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

Ira realized that his choice of CCNY or Cornell had been in actuality a conflict going on within the young man over which kind of America he would elect, which kind would prevail. He had endeavored to embody the conflict, imbue it with fictional plausibility, by recounting an imaginary correspondence with Billy, conveying the good news; and Billy’s delighted proposal that they get together and make plans for attendance at Cornell, that they room together.

Of course, none of this ever occurred — but he had gone further, much further, in his envisaging. He had gone so far, internalized his thoughts so deeply, that it had taken on the reality of fact, of an actual occurrence in the past. So much did it vie with fact in the arena of memory that more than once he had to remind himself that it was all figment.

It was real, though not actual. It never happened, only in fancy. But the choice, though it was indubitably a choice between which of two Americas he would throw in his lot with, was made within himself, with no need for externalized tension, for suspense, for specific denouement. Probably the way he posed the question, or the alternatives, was all wrong. There were no two kinds of America open to him. There were potentially two careers available to him at the given time. And had he not chosen, not entirely at random, to share the seat in Elocution 7 with the handsome, apparently gentile youth already occupying it, his career would surely have been different. The terrible fear, the brunt of ruthless savagery, that seemed to wring the very axons of the brain forever out of place, twist them to a murderous madness that only the clarity and calm rationality of plane geometry held in check long enough for reprieve, might very well have been immured within the disciplines of the zoologist. A life could have been led, could have been reared on a localized fault in the mind (something of the sort, however figuratively expressed). But there was a prior determinant to this, the crucial determinant, or really the crucial accident. But hell, once you began that kind of unraveling, it would never end. If there was any single “first cause” he could point to as the one most responsible for the permanent impairment of his personality, for its ever-present floating anxiety, his anxiety neurosis (in today’s terms), it was his family’s leaving the Orthodox ministate of the East Side.

In the midst of that summer, full of Ira’s debatings and speculations about his future, Farley suddenly appeared out of the past, not in person, but spectacularly in the sports pages of the press. He had become part of the Olympic track team that the United States was to field in France. He had graduated from high school the same year as Ira, and the sports pages of the New York newspapers were full of the schoolboy wonder who had been chosen to represent the United States in the 100-meter dash. He was slated to run against the redoubtable Harold Abrahams of Great Britain, who had trained for months, trained assiduously for the event, and was favored to win. Life could sometimes be inextricably tangled together. Ira had first watched Farley run against Le Vine, who, Ira felt sure, was Jewish, and whom, after the first, his novice, trials, Farley consistently defeated. Now in the greatest test of Farley’s career as a sprinter, he would be running against another Jewish athlete.

The whole thing bristled with peculiar ironies only to be disclosed later. Abrahams (who was later made a central figure in a documentary film) had dedicated himself to track events in order to attain status with the British upper class, and he presumably did attain it to some extent as a result of his track exploits, and especially his victory in the 100-meter dash. He had won the Olympic gold. Abrahams might have come off second-best had not the head coach in charge of the United States Olympic team decided that Farley was too young to be pitted against so seasoned and world-famous a runner as Abrahams, and instead of Farley competing in the 100-meter for which he had trained and in which he planned to compete, he was replaced by another runner, one of college age, who ran against Abrahams, and lost. .

Fifteen years were to pass. Ira was already married to M, and M pregnant for the first time, when Ira and Farley met again shortly before Ira left New York for good in 1939. They met one evening, after Ira had been called to do substitute teaching in an English class in a night high school, Haaren High School, which now occupied the same building as DeWitt Clinton. Farley held a permanent clerical position there. Both were overjoyed at this chance encounter, and agreed to meet after the night school session was over. They did. Farley, who had a companion with him, led the way to a nearby bar. They drank beer, and endeavored to recapture a little of the past. Farley had grown corpulent, his jowls heavy, so often the fate of the athlete who abandons training. Still his light hands were bony and delicate as ever, his blue eyes shone as boyishly as they once did, and his high-pitched voice had that same cheery, juvenile ring as it had when he and Ira attended junior high and listened to recordings of the great tenor John McCormack, at Farley’s home.

Something Ira said, probably imprudently, because it revealed the depth of his Marxist orientation, prompted badgering rejoinders on the part of Farley and his friend, no less antagonistic for all their flippancy. By quizzical jibe and insinuation they intimated — Ira sensed — a partiality for Father Coughlin’s pro-Nazi, stereotyped, infamous anti-Semitism. How far apart Farley and he had traveled, Ira realized with a start, not only politically, but in sympathy, hopelessly sundered in as many ways as once held them bound, and by a myriad of new biases.

He maneuvered the conversation to neutral ground again: the 1924 Olympics. Why hadn’t Farley run the 100-meter dash, the one track event of his unquestioned preeminence throughout high school? It was then Ira learned the circumstances that determined Farley’s elimination from competition against the renowned Abrahams — and why Farley was assigned instead to run in the 400-meter relay. Too much was at stake to entrust the U.S. colors in the 100-meter dash to so youthful a runner as Farley. The 400-meter relay, on the other hand, important though it was in medals won, meant less in terms of prestige to the United States than the 100-meter dash. Despite the prolonged, impassioned pleadings of Farley’s personal coach that he be given a chance — and that he could win — the head coach of track events, abetted by the U.S. Olympic committee of overseers, vetoed the proposition. They were ready to gamble on Farley as anchorman in the 400-meter relay, but to match a high school kid against the fleetest sprinter in all of Europe was altogether too risky.

“They knew better, though, the next day,” said Farley, his blue eyes growing luminous with pain and indignation. “Especially the head coach.” Because, irony of ironies, the anchorman of the British team received the baton ahead of Farley, and the anchorman of the British team was none other than Abrahams. The day before, he had won the 100-meter dash. The next day the high school kid overtook and outstripped him. “I knew I could beat him,” said Farley. And remembering the unassuming, straightforward adolescent who had been his chum in the past, Ira believed him. He too was persuaded Farley could have beaten Abrahams, just as years ago he was persuaded that Farley could beat Le Vine, based on Farley’s declaration “I know I can beat him.” The great opportunity was lost, and cruelly forever. When Ira consulted the World Almanac for reference concerning the 1924 Olympics in Paris, there was no record in it of the anchormen in the 400-meter relay, nor of the runners who composed the team. They were individually anonymous. It was a team effort. The entry stated simply that the U.S. team took the gold.