I know you guys.”
Candy’s face had grown redder and redder, but before she was done speaking, he had control of himself.
He was the master of the situation.
“I might of knew,” he said gently.
“Maybe you just better go along an’ roll your hoop.
We ain’t got nothing to say to you at all.
We know what we got, and we don’t care whether you know it or not.
So maybe you better jus’ scatter along now, ‘cause Curley maybe ain’t gonna like his wife out in the barn with us ‘bindle stiffs.’”
She looked from one face to another, and they were all closed against her.
And she looked longest at Lennie, until he dropped his eyes in embarrassment.
Suddenly she said,
“Where’d you get them bruises on your face?”
Lennie looked up guiltily.
“Who — me?”
“Yeah, you.”
Lennie looked to Candy for help, and then he looked at his lap again.
“He got his han’ caught in a machine,” he said.
Curley’s wife laughed.
“O.K., Machine.
I’ll talk to you later.
I like machines.”
Candy broke in. “You let this guy alone. Don’t you do no messing aroun’ with him.
I’m gonna tell George what you says.
George won’t have you messin’ with Lennie.”
“Who’s George?” she asked. “The little guy you come with?”
Lennie smiled happily.
“That’s him,” he said.
“That’s the guy, an’ he’s gonna let me tend the rabbits.”
“Well, if that’s all you want, I might get a couple rabbits myself.”
Crooks stood up from his bunk and faced her.
“I had enough,” he said coldly. “You got no rights comin’ in a colored man’s room.
You got no rights messing around in here at all.
Now you jus’ get out, an’ get out quick.
If you don’t, I’m gonna ast the boss not to ever let you come in the barn no more.”
She turned on him in scorn.
“Listen, Nigger,” she said. “You know what I can do to you if you open your trap?”
Crooks stared hopelessly at her, and then he sat down on his bunk and drew into himself.
She closed on him.
“You know what I could do?”
Crooks seemed to grow smaller, and he pressed himself against the wall.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Well, you keep your place then, Nigger.
I could get you strung upon a tree so easy it ain’t even funny.”
Crooks had reduced himself to nothing. There was no personality, no ego — nothing to arouse either like or dislike.
He said, “Yes, ma’am,” and his voice was toneless.
For a moment she stood over him as though waiting for him to move so that she could whip at him again; but Crooks sat perfectly still, his eyes averted, everything that might be hurt drawn in.
She turned at last to the other two.
Old Candy was watching her, fascinated.
“If you was to do that, we’d tell,” he said quietly. “We’d tell about you framin’ Crooks.”
“Tell an’ be damned,” she cried. “Nobody’d listen to you, an’ you know it.