Of Mice and Men (10 page)

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 up on 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. Nobody’d listen to you.”

Candy subsided. “No . . .” he agreed. “Nobody’d listen to us.”

Lennie whined, “I wisht George was here. I wisht George was here.”

Candy stepped over to him. “Don’t you worry none,” he said. “I jus’ heard the guys comin’ in. George’ll be in the bunkhouse right now, I bet.” He turned to Curley’s wife. “You better go home now,” he said quietly. “If you go right now, we won’t tell Curley you was here.”

She appraised him coolly. “I ain’t sure you heard nothing.”

“Better not take no chances,” he said. “If you ain’t sure, you better take the safe way.”

She turned to Lennie. “I’m glad you bust up Curley a little bit. He got it comin’ to him. Sometimes I’d like to bust him myself.” She slipped out the door and disappeared into the dark barn. And while she went through the barn, the halter chains rattled, and some horses snorted and some stamped their feet.

Crooks seemed to come slowly out of the layers of protection he had put on. “Was that the truth what you said about the guys come back?” he asked.

“Sure. I heard ’em.”

“Well, I didn’t hear nothing.”

“The gate banged,” Candy said, and he went on, “Jesus Christ, Curley’s wife can move quiet. I guess she had a lot of practice, though.”

Crooks avoided the whole subject now. “Maybe you guys better go,” he said. “I ain’t sure I want you in here no more. A colored man got to have some rights even if he don’t like ’em.”

Candy said, “That bitch didn’t oughtta of said that to you.”

“It wasn’t nothing,” Crooks said dully. “You guys comin’ in an’ settin’ made me forget. What she says is true.”

The horses snorted out in the barn and the chains rang and a voice called, “Lennie. Oh, Lennie. You in the barn?”

“It’s George,” Lennie cried. And he answered, “Here, George. I’m right in here.”

In a second George stood framed in the door, and he looked disapprovingly about. “What you doin’ in Crooks’ room. You hadn’t oughtta be in here.”

Crooks nodded. “I tol’ ’em, but they come in anyways.”

“Well, why’n’t you kick ’em out?”

“I di’n’t care much,” said Crooks. “Lennie’s a nice fella.”

Now Candy aroused himself. “Oh, George! I been figurin’ and figurin’. I got it doped out how we can even make some money on them rabbits.”

George scowled. “I though I tol’ you not to tell nobody about that.”

Candy was crestfallen. “Didn’t tell nobody but Crooks.”

George said, “Well you guys get outta here. Jesus, seems like I can’t go away for a minute.”

Candy and Lennie stood up and went toward the door. Crooks called, “Candy!”

“Huh?”

“ ’Member what I said about hoein’ and doin’ odd jobs?”

“Yeah,” said Candy. “I remember.”

“Well, jus’ forget it,” said Crooks. “I didn’ mean it. Jus’ foolin’. I wouldn’ want to go no place like that.”

“Well, O.K., if you feel like that. Good night.”

The three men went out of the door. As they went through the barn the horses snorted and the halter chains rattled.

Crooks sat on his bunk and looked at the door for a moment, and then he reached for the liniment bottle. He pulled out his shirt in back, poured a little liniment in his pink palm and, reaching around, he fell slowly to rubbing his back.

ONE END OF THE great barn was piled high with new hay and over the pile hung the four-taloned Jackson fork suspended from its pulley. The hay came down like a mountain slope to the other end of the barn, and there was a level place as yet unfilled with the new crop. At the sides the feeding racks were visible, and between the slats the heads of horses could be seen.

It was Sunday afternoon. The resting horses nibbled the remaining wisps of hay, and they stamped their feet and they bit the wood of the mangers and rattled the halter chains. The afternoon sun sliced in through the cracks of the barn walls and lay in bright lines on the hay. There was the buzz of flies in the air, the lazy afternoon humming.

From outside came the clang of horseshoes on the playing peg and the shouts of men, playing, encouraging, jeering. But in the barn it was quiet and humming and lazy and warm.

Only Lennie was in the barn, and Lennie sat in the hay beside a packing case under a manger in the end of the barn that had not been filled with hay. Lennie sat in the hay and looked at a little dead puppy that lay in front of him. Lennie looked at it for a long time, and then he put out his huge hand and stroked it, stroked it clear from one end to the other.

And Lennie said softly to the puppy, “Why do you got to get killed? You ain’t so little as mice. I didn’t bounce you hard.” He bent the pup’s head up and looked in its face, and he said to it, “Now maybe George ain’t gonna let me tend no rabbits, if he fin’s out you got killed.”

He scooped a little hollow and laid the puppy in it and covered it over with hay, out of sight; but he continued to stare at the mound he had made. He said, “This ain’t no bad thing like I got to go hide in the brush. Oh! no. This ain’t. I’ll tell George I foun’ it dead.”

He unburied the puppy and inspected it, and he stroked it from ears to tail. He went on sorrowfully, “But he’ll know. George always knows. He’ll say, ‘You done it. Don’t try to put nothing over on me.’ An’ he’ll say, ‘Now jus’ for that you don’t get to tend no rabbits!’ ”

Suddenly his anger arose. “God damn you,” he cried. “Why do you got to get killed? You ain’t so little as mice.” He picked up the pup and hurled it from him. He turned his back on it. He sat bent over his knees and he whispered, “Now I won’t get to tend the rabbits. Now he won’t let me.” He rocked himself back and forth in his sorrow.

