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

Oh, America! Mingling for a brief interval the free and lusty air of nature with the Jewish atmosphere of the cold-water flat on 119th Street in East Harlem.

The whole thing is nuttier than a fruit cake, Ecclesias; to an old man, sex is nuttier than a fruit cake.

— Why tell me? It didn’t evolve to suit your criteria of rationality. It evolved out of other and deeper needs, needs of survival, not reasons.

Remorseless needs.

— Yes, of course.

The monotony of the procreative cycle is hypnotic. So it affects me. The very consideration of everything having to do with sex makes me drowsy. And most of all, the perpetual compulsion of it.

— You wouldn’t be here otherwise, if the compulsion were any less.

Ah, yes, do tell. I am one, my liege, whom the vile blows and buffets of the world— I wonder what M is doing? She is so quiet; she must be writing music. I have made a tentative resolution that I would note down her very, very slight foibles, her predilections and customs. She likes to buy new clothes, shmattas . The poor girl was so deprived as a child in that indigent, earnest Baptist clergyman’s household she was reared in, though not so indigent as her calculating mother pretended, that she finds new clothes irresistible. And later, as wife of an impractical and impecunious husband, and mother of two boys, a schoolteacher in Maine earning a rural schoolteacher’s salary, how long she had to wear patched and rent slips and petticoats. So now she loves to buy a gay new blouse. Important to me too, Ecclesias, is her practice of gathering up the few gray strands of hair that may have strayed in front of her fine brow, and train them, as it were, annex them to the main fold of coiffure with a bobby pin. Interesting, isn’t it? I didn’t know that.

— Very interesting.

It’s a fact, just the same.

XV

On the very first day of classes after the summer vacation of 1923, it had so happened that the person who was scheduled to be Ira’s regular teacher in Elocution 7, a course for seniors, was Miss Pickens. She was absent that day. Her ocean liner had been delayed by storms, so rumor ran, on her return trip from Europe. Her older brother, the august, gray-maned, thespian Dr. Pickens, head of the elocution department, made shift to substitute for his absent sister by combining her class with his in one and the same room. As a result, the classroom was jammed; and only by making every seat do double duty, accommodate two students instead of one, could the crowd be contained. Even so, there was a shortage of sitting room; some few had to improvise a seat out of a textbook on a radiator.

It chanced — ah, it chanced — that the one whose seat Ira had hastily and randomly chosen to share was occupied by a well-groomed, well-dressed young man, his straight black hair silky and parted to one side, his tweed jacket heathery and rich, trousers spotless and creased, his cordovans dull brown, richly tooled. A gentile, Ira supposed, as he edged into his half of the seat. The other’s fine well-fitting raiment, well-bred manner, regularity of feature, dappled, lambent skin, his untroubled lineaments, all bespoke the gentile. He was not only a gentile, but affluent too. Ira thought of that silver fountain pen he had purloined long ago, so it seemed. That kid’s parents must have been affluent too, but probably Jewish. How different gentile affluence was — even in youth: poised, polished, mature; if the other weren’t beside him in a high school classroom, Ira would have taken him for a worldly young man, one who had outgrown high school, a collegian at least. .

During the prolonged confusion caused by latecomers finding seats, or rather, half-seats and parts of radiators and windowsills, Ira struck up a conversation with his neighbor. Ira remarked, with his usual unerring ingratiation where gentiles were concerned, that the seats were admirably fitted for half-assed people. And with that droll observation, the two were off on a course of repartee whose twists and turns Ira no longer remembered, except that he was intent on entertaining his seatmate: and his chief resource was his lowbrow witticisms, lowbrow and snide. He succeeded in his aim; he was very amusing to his partner, and his partner was liberal in appreciation. It seemed only minutes, and they were beguiled with each other.

Attendance was taken by Dr. Pickens — somehow. The combined classes were called in a businesslike way to order, and dutifully the new acquaintances nipped off further sallies. But not for long: the momentum of mutual entertainment was too great to arrest. Ira began whispering again, and induced a reply. They were too engrossed in each other’s inimitable wit to take more than fleeting notice of the frowns of annoyance Dr. Pickens directed their way, until — just as Ira was ventriloquizing in sidemouthed whimsy, “It’s gonna be slim pickin’s either way, ye know—”

“That big galoot in the third row, fifth seat, stand up!” Dr. Pickens thundered, glaring at both.

Ira would always recollect with admiration his seat partner’s courage at that critical moment. While Ira shrank back in fear before the blast of pedagogical censure, his classmate gamely stood up.

“Not you!” Leonine and histrionic, Dr. Pickens boomed in devastating tones, “That big galoot beside you. Stand up!”

Larry, for that was his name, sat down. And Ira stood up. He already quaked in fear at the penalties he might have to pay for his misbehavior: gross disrespect before so august and commanding a figure as Dr. Pickens, head of the department of elocution, gross disrespect within the assembled view of two combined classes as witness.

“What is your name?”

Faintly Ira answered, “Ira Stigman.”

“What do you mean by talking when the class has been called to order, talking when I’m addressing the class? Are you a senior?”

“Yes, sir.”

“A senior, and not have the common decency of behaving yourself in a difficult situation like this! A senior and not have the courtesy owing a teacher of DeWitt Clinton High School! What do you mean, you big galoot? You’re not fit to be a senior! You’re not fit to be in this class!”

“I’m sorry,” Ira mumbled.

“Get out! Get out of here at once! Out of this room! Out!” Dr. Pickens blared. And shaking a finger fraught with menace, “Report to me after class. And don’t fail to.”

“No, sir.” Hangdog, in a swirl of fear, Ira made his way through the crowded aisle of shod feet and briefcases to the door. Even as he closed it behind him, he glimpsed a fellow classmate already slipping from his perch on a radiator to occupy the vacancy Ira had left. Down the stairs he went into the study hall, to wait for the end of the period, and who knew what punishment to be meted out, what sentence. Trepidations such as he hadn’t felt since the Stuyvesant ordeal came flooding back. He hadn’t stolen anything, but he was guilty of grave affront to a head of a department, and a most haughty one at that. There was no limit to the amends he would be required to make. The cleavage of nameless dread began its remorseless movement, impervious to the exhortations of common sense. Already he summoned up in imagination the lean, crease-jowled, draconian Mr. Dotey, the dean. Already Ira heard Mr. Dotey’s pronouncement, that worst of all penalties — no, not quite; Ira knew the worst — to bring one of his parents to school: Mom or Pop. To have to go through that again!

He had taken a seat close to the assembly-hall doors, and sat swaying the minutes away, while he chafed, cold damp fingers together — all too soon the fateful gong rang for the change of classes. Plowing among fellow students, he made his way up the three flights of stairs to the room from which he had been expelled.