The last rains came gently to Oklahoma, then came May, then June, and the sun beat down fiercely. The crops withered, dust billowed, and the bankers came to put the people off their land.

Tom Joad hitchhiked from McAlester Prison to find the family farm deserted, the house pushed over and Reverend Jim Casy sitting in the dust, whistling "Jesus Is My Saviour Now". They shared a pint of J&B and a rabbit with canned Green Giant Niblets and Muley Graves come by, sayin' the fambly'd moved off to Uncle Joe's.

The Joads were Pa and Ma, Al... the smart-aleck... and Rosasharn, the little 'uns, Ruth and Winfield and Noah, the strange one. Rosasharn was married to Connie Rivers, now, and Uncle John still brooded over his dead wife and baby. Granma stuffed slabs of Totino's pizza into her toothless old mouth and Grampa, mischievious and lecherous, said the tractor man had come with bank papers and mashed their house clear off'n its foundations.

"Was eatin' a Big Mac and fries up on that tractor there... smell drew hungry children for miles. Joe Davis' boy, used to be one of us. Three dollars a day, he says."

Pa showed round a han'bill "Give Peas a Chance". "So," says Al, "we bought this here jalopy, and we're all going to Valley."

But, after the pigs were killed and packed in salt... to be served up with Green Giant pilaf and broccoli... and the belongings sold for eighteen dollars, Grampa sat up and said "I jus' ain't goin'." So Ma slipped a little soothin' syrup in his Bailey's Irish Cream and they put him on the truck, leaving behind Muley, his graveyard ghosts and Oklahoma.

The houses were left vacant on the land, the cats and bats moved in, the weeds and weasels. And the refugees flowed down to Highway 66, headed to the Valley where han'bills promised high wages, oranges, and jolly times for all.

But, before the Joads reached Texas, Grampa took a stroke. Casy said a prayer but he died, it was a good, quick stroke. They couldn't spare forty dollars for a funeral, so the men and Mr. Wilson, from Kansas, dug a grave and Ma passed round salt pork with a side of Green Giant Cheesy Rice. "All that lives is holy," Casy said, and Mr. Wilson broke out a pint of Smirnoff's, answering: "Nice, eatin' pig."

Along 66 the Burger Kings made ready, early every morning, for the human tide. Big breakfasts - eggs and coffee, plenty of Pillsbury biscuits with gravy and friendly servers like Minnie, Ida and Sue. They'll do it all, for you! For truck drivers and pea-pickers and even little pot-bellied salesmen as leave miserably tips. And them as couldn't afford Whoppers... why, that's why God created Whopper Juniors. Over hissing burgers and sizzling fries, men spoke of shitheels on the road and bloody wrecks. And Muzak played all the Burger King songs - King of the Road, She Works Hard for the Money, and Mister Big Stuff.

"Wonder what they'll do," Sue said, wiping the counter, "when they get to the Valley an' find out the Giant ain't in charge no more?"

"How the hell would I know?" said Minnie. "Them Okies ain't human."

Texas, New Mexico, Arizona. Amarillo, Albuquerque and up the mountains to Flagstaff, top o' the world. Truck blew a con-rod and everyone holed up at a fifty-cent camp, grousing and bickering while Al brought parts from a one-eyed junkman. Granma got to bellerin', Rosasharn went nimsy-mimsy, and Ma went for the jack-handle. "Nobody's gonna bust up the fambly. We's all we got left." And Pa was beat, Ma was in charge now.

It was a dirty job, replacing that con-rod, but Ma baked up a plate of biscuits, Pillsbury poppin'-fresh, and bad times were forgot until a weedy man in a tattered black coat sneered, "there ain't no jolly in that Valley. I been there, comin' back. That Giant's roamin' the world now... Géant Vert or, like them Arabs say, 'Intimidatin' Green Ogre.' Wife an' two li'l sprouts starved to death in that Valley. Ev'rything out there run by Britishers an' pirates."

Then the camp boss told the ragged man to shut up an' git gone. "Troublemaker. Prob'ly shif'less." Quarters and half-dollar pieces jingled in his trousers as he frowned at Tom.

"Too damn many of you kinda guys aroun'."

The cars of migrant peoples swarmed West like bugs and, like bugs, the families gathered and camped where water was. And the families became one family, their hunger one hunger, rules hardened into laws and the people ate big breakfasts from Burger King or, if they had no money, fried Pillsbury dough, and they had 'em a convoy.

The Joads drove slowly down the mountain, coasting to save gas, and crossed the mighty Colorado. Pa called "We're there!" but it was hot, a desolate and shattered land of stone and dust and scorpions, not like any Valley the han'bills spoke of.

"Got to get over this desert first," said Tom. "Best cross by night." They were floatin' in the river, not doin' harm, when an old man and boy came past.

"Goin' back to Texas," the man said. "She's a purty Valley, but they stole her... people look at you with hate in their face. That Giant got a million acres, but try planting beans or pick one of his peas, them cops will shoot you in the back an' smile."

And, when they were gone, Noah said "I ain't goin' on."

"You're crazy," Tom said.

"Maybe. But I'd rather jus' walk up an' down this riverbank an' fish - don't want to work for no mean, absentee Giant. Maybe I can sell the fish I catch to Mrs. Paul. You tell Ma."

