Pa called, “We’re there—we’re in California!” They looked dully at the broken rock glaring under the sun, and across the river the terrible ramparts of Arizona.
“We got the desert,” said Tom. “We got to get to the water and rest.”
The road runs parallel to the river, and it was well into the morning when the burning motors came to Needles, where the river runs swiftly among the reeds.
The Joads and Wilsons drove to the river, and they sat in the cars looking at the lovely water flowing by, and the green reeds jerking slowly in the current. There was a little encampment by the river, eleven tents near the water, and the swamp grass on the ground. And Tom leaned out of the truck window. “Mind if we stop here a piece?”
A stout woman, scrubbing clothes in a bucket, looked up. “We don’t own it, mister. Stop if you want. They’ll be a cop down to look you over.” And she went back to her scrubbing in the sun.
The two cars pulled to a clear place on the swamp grass. The tents were passed down, the Wilson tent set up, the Joad tarpaulin stretched over its rope.
Winfield and Ruthie walked slowly down through the willows to the reedy place. Ruthie said, with soft vehemence, “California. This here’s California an’ we’re right in it!”
Winfield broke a tule and twisted it free, and he put the white pulp in his mouth and chewed it. They walked into the water and stood quietly, the water about the calves of their legs.
“We got the desert yet,” Ruthie said.
“What’s the desert like?”
“I don’t know. I seen pitchers once says a desert. They was bones ever’place.”
“Man bones?”
“Some, I guess, but mos’ly cow bones.”
“We gonna get to see them bones?”
“Maybe. I don’ know. Gonna go ’crost her at night. That’s what Tom said. Tom says we get the livin’ Jesus burned outa us if we go in daylight.”
“Feels nicet an’ cool,” said Winfield, and he squidged his toes in the sand of the bottom.
They heard Ma calling, “Ruthie! Winfiel’! You come back.” They turned and walked slowly back through the reeds and the willows.
The other tents were quiet. For a moment, when the cars came up, a few heads had stuck out between the flaps, and then were withdrawn. Now the family tents were up and the men gathered together.
Tom said, “I’m gonna go down an’ take a bath. That’s what I’m gonna do—before I sleep. How’s Granma sence we got her in the tent?”
“Don’ know,” said Pa. “Couldn’ seem to wake her up.” He cocked his head toward the tent. A whining, babbling voice came from under the canvas. Ma went quickly inside.
“She woke up, awright,” said Noah. “Seems like all night she was a-croakin’ up on the truck. She’s all outa sense.”
Tom said, “Hell! She’s wore out. If she don’t get some res’ pretty soon, she ain’ gonna las’. She’s jes’ wore out. Anybody comin’ with me? I’m gonna wash, an’ I’m gonna sleep in the shade—all day long.” He moved away, and the other men followed him. They took off their clothes in the willows and then they walked into the water and sat down. For a long time they sat, holding themselves with heels dug into the sand, and only their heads stuck out of the water.
“Jesus, I needed this,” Al said. He took a handful of sand from the bottom and scrubbed himself with it. They lay in the water and looked across at the sharp peaks called Needles, and at the white rock mountains of Arizona.
“We come through them,” Pa said in wonder.
Uncle John ducked his head under the water. “Well, we’re here. This here’s California, an’ she don’t look so prosperous.”
“Got the desert yet,” said Tom. “An’ I hear she’s a son-of-a-bitch.”
Noah asked, “Gonna try her tonight?”
“What ya think, Pa?” Tom asked.
“Well, I don’ know. Do us good to get a little res’, ’specially Granma. But other ways, I’d kinda like to get acrost her an’ get settled into a job. On’y got ’bout forty dollars left. I’ll feel better when we’re all workin’, an’ a little money comin’ in.”
Each man sat in the water and felt the tug of the current. The preacher let his arms and hands float on the surface. The bodies were white to the neck and wrists, and burned dark brown on hands and faces, with V’s of brown at the collar bones. They scratched themselves with sand.
And Noah said lazily, “Like to jus’ stay here. Like to lay here forever. Never get hungry an’ never get sad. Lay in the water all life long, lazy as a brood sow in the mud.”
