Henry Roth - Call It Sleep

“I don’ know.” David returned his gaze apathetically.

“Dere y’are! I wuz jis’ talkin’ about me skate-key — Come on!” He scrambled to his feet. “Give us yer hands.”

“Eee!”

“Co-om o-on!” He lifted her to her feet, and—“Whoo!” as the skates slid under her. “Gotchuh w’ea I wantchuh.” He grabbed her below buttock and breast, steadying her. “Oh boy!”

“Leggo!” She thrust him back, lost balance and, “Eee!” held on to him. “Dey’ll see!”

“Awri’, don’ git leary!” Leo became the grave instructor. “Jis’ take Davy and me’s shoulder, see?” He pushed the unwilling David to the other side. “Dat’s it! Hol’ onna us!”

“Slow now!” she warned, “Or I won’t—”

“Yea! Yea! We’ll take it easy! C’mon, wake up, Davy! Giddap!” And as both began trotting. “Dat’s it! Atta baby! I’ll hol’ yuh if yer goin’ on yer — you know — oh boy! Gid otta de way, kid.” He brushed a boy from the path. “Liddle bassid can’t stop us, kin he! Atta kid! Aintchoo goin’ dough. Gittin’ any wind up der yet. Atta kid!” He plied her with short yelps of flattery and encouragement.

As they neared the corner, Esther’s shrieks grew shriller and shriller, Leo’s cries more ardent, his supporting arm lower and more lingering. To the left of them, David, aware she was hardly holding him, jogged on in silence, listening with dull apprehension to their jangled excited cries. At the corner, Leo halted them breathlessly—

“Ain’ dat fun?”

“Yea, ooh!”

“Yuh wanna go faster?”

“No-o!” provocatively.

“Sure ye do— Hey, Davy!” with sudden solicitude. “Yer all plugged out, aintcha?”

“Me? Uh—”

“Sure y’are!”

“He ain’ so big like you.” Esther seconded him. “I can’t hold so good.”

“Yea.” Leo agreed, and solemnly, “Yuh better stay right hea, Davy, an’ wait fer us. I’ll pull her meself.”

“Awri’,” sullenly.

“Naa, let ’im comm too,” Esther repented her rashness.

“G’wan!” He grabbed her hand. “He don’ wanna! Whe-e-e!” He sirened like a fire-engine, pawed the ground. “Hol’ fast!” And before she could tear from his grasp he was off — Esther squalling rapturously after.

XIV

DAZED with a kind of listless desolation, he watched them speed toward the opposite corner, saw Esther whirled round and grabbed, and then both spin screeching out of sight. He slumped as though his own gathering foreboding dragged him down, slouched aimlessly to the curb and sat down.

— I know … I know … I know … (Like a heavy stone pried half out of its clinging socket of earth, sluggish thought stirred and settled again) I know … I know … They’re going to. So … Don’t care. I know.

Incurious eyes glided over the shallow glare of the street, caught on slight snags of significance, dwelled, returned, dwelled, shuttle-like. There were several boys across the street, playing for steel marbles which they rolled beside the curb. They played with the large ones, the twentiers, and paid each other off with small ones, as big as steel beads. He watched them awhile, and then his mind returned to its own misery.

— Getting scared …

— Wonder where they are? Could have gone all around the block already. Twice. Two blocks, even. Went away, maybe? Naa staying there. I know. Hope they never come— Will though …

— Getting scared …

— Shut up! I ain’t! So if he gets her — down there — what? What’ll I do? I’ll ask. Just ask, that’s all. I’ll say, give it to me, them lucky beads, c’mon! You said you would before. And now he’ll give it to me. Has to. Then what? Go someplace else. So I’ll go. And I’ll take them, yea. And I’ll look in and I’ll let them down slow, slow, that’s right— Gee! And if I get it so it’ll be all right. I’l do it all the time, so it will be all right.

