The Grapes of Wrath

by John Steinbeck

“Yes, Sir, That’s My Baby.”1 His extended foot swung slowly up and down in the tempo. It was not dance tempo. He stopped whistling and sang in an easy thin tenor: “Yes, sir, that’s my Saviour, Je—sus is my Saviour, Je—sus is my Saviour now. On the level ’S not the devil, Jesus is my Saviour now.’’

His eyeballs were heavy and protruding; the lids stretched to cover them, and the lids were raw and red. His cheeks were brown and shiny and hairless and his mouth full—humorous or sensual. The nose, beaked and hard, stretched the skin so tightly that the bridge showed white. There was no perspiration on the face, not even on the tall pale forehead.

Fully half of the face was above the eyes. His stiff gray hair was mussed back from his brow as though he had combed it back with his fingers. For clothes he wore overalls and a blue shirt. A denim coat with brass buttons and a spotted brown hat creased like a pork pie lay on the ground beside him. Canvas sneakers, gray with dust, lay near by where they had fallen when they were kicked off. The man looked long at Joad. The light seemed to go far into his brown eyes, and it picked out little golden specks deep in the irises. The strained bundle of neck muscles stood out.

Joad said, “Hi. It’s hotter’n hell on the road.’’ The seated man stared questioningly at him. “Now ain’t you young Tom Joad—ol’ Tom’s boy?’’

Joad said, “You’re bound to get idears if you go thinkin’ about stuff. Sure I remember you. You use ta give a good meetin’. I recollect one time you give a whole sermon walkin’ around on your hands, yellin’ your head off. Ma favored you more than anybody. An’ Granma says you was just lousy with the spirit.’’ Joad dug at his rolled coat and found the pocket and brought out his pint. The turtle moved a leg but he wrapped it up tightly. He unscrewed the cap and held out the bottle. “Have a little snort?’’ Casy took the bottle and regarded it broodingly. “I ain’t preachin’ no more much. The sperit ain’t in the people much no more; and worse’n that, the sperit ain’t in me no more. ’Course now an’ again the sperit gets movin’ an’ I rip out a meetin’, or when folks sets out food I give ’em a grace, but my heart ain’t in it. I on’y do it ’cause they expect it.’’

Joad said pleasantly, “Might’s well tell you now an’ get it over with. But if you was still preachin’ I wouldn’t tell, fear you get prayin’ over me.’’ He drained the last of the pint and flung it from him, and the flat brown bottle skidded lightly over the dust. “I been in McAlester them four years.’’ Casy swung around to him, and his brows lowered so that his tall forehead seemed even taller. “Ain’t wantin’ to talk about it, huh? I won’t ask you no questions, if you done something bad——’’ “I’d do what I done—again,’’ said Joad. “I killed a guy in a fight. We was drunk at a dance. He got a knife in me, an’ I killed him with a shovel that was layin’ there. Knocked his head plumb to squash.’’ Casy’s eyebrows resumed their normal level. “You ain’t ashamed of nothin’ then?’’ “No,’’ said Joad. “I ain’t. I got seven years, account of he had a knife in me. Got out in four—parole.’’

“The guy’s right, too,’’ he said. “Las’ night, thinkin’ where I’m gonna sleep, I got scared. An’ I got thinkin’ about my bunk, an’ I wonder what the stir-bug I got for a cell mate is doin’. Me an’ some guys had a strang band goin’. Good one. Guy said we ought to go on the radio. An’ this mornin’ I didn’ know what time to get up. Jus’ laid there waitin’ for the bell to go off.’’

The yellowing, dusty, afternoon light put a golden color on the land. The cornstalks looked golden. A flight of swallows swooped overhead toward some waterhole. The turtle in Joad’s coat began a new campaign of escape. Joad creased the visor of his cap. It was getting the long protruding curve of a crow’s beak now. “Guess I’ll mosey along,’’ he said. “I hate to hit the sun, but it ain’t so bad now.’’

