Henry Roth - Call It Sleep

“No splinters in dese boxes, dough. Honest, O’Toole! Real clean—”

“Let ’im finish, will ye!” the hunchback interrupted sourly. “O’Toole don’ have to buy his gash.”

“Well, he says, yea. An’ I says yea. An’ all de time dere wuz Steve an’ Kelly unner de goiders belly-achin’—Hey trow us a rivet. An’ I sez—”

— Nobody’s commin’!

Klang! Klang! Klang! Klang! Klang!

The flat buniony foot of Dan Maclntyre the motorman pounded the bell. Directly in front of the clamorous car and in the tracks, the vendor of halvah, candied-peanuts, leechee nuts, jellied fruits, dawdled, pushing his pushcart leisurely. Dan Maclntyre was enraged. Wasn’t he blocks and blocks behind his leader? Hadn’t his conductor been slow as shit on the bell? Wouldn’t he get a hell of a bawling out from Jerry, the starter on Avenue A? And here was this lousy dago blocking traffic. He’d like to smack the piss out of him, he would. He pounded the bell instead.

Leisurely, leisurely, the Armenian pedlar steered his cart out of the way. But before he cleared the tracks, he lifted up his clenched fist, high and pleasantly. In the tight crotch of his forefingers, a dirty thumb peeped out. A fig for you, O MacIntyre.

“God damn yuh!” He roared as he passed. “God blast yuh!”

— So go! So go! So go!

But he stood as still and rigid as

if frozen to the wall, frozen fingers

clutching the dipper.

“An’ hawnest t’Gawd, Mimi, darlin’.” The Family Entrance to Callahan’s lay through a wide alley way lit by a red lamp in the rear. Within, under the branching, tendriled chandelier of alum-bronze, alone before a table beside a pink wall with roach-brown mouldings, Mary, the crockery-cheeked, humid-eyed swayed and spoke, her voice being maudlin, soused and reedy. Mimi, the crockery-cheeked, crockery-eyed, a smudged blonde with straw-colored hair like a subway seat, slumped and listened. “I was that young an’ innercent, an’ hawnest t’ Gawd, that straight, I brought it t’ the cashier, I did. And, Eeee! she screams and ducks under the register, Eeee! Throw it away, yuh boob! But what wuz I t’know — I wuz on’y fifteen w’en I wuz a bus-goil. They left it on a plate — waa, the mugs there is in de woild — an’ I thought it wuz one o’ them things yuh put on yer finger w’en ye git a cut—”

“A cut, didja say, Mary, dea’?” The crockery cheeks cracked into lines.

“Yea a cut— a cu— Wee! Hee! Hee! Hee! Hee! Mimi, darlin’ you’re comical! Wee! Hee! Hee! He! But I wuz that young an’ innercent till he come along. Wee! Hee! Hee! Hawnes’ t’ Gawd I wuz. I could piss troo a beer-bottle then—”

Out of the shadows now, out on the dimlit, vacant

street, he stepped down from the broken

curb-stone to the cobbles. For all

his peering, listening, starting, he

was blind as a sleep-walker, he was

deaf. Only the steely glitter on the

tracks was in his eyes, fixed there like

a brand, drawing him with cables as

tough as steel. A few steps more and

he was there, standing between the

tracks, straddling the sunken rail.

He braced his legs to spring, held

his breath. And now the wavering point

of the dipper’s handle found the long,

dark, grinning lips, scraped, and

like a sword in a scabbard—

“Oy, Schmaihe, goy! Vot luck! Vot luck! You should only croak!”

“Cha! Cha! Cha! Dot’s how I play mit cods!”

“Bitt him vit a flush! Ai, yi, yi!”

“I bet he vuz mit a niggerteh last night!”

“He rode a dock t’ luzno maw jock — jeck I shidda said. Cha! Cha!”

“He’s a poet, dis guy!”

“A putz!”

“Vus dere a hura mezda, Morr’s?”

“Sharrop, bummer! Mine Clara is insite!”

Plunged! And he was running! Running!

