Jus' the Day

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.