brother had killed a man, and no one would ever forget it. Al knew that even he had inspired some admiration among boys of his own age because his brother had killed a man. He had heard in Sallisaw how he was pointed out: “That’s Al Joad. His brother killed a fella with a shovel.”

  And now Al, moving humbly near, saw that his brother was not a swaggerer as he had supposed. Al saw the dark brooding eyes of his brother, and the prison calm, the smooth hard face trained to indicate nothing
to a prison guard, neither resistance nor slavishness. And instantly Al changed. Unconsciously he became like his brother, and his handsome face brooded, and his shoulders relaxed. He hadn’t remembered how Tom was.

  Tom said, “Hello, Al. Jesus, you’re growin’ like a bean! I wouldn’t of knowed you.”

  Al, his hand ready if Tom should want to shake it, grinned selfconsciously. Tom stuck out his hand and Al’s hand jerked out to meet it. And there was liking between these two. “They tell me you’re a good hand with a truck,” said Tom.

  And Al, sensing that his brother would not like a boaster, said, “I don’t know nothin’ much about it.”

  Pa said, “Been smart-alecking aroun’ the country. You look wore out. Well, you got to take a load of stuff into Sallisaw to sell.”

  Al looked at his brother Tom. “Care to ride in?” he said as casually as he could.

  “No, I can’t,” said Tom. “I’ll help aroun’ here. We’ll be—together on the road.”

  Al tried to control his question. “Did—did you bust out? Of jail?”

  “No,” said Tom. “I got paroled.”

  “Oh.” And Al was a little disappointed.

  Chapter 9

  In the little houses the tenant people sifted their belongings and the belongings of their fathers and of their grandfathers. Picked over their possessions for the journey to the west. The men were ruthless because the past had been spoiled, but the women knew how the past would cry to them in the coming days. The men went into the barns and the sheds.

  That plow, that harrow, remember in the war we planted mustard? Remember a fella wanted us to put in that rubber bush they call guayule? Get rich, he said. Bring out those tools—get a few dollars for them. Eighteen dollars for that plow, plus freight—Sears Roebuck.

  Harness, carts, seeders, little bundles of hoes. Bring ’em out. Pile ’em up. Load ’em in the wagon. Take ’em to town. Sell ’em for what you can get. Sell the team and the wagon, too. No more use for anything.