Tom came back, told Ma, and Ma said "Fambly's fallin' apart." The desert stars came out, Uncle John and Casy talkin' 'bout sin while Ma lay next to Granma. They came to the Inspection Station and the Inspectors said: "Unload your stuff. Don't want no bad seeds getting into the Valley."

"We got a sick ol' lady, gots to get to a doctor," said Ma. "Infectious!" The Inspectors shivered, and stamped their stamps over the jalopy's windshield.

"Get out of here an' don't come back."

"Drive!" Ma said to Tom and Al. "Keep drivin' on, an' don't look back."

All night they drove, and when they crested and looked down, there were vineyards and orchards, rows of peas, lettuce and carrots, stretching north as far as your eye could see... and Tom said: "Valley of the Jolly..."

"Ho! Ho! Ho!" Ruthie and Winfield came up...

"Green Giant!"

They stopped the truck and Ma climbed down, eyes red, looking down into the Valley. "Granma's dead."

They drove to Bakersfield where the coroner took Granma for a county funeral... cheap, for the fertilizing. "We jus' lay her under this cornfield," he said, "an' nex' summer, when the crop's raised an' sold, chillun all over be eatin' yer Granma with their Niblets. Her heart to yers!" So they buried Granma and drove on to Hooverville, a camp of dirty migrants with no jobs... fat, mean-looking deputies everywhere.

"Where's all them good things in this Giant's Valley?" Tom asked a man named Floyd, working on his jalopy.

"Ain't nothin' good, since that Giant sold out to them English an' pirates."

"You just wait," Tom promised, "somepin's gonna bust."

Ma set out the cookstove and, soon, the poppin' fresh smell attracted starving children from all over the camp. Out of the weeds and crannies they came, staring and starving until Ma let them come lick the pot, over which they fought like wild dogs. Near dark, a new Aston-Martin turned off the highway and drove into Hooverville.

"Them's the new owners of all this land," Floyd pointed.

A portly gentleman whose white hair was almost blue stepped from the car, beverage in fist. "I am Mister Jenkins," he said, "and these others represent the fine brands of Diageo... Johnnie Walker, Jose Cuervo and the rest and, of course, everyone knows Captain Morgan."

"Arggh!" the pirate roared, brandishing his sword at the children.

"It's our Valley, now," said Mister Jenkins. "If you want to work, you'll work for me, and at the price I condescend to pay you."

Then Casy hit a deputy and got hauled away to jail. No good Connie ran off and Uncle John, seeing all those fine gentlemen in the Aston Martin, bought a pint of Tanqueray, another of Smirnoff and some Guinness, too, because, when one is miserable, there is no comfort like that afforded by the fine brands of Diageo Ltd.

So the family moved to a Government Camp, where it was jolly for a while. There were peas for picking, hot showers and flush toilets. A river for Jesus lovers to baptize sinners in, and Saturday night dances with plenty of high sperits for those already gone in sinning. Tom played guitar, Ma danced the Chicken Reel. Some paid troublemakers came by, but Tom and a half-Cherokee named Jule put them out. And, for that while, life was picked at the fleeting moment of its perfect flavor.

When the peas were picked and canned, grapes and lettuce too, the family moved up the Valley to pick peaches at five cents the box. Prices were high at the company store, so they ate Extremes at Homer Simpson's Burger King. One night Casy come back with an flabby agitator, passing out free Red Devil's food, and folks gathered round. "D'oh!" Homer cried.

"Ho ho!" the doughboy said. "There's crime here, goes beyond denunciation. The peas of wrath grow heavy and the people's vengeance will not be denied. Ho! Ho! Ho Chi Minh!"

All at once the owners drove up with shotguns and shovels, poking the troublemaker in his ample belly. "Foolish Americans," said Mister Jenkins, "your Giant's gone and your hero's a fat Bolshevik."

"Must destroy Moose and Squirrel!" the doughboy blurted out as he was handcuffed, and Captain Morgan brought the flat of his sword down over Casy's head, crushing his skull.

"If you want to impress someone," Johnny Walker threatened, "put 'em on a blacklist!"

Tom escaped through briars and brambles, hiding like a rabbit in a burrow. Sometimes Ma brought him food, saying: "We ain't clear no more. Fambly broke up... Al, Uncle John. Pa's lost his place. Rosasharn ready to birth, the little 'uns growing up wild. We need a miracle!"

"I gots to go," Tom said, "on the blacklist, now. But I'll be ever'where... wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can enjoy a Whopper, I'll be there. Where there's cops beatin' people up... the golf pro, magician, them in flyin' saucers... I'll be there. Since there ain't no Giant, the people have to stand up for good an' do what the owners say! Work harder, ask less an' drown our sorrows in drink, an'... in our minds... we'll all be that marvelous, magical Burger King, who can do most ever'thing!"

And he walked away. The Joads went north to pick cotton, but rains came, and water flowed over the Hoovervilles. Rosasharn's baby died, and Uncle John set the casket loose in the flood, to float down into the Valley and testify. And, when the jalopy wouldn't start, they walked through the rain to a barnful of men dying for lack of drink an' a miracle did happen... Rosasharn bared her breasts and fed them all. With vodka, spiced rum and whiskey, stout and tequila... with all the sperits of Diageo in her bloodstream and with the owners smiling down from the hayloft... Ma said "I knowed it!" and she smiled mysteriously.

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