And Tom, looking at the ragged peaks across the river and the Needles downstream: “Never seen such tough mountains. This here’s a murder country. This here’s the bones of a country. Wonder if we’ll ever get in a place where folks can live ’thout fightin’ hard scrabble an’ rocks. I seen pitchers of a country flat an’ green, an’ with little houses like Ma says, white. Ma got her heart set on a white house. Get to thinkin’ they ain’t no such country. I seen pitchers like that.”
Pa said, “Wait till we get to California. You’ll see nice country then.”
“Jesus Christ, Pa! This here is California.”
Two men dressed in jeans and sweaty blue shirts came through the willows and looked toward the naked men. They called, “How’s the swimmin’?”
“Dunno,” said Tom. “We ain’t tried none. Sure feels good to set here, though.”
“Mind if we come in an’ set?”
“She ain’t our river. We’ll len’ you a little piece of her.”
The men shucked off their pants, peeled their shirts, and waded out. The dust coated their legs to the knee; their feet were pale and soft with sweat. They settled lazily into the water and washed listlessly at their flanks. Sun-bitten, they were, a father and a boy. They grunted and groaned with the water.
Pa asked politely, “Goin’ west?”
“Nope. We come from there. Goin’ back home. We can’t make no livin’ out there.”
“Where’s home?” Tom asked.
“Panhandle, come from near Pampa.”
Pa asked, “Can you make a livin’ there?”
“Nope. But at leas’ we can starve to death with folks we know. Won’t have a bunch a fellas that hates us to starve with.”
Pa said, “Ya know, you’re the second fella talked like that. What makes ’em hate you?”
“Dunno,” said the man. He cupped his hands full of water and rubbed his face, snorting and bubbling. Dusty water ran out of his hair and streaked his neck.
“I like to hear some more ’bout this,” said Pa.
“Me too,” Tom added. “Why these folks out west hate ya?”
The man looked sharply at Tom. “You jus’ goin’ wes’?”
“Jus’ on our way.”
“You ain’t never been in California?”
“No, we ain’t.”
“Well, don’ take my word. Go see for yourself.”
“Yeah,” Tom said, “but a fella kind a likes to know what he’s gettin’ into.”
“Well, if you truly wanta know, I’m a fella that’s asked questions an’ give her some thought. She’s a nice country. But she was stole a long time ago. You git acrost the desert an’ come into the country aroun’ Bakersfield. An’ you never seen such purty country—all orchards an’ grapes, purtiest country you ever seen. An’ you’ll pass lan’ flat an’fine with water thirty feet down, and that lan’s layin’ fallow. But you can’t have none of that lan’. That’s a Lan’ and Cattle Company. An’ if they don’t want ta work her, she ain’t gonna git worked. You go in there an’ plant you a little corn, an’ you’ll go to jail!”
“Good lan’, you say? An’ they ain’t workin’ her?”
“Yes, sir. Good lan’ an’ they ain’t! Well, sir, that’ll get you a little mad, but you ain’t seen nothin’. People gonna have a look in their eye. They gonna look at you an’ their face says, ‘I don’t like you, you son-of-a-bitch.’ Gonna be
deputy sheriffs, an’ they’ll push you aroun’. You camp on the roadside, an’ they’ll move you on. You gonna see in people’s face how they hate you. An’—I’ll tell you somepin. They hate you ’cause they’re scairt. They know a hungry fella gonna get food even if he got to take it. They know that fallow lan’s a sin an’ somebody’ gonna take it. What the hell! You never been called ‘Okie’ yet.”
Tom said, “Okie? What’s that?”
“Well, Okie use’ ta mean you was from Oklahoma. Now it means you’re a dirty son-of-a-bitch. Okie means you’re scum. Don’t mean nothing itself, it’s the way they say it. But I can’t tell you nothin’. You got to go there. I hear there’s three hunderd thousan’ of our people there—an’ livin’ like hogs, ’cause ever’thing in California is owned. They ain’t nothin’ left. An’ them people that owns it is gonna hang on to it if they got ta kill ever’body in the worl’ to do it. An’ they’re scairt, an’ that makes ’em mad. You got to see it. You got to hear it. Purtiest goddamn country you ever seen, but they ain’t nice to you, them folks. They’re so scairt an’ worried they ain’t even nice to each other.”
Tom looked down into the water, and he dug his heels into the sand. “S’pose a fella got work an’ saved, couldn’ he get a little lan’?”
