John Steinbeck - The Grapes of Wrath

Muley came back to Joad. “Look out for boils on that jackrabbit,” he said. “I don’t like to eat no jackrabbit with boils.” He took a little cloth bag from his pocket and put it on the porch.

Joad said, “The jack was clean as a whistle—Jesus God, you got salt too? By any chance you got some plates an’ a tent in your pocket?” He poured salt in his hand and sprinkled it over the pieces of rabbit strung on the wire.

The fire leaped and threw shadows on the house, and the dry wood crackled and snapped. The sky was almost dark now and the stars were out sharply. The gray cat came out of the barn shed and trotted miaowing toward the fire, but, nearly there, it turned and went directly to one of the little piles of rabbit entrails on the ground. It chewed and swallowed, and the entrails hung from its mouth.

Casy sat on the ground beside the fire, feeding it broken pieces of board, pushing the long boards in as the flame ate off their ends. The evening bats flashed into the firelight and out again. The cat crouched back and licked its lips and washed its face and whiskers.

Joad held up his rabbit-laden wire between his two hands and walked to the fire. “Here, take one end, Muley. Wrap your end around that stake. That’s good, now! Let’s tighten her up. We ought to wait till the fire’s burned down, but I can’t wait.” He made the wire taut, then found a stick and slipped the pieces of meat along the wire until they were over the fire. And the flames licked up around the meat and hardened and glazed the surfaces. Joad sat down by the fire, but with his stick he moved and turned the rabbit so that it would not become sealed to the wire. “This here is a party,” he said. “Salt, Muley’s got, an’ water an’ rabbits. I wish he got a lot of hominy in his pocket. That’s all I wish.”

Muley said over the fire, “You fellas’d think I’m touched, the way I live.”

“Touched nothin’,” said Joad. “If you’re touched, I wisht ever’body was touched.”

Muley continued, “Well, sir, it’s a funny thing. Somepin went an’ happened to me when they tol’ me I had to get off the place. Fust I was gonna go in an’ kill a whole flock a people. Then all my folks all went away out west. An’ I got wanderin’ aroun’. Jus’ walkin’ aroun’. Never went far. Slep’ where I was. I was gonna sleep here tonight. That’s why I come. I’d tell myself, ’I’m lookin’ after things so when all the folks come back it’ll be all right.’ But I knowed that wan’t true. There ain’t nothin’ to look after. The folks ain’t never comin’ back. I’m jus’ wanderin’ aroun’ like a damn ol’ graveyard ghos’.”

“Fella gets use’ to a place, it’s hard to go,” said Casy. “Fella gets use’ to a way a thinkin’ it’s hard to leave. I ain’t a preacher no more, but all the time I find I’m prayin’, not even thinkin’ what I’m doin.”

Joad turned the pieces of meat over on the wire. The juice was dripping now, and every drop, as it fell in the fire, shot up a spurt of flame. The smooth surface of the meat was crinkling up and turning a faint brown. “Smell her,” said Joad. “Jesus, look down an’ just smell her!”

Muley went on, “Like a damn ol’ graveyard ghos’. I been goin’ aroun’ the places where stuff happened. Like there’s a place over by our forty; in a gully they’s a bush. Fust time I ever laid with a girl was there. Me fourteen an’ stampin’ an’ jerkin’ an’ snortin’ like a buck deer, randy as a billygoat. So I went there an’ I laid down on the groun’, an’ I seen it all happen again. An’ there’s the place down by the barn where Pa got gored to death by a bull. An’ his blood is right in that groun’, right now. Mus’ be. Nobody never washed it out. An’ I put my han’ on that groun’ where my own pa’s blood is part of it.” He paused uneasily. “You fellas think I’m touched?”

Joad turned the meat, and his eyes were inward. Casy, feet drawn up, stared into the fire. Fifteen feet back from the men the fed cat was sitting, the long gray tail wrapped neatly around the front feet. A big owl shrieked as it went overhead, and the firelight showed its white underside and the spread of its wings.

“No,” said Casy. “You’re lonely—but you ain’t touched.”

Muley’s tight little face was rigid. “I put my han’ right on the groun’ where that blood is still. An’ I seen my pa with a hole through his ches’, an’ I felt him shiver up against me like he done, an’ I seen him kind of settle back an’ reach with his han’s an’ his feet. An’ I seen his eyes all milky with hurt, an’ then he was still an’ his eyes so clear—lookin’ up. An’ me a little kid settin’ there, not cryin’ nor nothin’, jus’ settin’ there.” He shook his head sharply. Joad turned the meat over and over. “An’ I went in the room where Joe was born. Bed wasn’t there, but it was the room. An’ all them things is true, an’ they’re right in the place they happened. Joe came to life right there. He give a big ol’ gasp an’ then he let out a squawk you could hear a mile, an’ his granma standin’ there says, ’That’s a daisy, that’s a daisy,’ over an’ over. An’ her so proud she bust three cups that night.”

Joad cleared his throat. “Think we better eat her now.”

“Let her get good an’ done, good an’ brown, awmost black,” said Muley irritably. “I wanta talk. I ain’t talked to nobody. If I’m touched, I’m touched, an’ that’s the end of it. Like a ol’ graveyard ghos’ goin’ to neighbors’ houses in the night. Peters’, Jacobs’, Rance’s, Joad’s; an’ the houses all dark, standin’ like miser’ble ratty boxes, but they was good parties an’ dancin’. An’ there was meetin’s and shoutin’ glory. They was weddin’s, all in them houses. An’ then I’d want to go in town an’ kill folks. ’Cause what’d they take when they tractored the folks off the lan’? What’d they get so their ’margin a profit’ was safe? They got Pa dyin’ on the groun’, an’ Joe yellin’ his first breath, an’ me jerkin’ like a billy goat under a bush in the night. What’d they get? God knows the lan’ ain’t no good. Nobody been able to make a crop for years. But them sons-a-bitches at their desks, they jus’ chopped folks in two for their margin a profit. They jus’ cut ’em in two. Place where folks live is them folks. They ain’t whole, out lonely on the road in a piled-up car. They ain’t alive no more. Them sons-a-bitches killed ’em.” And he was silent, his thin lips still moving, his chest still panting. He sat and looked down at his hands in the firelight. “I—I ain’t talked to nobody for a long time,” he apologized softly. “I been sneakin’ aroun’ like a ol’ graveyard ghos’.”

Casy pushed the long boards into the fire and the flames licked up around them and leaped up toward the meat again. The house cracked loudly as the cooler night air contracted the wood. Casy said quietly, “I gotta see them folks that’s gone out on the road. I got a feelin’ I got to see them. They gonna need help no preachin’ can give ’em. Hope of heaven when their lives ain’t lived? Holy Sperit when their own sperit is downcast an’ sad? They gonna need help. They got to live before they can afford to die.”

Joad cried nervously, “Jesus Christ, le’s eat this meat ’fore it’s smaller’n a cooked mouse! Look at her. Smell her.” He leaped to his feet and slid the pieces of meat along the wire until they were clear of the fire. He took Muley’s knife and sawed through a piece of meat until it was free of the wire. “Here’s for the preacher,” he said.

“I tol’ you I ain’t no preacher.”

“Well, here’s for the man, then.” He cut off another piece. “Here, Muley, if you ain’t too goddamn upset to eat. This here’s jackrabbit. Tougher’n a bull-bitch.” He sat back and clamped his long teeth on the meat and tore out a great bite and chewed it. “Jesus Christ! Hear her crunch!” And he tore out another bite ravenously.