“You talk about Pa,’’ he said. “Maybe you never seen Uncle John the time they baptized him over to Polk’s place. Why, he got to plungin’ an’ jumpin’. Jumped over a feeny bush3 as big as a piana. Over he’d jump, an’ back he’d jump, howlin’ like a dog-wolf in moon time. Well, Pa seen him, an’ Pa, he figgers he’s the bes’ Jesus-jumper in these parts. So Pa picks out a feeny bush ’bout twicet as big as Uncle John’s feeny bush, and Pa lets out a squawk like a sow litterin’ broken bottles, an’ he takes a run at that feeny bush an’ clears her an’ bust his right leg. That took the sperit out of Pa. Preacher wants to pray it set, but Pa says, no, by God, he’d got his heart full of havin’ a doctor. Well, they wasn’t a doctor, but they was a travelin’ dentist, an’ he set her. Preacher give her a prayin’ over anyways.’’

Some of the owner men were kind because they hated what they had to do, and some of them were angry because they hated to be cruel, and some of them were cold because they had long ago found that one could not be an owner unless one were cold. And all of them were caught in something larger than themselves. Some of them hated the mathematics that drove them, and some were afraid, and some worshiped the mathematics because it provided a refuge from thought and from feeling. If a bank or a finance company owned the land, the owner man said, The Bank—or the Company—needs—wants—insists—must have—as though the Bank or the Company were a monster, with thought and feeling, which had ensnared them. These last would take no responsibility for the banks or the companies because they were men and slaves, while the banks were machines and masters all at the same time. Some of the owner men were a little proud to be slaves to such cold and powerful masters. The owner men sat in the cars and explained. You know the land is poor. You’ve scrabbled at it long enough, God knows.

The squatters nodded—they knew, God knew. If they could only rotate the crops they might pump blood back into the land.

Don’t they make explosives out of cotton? And uniforms? Get enough wars and cotton’ll hit the ceiling. Next year, maybe. They looked up questioningly.

And now the squatting men stood up angrily. Grampa took up the land, and he had to kill the Indians and drive them away. And Pa was born here, and he killed weeds and snakes. Then a bad year came and he had to borrow a little money. An’ we was born here. There in the door— our children born here. And Pa had to borrow money. The bank owned the land then, but we stayed and we got a little bit of what we raised. We know that—all that. It’s not us, it’s the bank. A bank isn’t like a man. Or an owner with fifty thousand acres, he isn’t like a man either. That’s the monster.

The tenants cried, Grampa killed Indians, Pa killed snakes for the land. Maybe we can kill banks—they’re worse than Indians and snakes. Maybe we got to fight to keep our land, like Pa and Grampa did. And now the owner men grew angry. You’ll have to go.

He loved the land no more than the bank loved the land. He could admire the tractor—its machined surfaces, its surge of power, the roar of its detonating cylinders; but it was not his tractor. Behind the tractor rolled the shining disks, cutting the earth with blades—not plowing but surgery, pushing the cut earth to the right where the second row of disks cut it and pushed it to the left; slicing blades shining, polished by the cut earth. And pulled behind the disks, the harrows combing with iron teeth so that the little clods broke up and the earth lay smooth. Behind the harrows, the long seeders—twelve curved iron penes erected in the foundry, orgasms set by gears, raping methodically, raping without passion. The driver sat in his iron seat and he was proud of the straight lines he did not will, proud of the tractor he did not own or love, proud of the power he could not control. And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses.

“I got to figure,’’ the tenant said. “We all got to figure. There’s some way to stop this. It’s not like lightning or earthquakes. We’ve got a bad thing made by men, and by God that’s something we can change.’’ The tenant sat in his doorway, and the driver thundered his engine and started off, tracks falling and curving, harrows combing, and the phalli of the seeder slipping into the ground.

The tenant man stared after it, his rifle in his hand. His wife was beside him, and the quiet children behind. And all of them stared after the tractor.

