Stephen Crane - The Complete Works of Stephen Crane

Over in a trampled vacant lot, surrounded by high tenement-houses, there was a sort of a den among some boulders. An old truck was made to form a shelter. The small hoodlums of that vicinity all avoided the spot—so many of them had been thrashed upon being caught near it. It was the summer-time lounging place of the band from the corner.

They were all too clever to work. Some of them had worked, but these used their experiences as stores from which to draw tales. They were like veterans with their wars. One lad in particular used to recount how he whipped his employer, proprietor of a large grain and feed establishment. He described his victim’s features and form and clothes with minute exactness. He bragged of his wealth and social position. It had been a proud moment of the lad’s life. He was like a savage who had killed a great chief.

Their feeling for contemporaneous life was one of contempt. Their philosophy taught that in a large part the whole thing was idle and a great bore. With fine scorn they sneered at the futility of it. Work was done by men who had not the courage to stand still and let the skies clap together if they willed.

The vast machinery of the popular law indicated to them that there were people in the world who wished to remain quiet. They awaited the moment when they could prove to them that a riotous upheaval, a cloud-burst of destruction, would be a delicious thing. They thought of their fingers buried in the lives of these people. They longed dimly for a time when they could run through decorous streets with crash and roar of war, an army of revenge for pleasures long possessed by others, a wild sweeping compensation for their years without crystal and gilt, women and wine. This thought slumbered in them, as the image of Rome might have lain small in the hearts of the barbarians.

Kelcey respected these youths so much that he ordinarily used the other side of the street. He could not go near to them, because if a passer minded his own business he was a disdainful prig and had insulted them; if he showed that he was aware of them they were likely to resent his not minding his own business and prod him into a fight if the opportunity were good. Kelcey longed for their acquaintance and friendship, for with it came social safety and ease; they were respected so universally.

Once, in another street, Fidsey Corcoran was whipped by a short, heavy man. Fidsey picked himself up, and in the fury of defeat hurled pieces of brick at his opponent. The short man dodged with skill, and then pursued Fidsey for over a block. Sometimes he got near enough to punch him. Fidsey raved in maniacal fury. The moment the short man would attempt to resume his own affairs, Fidsey would turn upon him again, tears and blood upon his face, with the lashed rage of a vanquished animal. The short man used to turn about, swear madly, and make little dashes. Fidsey always ran, and then returned as pursuit ceased.

The short man apparently wondered if this maniac was ever going to allow him to finish whipping him. He looked helplessly up and down the street. People were there who knew Fidsey, and they remonstrated with him; but he continued to confront the short man, gibbering like a wounded ape, using all the eloquence of the street in his wild oaths.

Finally, the short man was exasperated to black fury. He decided to end the fight. With low snarls, ominous as death, he plunged at Fidsey.

Kelcey happened there then. He grasped the short man’s shoulder. He cried out, in the peculiar whine of the man who interferes:

‘Oh, hol’ on! Yeh don’t wanta hit ‘im any more! Yeh’ve done enough to ‘im now! Leave ‘im be!’

The short man wrenched and tugged. He turned his face until his teeth were almost at Kelcey’s cheek.

‘Le’ go me! Le’ go me, you—’

The rest of his sentence was screamed curses.

Kelcey’s face grew livid from fear, but he somehow managed to keep his grip. Fidsey, with but an instant’s pause, plunged into the new fray.

They beat the short man. They forced him against a high board-fence, where for a few seconds their blows sounded upon his head in swift thuds. A moment later Fidsey descried a running policeman. He made off, fleet as a shadow. Kelcey noted his going. He ran after him.

Three or four blocks away they halted. Fidsey said:

‘I’d ‘a licked dat big stuff in ‘bout a minute more,’ and wiped the blood from his eyes.

At the gang’s corner they asked: ‘Who soaked yeh, Fidsey?’ His description was burning. Everybody laughed. ‘Where is ‘e now?’

Later they began to question Kelcey. He recited a tale in which he allowed himself to appear prominent and redoubtable. They looked at him then as if they thought he might be quite a man.

Once when the little old woman was going out to buy something for her son’s supper, she discovered him standing at the side-door of the saloon engaged intimately with Fidsey and the others. She slunk away, for she understood that it would be a terrible thing to confront him and his pride there with youths who were superior to mothers.

When he arrived home, he threw down his hat with a weary sigh, as if he had worked long hours, but she attacked him before he had time to complete the falsehood. He listened to her harangue with a curled lip. In defence he merely made a gesture of supreme exasperation. She never understood the advanced things in life. He felt the hopelessness of ever making her comprehend. His mother was not modern.

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The little old woman arose early and bustled in the preparation of breakfast. At times she looked anxiously at the clock. An hour before her son should leave for work she went to his room, and called him in the usual tone of sharpness:

‘George! George!’

A sleepy growl came to her.

‘Come, come, it’s time t’ git up,’ she continued. ‘Come, now, git right up!’ Later she went again to the door.

‘George, are yeh gittin’ up?’

‘Huh?’

‘Are yeh gittin’ up?’

‘Yes, I’ll git right up!’

He had introduced a valour into his voice which she detected to be false. She went to his bedside and took him by the shoulder.

‘George—George—git up!’

From the mist-lands of sleep he began to protest incoherently. ‘Oh le’ me be, won’ yeh? ‘M sleepy!’

She continued to shake him. ‘Well, it’s time t’ git up. Come—come—come on, now!’

Her voice, shrill with annoyance, pierced his ears in a slender, piping thread of sound. He turned over on the pillow to bury his head in his arms. When he expostulated, his tones came half-smothered.

‘Oh, le’ me be, can’t yeh? There’s plenty ‘a time! Jest fer ten minutes! ‘M sleepy!’

She was implacable. ‘No, yeh must git up now! Yeh ain’t got more’n time enough t’ eat yer breakfast an’ git t’ work.’

Eventually he arose, sullen and grumbling. Later he came to his breakfast, blinking his dry eyelids, his stiffened features set in a mechanical scowl.

Each morning his mother went to his room, and fought a battle to arouse him. She was like a soldier. Despite his pleadings, his threats, she remained at her post, imperturbable and unyielding.

These affairs assumed large proportions in his life. Sometimes he grew beside himself with a bland, unformulated wrath. The whole thing was a consummate imposition. He felt that he was being cheated of his sleep. It was an injustice to compel him to arise morning after morning with bitter regularity, before the sleep-gods had at all loosened their grasp. He hated that unknown force which directed his life.

One morning he swore a tangled mass of oaths, aimed into the air, as if the injustice poised there. His mother flinched at first; then her mouth set in the little straight line. She saw that the momentous occasion had come. It was the time of the critical battle. She turned upon him valorously.