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

Scrape of shovel, crackle of fire, smell of smoke wafted on the crisp night air, greeted the senses, and the tableau inside Gabe’s place added a hint of citron: grapefruit, lemons, oranges, ah. As though exorcising the last of inner turmoil. Ah, dispelling vestige of heinous furor — and terror, guilt — the young guy on the tailgate of the truck dumped all the rubbish into the steel drum — and the rubbish turned into flame writhing upward, flame glorifying the squalor that surrounded the place.

“Take it easy, Giorgio.” Snapping down the cover of his metal-clad invoice clip, the hulking and deceptively soft-looking man with slightly rolling gait came out of the wide-open sliding doors, followed by the other, the squat, grizzled, Italian-appearing keeper of the place — or night watchman: he glanced at Ira.

“Me? Take it easy? When you git as old as me, it’s too late to take it easy.”

“Too late? That’s when I thought it was just right.” The other clamped the clipboard under his arm, brought out a package of cigarettes.

“T’anks. Maybe fer some, but not fer me.”

A match flared. The old watchman’s grizzled face leaned into the matchlight, craggy and worn. “T’anks,” puffing his cigarette, his visage lost its features. “Dat’s a Camel, ain’t it?”

“Yeah.” The other lit up his cigarette. “You can get in a snooze on the job every once in a while, can’tcha?”

“Me? No. Days only is when I can sleep. But not nights, not even when I’m off. Nights, I don’t know what the hell it is: bundles keep bustin’ open in my head.”

“Yeah?” The man with the metal clipboard laughed. “Damaged goods, hah? No Joisey tomaters, here.” He uttered a fat, genial laugh.

“Nah,” the old watchman growled rejection. “Not fer me. When I lost my Gina, I lost it all.”

“I was just kiddin’, Giorgio. You know how it is.”

Was he dreaming, somnambulating? No, he wasn’t dreaming, somnambulating. Here came a guy, wiry, thin as a rail, in crumpled hat, maybe porkpie shape once, in the sere, weathered garb of the tramp, but disheveled, hurrying toward them. Shaken out of his momentary trance, streetwise, Ira sidestepped to the curb, noted the newcomer’s bony face to the firelight: his jaws were spattered with blood, his nostrils raw, his nose askew. Jesus, what a pasting someone had given him: a drunk. Rubbing his lips, oblivious of everyone, the other plunged into the open phone booth outside Gabe’s. The light clicked on. No, it was real enough: that savage pummeling racket coming from the half-closed booth was real enough. So was the violent shadow thrown on the sidewalk by the feeble dome light of the booth: the figure of a man banging, hammering the coin box.

“Dat’s right, beat the shit out of it,” the night watchman encouraged. “Wake up de neighborhood. Waddaye, crazy?”

Fresh onset of banging the coin box was the answer.

“Hey, you hear dat rummy, Guido?” the truck driver called to the young fellow on the tailgate of the truck. “He’s like a pimp beatin’ on his whore, ain’t he? Listen to him.”

The young fellow leaned sideways on his shovel to get a better view. “Tickle it, dat’s right. He’s got his finger up her. Hey, bowl it, why don’tcha?” His youthful laugh rang out under the brooding trestle.

A few more bangs, demented, obdurate pounding against the silence, terminated by the old watchman’s threat: “You don’t git the fuck outta here, I’ll take a hunk o’ pipe t’ye, ye fuckin’ bum!”

With a yank of folding doors, the gleam in the booth blinked out; the other stepped out like a lank, starved animal from his lair into the lapping torchlight of the steel drum. Ira began discreetly moving away, stole another glance over his shoulder as he increased the intervening distance. Obvious, the meaning of the other’s importunate crouch, the other’s panhandler’s glimmering palm extended to the two men. All too obvious his rebuff: the blunt jab of thumb, the jeering injunction: “Scram, rummy.” To Ira’s consternation, the man suddenly broke away from the others and dashed after him. Ira’s impulse was to run. Nuts! Just walk away as fast as he could. It didn’t do any good. He was caught up within a dozen strides.

“Listen, bud, I’m flat broke. What d’ye say? A thin dime. I ain’t kiddin’. I’m broker’n the Ten Commandments. I been ridin’ freights since yesterday morning. All the way from Aroostook, from Maine, ya know. I ain’t a rummy. Honest, I was pickin’ pertaters, I ain’t no rummy. I’m just goddamn hungry. I’m starvin’. I got rolled an’ I lost my dough.” The battered, bony face pleaded, blood-stippled, unnerving. Beef-red nostrils twitched. Was that a new gap in his front teeth as he spoke? Jesus, to be confronted with this apparition in dire need in the night, face-to-face with dire need, unyielding need on dark, vacant Park Avenue, wide, ugly Park Avenue, between the unlit storefronts, penurious hall lights, stodgy brick walls — and the railroad viaduct planted on its immobile legs. Not even an auto passed, nor were headlights to be seen. Were the others at the corner watching, where flames fluttered from the drum like an Indian warbonnet? What the hell had he stopped for?

“I haven’t got any money.” Ira tried to repel his accoster with surliness.

“A nickel. Anything. I can walk into a beanery with a nickel. Some of ’em’ll give you som’n stale with a cuppa java. Waddaye say, pal?” He lifted forefinger to nostrils, brought the hand away trembling: “The fuckin’ railroad bull caught me ridin’ in the blinds. Between the Pullman trains. Sonofabitch saw me at 125th Street station. He sapped me silly, knocked the shit outta me. I swear I’m tellin’ you the truth.”

“I haven’t got a nickel.”

“Pennies. Please! Maybe I can get a roll. A slice o’ bread. I’m like to pass out.”

Sucker, Ira assailed himself. But who could deny that pleading, bashed, blood-speckled visage? He felt among the coins in his pocket. Two: a big half dollar and a quarter, big enough too, too big — and a condom tin. Oh, Jesus, why hadn’t he asked that druggist to break that quarter? A quarter! That was his total allowance from Mom for a day at CCNY. But he had five bucks, Edith’s bounty, poor woman. Boy, the way the mind wavered, flickered: screwed his kid cousin. Escaped by the skin of his teeth — and with his notebook. Give alms for Zaida not to guess, give alms the little shrimp wasn’t Jonas. Nuts. Superstition. But that was the way the mind spun its web: here was a tramp begging: mendicant redressing some kind of arrant imbalance. “Yeah,” Ira’s voice was much louder than he intended, strident and bold in hollow gloom: “You better wipe your face.” Strange, how hostility seemed harbinger of relenting.

“That’s right. I must look like a fuckin’ mess.” At a loss, as if he had given up hope of further comfort, the other turned his face dully. “An’ my ear. See that? The fuckin’ bull done that too.” He began licking his fingertips, scouring cheeks at random. “That’s why I didn’t wanna hit up 125th Street. Some cop ketch me panhandlin’, he’d get my ass throwed in the slammer just to make a pinch.”

“I got a quarter. That’s all I got.” Ira drew out the coin.

“What de ye mean? Ye givin’ it t’ me?”

“Not unless you can change it.” His own sarcasm riled him, it was so devoid of efficacy. “Here, take it.”

“Jesus, yer a prince! A whole two bits! God bless ye! God bless ye!”

“Oh, bullshit.”

“I’ll be prayin’ fer ye, honest to God, I’ll pray for ye. You’re white. I mean it. Maybe you’re a Jew. But you’re a Christian. You’re a gent.” He tipped the crumpled hat.