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

“Huh?”

“Elocution. Elocution 7, sitting next to each other. We had to double up in the same seat.”

“Oh, that? I was a big galoot. That big galoot in the second row, fourth seat, or what the hell ever it was, stand up! You know, I’ll never forget that: you stood up.”

“I really thought he meant me. He was looking right at me. He did have rather close-set eyes.”

“Old man Pickens. We used to call his sister Slim Pickens.”

“Just one period in class together,” said Larry. “Can you imagine? Just because her ship was delayed a couple of days getting into New York.”

“I’ve thought about it a hundred times.”

“So have I. Do you think we would ever have met otherwise?”

“Hard to say — in a high school as big as DeWitt Clinton. I have me doots.” When pressed for reminiscence, mugging was easiest for Ira.

“I would have finished my predent by now. What am I saying: a year ago. Finished a year of anatomy, cutting up stiffs. Begun to do some real dentistry.”

“Yeah?”

“Can you hear me?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Did I ever get thrown off course.”

“You?”

“You feel that way too?”

“Way, way off.”

“For you it’s different.”

“What? Oh. Why?”

“Well, you know why.” They were both silent. The next stop was 96th Street, so no use wasting breath when the big moment was only a minute or two away. What would it be about, if it were a big moment? What form would it take? His own feelings about what lay ahead were uneasy, fateful and yet formless. Not a horrible crisis, a ghastly turning point, like being kicked out of Stuyvesant — or waiting for Stella to hear the news — or telling Edith about it. Or Jesus, how many were there? That sick, harrowing feeling of maybe confessing to Edith about Minnie. No. But some kind of big moment just the same. Momentous in its way — even if not a cataclysmic upheaval. Decisive, that was the word. Not everything had to be a tornado, a blast of recriminations. Momentous confrontation. Certainly. But why not dealt with calmly, or as calmly as possible. The imperceptible, the rift within the lute, had begun long ago. Larry beside him was probably thinking the same thing. What did he want, what did he hope for? He was bound to ask about Edith. Bound to have something to do with Edith — Edith and Ira.

Try to figure out, try to get ready for the coming colloquy. What did Larry mean? For you it’s different. Of course it was different. The 96th Street station was next. He would soon find out — definitely.

He saw Larry prepare for alighting from the train, grip the handles of his handsome stippled briefcase, the very opposite of the workaday walrus-hide briefcase Mamie had presented her nephew — that had been stolen from him. Everything reminded him of something else. Was it because of his uneasiness? He followed Larry’s lead, gripped the peeling handles of his cowhide briefcase. They both stood up, with others getting off, clung to the enameled hangers to steady themselves from the thrust of the train’s deceleration as it pulled alongside the local platform.

“Well, we’ll get a chance to talk now,” Larry said.

“Right.”

Misgivings seemed to pile on misgivings. And after he and Larry had come to grips, and that was settled, if it was settled, Ossa on Pelion would follow, waiting outside the business school to take Stella to meet Edith. Owoo.

The train lurched to a stop. A local train, an early hour, exit was uncontested. With a scattering of fellow passengers, the two stepped across the gap between train and platform, to encounter a scattering waiting to step the other way — into the train — across the gap that always seemed to ask a question.

“I’ve got an appointment at about four o’clock with Jim Light,” said Larry.

“Who?”

“Jim Light. He’s the director of the new Pinsky play they’re putting on at the Provincetown.”

“Good luck.”

“Thanks. It shouldn’t be hard getting a bit part.”

They traversed the short tunnel under the tracks of the express train island overhead, climbed up the stairs to the uptown local side. Once there, Larry looked about smartly for the station bench, located it, the massive oak bench, next to an O’Sullivan Heel poster, in front of the penny Hershey bar vending machine that was wedged between the riveted flanges of a smudged subway pillar. At the other end of the bench sat an old guy in a greasy-looking coat, peeling an orange in a paper bag. His fingers were stiff, fingers evidently tacky with orange juice; he kept wriggling them to separate them.

“Helluva place to shmooze. ” Larry led the way to the other end. “We could go back to the apartment—”

“No, no.” Ira realized he was too peremptory. On guard, he warned himself as he sat down: Watch it.

“You know why I wanted to talk to you?”

“I can sorta guess.”

“It’s the same thing we started to talk about in the alcove the other day.”

“I might as well tell you quite a lot else has happened since then.”

“Yes?”

“Larry, I’ve got to tell you that Edith asked me to help her on her new anthology of modern poetry.” As always Ira could only tell Larry half of any given truth. Edith’s trust in him offered a future, out of Harlem. Ira had just begun to see his machinations, his spells, begin to come to fruition. And, as always, he couldn’t share his plots with his friend.

“I’m not surprised. I heard about that too.”

“Okay. And now you have something—” Ira began, gave up before the clash of an incoming uptown express train, immediately augmented to overpowering din by a downtown express pounding in on the parallel track — deafening. “Helluva place is right.” Even shouting, he barely made himself heard.

“Let’s wait a minute,” Larry said, raising his voice. A cheerful couple with a youngster in tow sat down between them and the orange-eater; a lively kid, but fixed into quiescence by the sight of the old man peeling the orange. The trains came to a halt; the thunder of metal subsided. “I’ve always thought it would happen, you and Edith.” Larry resumed. “I knew she was humoring me, long before she told me that Lewlyn was engaged to the woman in England. I knew she would turn to you.”

“All right. So it’s all sorta predictable on both sides.”

“Now it is. I didn’t foresee that I would be a rung in your ladder. Did you?”

“Sure. I had designs on Edith from the beginning.” Ira’s candor shocked him.

“Oh, come on.”

“Fact.”

Larry sat with one large hand in the other, watching the two express trains rumble apart. They seemed to stretch an elastic transparency between them. Then he turned to Ira: “I don’t believe it.”

“You said ‘rung,’ didn’t you. We could go on indefinitely. I’m not going to. Because it’ll get to be damn painful. I know you’ve got some kind of trouble with your heart—”

“Oh, to hell with that! Just a transient thing: a small clot. I lost consciousness for all of five seconds.”

“Edith was damned concerned.”

“She’s always ready to magnify any disorder: a cough becomes TB.”

“Okay. Okay. Is that what you wanted to complain to me about, your being a rung in my ladder? Let’s have it.”

“No, I wasn’t going to complain at all.”

“Then what?”

“We were friends, weren’t we? You were my friend, weren’t you? Clichés about bosom companions aside, that’s what we were. And that’s what remains precious to me, more than I can tell you.”

“Yes?” Ira could feel himself congealing defensively.

“Look, what I’m trying to tell you is this—”