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

“All right.”

“My name’s Joe. What’s yours?”

“My name is Ira.”

“O.K. I’ll meet you on the corner, Ira: Fifth Avenue and 125th Street. Remember?”

“Yeh.”

Ira said nothing to Mom. She might spoil his adventure. And lunch over, he hurried to 125th Street, early, and waited on the corner of Fifth Avenue, where the trolley ran west, just as Joe had directed him. And there he came, lanky, now that he was walking, and looking straight ahead as if he was about to saunter by nonchalantly, as if they hadn’t made an appointment to meet there; so noncommittal, he would have gone on if Ira hadn’t intercepted him, greeted his grown-up friend with, “Here I am, Joe!”

Oh, yes. He recognized Ira, indulgently. They would take the trolley here on the corner, an open-air trolley — and ride to the wonderful park he knew, Fort Tryon Park, at the end of the line, the last stop after a nice, sightseeing ride.

They rode and rode, on the open-air trolley, where the seats were like benches that went from one side to the other, and the conductor stood on the running board when he came to collect the carfare. After the trolley turned north on Broadway, and Ira could see the Hudson River, they rode uptown, uptown till street numbers went way up toward the 200’s, and traffic grew less, and you could see real country, open fields and groves of trees, and isolated houses. They rode so far and so long that something began to stir within Ira: uneasiness.

Yes, it was a wonderful park, full of big shade trees. It was wild and secluded, like a forest. A narrow trail, overshadowed by leafy branches, slanted down a sharp declivity through ever thicker woods. But something wasn’t right; no; to be so alone. . with Mr. Joe. They should go back, now that Ira had seen the place, even though the Mister talked so kind, so cheerfully, as he went ahead, or stopped and looked around so good-naturedly.

“Here’s a nice place.” He led the way — from the path around a big boulder, stopped, surveyed the vicinity with a calm turn of the head. And then, gently, but with unmistakable insistence: “Take your pants down.”

“Wha’?” The full import of his situation, his peril, his helplessness, toppled down on him with crushing force.

“Take your pants down.” The voice was still easy, but more inflexible.

“I don’t wanna.”

“I said take your pants down.”

“I don’t wanna.” Too frightened for tears, Ira began trying to force tears by whimpering: “Lea’ me alone! I wanna go back.”

“C’mon, kid. I ain’t gonna hurt you. Get those pants down.” Mr. Joe became all lanky arms, unsmiling face, strong fingers at Ira’s belt, his other hand pushing Ira’s hand away. “Let go, I told you I ain’t gonna hurt you.”

But worse than hurt lay in store, if he didn’t submit, worse, worse: terror. One hand strove with Ira’s two. And in another moment the same hand was raised, impatiently. “C’mon, you little bastard.” Mr. Joe’s palm poised to slap—

When out of the thicket, up above from the covert that secluded Mr. Joe and Ira, the undergrowth swished, sounds approached, a woman’s blithe giggle, a man’s quick chuckle, mingling, and near and nearer, blessedly, angelically descending the inclined way, and now at hand: The young couple appeared, brightly out of shade, apotheosis, never again so blooming, shining-eyed, blushing Irish as she, nor as husky Irish as he, white shirt open at neck, laughter on lips, strong and eager. Barely surprised at seeing Ira and Mr. Joe, the two lovers glanced in momentary self-conscious check of amorous intent. They smiled, in friendly apology, veered away, and brushing away undergrowth as they proceeded downhill disappeared among the bushes.

It was enough, their passing, their grazing so close to the shameful, nameless knot that bound the victimizer and his victim together, Mr. Joe a hairsbreadth from discovery of his guilt, and Ira so bound to him, he couldn’t even run to the passing lovers, the young man and woman, to say: “He, Joe — the Mister — him, he wants me—” Ira felt he himself shared in the shame and the guilt to have accompanied Mr. Joe out here.

It was enough to end the impasse. And both knew it. “Let’s go back,” said Mr. Joe.

Ira followed him with alacrity, uphill along the path. But then Joe stopped. Just before they came out into the open, and could already hear the automobiles on the street, the trolley cars, voices calling out, reassuring, Joe stopped. He led Ira behind a clump of trees, and reassured by the proximity of other beings to him, his own to them, close enough to be heard, could almost run to, Ira followed. Unbuttoning his own fly, Joe began a tranced pumping of the swollen thing he had in his hand — until — his breath became animal audible — he suddenly grabbed Ira’s buttock, and began squirting a pale, glairy substance against the bark of the tree.

Mr. Joe buttoned his fly. The two walked the short distance to the street, to the trolley tracks, boarded a car when it came.

Mr. Joe paid the fare, and they rode back, street after street, their numbers so happily, happily diminishing. Ira didn’t care if all this time Mr. Joe kept his hand on his young friend’s thigh. To overjoyed eyes, the trolley reached and rounded familiar West 125th Street, and then traveled east: Seventh Avenue, the Hotel Theresa— Oh, he could walk happily home from here, but he stayed: Lenox and Fifth and Madison, and the welcome, welcome gray-painted trestle of the railway overpass with the station bustle and ticket office below: Park Avenue! He was home! “I have to get off here,” Ira stood up. “My mama’s waiting.”

“Sure. See you later.” Smiling amiably, Joe reached up and pulled the bell cord.

Ira alighted from the trolley; turned immediately downtown around the beer-parlor corner, downtown to face home. Hurrying along Park Avenue, past the plumbing-supply corner on 124th Street, he glimpsed the edge of Mt. Morris Park a block to the west. Seen now, as he would see it, at the end of each street he passed, the park — and the hill above and the bell tower — seemed fixed within a harrowing nimbus — as everything was: houses, people, store windows, pillars of the overpass, everything was steeped in something sinister, sinister, diluted by deliverance, but ineradicable, an inescapable smut.

Don’t say anything to Mom. Pop’ll murder you.

XI

He too, Ira thought, ironically, he too could date his writing A.C. and B.C.: After Computer and Before Computer. Because what he wrote now (today, this 4th of February, ’85) was in essence — largely — of what he had typewritten, beginning almost exactly six years ago, in February of 1979. So he faced himself, and would face himself from time to time with asides of another period, a period when he was typing — when he was still able to type, his hands still able to stand the impact of the keys of his Olivetti manual typewriter.

Such was the case today: The yellow second-copy page waiting for him to transcribe it to disk began: This is Tuesday, April 3, 1979. The morning is clear, temperature a bit chillier than seasonable. I passed the night in considerable pain. M, my selfless spouse, will again have to drive me to the Presbyterian Hospital this afternoon for the blood and urine tests that determine how well the body has been tolerating the “gold” injections, remedy of last resort, or almost, of arresting the depredations of this pernicious disorder, hight in medical language rheumatoid arthritis, abbreviated hereafter as RA (Joyce would be happy at the correspondence, being batty on the subject that RA in Hebrew meant anything bad, the whole spectrum of bad). Outside my study window at the moment, the first transitory bronze buds blur the cottonwood boughs.