“The Raid”
by
John Steinbeck
I
It was dark in the little California town when the two men stepped from the lunch car and strode arrogantly through the back streets. The air was full of the sweet smell of fermenting fruit from the packing plants. High over the corners, blue arc lights swung in the wind and put moving shadows of telephone wires on the ground. The old wooden buildings were silent and resting. The dirty windows dismally reflected the street lights.
The two men were about the same size, but one was much older than the other. Their hair was cropped, they wore blue jeans. The older man had on a peajacket, while the younger wore a blue turtle-neck sweater. As they swung down the dark street, footsteps echoed back loudly from the wooden buildings. The younger man began to whistle Come to Me My Melancholy Baby. He stopped abruptly. “I wish that damn tune would get out of my head. It’s been going all day. It’s an old tune, too.”
His companion turned toward him. “You’re scared, Root. Tell the truth. You’re scared as hell.”
They were passing under one of the blue street lights. Root’s face put on its toughest look, the eyes squinted, the mouth went crooked and bitter. “No, I ain’t scared.” They were out of the light. His face relaxed again. “I wish I knew the ropes better. You been out before, Dick. You know what to expect. But I ain’t ever been out.”
“The way to learn is to do,” Dick quoted sententiously. “You never really learn nothing from books.”
They crossed a railroad track. A block tower up the line a little was starred with green lights. “It’s awful dark,” said Root. “I wonder if the moon will come up later. Usually does when it’s so dark. You going to make the first speech, Dick?”
“No, you make it. I had more experience than you. I’ll watch them while you talk and then I can smack them where I know they bite. Know what you’re going to say?”
“Sure I do. I got it all in my head, every word. I wrote it out and learned it. I heard guys tell how they got up and couldn’t think of a thing to say, and then all of a sudden they just started in like it was somebody else, and the words came out like water out of a hydrant. Big Mike Sheane said it was like that with him. But I wasn’t taking no chances, so I wrote it out.”
A train hooted mournfully, and in a moment it rounded a bend and pushed its terrible light down the track. The lighted coaches rattled past. Dick turned to watch it go by. “Not many people on that one,” he said with satisfaction. “Didn’t you say your old man worked on the railroad?”
Root tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “Sure, he works on the road. He’s a brakeman. He kicked me out when he found out what I was doing. He was scared he’d lose his job. He couldn’t see. I talked to him, but he just couldn’t see. He kicked me right out.” Root’s voice was lonely. Suddenly he realized how he had weakened and how he sounded homesick. “That’s the trouble with them,” he went on harshly. “They can’t see beyond their jobs. They can’t see what’s happening to them. They hang on to their chains.”
“Save it,” said Dick. “That’s good stuff. Is that part of your speech?”
“No, but I guess I’ll put it in if you say it’s good.”
The street lights were fewer now. A line of locust trees grew along the road, for the town was beginning to thin and the country took control. Along the unpaved road there were a few little houses with ill-kept gardens.
“Jesus! It’s dark,” Root said again. “I wonder if there’ll be any trouble. It’s a good night to get away if anything happens.”
Dick snorted into the collar of his peajacket. They walked along in silence for awhile.
“Do you think you’d try to get away, Dick?” Root asked.
“No, by God! It’s against orders. If anything happens we got to stick. You’re just a kid. I guess you’d run if I let you!”
Root blustered: “You think you’re hell on wheels just because you been out a few times. You’d think you was a hundred to hear you talk.”
“I’m dry behind the ears, anyway,” said Dick.
Root walked with his head down. He said softly, “Dick, are you sure you wouldn’t run? Are you sure you could just stand there and take it?”
“Of course I’m sure. I’ve done it before. It’s the orders, ain’t it? Why, it’s good publicity.” He peered through the darkness at Root. “What makes you ask, kid? You scared you’ll run? If you’re scared you got no business here.”
Root shivered. “Listen, Dick, you’re a good guy. You won’t tell nobody what I say, will you? I never been tried. How do I know what I’ll do if somebody smacks me in the face with a club? How can anybody tell what he’d do? I don’t think I’d run. I’d try not to run.”
“All right, kid. Let it go at that. But you try running, and I’ll turn your name in. We got no place for yellow bastards. You remember that, kid.”
“Oh, lay off that kid stuff. You’re running that in the ground.”
The locust trees grew closer together as they went. The wind rustled gently in the leaves. A dog growled in one of the yards as the men went by. A light fog began to drift down through the air, and the stars were swallowed in it. “You sure you got everything ready?” Dick asked. “Got the lamps? Got the lit’ature? I left all that to you.”
“I did it all this afternoon,” said Root. “I didn’t put the posters up yet, but I got them in a box out there.”
“Got oil in the lamps?”
“They had plenty in. Say, Dick, I guess some bastard has squealed, don’t you?”
“Sure. Somebody always squeals.”
“Well you didn’t hear nothing about no raid, did you?”
“How the hell would I hear. You think they’d come and tell me they was going to knock my can off? Get hold of yourself, Root. You got the pants scared off you. You’re going to make me nervous if you don’t cut it out.” Continue reading “Read “The Raid,” John Steinbeck’s story of labor and violence”
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