From outside came the clang of horseshoes on the iron stake, and then a little chorus of cries. Lennie got up and brought the puppy back and laid it on the hay and sat down. He stroked the pup again. “You wasn’t big enough,” he said. “They tol’ me and tol’ me you wasn’t. I di’n’t know you’d get killed so easy.” He worked his fingers on the pup’s limp ear. “Maybe George won’t care,” he said. “This here God damn little son-of-a-bitch wasn’t nothing to George.”

Curley’s wife came around the end of the last stall. She came very quietly, so that Lennie didn’t see her. She wore her bright cotton dress and the mules with the red ostrich feathers. Her face was made up and the little sausage curls were all in place. She was quite near to him before Lennie looked up and saw her.

In a panic he shoveled hay over the puppy with his fingers. He looked sullenly up at her.

She said, “What you got there, sonny boy?”

Lennie glared at her. “George says I ain’t to have nothing to do with you—talk to you or nothing.”

She laughed. “George giving you orders about everything? ”

Lennie looked down at the hay. “Says I can’t tend no rabbits if I talk to you or anything.”

She said quietly, “He’s scared Curley’ll get mad. Well, Curley got his arm in a sling—an’ if Curley gets tough, you can break his other han’. You didn’t put nothing over on me about gettin’ it caught in no machine. ”

But Lennie was not to be drawn. “No, sir. I ain’t gonna talk to you or nothing.”

She knelt in the hay beside him. “Listen,” she said. “All the guys got a horseshoe tenement goin’ on. It’s on’y about four o’clock. None of them guys is goin’ to leave that tenement. Why can’t I talk to you? I never get to talk to nobody. I get awful lonely.”

Lennie said, “Well, I ain’t supposed to talk to you or nothing.”

“I get lonely,” she said. “You can talk to people, but I can’t talk to nobody but Curley. Else he gets mad. How’d you like not to talk to anybody?”

Lennie said, “Well, I ain’t supposed to. George’s scared I’ll get in trouble.”

She changed the subject. “What you got covered up there?”

Then all of Lennie’s woe came back on him. “Jus’ my pup,” he said sadly. “Jus’ my little pup.” And he swept the hay from on top of it.

“Why, he’s dead,” she cried.

“He was so little,” said Lennie. “I was jus’ playin’ with him . . . an’ he made like he’s gonna bite me . . . an’ I made like I was gonna smack him . . . an’ . . . an’ I done it. An’ then he was dead.”

She consoled him. “Don’t you worry none. He was jus’ a mutt. You can get another one easy. The whole country is fulla mutts.”

“It ain’t that so much,” Lennie explained miserably. “George ain’t gonna let me tend no rabbits now.”

“Why don’t he?”

“Well, he said if I done any more bad things he ain’t gonna let me tend the rabbits.”

She moved closer to him and she spoke soothingly. “Don’t you worry about talkin’ to me. Listen to the guys yell out there. They got four dollars bet in that tenement. None of them ain’t gonna leave till it’s over.”

“If George sees me talkin’ to you he’ll give me hell,” Lennie said cautiously. “He tol’ me so.”

Her face grew angry. “Wha’s the matter with me?” she cried. “Ain’t I got a right to talk to nobody? Whatta they think I am, anyways? You’re a nice guy. I don’t know why I can’t talk to you. I ain’t doin’ no harm to you.”

“Well, George says you’ll get us in a mess.”

“Aw, nuts!” she said. “What kinda harm am I doin’ to you? Seems like they ain’t none of them cares how I gotta live. I tell you I ain’t used to livin’ like this. I coulda made somethin’ of myself.” She said darkly, “Maybe I will yet.” And then her words tumbled out in a passion of communication, as though she hurried before her listener could be taken away. “I lived right in Salinas,” she said. “Come there when I was a kid. Well, a show come through, an’ I met one of the actors. He says I could go with that show. But my ol’ lady wouldn’ let me. She says because I was on’y fifteen. But the guy says I coulda. If I’d went, I wouldn’t be livin’ like this, you bet.”

Lennie stroked the pup back and forth. “We gonna have a little place—an’ rabbits,” he explained.

She went on with her story quickly, before she should be interrupted. “ ’Nother time I met a guy, an’ he was in pitchers. Went out to the Riverside Dance Palace with him. He says he was gonna put me in the movies. Says I was a natural. Soon’s he got back to Hollywood he was gonna write to me about it.” She looked closely at Lennie to see whether she was impressing him. “I never got that letter,” she said. “I always thought my ol’ lady stole it. Well, I wasn’t gonna stay no place where I couldn’t get nowhere or make something of myself, an’ where they stole your letters. I ast her if she stole it, too, an’ she says no. So I married Curley. Met him out to the Riverside Dance Palace that same night.” She demanded, “You listenin’?”

“Me? Sure.”

“Well, I ain’t told this to nobody before. Maybe I ought’n to. I don’
like
Curley. He ain’t a nice fella.” And because she had confided in him, she moved closer to Lennie and sat beside him. “Coulda been in the movies, an’ had nice clothes—all them nice clothes like they wear. An’ I coulda sat in them big hotels, an’ had pitchers took of me. When they had them previews I coulda went to them, an’ spoke in the radio, an’ it wouldn’ta cost me a cent because I was in the pitcher. An’ all them nice clothes like they wear. Because this guy says I was a natural.” She looked up at Lennie, and she made a small grand gesture with her arm and hand to show that she could act. The fingers trailed after her leading wrist, and her little finger stuck out grandly from the rest.

Lennie sighed deeply. From outside came the clang of a horseshoe on metal, and then a chorus of cheers. “Somebody made a ringer,” said Curley’s wife.

Now the light was lifting as the sun went down, and the sun streaks climbed up the wall and fell over the feeding racks and over the heads of the horses.