THE REVEREND CASY and young Tom stood on the hill and looked down on the Joad place. The small unpainted house was mashed at one corner, and it had been pushed off its foundations so that it slumped at an angle, its blind front windows pointing at a spot of sky well above the horizon. The fences were gone and the cotton grew in the dooryard and up against the house, and the cotton was about the shed barn. The outhouse lay on its side, and the cotton grew close against it.

“Jesus!’’ he said at last. “Hell musta popped here. There ain’t nobody livin’ there.’’ At last he moved quickly down the hill, and Casy followed him. He looked into the barn shed, deserted, a little ground straw on the floor, and at the mule stall in the corner.

“Le’s look in the house. She’s all pushed out a shape. Something knocked the hell out of her.’’ They walked slowly toward the sagging house. Two of the supports of the porch roof were pushed out so that the roof flopped down on one end. And the house-corner was crushed in. Through a maze of splintered wood the room at the corner was visible. The front door hung open inward, and a low strong gate across the front door hung outward on leather hinges.

“Ever since the pig got in over to Jacobs’ an’ et the baby. Milly Jacobs was jus’ out in the barn. She come in while the pig was still eatin’ it. Well, Milly Jacobs was in a family way, an’ she went ravin’. Never did get over it. Touched ever since. But Ma took a lesson from it. She never lef’ that pig gate open ’less she was in the house herself. Never did forget. No—they’re gone—or dead.’’

“Kids,’’ he said. “They’ll go twenty miles to bust a window. I done it myself. They know when a house is empty, they know. That’s the fust thing kids do when folks move out.’’

“Right over there the ditch was, where I done the baptizin’. You wasn’t mean, but you was tough. Hung onto that little girl’s pigtail like a bulldog. We baptize’ you both in the name of the Holy Ghos’, and still you hung on. Ol’ Tom says, ‘Hol’ ’im under water.’ So I shove your head down till you start to bubblin’ before you’d let go a that pigtail. You wasn’t mean, but you was tough. Sometimes a tough kid grows up with a big jolt of the sperit in him.’’

“No, it’s more’n jus’ this place. Whyn’t that cat jus’ move in with some neighbors—with the Rances. How come nobody ripped some lumber off this house? Ain’t been nobody here for three-four months, an’ nobody’s stole no lumber. Nice planks on the barn shed, plenty good planks on the house, winda frames—an’ nobody’s took ’em. That ain’t right. That’s what was botherin’ me, an’ I couldn’t catch hold of her.’’ “Well, what’s that figger out for you?’’ Casy reached down and slipped off his sneakers and wriggled his long toes on the step. “I don’ know. Seems like maybe there ain’t any neighbors. If there was, would all them nice planks be here? Why, Jesus Christ! Albert Rance took his family, kids an’ dogs an’ all, into Oklahoma City one Christmus. They was gonna visit with Albert’s cousin. Well, folks aroun’ here thought Albert moved away without sayin’ nothin’—figgered maybe he got debts or some woman’s squarin’ off at him. When Albert come back a week later there wasn’t a thing lef’ in his house—stove was gone, beds was gone, winda frames was gone, an’ eight feet of plankin’ was gone off the south side of the house so you could look right through her. He come drivin’ home just as Muley Graves was goin’ away with three doors an’ the well pump. Took Albert two weeks drivin’ aroun’ the neighbors’ ’fore he got his stuff back.’’

“Sure. They wasn’t stealin’ it. They thought he lef’ it, an’ they jus’ took it. He got all of it back—all but a sofa pilla, velvet with a pitcher of an Injun on it. Albert claimed Grampa got it. Claimed Grampa got Injun blood, that’s why he wants that pitcher. Well, Grampa did get her, but he didn’t give a damn about the pitcher on it. He jus’ liked her. Used to pack her aroun’ an’ he’d put her wherever he was gonna sit. He never would give her back to Albert. Says, ‘If Albert wants this pilla so bad, let him come an’ get her. But he better come shootin’, ’cause I’ll blow his goddamn stinkin’ head off if he comes messin’ aroun’ my pilla.’ So finally Albert give up an’ made Grampa a present of that pilla. It give Grampa idears, though. He took to savin’ chicken feathers. Says he’s gonna have a whole damn bed of feathers. But he never got no feather bed. One time Pa got mad at a skunk under the house. Pa slapped that skunk with a two-by-four, and Ma burned all Grampa’s feathers so we could live in the house.’’ He laughed. “Grampa’s a tough ol’ bastard. Jus’ set on that Injun pilla an’ says, ‘Let Albert come an’ get her. Why,’ he says, ‘I’ll take that squirt and wring ’im out like a pair of drawers.’ ’’

