“Awright, Ma,” said Tom. “She’s ready.”
Ma held a plate of cold biscuits in her hand. “Awright. Here. Each take one. It’s all we got.”
Ruthie and Winfield grabbed their biscuits and climbed up on the load. They coveted themselves with a blanket and went back to sleep, still holding the cold hard biscuits in their hands. Tom got into the driver’s seat and stepped on the starter. It buzzed a little, and then stopped.
“Goddamn you, Al!” Tom cried. “You let the battery run down.”
Al blustered, “How the hell was I gonna keep her up if I ain’t got gas to run her?”
Tom chuckled suddenly. “Well, I don’ know how, but it’s your fault. You got to crank her.”
“I tell you it ain’t my fault.”
Tom got out and found the crank under the seat. “It’s my fault,” he said.
“Gimme that crank.” Al seized it. “Pull down the spark so she don’t take my arm off.”
“O.K. Twist her tail.”
Al labored at the crank, around and around. The engine caught, spluttered, and roared as Tom choked the car delicately. He raised the spark and reduced the throttle.
Ma climbed in beside him. “We woke up ever’body in the camp,” she said.
“They’ll go to sleep again.”
Al climbed in on the other side. “Pa ‘n’ Uncle John got up top,” he said. “Goin’ to sleep again.”
Tom drove toward the main gate. The watchman came out of the office and played his flashlight on the truck. “Wait a minute.”
“What ya want?”
“You checkin’ out?”
“Sure.”
“Well, I got to cross you off.”
“O.K.”
“Know which way you’re goin’?”
“Well, we’re gonna try up north.”
“Well, good luck,” said the watchman.
“Same to you. So long.”
The truck edged slowly over the big hump and into the road. Tom retraced the road he had driven before, past Weedpatch and west until he came to 99, then north on the great paved road, toward Bakersfield. It was growing light when he came into the outskirts of the city.
Tom said, “Ever’ place you look is restaurants. An’ them places all got coffee. Lookit that all-nighter there. Bet they got ten gallons a coffee in there, all hot!”
“Aw, shut up,” said Al.
Tom grinned over at him. “Well, I see you got yaself a girl right off.”
“Well, what of it?”
“He’s mean this mornin’, Ma. He ain’t good company.”
Al said irritably, “I’m goin’ out on my own purty soon. Fella can make his way a lot easier if he ain’t got a fambly.”
Tom said, “You’d have yaself a fambly in nine months. I seen you playin’ aroun’.”
“Ya crazy,” said Al. “I’d get myself a job in a garage an’ I’d eat in restaurants-”
“An’ you’d have a wife an’ kid in nine months.”
“I tell ya I wouldn’.”
Tom said, “You’re a wise guy, Al. You gonna take some beatin’ over the head.”
“Who’s gonna do it?”
“They’ll always be guys to do it,” said Tom.
“You think jus’ because you-”
“Now you jus’ stop that,” Ma broke in.
“I done it,” said Tom. “I was a-badgerin’ him. I didn’ mean no harm, Al. I didn’ know you liked that girl so much.”
“I don’t like no girls much.”
“Awright, then, you don’t. You ain’t gonna get no argument out of me.”
The truck came to the edge of the city. “Look at them hotdog stan’s- hunderds of ’em,” said Tom.
Ma said, “Tom! I got a dollar put away. You wan’ coffee bad enough to spen’ it?”
“No, Ma. I’m jus’ foolin’.”
“You can have it if you wan’ it bad enough.”
“I wouldn’ take it.”
Al said, “Then shut up about coffee.”
Tom was silent for a time. “Seems like I got my foot in it all the time,” he said. “There’s the road we run up that night.”
“I hope we don’t never have nothin’ like that again,” said Ma. “That was a bad night.”
“I didn’ like it none either.”
The sun rose on their right, and the great shadow of the truck ran beside them, flicking over the fence posts beside the road. They ran on past the rebuilt Hooverville.
“Look,” said Tom. “They got new people there. Looks like the same place.”