The older man laughed and he looked at his boy, and his silent boy grinned almost in triumph. And the man said, “You ain’t gonna get no steady work. Gonna scrabble for your dinner ever’ day. An’ you gonna do her with people lookin’ mean at you. Pick cotton, an’ you gonna be sure the scales ain’t honest. Some of ’em is, an’ some of ’em ain’t. But you gonna think all the scales is crooked, an’ you don’ know which ones. Ain’t nothin’ you can do about her anyways.”
Pa asked slowly, “Ain’t—ain’t it nice out there at all?”
“Sure, nice to look at, but you can’t have none of it. They’s a grove of yella oranges—an’ a guy with a gun that got the right to kill you if you touch one. They’s a fella, newspaper fella near the coast, got a million acres——”
Casy looked up quickly, “Million acres? What in the worl’ can he do with a million acres?”
“I dunno. He jus’ got it. Runs a few cattle. Got guards ever’place to keep folks out. Rides aroun’ in a bullet-proof car. I seen pitchers of him. Fat, sof’ fella with little mean eyes an’ a mouth like a ass-hole. Scairt he’s gonna die. Got a million acres an’ scairt of dyin’.”
Casy demanded, “What in hell can he do with a million acres? What’s he want a million acres for?”
The man took his whitening, puckering hands out of the water and spread them, and he tightened his lower lip and bent his head down to one shoulder. “I dunno,” he said. “Guess he’s crazy. Mus’ be crazy. Seen a pitcher of him. He looks crazy. Crazy an’ mean.”
“Say he’s scairt to die?” Casy asked.
“That’s what I heard.”
“Scairt God’ll get him?”
“I dunno. Jus’ scairt.”
“What’s he care?” Pa said. “Don’t seem like he’s havin’ no fun.”
“Grampa wasn’t scairt,” Tom said. “When Grampa was havin’ the most fun, he come clostest to gettin’ kil’t. Time Grampa an’ another fella whanged into a bunch a Navajo in the night. They was havin’ the time a their life, an’ same time you wouldn’t give a gopher for their chance.”
Casy said, “Seems like that’s the way. Fella havin’ fun, he don’t give a damn; but a fella mean an’ lonely an’ old an’ disappointed—he’s scared of dyin’!”
Pa asked, “What’s he disappointed about if he got a million acres?”
The preacher smiled, and he looked puzzled. He splashed a floating water bug away with his hand. “If he needs a million acres to make him feel rich, seems to me he needs it ’cause he feels awful poor inside hisself, and if he’s poor in hisself, there ain’t no million acres gonna make him feel rich, an’ maybe he’s disappointed that nothin’ he can do’ll make him feel rich—not rich like Mis’ Wilson was when she give her tent when Grampa died. I ain’t tryin’ to preach no sermon, but I never seen nobody that’s busy as a prairie dog collectin’ stuff that wasn’t disappointed.” He grinned. “Does kinda soun’ like a sermon, don’t it?”
The sun was flaming fiercely now. Pa said, “Better scrunch down under water. She’ll burn the living Jesus outa you.” And he reclined and let the gently moving water flow around his neck. “If a fella’s willin’ to work hard, can’t he cut her?” Pa asked.
The man sat up and faced him. “Look, mister. I don’ know ever’thing. You might go out there an’ fall into a steady job, an’ I’d be a liar. An’ then, you might never get no work, an’ I didn’ warn ya. I can tell ya mos’ of the folks is purty mis’able.” He lay back in the water. “A fella don’ know ever’thing,” he said.
Pa turned his head and looked at Uncle John. “You never was a fella to say much,” Pa said. “But I’ll be goddamned if you opened your mouth twicet sence we lef’ home. What you think ’bout this here?”
Uncle John scowled. “I don’t think nothin’ about it. We’re a-goin’ there, ain’t we? None of this here talk gonna keep us from goin’ there. When we get there, we’ll get there. When we get a job we’ll work, an’ when we don’t get a job we’ll set on our tail. This here talk ain’t gonna do no good no way.”
Tom lay back and filled his mouth with water, and he spurted it into the air and he laughed. “Uncle John don’t talk much, but he talks sense. Yes, by God! He talks sense. We goin’ on tonight, Pa?”
“Might’s well. Might’s well get her over.”
“Well, I’m goin’ up in the brush an’ get some sleep then.” Tom stood up and waded to the sandy shore. He slipped his clothes on his wet body and winced under the heat of the cloth. The others followed him.
