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

Across busy 14th Street, on the thronged, bustling sidewalk on the other side, a black street vendor, with display case closed and light folding stand clutched, was running pursued by a cop, was at the curb when Ira looked, and only out of reach of the young, speedy bluecoat because of intervening pedestrians, who delayed him a split second, while the other, lithe and nimble — and reckless — sped into the street, dodged among cars, and, dropping trinkets from his display case, distanced himself. For a moment, the cop aimed his club to throw, thought better of it, and instead shook his head with a loser’s good grace, flushed, watching his quarry escape.

“He’ll git him,” said the newstand owner with hoarse confidence. “Black bastard, he’s been comin’ down here peddlin’ dat shit every day.”

“Yeah?” At least amity was restored.

“Look at it. Dere’s a car goin’ over it. See? Fuckin’ brass lockets, an’ phony lavalieres wit’ glass in em.”

“Yeah?” LINDY WINS MEDAL. AL SMITH FOR CHANGE IN VOLSTEAD. NO. AGAIN NO. COOLIDGE. “De bastard’s got more noive den brains. He ain’ de on’y one. Ye see more ‘n’ more o’ dem boogies on Fawteent Street every day.”

“No!”

“Betcher ass ye do!”

“Oh, Jesus!” Ira exclaimed, turned to look at the business-school door. Students were coming out. “Oh, hell.” He broke into a run.

II

He could have batted her with his briefcase, he was so furious with her dawdling down the steps, seemingly the last one out of the school. And he had been almost on the point of running up into the accounting classroom, Mr. McLaughlin’s class, where the first students out said she was. Goddamn her, he raged when she recognized him — with her simpering, sappy surprise at the top of the stair. Jesus, somewhere else, he’d have let loose all the obscenities he knew, as she descended the wide steps, fat knock knees in fawny silk stockings under spongy green coat, chewing gum, her pleased and complacent shallow blue eyes shining behind silver-framed eyeglasses on pork nose, her gold curly hair compressed by black cloche. Book in hand, banister in hand. God, the temptation to upbraid her, insult her — if possible! Could she be insulted, the dumb bunny?

“What’re you doin’ up there, layin’ for the guy?” Ira could barely contain the nervous impatience of his tone, just short of savage. “For Christ’s sake, ye know I called Hannah. I couldn’t get you.” Still inside the building, he brought his voice within testy limits.

“I was with my accounting teacher, Mr. McLaughlin, going over the test I flunked.”

“Yeah. All right. But I’m waiting. I hinted—” Ira jerked his arm emphatically.

“So what’s the hurry?” Insipidly nonchalant, she was actually cheerful.

“What’s the hurry?” He glared at her. “What’s the hurry! I come all the way downtown. I wait.” Again, he fought himself to lower his voice. Irate, watched her plant her foot on the ground floor. “Don’t you know we’re supposed to go to a doctor? I’m gonna take you to that — that lady I told you about.”

“With the castor oil?”

“No, for Christ’s sake!” He snapped. He gripped her arm. Dawdling little bitch, was she ever going to move? He led her through the building door and into the street. “I don’t— That’s the reason we’re going. Let’s get a move on. We don’t know. We gotta find out.”

“I know.”

“All right, then let’s get going.” Ira all but tugged the green-cloth-covered arm toward 14th Street. “I’ll get a cab.”

“But I told you I know.”

“Waddaye mean, you know?” He felt absolutely vicious. Lucky they were in a crowd.

“I don’t need it.”

“What de ye mean, you don’t need it? Don’t need what?” Other pedestrians alongside, no matter: he was shouting.

“I don’t need a doctor.”

“Why? Don’t tell me you’re not going to go?”

“I don’t have to go.”

A tiny inkling was beginning to make headway. “You don’t have to go?” His voice that began as bluster subsided ludicrously: dopy Doppler effect. “What d’ye mean?”

“I told you, you worry too much, Ira.”

“All right.” He frowned warily. “So I worry too much. Who do you think I worry for?”

“For yourself. If I was somebody you didn’t know, if I was pregnant, you wouldn’t worry.” Her voice held an uncommon note of firmness. “I worried about you, and you weren’t pregnant.”

“What the hell are you talking about? What do you mean, ‘if I was pregnant’? What am I here for?”

“What I said: because you only worry about yourself.”

“Wait a minute. Are you all right?”

“Of course I’m all right.”

“You had your period?” He arrested both their progress, an abrupt embolus in the flow of the throng; a woman’s face turned in passing, her rouged cupid-bow lips affixing a fiery stigma on air. “You did? You’re not kidding? You did?” He drew her after himself out of the current of passersby against the plate-glass embankment of a store window. “I wanna know. Tell me.”

“Tell you? I told you. You think so much about yourself you don’t even hear.”

“Never mind that. Tell me!”

“I did.”

“You’re not pregnant?”

“You want me to be?”

“O-oh! O-oh! O-oh!” He could have whooped, he could have capered for joy, cubits high. Fourteenth Street ahead, gray mass of building, slash of blue sky, solid street and park trees and highway, and everything in it became supple as a tapestry, undulated. “Oh, that’s wonderful! You’re really not?”

She simpered, again her old self, compliant, eager to please. “All right, enjoy yourself.”

“Am I? This is like a dream. A-ah! You’re wonderful.” His hand on her arm checked her from moving away. “Look inside the window a minute.”

“It’s Barron’s.” She peered through the glass. “I told Minnie about it Friday. They’re having a sale of fall dresses. She wants me to come with her tomorrow, Thanksgiving. They’re giving twenty percent off. You know, Ira, your sister is small around the bust? She’s nearly like me.”

“Yeah?” Beatitude of reprieve was what he felt, so exultant, ferocious in its exultance — how could the plate glass in which he saw himself reflected show only a stupid smirk on a face wearing round shell-framed eyeglasses under a gray felt hat? Jesus Christ, Jesus H. Christ, his visage should be transfigured, radiant. Just a dumb dope listening to a kid cousin blabbling. Jesus, he ought to sprout wings with joy. Instead he was already looking sideways down at the short round figure in green beside him: little pork-nose Stella in a black cloche. He had never been out in public with her before. Why the hell didn’t he meet her all the time in front of her school — or whenever he had a chance? Yeah? Where would they go? Smooth, juvenile, fair face, vapid, blond. Ever ready, like a flashlight, but where would they go? Jesus, wasn’t he a goddamn goat? A minute ago, damn near shitting in his pants with dread, now ready to go. And here they were. Alone, alone in a mob.

“What d’ye see?” he asked.

“That navy dress there with the tassels, that would be just right for Minnie — I mean the color. Be just right for winter in the office. And like Mama would say, it’s a gurnisht money: eighteen dollars.”

“Yeah? I don’t know anything about ladies’ clothes. I don’t even look— Boy, do I feel good. Ah-h.” His bespectacled open-mouthed face in the plate glass looked moronic. “Fur-trimmed coats for thirty-nine fifty,” he read the price tag on the mannikin.

“That’s what I mean. You know how much Saks Fifth Avenue gets for them? Twice as much.”