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

He placed two one-dollar bills on the zinc-lined surface before Mrs. Harry M. Stevens, Jr., and asked for a two-dollar roll of nickels. He was running short of small change. And the lady, with decorous but businesslike bearing, accepted the two one-dollar bills and laid on the counter a paper-wrapped roll of coins. The exchange completed, her long cigarette holder in hand, she stored the paper money in the drawer and turned away. But not before Ira, his hand curling around the roll of coins, knew he had struck it rich, struck a treasure. His heart leaped up with guilty rapture. He pocketed the roll instantly — and scooted out of the place. He lost himself at once in the grandstands, climbed up to the top, then up the ramp to the upper stands. There, as luck would have it, or because he stood there dazzled, he sold in a sudden jiffy of demand a half-dozen bottles of soda. And now justified in replenishing his near-empty tray, he went into the auxiliary depot in the back of the upper stand and refilled with freshly iced bottles, and also managed to get a little extra small change beside. He came out of the depot carrying twenty bottles of soda pop as if they weighed nothing, as if he were walking on air, levitated by the soda pop itself. What bliss! She had given him a roll of quarters instead of a roll of nickels, a roll of quarters worth ten dollars, instead of a roll of nickels worth two dollars. Boy, would that make a day’s pay, boyoboy! Eight bucks ahead without scarcely lifting a finger! She would certainly never remember him, never remember the incident when time came for her to “check in,” to cast up accounts. She would be — no, she wouldn’t be — the till would be eight bucks short. In her wry dismay with herself, would be eight bucks short. In her wry dismay with herself, would she redress the discrepancy with a trifling eight bucks from her own ample purse? Or would the Stevens dynasty joke about the incident at cocktails before dinner that evening?

He had bought himself a small pipe a short while ago, small enough to fit easily into his pants pocket without bulging out too much, and he filled the bowl with tobacco from the pouch to which he had transferred the Prince Albert tobacco from the can this morning before leaving the house. He struck a match, applied the light, and puffed away exultantly. The lucky break was worth giving himself a break. The afternoon was cool, already autumn.

From where he stood, at the very top of the uppermost stand, at the very back of the last tier of seats, cloud and sky and Bronx rooftop, smudge of smoke, and blue neck of water in the distance. Below him, just below the grandstand roof, back of the mob of fans, he puffed on his miniature pipe a minute, and then — why not give himself a real break? He had already garnered a day’s pay and more. He deserved more than a minute’s relaxation. Why not enjoy part of an inning, watch a batter or two at the plate?

Way over at the farthest end of the grandstand wing, behind the steel pillars holding up the roof of the grandstand, was a ragged parcel of empty seats — he knew why they were empty. Not only were they at the farthest remove from the diamond below — sitting there, you could hardly see the home plate, hardly see the game any better than if you sat in one of the high tenement windows where black faces crowded together — not only because of the distance, but because the pillars supporting the roof partly blocked the view. Only during the World Series were fans driven to sit in them, only a belated few.

He would loaf for only a minute, Ira promised himself, take a few puffs. Just long enough to savor at its fullest the exultation of the wonderful break that had befallen him: ten bucks’ worth of quarters instead of two bucks’ worth of nickels. No matter how far behind Izzy or Greeny or any other soda hustler he was, he was still bound to finish ahead at the end of the day. With an eight-buck break like that!

He felt the roll in his pocket. How could the grand lady have missed telling the difference? The weight alone, even if your fingers didn’t recognize the heftier round, the sleek, packed, solid, geometric cylinder of ten bucks’ worth of quarters in comparison to the unprepossessing, light roll of nickels. Well, she didn’t, that was all; she wasn’t used to it. Rich — and who did that look like up at bat? Ira craned forward to see around a column. There. He could just barely descry the batter. Who was he? What player? He pushed his eyeglasses closer to his eyes, squinted, studied the batter knocking the dirt from his spikes with the end of his bat—

“Would yo’ mind movin’ over a seat?”

Odd, how nearby words could come through the great swell and roar of rooting fans watching the batter outrace a bobbled bunt. Odd too, he knew right away the voice was a woman’s voice, and before he looked up, he recognized the voice of that of a Negro woman, and a young one. But he didn’t know how pretty she was, until he raised his eyes and saw her: light-molasses brown, maple syrup he used to help pack in the hampers for Mr. Klein when he worked in Park & Tilford.

“Oh. Oh, yeah.” Ira stood up. “I’m not supposed to be sittin’ here anyway. I’m supposed to be hustlin’. I didn’t know this was your seat.”

“Yo’ jest sit there if yo’ want to. I’ll slide by you.” She did. Back of her knees rubbing his knees. Her sky-blue attendant’s uniform was sliding over past him. He knew there were toilets in the upper ends of the wing. They had always been empty, except once or twice, he had noticed, during packed stands, attended by a heavy colored woman. This attendant was pretty, regular-featured, her speech smooth Southern, friendly. His heart began to hammer. Jesus. A scramble of goofy impulses commandeered his mind. He couldn’t talk, only sidelong, tried looking dumb to see who was looking his way, their way. The game had reached a tense pass. And pass indeed: the pitcher was deliberately throwing wide to the next batter. Try to double-play next guy. The crowd booed the manager’s strategem. Jesus, if any other hustler came up, and saw him sitting next to a — this high-yeller, comely colored girl — he’d better get up. Two more puffs. .

“That pipe sho’ smell good. What they call that tobacco?”

“Yeah? What they call it is Prince Albert.”

“Smell good.” She pulled out a cigarette. “Yo’ make much sellin’ soda?” She held him there by speech alone, her tinkly musical dialect. “I see a lot o’ yo’ all sellin’. You sellin’ all the time. I see money comin’ in all the time.”

“Yeah?” Well, it wasn’t his fault she sat down beside him. So what? He prepared his excuse: he had just sat down for a second. “Well, maybe it looks like money comin’ in. But all we get is ten percent of all we sell,” he informed her, scarcely looking at her. “Ten cents on every dollar.”

“Oh.” She raised light brown eyes to the sign on his hat. “How much that make you make fo’ the day?”

“I’m not a good hustler.”

She laughed, high and lilting.

He hadn’t meant to be funny. “Not as good as some of ’em, I mean. Like today,” he explained, “I only sold maybe forty-five dollars’ worth. Some of ’em sell twice—” He stopped because she brushed against him, moved her hand sleekly in her uniform pocket, rummaging—

“You want a light?” he asked.

“Mmm. I got matches. I know.”

“Here’s my pipe.” He proffered the ember in the bowl. “Or do you want a regular light?”

“Mm-mm. No, that smell good.”

She inclined her head, almost straight her hair, unkinked. Puffing her cigarette alight in his pipe bowl, she inflamed him as well. His breath became short, curtailed, inadequate to the demands of his thumping heart. “Wha — what do you make in there?” Rigid, Ira could barely indicate the ladies’ rest room at very end, the uppermost walkway.