In the water, the man and his boy watched the Joads disappear. And the boy said, “Like to see ’em in six months. Jesus!”
The man wiped his eye corners with his forefinger. “I shouldn’ of did that,” he said. “Fella always wants to be a wise guy, wants to tell folks stuff.”
“Well, Jesus, Pa! They asked for it.”
“Yeah, I know. But like that fella says, they’re a-goin’ anyways. Nothin’ won’t be changed from what I tol’ ’em, ’cept they’ll be mis’able ’fore they hafta.”
Tom walked in among the willows, and he crawled into a cave of shade to lie down. And Noah followed him.
“Gonna sleep here,” Tom said.
“Tom!”
“Yeah?”
“Tom, I ain’t a-goin’ on.”
Tom sat up. “What you mean?”
“Tom, I ain’t a-gonna leave this here water. I’m a-gonna walk on down this here river.”
“You’re crazy,” Tom said.
“Get myself a piece a line. I’ll catch fish. Fella can’t starve beside a nice river.”
Tom said, “How ’bout the fam’ly? How ’bout Ma?”
“I can’t he’p it. I can’t leave this here water.” Noah’s wideset eyes were half closed. “You know how it is, Tom. You know how the folks are nice to me. But they don’t really care for me.”
“You’re crazy.”
“No, I ain’t. I know how I am. I know they’re sorry. But—Well, I ain’t a-goin’. You tell Ma—Tom.”
“Now you look-a-here,” Tom began.
“No. It ain’t no use. I was in that there water. An’ I ain’t a-gonna leave her. I’m a-gonna go now, Tom—down the river. I’ll catch fish an’ stuff, but I can’t leave her. I can’t.” He crawled back out of the willow cave. “You tell Ma, Tom.” He walked away.
Tom followed him to the river bank. “Listen, you goddamn fool——”
“It ain’t no use,” Noah said. “I’m sad, but I can’t he’p it. I got to go.” He turned abruptly and walked downstream along the shore. Tom started to follow, and then he stopped. He saw Noah disappear into the brush, and then appear again, following the edge of the river. And he watched Noah growing sma
ller on the edge of the river, until he disappeared into the willows at last. And Tom took off his cap and scratched his head. He went back to his willow cave and lay down to sleep.
Under the spread tarpaulin Granma lay on a mattress, and Ma sat beside her. The air was stiflingly hot, and the flies buzzed in the shade of the canvas. Granma was naked under a long piece of pink curtain. She turned her old head restlessly from side to side, and she muttered and choked. Ma sat on the ground beside her, and with a piece of cardboard drove the flies away and fanned a stream of moving hot air over the tight old face. Rose of Sharon sat on the other side and watched her mother.
Granma called imperiously, “Will! Will! You come here, Will.” And her eyes opened and she looked fiercely about. “Tol’ him to come right here,” she said. “I’ll catch him. I’ll take the hair off ’n him.” She closed her eyes and rolled her head back and forth and muttered thickly. Ma fanned with the cardboard.
Rose of Sharon looked helplessly at the old woman. She said softly, “She’s awful sick.”
Ma raised her eyes to the girl’s face. Ma’s eyes were patient, but the lines of strain were on her forehead. Ma fanned and fanned the air, and her piece of cardboard warned off the flies. “When you’re young, Rosasharn, ever’thing that happens is a thing all by itself. It’s a lonely thing. I know, I ’member, Rosasharn.” Her mouth loved the name of her daughter. “You’re gonna have a baby, Rosasharn, and that’s somepin to you lonely and away. That’s gonna hurt you, an’ the hurt’ll be lonely hurt, an’ this here tent is alone in the worl’, Rosasharn.” She whipped the air for a moment to drive a buzzing blow fly on, and the big shining fly circled the tent twice and zoomed out into the blinding sunlight. And Ma went on, “They’s a time of change, an’ when that comes, dyin’ is a piece of all dyin’, and bearin’ is a piece of all bearin’, an’ bearin’ an’ dyin’ is two pieces of the same thing. An’ then things ain’t lonely any more. An’ then a hurt don’t hurt so bad, ’cause it ain’t a lonely hurt no more, Rosasharn. I wisht I could tell you so you’d know, but I can’t.” And her voice was so soft, so full of love, that tears crowded into Rose of Sharon’s eyes, and flowed over her eyes and blinded her.
The Grapes of Wrath Page 30