Book Forty-Seven - The Grapes of Wrath - Part Two

On a family road trip, two members of the Joad family, Tom and Al, go to a car junkyard place in search of a desperately needed part. As Al scopes out the remnants of a 1925 model, the junkyard attendant complains to Tom that his disability is holding him back in life. What with one thing and another, Tom is running low on patience yet somehow offers a bit of a pep talk.

Ya full of crap. Why, I knowed a one-legged whore one time. Think she was takin' two-bits in a alley? No, by God! She's getting half a dollar extra. She says, "How many one-legged women you slep' with? None!" she says. "O.K.," she says. "You got somepin pretty special here, an it's gonna cos' ya half a buck extry." An' by God, she was gettin' 'em, too, an' the fellas comin' out thinkin' they're pretty lucky.

Isn't it commendable that one of Steinbeck's characters from a book published in 1939 is such an early champion of disability rights?