“Sweat so much she’s shrank,” he said. He looked at Casy’s waving toes. “Could ya come down from your thinkin’ an’ listen a minute?”
Casy turned his head on the stalk-like neck. “Listen all the time.
That’s why I been thinkin’.
Listen to people a-talkin’, an’ purty soon I hear the way folks are feelin’.
Goin’ on all the time. I hear ’em an’ feel ’em; an’ they’re beating their wings like a bird in a attic.
Gonna bust their wings on a dusty winda tryin’ ta get out.”
Tom regarded him with widened eyes, and then he turned and looked at a gray tent twenty feet away.
Washed jeans and shirts and a dress hung to dry on the tent guys.
He said softly,
“That was about what I was gonna tell ya.
An’ you seen awready.”
“I seen,” Casy agreed. “They’s a army of us without no harness.” He bowed his head and ran his extended hand slowly up his forehead and into his hair. “All along I seen it,” he said.
“Ever’ place we stopped I seen it.
Folks hungry for side-meat, an’ when they get it, they ain’t fed.
An’ when they’d get so hungry they couldn’ stan’ it no more, why, they’d ast me to pray for ’em, an’ sometimes I done it.” He clasped his hands around drawn-up knees and pulled his legs in. “I use ta think that’d cut ’er,” he said.
“Use ta rip off a prayer an’ all the troubles’d stick to that prayer like flies on flypaper, an’ the prayer’d go a-sailin’ off, a-takin’ them troubles along.
But it don’ work no more.”
Tom said,
“Prayer never brought in no side-meat.
Takes a shoat to bring in pork.”
“Yeah,” Casy said. “An’ Almighty God never raised no wages.
These here folks want to live decent and bring up their kids decent.
An’ when they’re old they wanta set in the door an’ watch the downing sun.
An’ when they’re young they wanta dance an’ sing an’ lay together.
They wanta eat an’ get drunk and work.
An’ that’sit—they wanta jus’fling their goddamn muscles aroun’ an’ get tired.
Christ!
What’m I talkin’ about?”
“I dunno,” said Tom. “Sounds kinda nice.
When ya think you can get ta work an’ quit thinkin’ a spell?
We got to get work.
Money’s ’bout gone.
Pa give five dollars to get a painted piece of board stuck up over Granma.
We ain’t got much lef’.”
A lean brown mongrel dog came sniffing around the side of the tent.
He was nervous and flexed to run.
He sniffed close before he was aware of the two men, and then looking up he saw them, leaped sideways, and fled, ears back, bony tail clamped protectively.
Casy watched him go, dodging around a tent to get out of sight. Casy sighed.
“I ain’t doin’ nobody no good,” he said.
“Me or nobody else.
I was thinkin’ I’d go off alone by myself.
I’m a-eatin’ your food an’ a-takin’ up room.
An’ I ain’t give you nothin’.
Maybe I could get a steady job an’ maybe pay back some a the stuff you’ve give me.”
Tom opened his mouth and thrust his lower jaw forward, and he tapped his lower teeth with a dried piece of mustard stalk.
His eyes stared over the camp, over the gray tents and the shacks of weed and tin and paper.
“Wisht I had a sack a Durham,” he said. “I ain’t had a smoke in a hell of a time.
Use ta get tobacco in McAlester.
Almost wisht I was back.” He tapped his teeth again and suddenly he turned on the preacher. “Ever been in a jail house?”
“No,” said Casy. “Never been.”