The cat reached out a gray questioning paw and touched Joad’s coat. He looked around. “Hell, I forgot the turtle. I ain’t gonna pack it all over hell.’’ He unwrapped the land turtle and pushed it under the house. But in a moment it was out, headed southwest as it had been from the first. The cat leaped at it and struck at its straining head and slashed at its moving feet. The old, hard, humorous head was pulled in, and the thick tail slapped in under the shell, and when the cat grew tired of waiting for it and walked off, the turtle headed on southwest again. Young Tom Joad and the preacher watched the turtle go—waving its legs and boosting its heavy, high-domed shell along toward the southwest. The cat crept along behind for a while, but in a dozen yards it arched its back to a strong taut bow and yawned, and came stealthily back toward the seated men.

Joad unrolled his new yellow shoes from his coat, and he brushed his dusty feet with his hand before he slipped them on. The preacher, staring off across the fields, said, “Somebody’s comin’. Look! Down there, right through the cotton.’’ Joad looked where Casy’s finger pointed. “Comin’ afoot,’’ he said. “Can’t see ’im for the dust he raises. Who the hell’s comin’ here?’’ They watched the figure approaching in the evening light, and the dust it raised was reddened by the setting sun.

“By God, it’s lucky I come by!’’ said Muley. “ ’Cause ol’ Tom worried himself. When they was fixin’ to move I was settin’ in the kitchen there. I jus’ tol’ Tom I wan’t gonna move, by God. I tol’ him that, an’ Tom says, ‘I’m worryin’ myself about Tommy. S’pose he comes home an’ they ain’t nobody here. What’ll he think?’ I says, ‘Whyn’t you write down a letter?’ An’ Tom says, ‘Maybe I will. I’ll think about her. But if I don’t, you keep your eye out for Tommy if you’re still aroun’.’ ‘I’ll be aroun’,’ I says. ‘I’ll be aroun’ till hell freezes over. There ain’t nobody can run a guy name of Graves outa this country.’ An’ they ain’t done it, neither.’’

“Well, they was gonna stick her out when the bank come to tractorin’ off the place. Your grampa stood out here with a rifle, an’ he blowed the headlights off that cat’, but she come on just the same. Your grampa didn’t wanta kill the guy drivin’ that cat’, an’ that was Willy Feeley, an’ Willy knowed it, so he jus’ come on, an’ bumped the hell outa the house. Ol’ Tom jas’ stood there a-cussin’, but it didn’t do him no good. When he sees that cat’ come a-bustin’ through the house, an’ give her a shake like a dog shakes a rat—well, it took somepin outa Tom. Kinda got into ’im. He ain’t been the same ever since.’’

“Them sons-a-bitches,’’ he said. “Them dirty sons-a-bitches. I tell ya, men, I’m stayin’. They ain’t gettin’ rid a me. If they throw me off, I’ll come back, an’ if they figger I’ll be quiet underground, why, I’ll take a couple-three of the sons-a-bitches along for company.’’ He patted a heavy weight in his side coat pocket. “I ain’t a-goin’. My pa come here fifty years ago. An’ I ain’t a-goin’.’’

“Oh! They talked pretty about it. You know what kinda years we been havin’. Dust comin’ up an’ spoilin’ ever’thing so a man didn’t get enough crop to plug up an ant’s ass. An’ ever’body got bills at the grocery. You know how it is. Well, the folks that owns the lan’ says, ‘We can’t afford to keep no tenants.’ An’ they says, ‘The share a tenant gets is jus’ the margin a profit we can’t afford to lose.’ An’ they says, ‘If we put all our lan’ in one piece we can jus’ hardly make her pay.’ So they tractored all the tenants off a the lan’. All ’cept me, an’ by God I ain’t goin’. Tommy, you know me. You knowed me all your life.’’

