Henry Roth - Call It Sleep

— He stole up to the dipper warily,

on tip—

“Shet up, down ’ere, yuh bull-faced harps, I says, wait’ll I’m troo! Cunt, I says, hot er snotty ’zuh same t’ me. Dis gets ’em’ hot. Dis gets em hot I sez. One look at me, I says, an yuh c’n put dat rivet in yer ice-box — t’ings ’ll keep! Yuh reams ’em out with dat he says — kinda snotty like. Shit no, I says I boins ’em out. W’y dontcha trow it t’dem, he ays, dey’re yellin’ fer a rivet. Aaa, I don’ wanna bust de fuckin’ goider I says. Yer pretty good, he says. Good, I says, didja ever see dat new tawch boinin’ troo a goider er a flange er any fuck’n’ hunka iron — de spa’ks wot goes shootin’ down—? Didja? Well dat’s de way ’I comes. Dey tol’ me so. An’ all de time dere wuz Steve and Kelly unner de goiders havin’ a shit-hemorrage an’ yellin’ hey, t’row—”

toe, warily, glancing over his

shoulders, on tip-toe, over serried

cobbles, cautious—

“Wuz t’ be. And by Gawd it might hev gone out when I went to bed a’ suckin’ of it. By Gawd it hed no call t’ be burnin’.… Wuz to be — Meerschaum, genuwine. Thankee I said. Thankee Miz Taylor. And I stood on the backstairs with the ice-tongs. Thankee and thank the Doctor … Boston, the year I — Haw, by Gawd. And the hull damn sheet afire. And Kate ascreamin’ beside me … Gawd damn it! It hadn’t ought to ’a’ done it … A’lookin’ at me still now … A’stretchin’ of her neck in the white room … in the hospital—”

As though his own tread might shake the

slanting handle loose from its perch

beneath the ground. And now, and—

“Why not? She asks me. Pullin’ loaded dice on Lefty. The rat! He can’t get away with that y’know. I know, Mag, I said. It’d do my heart good to see a knife in his lousy guts — only I gotta better idee. What? She asks me. Spill it. Spill it is right, I says t’ her. I know a druggist-felleh, I said, good friend o’ mine. O yea, she looks at me kinda funny. Croak him with a dose o’—No! I said. No poison. Listen Mag. Throw a racket up at your joint, will ye? Give him an invite. He’ll come. And then let me fix him a drink. And I winks at her. Dintcha ever hear o’ the Spanish Fly—”

over it now, he crouched,

stretched out a hand to

“They’ll betray us!” Above all these voices, the speaker’s voice rose. “In 1789, in 1848, in 1871, in 1905, he who has anything to save will enslave us anew! Or if not enslave will desert us when the red cock crows! Only the laboring poor, only the masses embittered, bewildered, betrayed, in the day when the red cock crows, can free us!”

lift the dipper free. A sense almost

palpable, as of a leashed and imminent

and awful force.

“You’re de woist fuckin’ liar I ever seen he sez an’ ducks over de goiders.”

focused on his hand across the hair-

breadth

“Yuh god mor’n a pair o’ sem’ns?”

gap between his fingers and the

scoop. He drew

“It’s the snug ones who’ll preach it wuz to be.”

back, straightened. Carefully bal—

“So I dropped it in when he was dancin’—O hee! Hee! Mimi! A healthy dose I—”

anced on his left, advance—

“Yeah. I sez, take your pants off.”

ed his right foot—

Crritlkt!

— What?

He stared at the river, sprang away

from the rail and dove into the shad-

ows.

“Didja hear ’im, Mack? De goggle-eyed yid an’ his red cock?”

The river? That sound! That sound

had come from there. All his senses

stretched toward the dock, grappled with

the hush and the shadow. Empty…?

“Swell it out well with batter. Mate, it’s a bloomin’ goldmine! It’s a cert! Christ knows how many chaps can be fed off of one bloody cod—”

Yes … empty. Only his hollow nos-

trils sifted out the stir in the

quiet; The wandering river-wind seamed

with thin scent of salt

“An’ he near went crazy! Mimi I tell ye, we near bust, watchin—”

decay, flecked with clinging coal-tar—

Crrritlkt!

“Can’t, he sez, I got a tin-belly.”

— It’s— Oh— It’s — it’s! Papa. Nearly

like. It’s — nearly like his teeth.

Nothing … A barge on a slack hawser or

a gunwale against the dock chirping

because a

“I’ll raise it.”

boat was passing.

— Papa like nearly.

Or a door tittering to and fro in the wind.

“Heaz a can-opener fer ye I sez.”

Nothing. He crept back.

“Hemm. These last durn stairs.”

And was there, over the rail. The

splendor shrouded in the earth, the

titan, dormant in his lair, disdain-

ful. And his eyes

“Runnin’ hee! hee! hee! Across the lots hee! hee! jerkin’ off.”

lifted

“An’ I picks up a rivet in de tongs an’ I sez—”

and there was the last crossing of

Tenth Street, the last cross—

“Heazuh flowuh fer yea, yeller-belly, shove it up yer ass!”

ing, and beyond, beyond the elevateds,

“How many times’ll your red cock crow, Pete, befaw y’ gives up? T’ree?”

as in the pit of the west, the last

“Yee! hee! Mary, joikin’—”

smudge of rose, staining the stem of

“Nawthin’ t’ do but climb—”

the trembling, jagged

“Show culluh if yuh god beddeh!”

chalice of the night-taut stone with

“An’ I t’rows de fuck’n’ rivet.”

the lees of day. And his toe crooked into

the dipper as into a stirrup. It

grated, stirred, slid, and—

“Dere’s a star fer yeh! Watch it! Tree Kings I god. Dey came on huzzbeck! Yee! Hee Hee! Mary! Nawthin’ to do but wait fer day light and go home. To a red cock crowin’. Over a statue of. A jerkin’. Cod. Clang! Clang! Oy! Machine! Liberty! Revolt! Redeem!”

Power

Power! Power like a paw, titanic power,

ripped through the earth and slammed

against his body and shackled him

where he stood. Power! Incredible,

barbaric power! A blast, a siren of light

within him, rending, quaking, fusing his

brain and blood to a fountain of flame,

vast rockets in a searing spray! Power!

The hawk of radiance raking him with

talons of fire, battering his skull with

a beak of fire, braying his body with

pinions of intolerable light. And he

writhed without motion in the clutch of

a fatal glory, and his brain swelled

and dilated till it dwarfed the galaxies

in a bubble of refulgence — Recoiled, the

last screaming nerve clawing for survival.

He kicked — once. Terrific rams of dark-

ness collided; out of their shock space

toppled into havoc. A thin scream wobbled

through the spirals of oblivion, fell like

a brand on water, his-s-s-s-s-ed—

“W’at?

“W’ut?

“Va-at?

“Gaw blimey!

“W’atsa da ma’?”

The street paused. Eyes, a myriad of eyes, gay or sunken, rheumy, yellow or clear, slant, blood-shot, hard, boozy or bright swerved from their tasks, their play, from faces, newspapers, dishes, cards, seidels, valves, sewing machines, swerved and converged. While at the foot of Tenth Street, a quaking splendor dissolved the cobbles, the grimy structures, bleary stables, the dump-heap, river and sky into a single cymbal-clash of light. Between the livid jaws of the rail, the dipper twisted and bounced, consumed in roaring radiance, candescent—