And the companies, the banks worked at their own doom and they did not know it. The fields were fruitful, and starving men moved on the roads. The granaries were full and the children of the poor grew up rachitic, and the pustules of pellagra swelled on their sides. The great companies did not know that the line between hunger and anger is a thin line. And money that might have gone to wages went for gas, for guns, for agents and spies, for blacklists, for drilling. On the highways the people moved like ants and searched for work, for food. And the anger began to ferment.
CHAPTER 22
IT WAS LATE WHEN Tom Joad drove along a country road looking for the Weedpatch camp. There were few lights in the countryside. Only a sky glare behind showed the direction of Bakersfield. The truck jiggled slowly along and hunting cats left the road ahead of it. At a crossroad there was a little cluster of white wooden buildings.
Ma was sleeping in the seat and Pa had been silent and withdrawn for a long time.
Tom said, “I don’ know where she is. Maybe we’ll wait till daylight an’ ast somebody.” He stopped at a boulevard signal and another car stopped at the crossing. Tom leaned out. “Hey, mister. Know where the big camp is at?”
“Straight ahead.”
Tom pulled across into the opposite road. A few hundred yards, and then he stopped. A high wire fence faced the road, and a wide-gated driveway turned in. A little way inside the gate there was a small house with a light in the window. Tom turned in. The whole truck leaped into the air and crashed down again.
“Jesus!” Tom said. “I didn’ even see that hump.”
A watchman stood up from the porch and walked to the car. He leaned on the side. “You hit her too fast,” he said. “Next time you’ll take it easy.”
“What is it, for God’s sake?”
The watchman laughed. “Well, a lot of kids play in here. You tell folks to go slow and they’re liable to forget. But let ’em hit that hump once and they don’t forget.”
“Oh! Yeah. Hope I didn’ break nothin’. Say- you got any room here for us?”
“Got one camp. How many of you?”
Tom counted on his fingers. “Me an’ Pa an’ Ma, Al an’ Rosasharn an’ Uncle John an’ Ruthie an’ Winfiel’. Them last is kids.”
“Well, I guess we can fix you. Got any camping stuff?”
“Got a big tarp an’ beds.”
The watchman stepped up on the running board. “Drive down the end of that line an’ turn right. You’ll be in Number Four Sanitary Unit.”
“What’s that?”
“Toilets and showers and wash tubs.”
Ma demanded, “You got wash tubs- running water?”
“Sure.”
“Oh! Praise God,” said Ma.
Tom drove down the long dark row of tents. In the sanitary building a low light burned. “Pull in here,” the watchman said. “It’s a nice place. Folks that had it just moved out.”
Tom stopped the car. “Right there?”
“Yeah. Now you let the others unload while I sign you up. Get to sleep. The camp committee’ll call on you in the morning and get you fixed up.”
Tom’s eyes drew down. “Cops?” he asked.
The watchman laughed. “No cops. We got our own cops. Folks here elect their own cops. Come along.”
Al dropped off the truck and walked around. “Gonna stay here?”
“Yeah,” said Tom. “You an’ Pa unload while I go to the office.”
“Be kinda quiet,” the watchman said. “They’s a lot of folks sleeping.”
Tom followed through the dark and climbed the office steps and entered a tiny room containing an old desk and a chair. The guard sat down at the desk and took out a form.
“Name?”
“Tom Joad.”
“That your father?”
“Yeah.”
“His name?”
“Tom Joad, too.”
The questions went on. Where from, how long in the State, what work done. The watchman looked up. “I’m not nosy. We got to have this stuff.”
“Sure,” said Tom.
“Now- got any money?”
“Little bit.”
“You ain’t destitute?”
“Got a little. Why?”
“Well, the camp site costs a dollar a week, but you can work it out, carrying garbage, keeping the camp clean- stuff like that.”
“We’ll work it out,” said Tom.
“You’ll see the committee tomorrow. They’ll show you how to use the camp and tell you the rules.”
Tom said, “Say- what is this? What committee is this, anyways?”