“Well, by God, I’m hungry,’’ said Joad. “Four solemn years I been eatin’ right on the minute. My guts is yellin’ bloody murder. What you gonna eat, Muley? How you been gettin’ your dinner?’’ Muley said ashamedly, “For a while I et frogs an’ squirrels an’ prairie dogs sometimes. Had to do it. But now I got some wire nooses on the tracks in the dry stream brush. Get rabbits, an’ sometimes a prairie chicken. Skunks get caught, an’ coons, too.’’ He reached down, picked up his sack, and emptied it on the porch. Two cottontails and a jackrabbit fell out and rolled over limply, soft and furry. “God Awmighty,’’ said Joad,

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’ wherever 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’.’’

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 billy-goat. 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.

“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.’’

“I—I ain’t talked to nobody for a long time,’’ he apologized softly. “I been sneakin’ aroun’ like a ol’ graveyard ghos’.’’

“Ever’body knowed it wasn’t no fault of yours,’’ said Muley. “Ol’ man Turnbull said he was gonna get you when ya come out. Says nobody can kill one a his boys. All the folks hereabouts talked him outa it, though.’’ “We was drunk,’’ Joad said softly. “Drunk at a dance. I don’ know how she started. An’ then I felt that knife go in me, an’ that sobered me up. Fust thing I see is Herb comin’ for me again with his knife. They was this here shovel leanin’ against the schoolhouse, so I grabbed it an’ smacked ’im over the head. I never had nothing against Herb. He was a nice fella. Come a-bullin’ after my sister Rosasharn when he was a little fella. No, I liked Herb.’’

“It ain’t so bad,’’ said Joad. “Like ever’place else. They give ya hell if ya raise hell. You get along O.K. les’ some guard gets it in for ya. Then you catch plenty hell. I got along O.K. Minded my own business, like any guy would. I learned to write nice as hell. Birds an’ stuff like that, too; not just word writin’. My ol’ man’ll be sore when he sees me whip out a bird in one stroke. Pa’s gonna be mad when he sees me do that. He don’t like no fancy stuff like that. He don’t even like word writin’. Kinda scares ’im, I guess. Ever’ time Pa seen writin’, somebody took somepin away from ’im.’’

“The thing that give me the mos’ trouble was, it didn’ make no sense. You don’t look for no sense when lightnin’ kills a cow, or it comes up a flood. That’s jus’ the way things is. But when a bunch of men take an’ lock you up four years, it ought to have some meaning. Men is supposed to think things out. Here they put me in, an’ keep me an’ feed me four years. That ought to either make me so I won’t do her again or else punish me so I’ll be afraid to do her again’’—he paused—“but if Herb or anybody else come for me, I’d do her again. Do her before I could figure her out. Specially if I was drunk. That sort of senselessness kind a worries a man.’’

“Ever notice I never took no collections when I was preachin’ out here to folks—in barns an’ in the open?’’ “By God, you never,’’ said Muley. “People around here got so use’ to not givin’ you money they got to bein’ a little mad when some other preacher come along an’ passed the hat. Yes, sir!’’

The preacher still stood looking into the coals. He said slowly, “Yeah, I’m goin’ with you. An’ when your folks start out on the road I’m goin’ with them. An’ where folks are on the road, I’m gonna be with them.’’ “You’d be welcome,’’ said Joad. “Ma always favored you. Said you was a preacher to trust. Rosasharn wasn’t growed up then.’’

