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

“What’ll I tell her?” she called after him in the cold hall. “You didn’t have breakfast.”

“Any damn thing.”

Once out in the street again, he turned swiftly east. To go the other way, west, to Park Avenue, was too risky. He’d be almost bound to run into Mom — not that it would make too much difference: he’d have to dream up an explanation, and fend off her distress at his not having breakfast. What the hell would he be running out of the house for on a Sunday morning? Damned if he could think of an excuse. Besides, there was a drugstore on the corner of Lexington and 118th Street. He had bought condoms there several times. Biolov’s was just a little too close for comfort. This little pharmacist with the short black mustache didn’t know him, except as a customer in the vicinity somewhere. In fact, the slight man’s face wreathed in a certain expression when Ira laid down his quarter on the counter, as if expecting the usual request.

“Would you mind changing it?” Ira asked. “I’d like to use the phone.”

Change was made wordlessly, and separating out the nickel, pocketing the rest, Ira went into the empty booth. Ten o’clock. Mom way later than usual. But not too early for — temptation an instant surged strongly to make another try at Mamie’s — maybe something had happened in the last half hour. He debated a few seconds, while he watched the drugstore owner slip a pale ceramic brick into the humidor of the box of fat Admiration stogies. Oh, hell, don’t be a sap. He pressed the nickel home. Five days. He’d be just wasting money. The coin clinked down into the holding receptacle, the operator made her stereotyped inquiry, and he gave her Edith’s Greenwich Village exchange. He heard the repeated short hum of the busy signal, and in a few seconds, he heard, “Sorry, the line’s busy,” and the jitney jingled down. Well, at least that meant she was home. Meant he had another minute or two to think about his decision. He opened the folding door. Yeah. Well, who else? Two o’clock he’d said he’d be there. Five hours nearly. An hour to travel downtown, well, maybe less, another uptown. An hour with Edith — oh, plenty of time. Three hours from five hours. You know if they were pregnant, you could screw ’em to your heart’s content. And without a Trojan on. Save money. Yeah — if they were pregnant. Five days. He pressed the nickel into its aperture, heard the ringing signal this time, pulled the folding door to.

She must have just finished her last conversation, and be still sitting within reaching distance of the phone, for she had lifted the receiver from the hook and was answering even before the first ring ended. “Hello, Edith. It’s Ira,” he said.

“Heaven’s sakes, lad, where have you been?”

“Oh, exams and things.”

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah, well, that’s why I’m calling.”

“Anything serious? I hope your family isn’t in trouble.”

“No. They’re all right.”

“You’re not leaving home?”

“Oh, no, no. Wonder if I could come over for a few minutes?”

“Why, of course. You know you’re always welcome.”

“Thanks. How have you been?”

“Oh, much better than for a long time. You sound serious. It isn’t your father again? It isn’t Larry, I hope.”

“Oh, no. Look, I’m only a couple of blocks from the subway. I — it’s better if I come over and tell you.”

“Do, please. You really have me concerned.”

“I won’t be in anybody’s way? It’s not too early?”

“Heavens, no. At ten-thirty? You won’t be in my way at all. You should see the dull batch of student themes I’ve been grading. Ira, I very much want to see you.”

“I should be there in a half hour or so — no, three-quarters of an hour.”

“Please come right along. Ira, you know if there’s anything I can do, please let me help.”

“Yeah. Thanks. Somebody’s here for the phone.” Raptor. Hawk’s eyes, brilliantined approach. Middle-aged dame dolled up. Rouged, perfumed muskily, she brushed by to stuff herself into the booth he’d vacated. Off to a party, somebody’s engagement, peroxided tresses like Morris’s Ida, that phony tramp Pop had procured. Reminded him of the one Leo stuffed it into, wanted to fix him up with. So what? Been a goddamn sight better than the ones — the one he stuffed it into. No, not because no periods, no condoms. No, but to be a man: so you put a pillow on her puss, if she’s as fat a yenta as Leo jokes, so long as you get a piece o’ hump. Be a man, that’s the main thing. Not knock up a sixteen-year-old, and have to tell Edith. Jesus Christ, this lousy Harlem.

He sallied out of the store and headed for the 116th Street station, and as he neared the kiosk thought he heard a train pulling in. Never make it. He’d have to change the dime. An express roared by as he came away from the change booth. Well, he hadn’t missed anything. He pressed his jitney into the turnstile slot, paced on the platform a few minutes, looking down the dark tunnel for telltale headlights. White orbs of a local appeared at length, lurching toward the station. Locals always gave the impression of being so damned self-important, cocky, brash, what the hell. .

XII

His eyes briefly assuaged by the sight of the dull wintry-brown leaves still clinging to shrubbery in the little triangular park across Seventh Avenue, he cleared the last subway step of the kiosk at Christopher Street. After the jaundiced ambience of subway train and platform, the sky seemed a cleaner blue. The southern sun, though low on the jagged horizon, still radiated meridian warmth as he proceeded south. As if reluctant to leave their cozy folds, a few fleecy clouds drifted up out of the deep, irregular gaps in rooftops of miscellaneous buildings downtown. Reluctant too, his heavy legs alternated between trudging and need. He’d have to make it to Mamie’s by two o’clock, to a waiting Stella there, waiting for advice, guidance, help, who knew what, waiting for something he could tell her to do. Jesus. At least there would be time, as Mr. Eliot said. There would be time to find out what to do — or where to have it done — and get back to Stella. Thank God he wouldn’t have to shuttle at Times Square. West Side to East Side, the way Minnie went to CCNY from her office. Jesus Christ, the disgrace. But could he wait any longer? Five days. That was his portion in life: disgrace. . disgrace. Swiped a filigreed fountain pen, overreached, was caught, and how stupidly caught, confessed. Nah, he had found it, he could have said, as he had told himself a thousand times. Was he going to go through that all over again? It had meant expulsion, and expulsion had meant he eventually met Larry. . and eventually left him behind, and on to Edith grown so fond, so warm, admiring — of him, Jesus, trustful, eager, her utter confidant, kind, generous, dainty woman. Okay, you were meant to kick over the apple cart. . and you’re about to. Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of merde . Seventh Avenue traffic on Sunday, mostly checkered taxicabs with blue smoking tailpipes. And birds, turds, surds, and words. What the hell is a surd: a square-root sign. . any irrational root. That’s you, an irrational root, absurd. You’ve been maimed, all right? You stood on the flat diving rock on the shore of the Hudson River, and you said there was a meaning, and you would find an answer. But why does it always have to be on your own hide? Answer. What do you mean by answer? Almost a glimpse at times: like Thoreau’s hound and horse, and hawk was it? Buildings were squat and jammed together, and now and then buildings reared high into the blue; some were loft buildings, some were warehouses, and some of yellow brick, and some of red. It was not really just an answer he was looking for. Something more. Hmph. What the hell was it Iz went around quoting from Rimbaud? J’ai fait la magique étude que nul n’élude. But Rimbaud didn’t say what he found. Meanwhile, as Larry sang, he burned a hole in his only pair of trousers—