A well-kept transport truck is stopped outside a roadside diner. Tom Joad, freshly paroled from McAlester Penitentiary, walks down the road and pauses by the diner. Clad in new, cheaply made clothing, he sits down on the truck’s running board to loosen his new shoes. When the driver walks out to his truck, Tom asks for a ride. The driver refuses at first, citing the NO RIDERS sign, but Tom suggests that sometimes “a guy’ll be a good guy even if some rich bastard makes him carry a sticker.” The driver wants to be a good guy so he agrees to give him a ride, telling him to crouch down on the running board until they are out of sight of the diner.
Once on the road, the driver immediately begins sizing up his passenger. When he learns that Tom’s father is a cropper on 40 acres, he shares his surprise that they “ain’t been tractored out.” Tom becomes irritated at the driver’s meddling questions until they reach Tom’s road. Getting out of the truck, he discloses that he has been prison for homicide, sentenced for seven years but out in four for good behavior.