Joad demanded, “What’s come over you, Muley? You wasn’t never no run-an’-hide fella. You was mean.’’ Muley watched the approaching lights. “Yeah!’’ he said. “I was mean like a wolf. Now I’m mean like a weasel. When you’re huntin’ somepin you’re a hunter, an’ you’re strong. Can’t nobody beat a hunter. But when you get hunted—that’s different. Somepin happens to you. You ain’t strong; maybe you’re fierce, but you ain’t strong. I been hunted now for a long time. I ain’t a hunter no more. I’d maybe shoot a fella in the dark, but I don’t maul nobody with a fence stake no more. It don’t do no good to fool you or me. That’s how it is.’’

Muley laughed. “You’ll see. You jus’ set here, an’ the car’ll come. Maybe it’s Willy Feeley, an’ Willy’s a deputy sheriff now. ‘What you doin’ trespassin’ here?’ Willy says. Well, you always did know Willy was full a crap, so you says, ‘What’s it to you?’ Willy gets mad an’ says, ‘You get off or I’ll take you in.’ An’ you ain’t gonna let no Feeley push you aroun’ ’cause he’s mad an’ scared. He’s made a bluff an’ he got to go on with it, an’ here’s you gettin’ tough an’ you got to go through—oh, hell, it’s a lot easier to lay out in the cotton an’ let ’em look. It’s more fun, too, ’cause they’re mad an’ can’t do nothin’, an’ you’re out there a-laughin’ at ’em. But you jus’ talk to Willy or any boss, an’ you slug hell out of ’em an’ they’ll take you in an’ run you back to McAlester for three years.’’ “You’re talkin’ sense,’’ said Joad. “Ever’ word you say is sense. But, Jesus, I hate to get pushed around! I lots rather take a sock at Willy.’’

IN THE TOWNS, on the edges of the towns, in fields, in vacant lots, the used-car yards, the wreckers’ yards, the garages with blazoned signs—Used Cars, Good Used Cars. Cheap transportation, three trailers. ’27 Ford, clean. Checked cars, guaranteed cars. Free radio. Car with 100 gallons of gas free. Come in and look. Used Cars. No overhead.

Cars lined up, noses forward, rusty noses, flat tires. Parked close together. Like to get in to see that one? Sure, no trouble. I’ll pull her out of the line. Get ’em under obligation. Make ’em take up your time. Don’t let ’em forget they’re takin’ your time. People are nice, mostly. They hate to put you out. Make ’em put you out, an’ then sock it to ’em. Cars lined up, Model T’s, high and snotty, creaking wheel, worn bands. Buicks, Nashes, De Sotos. Yes, sir. ’22 Dodge. Best goddamn car Dodge ever made.

Jesus, where’d that Apperson come from, the Ark? And a Chalmers and a Chandler—ain’t made ’em for years. We ain’t sellin’ cars—rolling junk. Goddamn it, I got to get jalopies. I don’t want nothing for more’n twenty-five, thirty bucks. Sell ’em for fifty, seventy-five. That’s a good profit. Christ, what cut do you make on a new car? Get jalopies. I can sell ’em fast as I get ’em. Nothing over two hundred fifty. Jim, corral that old bastard on the sidewalk. Don’t know his ass from a hole in the ground. Try him on that Apperson. Say, where is that Apperson? Sold? If we don’t get some jalopies we got nothing to sell.

Piles of rusty ruins against the fence, rows of wrecks in back, fenders, grease-black wrecks, blocks lying on the ground and a pig weed growing up through the cylinders. Brake rods, exhausts, piled like snakes. Grease, gasoline.

Got a pair of mules I’ll trade. Mules! Hey, Joe, hear this? This guy wants to trade mules. Didn’t nobody tell you this is the machine age? They don’t use mules for nothing but glue no more.

Horsehair curling out of seat cushions, fenders battered and hammered back. Bumpers torn loose and hanging. Fancy Ford roadster with little colored lights at fender guide, at radiator cap, and three behind. Mud aprons, and a big die on the gear-shift lever. Pretty girl on tire cover, painted in color and named Cora. Afternoon sun on the dusty windshields. Christ, I ain’t had time to go out an’ eat! Joe, send a kid for a hamburger. Spattering roar of ancient engines.