Free In Dubious Battle by John Steinbeck

“Stand up, Jim. Let’s close this door. We’re coming to Wilson. No good irritating the railroad cops.”
    Together they pulled the door shut, and suddenly the car was dark and warm, and it throbbed like the body of a bass viol. The beat of wheels on the rail-ends grew less rapid as the freight slowed to go through the town. The three men stood up. “We get out here,” the leader said. He pushed open the door a foot. His two followers swungout. He turned to Mac. “I hope you don’t hold no grudge, pardner.”
    “No, ’course not.”
    “Well, so long.” He swung out. “You dirty son-of-a-bitch,” he yelled as he hit the ground.
    Mac laughed and pulled the door nearly shut. For a few moments the train rolled slowly. And the rail-end tempo increased. Mac threw the door wide again and sat down in the sun. “There was a beauty,” he said.
    Jim asked, “Are you really a prize-fighter, Mac?”
    “Hell no. He was the easiest kind of a sucker. He figured I was scared of him when I offered him some of my paper. You can’t make a general rule of it, because sometimes it flops, but mostly a guy that tries to scare you is a guy that can be scared.” He turned his heavy, good-natured face to Jim. “I don’t know why it is, but every time I talk to you I either end up soap-boxing or giving a lecture.”
    “Well, hell, Mac, I like to listen.”
    “I guess that’s it. We’ve got to get off at Weaver and catch an east-bound freight. That’s about a hundred miles down. If we’re lucky, we ought to get to Torgas in the middle of the night.” He pulled out a sack of tobacco and rolled a cigarette, holding the paper in out of the rushing air. “Smoke, Jim?”
    “No, thanks.”
    “You got no vices, have you. And you’re not a Christer either. Don’t you even go out with girls?”
    “No,” said Jim. “Used to be, when I got riled up I’d go to a cat-house. You wouldn’t believe it, Mac, but ever since I started to grow up I been scared of girls. I guess I was scared I’d get caught.”
    “Too attractive, huh?”
    “No, you see all the guys I used to run around with went through the mill. They used to try to make girls behind billboards and down in the lumber yard. Well, sooner or later some girl’d get knocked higher than a kite, and then—well, hell, Mac, I was scared I’d get caught like my mother and my old man—two room flat and a wood stove. Christ knows I don’t want luxury, but I don’t want to get batted around the way all the kids I knew got it. Lunch pail in the morning with a piece of soggy pie and a thermos bottle of stale coffee.”
    Mac said, “You’ve picked a hell of a fine life if you don’t want to get batted around. Wait till we finish this job, you’ll get batted plenty.”
    “That’s different,” Jim protested. “I don’t mind getting smacked on the chin. I just don’t want to get nibbled to death. There’s a difference.”
    Mac yawned. “It’s not a difference that’s going to keep me awake. Cat-houses aren’t much fun.” He got up and went back to the pile of papers, and he spread them out and lay down and went to sleep.
    For a long time Jim sat in the doorway, watching the farms go by. There were big market vegetable gardens with rows of round lettuces and rows of fern-like carrots, and red beet leaves, with glistening water running between the rows. The train went by fields of alfalfa, and by great white dairy barns from which the wind brought the rich, healthy smell of manure and ammonia. And then the freight entered a pass in the hills, and the sun was cut off. Ferns and green live oaks grew on the steep sides of the right-of-way. The roaring rhythm of the train beat on Jim’s senses and made him drowsy. He fought off sleepso that he might see more of the country, shook his head violently to jar himself awake; but at last he stood up, ran the door nearly closed, and retired to his own pile of papers. His sleep was a shouting, echoing black cave, and it