Henry Roth - Mercy of a Rude Stream - The Complete Novels

“That’s old Rube Waddell,” said Izzy, and his voice still harbored a trace of veneration.

“Who?”

“The watchman. They gave him that job after he was down and out. You heard of Rube Waddell.”

“No. Who’s he?”

“A pitcher. He was some pitcher, Waddell. Boy, in his time.” Izzy’s blanched blue eyes shone. Hook-nosed, weak-chinned, barefaced liar, he was unperturbed even when caught in the most blatant prevarication; pitching was his one fane of sincerity.

And such was Izzy’s limitless brash, but he made good on his boast. After they waited around a few minutes, out came Benny Lass in the white coat and white visored cap of the ballpark hustler — and was instantly surrounded by claimants to vendor jobs. It was he who chose them — and later, since he was in charge of the cloakroom also, it was he who issued those he had selected white uniforms like his own. Strident, Jewish, though sharp of feature, vituperative, harried, and tyrannical, he chose the regulars first, the “old-timers” who worked in the Polo Grounds every day that a game was scheduled. In return for always being chosen, in return for being regulars, old hands had to report for work at games that it was known in advance would be poorly attended, that “wouldn’t draw flies,” as well as those with “big gates,” games on holidays and weekends, doubleheaders, crucial series.

Izzy, veteran hustler, assured of recognition and admission, simply towed reticent Ira after him. “Hey, Benny, he’s a friend o’ mine. Give us a break, wi’ye? I’ll go good for him.”

Benny glanced at Ira, sharp-featured, sharp-eyed behind glasses. And to Izzy, “You, ye prick, you’ll go good for him? You goddamn fuckin’ chiseler! You’d short-change your own gran’mother, ye muzzler!”

“Aw, give us a break, Benny.” Izzy rode the tirade unfazed. “He’s from my own block. I know him. He’ll work hard. You can see he won’t try to get away with nothin’. Come on, Benny, waddaye say?”

His consent sour and obscene, Benny thumbed Ira in, cringing, but elated — and bewildered.

“See? I tol’ ye.” Izzy led the way.

And the way wound through the shadows under the grandstands, with glimpses of the ballpark, the diamond, vast tiers of seats, seen through the exits that opened at regular intervals from the shadowy route to the bright grass of playing field and pennant-studded sky overhead.

Other hustlers joined them. They hurried along until they came to a large, damp, vaultlike structure, a kind of depot, the main depot, Ira soon learned, a very large multipurpose chamber, in which the first thing that met the senses was the redolence of roasted or roasting peanuts. Bonded to the tang of peanuts were the sight and sound of a motley crew — mostly young people — of prospective hustlers, all seated about a number of very large wicker hampers, much like those in which groceries were packed to be loaded aboard Park & Tilford delivery trucks, hampers loaded to the top with peanuts. Men and boys, perhaps six or seven to a hamper, sat about the rim. They jabbered incessantly, while bagging peanuts.

Ira followed Izzy to one of the more sparsely occupied hampers, ranged himself alongside him, and tried to imitate his manipulations. Several small steel cylinders, measuring scoops, rested on the mound of freshly roasted peanuts. A scoop to a bag was the rule, although some of the hustlers, “for the hell of it,” to relieve monotony, added extra peanuts, excessive surplus, to see how many could be gotten into a bag and the bag still be closed. The bags were small and brown; in bagging peanuts, the open end of the bag was folded over: two small “ears” protruded. Like tiny paper prongs, the ears were held between thumb and forefinger, and the bagful of peanuts whirled about to close it. Ira’s forefingers soon became raw from the unaccustomed abrasion.

Chatter, chatter, jabber, jabber across the expanse of warm peanuts (with which he soon became sated, discouraged by their seeming inexhaustibility). Talk of ball clubs and their standings in their league, of ballplayers, their batting averages and their idiosyncrasies, their prowess with bat and ball, spitballs, knuckleballs, fastballs, Heinie Groh’s bottle bat, the Babe’s home runs and Meusel’s throwing arm. And when not that, what size they estimated the crowd would be, and who might get a break selling peanuts or ice cream, and who never got a break but was always condemned to selling soda pop — and what flavors sold best. It was an opportunity for Ira to look about, and he did.

The place was lighted mainly by weak light from several high windows, although a few electric lights served as supplements. Against one wall was a low, very long, deep wood-sheathed tank with a metal lining, filled with cracked ice, and piled full of hundreds, perhaps thousands of bottles of soda pop — of every hue, from that of orange to the mahogany of sarsaparilla. At the far end of the tank, steel trays were stacked, soda pop trays, partitioned into small crates, like those Pop had once delivered milk in. Ranged against other walls, all about the room, were other utensils and equipment for preparing and vending food and drink to the fans. There were long, narrow baskets each containing a rectangular, nickel-plated utensil at one end. A sort of rectangular double boiler, they kept hot dogs warm inside, Izzy told him — and in the same breath, indicating the ordinary, simple market baskets thrown together in a rough heap next to the others, “That’s for the shleppers —after they’re finished selling scorecards at the gates. And the Irish mick kids too, Harry M. Stevens’s pets, from his church.”

“What d’ye mean?”

“Peanuts.” Izzy reached for a scoop. “They’re a cinch. There’s a hundred bags to a basket, a dime a bag. And they don’t weigh nothin’. Not like twenty bottles o’ soda. Fifteen cents a bottle.”

He had already told Ira that hustling soda would be his lot — as it was Izzy’s. “Yeah, but what d’ye mean, shleppers ?”

“They’re the real regulars. They come in early in the morning,” Izzy explained. “Ye see, there’s more than one place where you can load up when you finish selling a tray of soda — I’ll show you later. There’s both ends of the stands. And upstairs, too. Didn’t you see the upper stands? You can’t come runnin’ back to this place every time when you’re empty. We’ll walk aroun’ afterward. I’ll show you where to go. And in the bleachers, too. They stink.”

“What d’ye mean?”

“The bleachers, the cheapest seats. You can’t make a pretzel there most of the time, but once in a while, all of a sudden they get thirsty from sitting in the sun. So you can sell a few bottles — hey, look, here comes another basket of peanuts!”

A general cry of protest arose. “Hey, I thought we wuz done!”

“Last basket,” said one of the two men who had trundled the hamper in on a dolly.

“Last basket, my prick,” was the consensus. “Why’n’tcha bring it in before?”

“It just got roasted.” Both porters seemed distinctly Jewish, middle-aged, settled men; and the man who spoke, beside his deprecating mien, even had a Yiddish accent. Said the other, “What d’ye want from us?”

“Fuckin’ shleppers , “said Izzy. “See what I mean?”

“Come on! Come on! Some o’ you guys on the empty baskets.” Benny Lass’s whiplike voice named members of the crew around each basket. “None o’ you muzzlers leave till it’s finished — if you wanna get your white coats.”

“Balls,” said those summoned, but got up nevertheless and addressed themselves to the fresh basket.

He hadn’t called either Izzy or Ira. “Is that what they do?” he asked.