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

After a while, he was joined by another candidate for enrollment, a graduate of a Bronx high school. The other was Ira’s age, Jewish, almost as a matter of course, and obviously of more affluent background than Ira’s. An amiable youth, already cultivating a wisp of a mustache, he whiled away the time as he paced beside Ira over the crackling leaves, whistling and singing the latest hit tunes, none of which Ira had the least knowledge of, nor cared to have, but it occupied the time of waiting. Welcome as the youth and his friendly disposition were, his tastes and ambitions, as he expressed them, gave Ira the first hint that the halls of learning within those Gothic walls were not entirely as he had imagined. His new acquaintance spoke about joining a “frat” as soon as he could, and said he was only going to CCNY to get the bachelor’s degree, which was a pre-requisite for entry into law school. Idealism and fancy were absent; practicalities alone predominated. His goal was the familiar one of financial success. Makh gelt , the attainment of a lucrative career via the stepping-stone of CCNY. The fellow must be an exception, Ira thought.

And tolerantly, he listened to the other cheerily singing as they strolled together over the russet leaves:

“Looky, looky, looky, here comes cookie. .”

and:

“When my sweetie walks down the street,

all the birdies, they go tweet, tweet, tweet. .”

and:

“Do-o wacka, do-o wacka, do-o wacka do. .”

Ira felt his own euphoria wilt: wilt with his new acquaintance’s optimism, wilt with the chill of late afternoon pervading the air. Time came for Ira’s group to take its place in the registration hall.

And now the realities of college, of the stultifying mechanics of registration for classes at CCNY, revealed themselves in all their unlovely aspects. In one fell swoop they dashed to pieces Ira’s lofty imaginings, dispelled them in a single minute, the very first minute after his turn came to enroll. He was expected to devise a program of courses, a program of courses that would remain valid for the duration of his wait on line before the particular desk at which the registrar — or one of his student assistants — sat. Time and again, and time and again, a quirk of fate would eliminate from his program a course he had chosen — he would see it erased from the blackboard, often with only one or two students ahead of him before the registrar’s desk. Thus his entire program, compiled so laboriously, would be reduced to penciled inanity, and he would have to go back to his seat in the big auditorium, and start afresh. .

Dilatory, inefficient, slow, and agonizingly uncertain, he would devise another program, only to watch it succumb to the same attrition as its predecessor. Hours passed. Hours! Program after provisional program went by the board, indeed, went by the blackboard. Weary and dejected, Ira cursed his luck, his fate, his ineptitude, his dawdling. And as for Biology 1, the key course in his future career? It had been snapped up long ago by more proficient high school graduates — those with better average grades who were given first choice — snapped up by gifted freshmen, and by diligent sophomores who registered before the freshmen. It seemed as if the majority of lowerclassmen were intent on fulfilling requirements for entrance into medical or dental schools. Biology 1 had disappeared from the blackboard long before Ira was even admitted to the many-tiered lecture hall where students moiled over their programs. Biology 1 was a nekhtiger tog , as Mom would have said: it was as irretrievable as a bygone day. Oh, why hadn’t he elected to go to Cornell? The iron maw of the letter box fleered at him again, snapping up with straight lips the white envelope containing his letter of refusal, an impassive predator devouring his fate. .

Devil take the hindmost was the rule here, and the hindmost were dubs like Ira, laggard and inefficient, pathetic dawdlers. It was past nine o’clock at night, long after the majority of candidates had happily departed, their programs accepted, when Ira succeeded in patching together a program of courses that remained viable all the way to the desk. Viable if undesirable: French 1. Trigonometry, called a conditional course, a course he should have taken in high school, but didn’t because of a year wasted attending the newly instituted commercial high school at P.S. 24. Philosophy 1, though he was scarcely more ready than a child to grapple with its concepts and abstractions. Descriptive geometry, which sounded easy, and proved not to be, projections and mechanical drawing, beyond his aptitude, his manual skill. Military Science 1, a compulsory course that he learned would be a sort of calisthenics called the manual of arms performed with a Springfield rifle, in conjunction with a smattering of military tactics. Mili Sci was always open. Phys Ed 1. Even English Composition 1, humblest, and long the most accessible, of courses, had been closed out.

Such was his program the first half of his freshman term. It was a curtailed, a partial, a woefully insufficient program. It lacked the necessary number of credits of work, satisfactorily performed, meaning with a grade C or better, required to pass the first semester at CCNY. He would perforce become a “conditional” student next term, one who trailed behind the class in credits, and had to make them up somehow to be in good standing, to keep abreast of his class, one who ran the risk of being dropped from the college rolls. At the moment, Ira scarcely cared any longer. Flagging, famished, and thoroughly disgruntled by his ordeal, trudging on foot up the hill to the Amsterdam Avenue trolley car, and on foot again from 125th to 119th Street along Park Avenue on the sidewalk parallel to the Cut overhead, he made his way home.

Up the stone stoop, up a flight of dingy tenement stairs, and into the green-walled kitchen at last. The hands on the Big Ben alarm clock on top of the green-painted icebox pointed at ten minutes to ten.

“Oh, here he is, Ma.” Minnie looked up from her Latin text.

“Yeah. Here I am.” Ira shut the door behind him.

“ Noo , where have you been?” Mom scolded. “Your father and I have begun to worry.”

“Yeah?”

Pop raised his dog-brown eyes from the Yiddish newspaper. “And with good reason.”

“Jesus Christ.” Ira doffed his jacket, hung it on the back of a chair, went to the sink. “What a goddamn college.” He turned on the faucet, soaping hands under cold water. “No wonder they call it Shitty College.”

“It’s not a shitty college. It’s wonderful college. The smartest Jewish boys go there,” Minnie countered spiritedly. “Just because it’s free? Mom, tell him how they wouldn’t let the Jews go to college in Europe—”

“Ah, nuts. I know all about it. We’re not in Europe. You know the Latin words for keeping Jews out of college? You’re studying Latin.”

“I don’t know what they called it. Did you get into college or not?”

“ Numerus clausus .”

“Did you get in or not?”

“Yeah, I got in.” He ogled her with veiled animus.

“Papa, ask him.” Minnie rejected his innuendo, jerked her head sharply toward Pop. “Papa, you ask him. Did he get into City College or not?”

“Aw, what d’ye think?”

“Aha! Rueful.” Under strain of apprehension, Pop’s tone of voice rasped abrasively. “What’s amiss?” His weak chin tilted up in short premonitory hitches. “ Noo, noo . Report. What fresh botch did you commit?”

“Nothing. For Chrissake, I was there till now, making out a program. Every goddamn thing I wanted was closed. No biology, no English, no chemistry, nothing I wanted.”

“But they let you into the college?” Mom asked in quick dismay.