Philip Roth - Letting Go

The noise again. A child, a little boy, somewhere in the apartment. And with him his mother, hiding? His stepmother? He followed after the sound, located the door, and opened it. He really should go; this was insane.

The boy was strapped to the toilet seat. When he saw Gabe he let out an agonized scream. He strained to release himself from the seat; his face went from red to white to red again; the odor of the child’s feces was overpowering. Gabe’s eye throbbed. He closed the door, then opened it and was in the bathroom, leaning over the miserable child. The odor was of sickness. He slid the boy’s shirt up and looked for whatever was holding him down. The child began to pull and yank, his arms straining upwards as he screamed and wept.

Wallace!

No one was calling him. But his head grew dark and heavy, as though a blow had been struck upon it. His stomach was turning. He was himself, but this life was another’s. The room was pink; so was the toilet paper; so were the dirty linens stuffed into the bathtub. His fingers worked along the tape that crisscrossed the child’s middle. Minutes passed before he came to a small knot at the side of the seat. He worked at it with what he thought was all his attention. But he had no luck. He kneeled on the floor before the child, and at last he gave in and held his head in his hands. I am here.

Go! Go away!

Suddenly he was flooded with sympathy for Bigoness. He worked helplessly at the tape, feeling only sorrow for the stupid bastard. The law that held him accountable was absurd. Him meaning Bigoness. He heard Bigoness saying that he was not involved. So why didn’t he leave the man alone? Go home. But in that same instant he saw himself strangling Bigoness, squeezing his throat till the face turned colors — and then was no color. He was holding a gun to Bigoness’s head — At that moment the child shot forward, arms and legs whirling. A pain shot through Gabe’s whole body — he had been caught on the side of the head by the little boy’s shoe. His eye! He howled; the child screamed hysterically.

“Shhhh,” he said, shaking. “Quiet, shhhhh …” He wiped the child’s brow, then his own. He hunched over the tape, as though working against time. He should look through all of Theresa’s pockets. He should never have left her alone in that taxi. Why not? How not? His arms were hanging at his sides, three times their own weight. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t handle it. Alone he would only complicate matters further. Call Jaffe. He was at a point with Bigoness where he could save nothing. There was a point beyond which it made no sense to go. That was called prudence—

… She had wanted to smack him. She had planned it, right there on the steps. She had led him on. Always she had led him on, made use of him, tried to rope him—

The child wept, actual suffering, actual tears. Gabe’s fingers were no longer of any use. They were stiff. Revolted suddenly, his stomach turned and turned. He rushed to the window and flung it open. Down in the alleyway below, the little Bigoness girl pedaled back and forth. Call Jaffe.

“Shhhhh, please — just a minute … you’ll be all right.” He had turned back to the boy, a nondescript dark-haired child. He touched the damp hair. He felt sorry again for Bigoness, a man who had stuck by his children. He forced himself to get control, to think straight. He would have taken his coat off, but it did not seem to him that he had time. He searched (telling himself: I am an educated man, I am a decent man) and he searched for the little hook that held the child down — and discovered instead the toilet handle. An educated man, he finally flushed it. The water rushed, the child howled, the smell rose, and diving down one final time, he found the attachment that bound the child, and ripped it open.

He had to pick up the boy. He had to clean him. Flushing the toilet a second time, he carried him from the bathroom. He moved under weights that were only his clothes, his shirt and jacket and coat. All right, he had been imprudent— now was he happy? But there was no backing out, not if he had gone too far. But when had he begun going too far? He told himself, I am here , and it meant nothing.

“What the hell — you crazy— Put that kid down! ” Bigoness was flying at him, his arms making great circles.

“I just took him off—”

“Put him down! I know where you got him, you son of a bitch!”

“You left him tied—”

“You son of a bitch! Give him to me! ” The child out-howled his father, as he was wrenched away.

“I wasn’t stealing your baby! God damn it, let’s keep this straight—!”

“Get out! Get out, Wallace, before I call the police!”

“Call the police and you’ll make the biggest—”

“—no mistake to throw a guy like you in jail.” He rocked the weeping child in his arms.

“You’re letting your imagination run away with you.”

“I’m calling the cops. I’ll give you three.”

Quickly Gabe said, “You’ll bring your creditors right down on your head.”

“I’ll bring them down on yours, you crook!”

“Look— look , this is absurd! You know it is! I’m not connected — listen to me, will you? You’d better calm down and think over what’s best for you.”

“I know what’s best … Ah quiet down, Walter honey — oh you son of a bitch, I know what’s — Come on now, Walter, willya? You’ll be all right, boy …” He paced the floor with his child, a worried parent.

“Why don’t we make some kind of deal, please—”

“Why don’t you bug off!”

“Why don’t we make a cash deal?” He put himself in Bigoness’s line of vision. “I want a favor and you need money.”

“I don’t need your money. I got a deal coming up with Vic, my buddy. I’m going to have myself some work in just about two weeks. Three weeks.”

“Your phone call didn’t work out, did it?”

“Why don’t you keep your nose out of my business, you wheedling son of a bitch.” He placed his child, who had howled himself almost to sleep, down on the sofa.

“I’ll give you”—he reached for a figure—“fifty dollars more.”

Bigoness turned; Gabe had a second thought. “A week from Monday, as soon as you and Theresa have signed the papers, fifty dollars more.”

“And this ain’t the black market, huh? What are you trying to do, get me all fucked up with the union?”

“Fifty dollars for an hour’s work. Yes or no?”

“… That’s no big offer, is it, for me taking such a big chance?”

“You’ve already taken forty-five dollars.”

“I didn’t take — you gave. You tried bribing me already.”

“Well—” he said, uncertainly, having still a third thought, “it was just as big a chance then.”

“And that’s why I don’t want nothing to do with it, you understand?”

“Look, yes or no? Fifty dollars.” He had nearly said a hundred.

“Twenty-five now, and twenty-five then?”

“Nothing now.”

“Nothing now never helped nobody’s troubles.”

“You’ve had forty-five already.”

“Jesus! I thought we were going to forget about that. Boy oh boy! First you tell me you’re going to forget it, and I say I’m even willing — and now you keep bringing it up again!”

In the morning Gabe had cashed a check so as to have money for the weekend, for the present, for dinner that evening. He had with him a little under a hundred dollars. What prevented him from handing it all over to Bigoness was only the word bribe. But fifty was surely not less of a bribe — and a hundred might do the trick. A hundred right now. No!