“Nutt’n’? No, I says, nutt’n’. But every time I sees a pretty cunt come walkin’ up de street, I says, wit’ a mean shaft an’ a sweet pair o’ knockers, Jesus, O’Toole, I says, dere’s a mare I’d radder lay den lay on. See wot I mean? Git a bed under den a bet on. Git me?”

“Haw! Haw! Haw! Bejeeziz!”

“Ya! Ha! He tella him, you know? He lika de fica stretta!”

They looked down at the lime-streaked, overalled wop condescendingly, and—

“Aw, bulloney,” he says, “Yeah, I says. An’ booze, I says, my booze is wut I c’n suck out of a nice tit, I says. Lallal’mmm, I says. An’ w’en it comes t’ prayin’, I says, c’n yuh tell me anyt’ing bedder t’ pray over den over dat one!” O’Toole hastily topped the laugh with a wave of his hand. “Yer an at’eist, yuh fuck, he hollers. A fuckin’ at’eist I says— An’ all de time dere wuz Steve and Kelly unner de goiders hollerin’, hey trow us a riv—”

Running! But no light overtook him,

no blaze of intolerable flame. Only

in his ears, the hollow click of iron

lingered. Hollow, vain. Almost within

the saloon-light, he slowed down, sobbed

aloud, looked behind him—

“But who’d a thunk it?” Bill Whitney mounted the stairs again. “By Gawd, who’d a thunk it? The weeks I’d held that spike for ’im … Weeks … And he druv and never a miss … Drunk? Naw, he warn’t drunk that mornin’. Sober as a parson. Sober. A’swingin’ of the twelve pound like a clock. Mebbe it was me that nudged it, mebbe it war me … By Gawd, I knowed it. A feelin’ I had seein’ that black sledge in the air. Afore it come down, I knowed it. A hull damned country-side it might of slid into. And it had to be me … Wut? It wuz to be? That cast around my leg? A pig’s tit! It wuz to—”

Like a dipped metal flag or a gro-

tesque armored head scrutinizing the

cobbles, the dull-gleaming dipper’s

scoop stuck out from between the rail,

leaning sideways.

— Didn’t. Didn’t go in. Ain’t lit. Go back.

He turned — slowly.

— No — body’s — look—

“Bawl? Say, did I bawl? Wot else’d a kid’ve done w’en her mont’ly don’ show up — Say! But I’ll get even with you, I said, I’ll make a prick out of you too, like you done t’ me. You wait! You can’t get away with that. G’wan, he said, ye little free-hole, he called me. Wott’re ye after? Some dough? Well, I ain’t got it. That’s all! Now quit hangin’ aroun’ me or I’ll s-smack ye one! He said.”

“Where d’ja get it?”

“I borreed it — it wuzn’t much. She called herself a m-mid-wife. I went by m-meself. My old-huhu — my old l-lady n-never — O Jesus!” Tears rilled the glaze.

“Say — toin off de tap, Mary, f’Gawd’s sake!”

“Aw! Sh-hu-hu-shut up! Can’t I b-bawl if I–I—uh-hu-uh — G-go p-peddle yer h-hump, h-he says—”

“But not hea’, Mary, f’r the lova Pete. We all gets knocked up sometimes—”

— Horry op! Horry op back!

“They’ll betray us!” Into the Tenth Street Crosstown car, slowing down at Avenue A, the voice of the pale, gilt-spectacled, fanatic face rang out above all other sounds: above the oozy and yearning “Open the door to Jesus” of the Salvation Army singing in the park; above the words of the fat woman swaying in the car as she said, “So the doctor said cut out all meat if you don’t want gall-stones. So I cut out all meat, but once in a while I fried a little boloney with eggs — how I love it!” Above the muttering of the old grey-bearded Jewish pedlar (he rocked his baby carriage on which pretzels lay stacked like quoits on the upright sticks) “Founder of the universe, why have you tethered me to this machine? Founder of the universe, will I ever earn more than water for my buckwheat? Founder of the universe!” Above the even enthusiasm of the kindly faced American woman: “And do you know, you can go all the way up inside her for twenty-five cents. For only twenty-five cents, mind you! Every American man, woman and child ought to go up inside her, it’s a thrilling experience. The Statue of Liberty is—”