— A twentier I’ll try to get — a twentier-light. It was bigger the first time, a quarter-big-light. But even if it’s a twentier, I’ll be glad. Even if it’s only a tenner-light, I’ll be glad. Could get it light. He said like his. In and out. Wonder how big his is. Didn’t ask. But never have to be scared even if it’s only a tenner-light. And have to watch out too — don’t lose them. Where’ll I put? Lots of places. Could hide them on roof. Top of chimney where no one looks. Yea — but! Fall in, maybe. Gee! And hee! Lady finds them in the stove. Look! Ooh! What! A cross! Oy! Gevalt, like my aunt says. Naa. Better in the house. Under the bed — no. Mama cleans. Then where then … behind looking — yea! Big looking glass on the floor. Every time I looked, yea, could remember—

“Talk like I said!” The sharp undertone meshed with no cog in the humming street.

He started, turned around.

“Hullo, Davy!” Leo, boldly impassive, now carried the skates. Esther beside him lifted guilty eyes from the ground, squirmed, scratched painstakingly under a pigtail. “I tolju he wuz sleepin’. He’s a’ways sleepin’, aintcha Davy?”

She giggled.

David rose, watched them uneasily.

“We had some skate, didn’ we Esther?” Leo prompted her.

“Yea.” And as if by rote. “Yurra good ronner.”

“Sure I am.” Exuberantly. “But y’oughta see me w’en I’m goin’ real good! An’ c’n she skate, Davy! Wait’ll you see ’er do a spread eagle — way out, dat way!”

“Shottop!” She blushed, shuffled.

There was a pause.

“Uh — I gotta go, Esther.” Abruptly he took David’s arm.

“Aintcha—? Aintcha—?” David was startled. “Wea yuh goin’?” Automatically, he fell into step as though he had been braced against a body charging at him and been missed. “Home, yuh goin’?”

“Naw!” Leo led him two or three paces off, and with elaborate modesty whispered loudly in his ear. “I gotta take a piss.”

“Oh!”

“See I tol’ ’er dat!” Leo hissed the last words, nudged him. “See!” And called back noncommittally. “Yuh goin’ in de staw, aintcha Esther.”

“I don’ know,” she shrugged in huffy indifference.

“C’mo-on,” he drawled at her and smirked when he saw her melting, winked. “Le’s go, Davy!” His urgent hand hurried David toward the store again. “Here she comes after us!”

Out of the corner of his eye when he turned, David glimpsed her leisurely trailing behind them. Reaching the cellar steps, they halted, Leo glancing around under the guise of fumbling with his skates. A few houses away Esther too had stopped and was watching them with a queer, mixed simper — as though she were flaunting her vacancy.

“Don’ watch ’er!” Leo snapped. “Hop down!”

Frightened now to the very core, sure of the approaching crisis, David stumbled down the steps. Before he reached the bottom, Leo’s feet came pattering after, and Leo with a “Hurry up!” threw back the door. Together, they entered. The door swung to. In the rank gloom nothing had changed but the notch of light bitten from the further dark, which was wider.

“Cheezis!” Leo’s clashing skates heightened the exultation of his voice. “Tol’ yuh I’d git ’er goin’! Didn’ I? Didn’ I? Oh, boy! Wut we didn’ do aroun’ at corner’! Did I feel ’er! Oh, boy! Looka—” hastily. “You don’ know nutt’n about it, see? Don’ fergit now — I’m jis’ takin’ a piss!”

“Y-yea.”

“Oh, boy! oh, boy!” His restless feet patted the earthen floor. “Wait’ll she gits down here.”

(Ask him now!) “Yuh — are yuh—?”

But as though the dark were a medium for his thought—“Yea! Yea!” Leo interrupted him irritably. “Cantcha wait’ll she gits down! Cheez, I fergot!” He hurried past the toilet. “Lemme try some of dese daws faw she comes — see if dey—” And yanked at one after another of the grey doors of the storage-bins. “Oh, boy!” As one swung open. “Lot’s o’ room in hea. See dat?” He motioned for David to draw closer. “Lot’s o’ room ain’ it?” There was a small, clear space between the doorway and the shapeless black masses of furniture piled high in the rear.