Al came slowly out of his sullenness. “Fella tol’ me some a them people been burned out fifteen-twenty times. Says they jus’ go hide down the willows an’ then they come out an’ build ’em another weed shack. Jus’ like gophers. Got so use’ to it they don’t even get mad no more, this fella says. They jus’ figger it’s like bad weather.”
“Sure was bad weather for me that night,” said Tom. They moved up the wide highway. And the sun’s warmth made them shiver. “Gettin’ snappy in the mornin’,” said Tom. “Winter’s on the way. I jus’ hope we can get some money ‘fore it comes. Tent ain’t gonna be nice in the winter.”
Ma sighed, and then she straightened her head. “Tom,” she said, “we gotta have a house in the winter. I tell ya we got to. Ruthie’s awright, but Winfiel’ ain’t so strong. We got to have a house when the rains come. I heard it jus’ rains cats aroun’ here.”
“We’ll get a house, Ma. You res’ easy. You gonna have a house.”
“Jus’ so’s it’s got a roof an’ a floor. Jus’ to keep the little fellas off’n the groun’.”
“We’ll try, Ma.”
“I don’ wanna worry ya now.”
“We’ll try, Ma.”
“I jus’ get panicky sometimes,” she said. “I jus’ lose my spunk.”
“I never seen you when you lost it.”
“Nights I do, sometimes.”
There came a harsh hissing from the front of the truck. Tom grabbed the wheel tight and he thrust the brake down to the floor. The truck bumped to a stop. Tom sighed. “Well, there she is.” He leaned back in the seat. Al leaped out and ran to the right front tire.
“Great big nail,” he called.
“We got any tire patch?”
“No,” said Al. “Used it all up. Got patch, but no glue stuff.”
Tom turned and smiled sadly at Ma. “You shouldn’ a tol’ about that dollar,” he said. “We’d a fixed her some way.” He got out of the car and went to the flat tire.
Al pointed to a big nail protruding from the flat casing. “There she is!”
“If they’s one nail in the county, we run over it.”
“Is it bad?” Ma called.
“No, not bad, but we got to fix her.”
The family piled down from the top of the truck. “Puncture?” Pa asked, and then he saw the tire and was silent.
Tom moved Ma from the seat and got the can of tire patch from underneath the cushion. He unrolled the rubber patch and took out the tube of cement, squeezed it gently. “She’s almos’ dry,” he said. “Maybe they’s enough. Awright, Al. Block the back wheels. Le’s get her jacked up.”
Tom and Al worked well together. They put stones behind the wheels, put the jack under the front axle, and lifted the weight off the limp casing. They ripped off the casing. They found the hole, dipped a rag in the gas tank and washed the tube around the hole. And then, while Al held the tube tight over his knee, Tom tore the cement tube in two and spread the little fluid thinly on the rubber with his pocket knife. He scraped the gum delicately. “Now let her dry while I cut a patch.” He trimmed and beveled the edge of the blue patch. Al held the tube tight while Tom put the patch tenderly in place. “There! Now bring her to the running board while I tap her with a hammer.” He pounded the patch carefully, then stretched the tube and watched the edges of the patch. “There she is! She’s gonna hold. Stick her on the rim an’ we’ll pump her up. Looks like you keep your buck, Ma.”
Al said, “I wisht we had a spare. We got to get us a spare, Tom, on a rim an’ all pumped up. Then we can fix a puncture at night.”
“When we get money for a spare we’ll get us some coffee an’ side-meat instead,” Tom said.
The light morning traffic buzzed by on the highway, and the sun grew warm and bright. A wind, gentle and sighing, blew in puffs from the southwest, and the mountains on both sides of the great valley were indistinct in a pearly mist.
Tom was pumping at the tire when a roadster, coming from the north, stopped on the other side of the road. A brown-faced man dressed in a light gray business suit got out and walked across to the truck. He was bareheaded. He smiled, and his teeth were very white against his brown skin. He wore a massive gold wedding ring on the third finger of his left hand. A little gold football hung on a slender chain across his vest.