Then
it was June, and the sun shone fiercely. Eyes inward on memory,
laughing outwardly at Granma and Grampa. Still figuring, still
drawing patterns in the dust with a stick, though the dust be a table
and the stick a finger tracing its surface. Still feeling out of sync
with the machine, goggled and muzzled like the driver sitting in the
iron seat. Goggled mind, muzzled speech. Oughtn't to talk as I do,
should keep my views in my head. Should only in my protests (with and
against the world) sell Good Used Cars.
Preachin's
a kinda tone a voice and preachin's a way a lookin' at things. Listen
for a change of tone, a variation of rhythm. Is it telling or
instructing? Fella has a story: It's a free country. The concrete
road a mirror under the sun.
Well,
I don' know what the country's comin' to. I jus' don' know. But it
ain't the people's fault.
They
only knowin' the results, not the causes. Results, not causes.
Losses. The road.
Disliking
sun and wind and earth, resenting food and weariness, hating time.
Cars from all the country. All headin' west. The road full a them
families.
This
here's California, an' she don't look so prosperous. This here's a
murder country. This here's the bones of a country. This here is
California.
Acrost
the desert such purty country – all orchards an' grapes an' yella
oranges, an' lan' flat an' fine with water thirty feet down, layin'
fallow. Good lan' ain't worked. Ever'thing in California is owned;
ain't nothing left. Purtiest goddam country ever seen.
Land
and food. Good green fields. Earth to crumble, grass to smell. Fallow
fields a sin; unused land a crime. Jus' layin' there. Or raisin' one
thing – cotton, peaches, lettuce. A temptation. It ain't our'n.
This
here's Hooverville. Ever'body lookin' for work. Ain't no work. Ain't
no crop. The work's done. Movin' on, shovin' north, a-going south.
Take what we can get.
Workin'
an' getting' our pay an' eatin'. Eatin' good for twelve days. Layin'
pipe; good job, but it ain't gonna las' long.
Always
scuttling for work, scrabbling to live. An' lookin' for pleasure.
A
wave of bathing – children, men scrubbed clean. Best clothes,
freshly washed. Hair braided and ribboned. A string band: guitar,
harmonicas, fiddle. A dance. Sets people up an' makes them proud.
Makes 'em think of ol' times.
Odour
of sweet decay: ferment and rot fills the country. Sorrow. Failure.
Goin'
in ever' gate, walkin' up to ever' house. Lookin' for somepin ain't
gonna find. A-gettin' tired. Got to get bread an' meat an' coffee
with sugar in. No slip, no groceries.
Ever'
little step fo'ward, slip back a little, but never slip clear. Can't
get straight. Crackin' up. Ain't no fambly now. Ever'body's gittin
mean. Ever'body.
Cotton
Pickers Wanted. White cotton like popcorn. Got a bag, a good cotton
bag? Lines of people movin' across the field, talkin' across the
rows. This is good work. Good pickin'. Until a great cotton-pickin'
machine come an' put han' pickin out. Cotton's done.
Jus'
try to live the day, jus' the day.
Picture credit: Migratory Cotton Picker, Eloy, Arizona, 1940, by Dorothea Lange (source: WikiArt)
See The
Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.
Written
June 2023.