The watchman settled himself back. “Works pretty nice. There’s five sanitary units. Each one elects a Central Committee man. Now that committee makes the laws. What they say goes.”
“S’pose they get tough,” Tom said.
“Well, you can vote ’em out jus’ as quick as you vote ’em in. They’ve done a fine job. Tell you what they did- you know the Holy Roller preachers all the time follow the people around, preachin’ an’ takin’ up collections? Well, they wanted to preach in this camp. And a lot of the older folks wanted them. So it was up to the Central Committee. They went into meeting and here’s how they fixed it. They say, ‘Any preacher can preach in this camp. Nobody can take up a collection in this camp.’ And it was kinda sad for the old folks, ’cause there hasn’t been a preacher in since.”
Tom laughed and then he asked, “You mean to say the fellas that runs the camp is jus’ fellas- campin’ here?”
“Sure. And it works.”
“You said about cops-”
“Central Committee keeps order an’ makes rules. Then there’s the ladies. They’ll call on your ma. They keep care of kids an’ look after the sanitary units. If your ma isn’t working, she’ll look after kids for the ones that is working, an’ when she gets a job- why, there’ll be others. They sew, and a nurse comes out an’ teaches ’em. All kinds of things like that.”
“You mean to say they ain’t no cops?”
“No, sir. No cop can come in here without a warrant.”
“Well, s’pose a fella is jus’ mean, or drunk an’ quarrelsome. What then?”
The watchman stabbed the blotter with a pencil. “Well, the first time the Central Committee warns him. And the second time they really warn him. The third time they kick him out of the camp.”
“God Almighty, I can’t hardly believe it! Tonight the deputies an’ them fellas with the little caps, they burned the camp out by the river.”
“They don’t get in here,” the watchman said. “Some nights the boys patrol the fences, ‘specially dance nights.”
“Dance nights? Jesus Christ!”
“We got the best dances in the county every Saturday night.”
“Well, for Christ’s sake! Why ain’t they more places like this?”
The watchman looked sullen. “You’ll have to find that out yourself. Go get some sleep.”
“Good night,” said Tom. “Ma’s gonna like this place. She ain’t been treated decent for a long time.”
“Good night,” the watchman said. “Get some sleep. This camp wakes up early.”
Tom walked down the street between the rows of tents. His eyes grew used to the starlight. He saw that the rows were straight and that there was no litter about the tents. The ground of the street had been swept and sprinkled. From the tents came the snores of sleeping people. The whole camp buzzed and snorted. Tom walked slowly. He neared Number Four Sanitary Unit and he looked at it curiously, an unpainted building, low and rough. Under a roof, but open at the sides, the rows of wash trays. He saw the Joad truck standing near by, and went quietly toward it. The tarpaulin was pitched and the camp was quiet. As he drew near a figure moved from the shadow of the truck and came toward him.
Ma said softly, “That you, Tom?”
“Yeah.”
“Sh!” she said. “They’re all asleep. They was tar’d out.”
“You ought to be asleep too,” Tom said.
“Well, I wanted to see ya. Is it awright?”
“It’s nice,” Tom said. “I ain’t gonna tell ya. They’ll tell ya in the mornin’. Ya gonna like it.”
She whispered, “I heard they got hot water.”
“Yeah. Now, you get to sleep. I don’ know when you slep’ las’.”
She begged, “What ain’t you a-gonna tell me?”
“I ain’t. You get to sleep.”
Suddenly she seemed girlish. “How can I sleep if I got to think about what you ain’t gonna tell me?”
“No, you don’t,” Tom said. “First thing in the mornin’ you get on your other dress an’ then- you’ll find out.”
“I can’t sleep with nothin’ like that hangin’ over me.”
“You got to,” Tom chuckled happily. “You jus’ got to.”
“Good night,” she said softly; and she bent down and slipped under the dark tarpaulin.
Tom climbed up over the tail-board of the truck. He lay down on his back on the wooden floor and he pillowed his head on his crossed hands, and his forearms pressed against his ears. The night grew cooler. Tom buttoned his coat over his chest and settled back again. The stars were clear and sharp over his head.