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

“No, no. I just came for a minute.” Uncle Louis warded off the invitation with curt flap of the yellow slip in his hand. He bent toward Larry on his cot. “Are you Larry Gordon?”

Through all sorts of turbid perspectives, as through a spectral shimmer and shadow, the yellow slip in Uncle Louis’s bony, veined hand materialized into the slick surface of a Western Union telegram envelope.

“Yes, I am.” Larry’s apathy gave way to attentiveness, his bent posture straightened in concern. “Is that for me, Mr. Sanger?”

“Here you are.” Uncle Louis tendered the yellow envelope. “I knew we didn’t have any guests by that name.”

“Thanks. This can’t be—” Larry stood up. “I lost my father the same way. A telegram.” His voice and hands trembled. Every bit of light in the tent seemed to focus on him as he tore open the thin yellow envelope, scanned—

“Ohh!” He threw his head back in prolonged cry. He slapped hands and yellow paper together. His features were transfigured, his countenance beatified, his impassioned gladness cast new light in the tent itself. “She’s back!” he cried. “Edith is back! Edith is back! She’s back in New York! Oh, thanks, thanks, Mr. Sanger! Sorry I’m so excited. I couldn’t get better news than this! It’s wonderful!” His words tumbled out in rapturous disorder. “Oh, great! Oh, marvelous!”

Ira grinned in embarrassment at his friend’s ecstasy, in embarrassment looked from Larry to Uncle Louis in the hope he would understand, make allowances. He and Larry were about the same height, standing close together in lantern light under the ridge of the sloping canvas walls, their faces level, the one young, handsome, exalted with joy, the other drained, wasted, creased.

“I see you’ve got some good news,” Uncle Louis, unbeguiled, wearily sanctioned.

“Oh, have I, Mr. Sanger. I don’t think I’ll get news as good as this if I live to be a hundred years old! I can’t tell you how happy I am. I mean—” Larry’s head tossed shadows on the tent walls. “It’s just impossible. It’s fantastic, it’s so good.”

“I’m glad for you. Glad you got it. The Western Union boy left it at the desk. I just barely happened to think it might be you.” Uncle Louis stretched a lank arm for the lantern. “You won’t need this. It only draws more mosquitoes.”

“Mr. Sanger, I wonder if — if I dare — please — beg a favor of you — on top of all your kindness,” Larry entreated. “May I make a long-distance call? Collect, of course. May I use the phone? Would you mind? Right now? To New York.” Winning, breathless, Larry importuned.

“No reason you can’t. Go ahead. You can use the phone in the kitchen.” Uncle Louis brought the lantern down, beckoned with it. “Just follow me. It’s the same way you came.” Dour and exhausted, his suppressed groan trailed after him. “Be sure to tell the operator to reverse charges.”

“Oh, certainly. I know. I know. Certainly, Mr. Sanger! Thanks.” Larry quickly made shift to hold the mosquito netting open to follow his guide. He turned to Ira as Uncle Louis moved away from the tent. “Coming?”

“No. I’ll stay here.” Ira remained standing — and called, “Good night, Uncle. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye, goodbye,” came from the laconic voice in the dark above the departing lantern. “Give my regards to your father and mother.”

Larry paused, beckoned for Ira to follow, his pale hand fervent in obscurity.

Ira signaled him to go on.

IV

A nd leaves the world to darkness and to me , Ira thought as he sat waiting, glum, confused, perturbed—“Anh,” he heard himself flout himself. Too much, too conflicting, too contradictory. And boy! Agitated, yeah. Amid Larry’s hopes, problems, hopes, elations, and joy! Contrasting with Uncle Louis’s weary disenchantment, as if his main concern was to survive amid the ruin of his hopes and ideals. Jesus, pathetic, what a sight! And he, Ira? Seeing both, seeing both together, in his own goofy way, through his own twisted cravings, and nearly giving way, betraying himself to Larry. “Anh.” Go there, go back to the kitchen with him, listen to his rapturous outpouring? Sure as hell he was calling Edith. Love, dove, love, shove. My darling, darling, and all the hotel help there too maybe, listening, while Ira tried not to shrink. And Uncle Louis there also. Jesus, wasted away, wasn’t he? Like his ideals of socialism. And strict, exacting, patronizing Aunt Sarah, making sure the call was collect. . So Edith was back. Yeah, tender words, sighs, endearments, verbal caresses — by Larry, gushing with rapture. And himself bystander, lamely attending, for everybody to see, hanger-on. But what the hell was that about premature orgasm? Ira had to tear it off in a hurry because, because, Christ, anybody knew why. Larry had all the time in the world. Jesus, life was full of jokes. Contrarieties. How much he had once wanted Uncle Louis for a father. Once wanted him to lay Mom. Lyupka . Sarah should know. Uncle Louis should know he made his nephew dream a stiff peg against Mom’s rump, and she laughed. Pop should know. All that socialism was a waste of time, said Uncle Louis. Oh, nuts.

Edith had called up Larry’s home first, Larry informed him when he returned to the tent. She had been told where he was, where he probably was — by Larry’s sister, after some hesitation. And so the telegram. . delivered to the tent in the dark, and by lantern light. . by lank and changed and spent Uncle Louis. . delivered to Larry brooding on his cot, brooding about his predicament.

Ira had never asked him, in the years afterward, during the decades that went by, Do you remember that time? Has anything happened to you more exciting than that? He had never asked. Strange that he hadn’t — well, not so strange. That was his own, imperfect, egotistical nature — or, to give him the benefit of a little charity, his tactfulness, sensitivity: why drag that up, the illusions, the infatuations, the hopeless emotional entanglements of youth? What could you say to Larry about an eventual loss, an eventual defeat — at your hands? Wasn’t that a thrill, Larry? Something banal as that. Boy, wasn’t that something? The tent, the dark, the dirt floor, the mosquitoes — real New Jersey mosquitoes in New York you could throw a saddle over. And Uncle Louis coming in with the lantern and the telegram. Maybe you could, after many, many years, hark back, when it hardly mattered any longer, muse on it, share it, add a jot to the patter. . No. For obvious reasons.

Sit with hand in pocket awhile, head hanging. It was the summer of 1925, again. And the mind stands still or seems to, but of course it doesn’t. Silly business, the whole thing, like existence itself. That he, Ira, to reiterate, should be with a well-bred, tenderly reared youth like Larry, should have had designs on the guy already, wavered, shaken off loyalty in the nick of time, compulsively determined to make of him, his friend, a vehicle for a future with only the vaguest definition, haziest outline. How do you do it? It wasn’t done consciously, that was the odd part of it; it was done by an act of involuntary imagination. Nobody else could have been that crazy. . How the hell did you ever dream you could do it? Well, he had told himself before how he had done it, a dozen times, or tried to. Think of that dreary cold-water flat on 119th Street, think of Larry’s comfortable, well-furnished, roomy apartment in the Bronx, an apartment occupying the entire floor, and Larry with a room of his own. Oh, fare thee well, friend, friend and stepping-stone. Larry accused Ira of using him just for that — much later, when recriminations were in order — Larry told Ira what he was. And he was right. But what the hell can you do? Nada . The guy had to make life fit fiction.