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

“Really?” He nudged her into the stream of pedestrians. “Boy, I could give you a big fat feel I’m so happy.” He patted the waist of her green coat. “Don’t you feel wonderful too?”

“Not why you feel wonderful. I got a collegiate boyfriend. Somebody in my class should see me. Wouldn’t they look. But they left already. Mr. McLaughlin should see I had a date.” She glanced over her shoulder.

“Mr. McLaughlin wouldn’t bother me,” Ira bantered. “Max, Moe, Harry. Or somebody like that; one of our uncles. What they’d think.”

“You’re like Zaida when he lived with us: worry, worry, worry. Now I know where you get it from.”

“I’m not worrying now.” Ira caressed the green coat sleeve.

“Hey, that’s nice,” she tittered. He kneed her thigh in stride. “Oh, boy.”

At the corner of 14th the two stopped, close to the curb, but to one side of the crossing; the young, placid face beside him — protoplasm came in all shapes and sizes, but none better than the little piece beside him — for what he wanted — as if he mirrored within the distorted, sordid mirror of himself the turmoil all about him, the noise, the traffic become predatory, the crouching storefronts. He was ravening again — like a guy who quit a habit and then caved in, became twice as addicted. He had to fuck her. Where? Jesus, the nuttiest goddamn notions: Ask Edith; she was broad-minded; he was broad-minded — could he have her apartment. Everything had turned out all right: Please: five minutes, he who a half hour ago was ready to crawl with mortification. Oh, God—

“You going to see that professor-lady?” Stella asked.

“Yeah. But I was thinking. Wait a minute. Give me a minute.”

Stella surmised his drift of motive. “I can’t go anyplace, Ira. I have to be home. You know Mama. Ten minutes late, and there’s a big geshrei .”

“We don’t need a half hour.”

“Where? I can’t.”

“I’m trying to think. Someplace. Damn!” An interval passed, desperate interval, while he wracked his brains, while crowds passed, wheels turned and a million million things changed position, and the clock on the Edison tower struck the quarter hour. “What time you supposed to be home?”

“You know. About four o’clock. Same time as Hannah comes home from Julia Richmond.”

“Oh, Jesus!” Ira stared about — at illimitable motion and commotion — and then at the placid pleading, appealing, girlish smiling a trace, blue-eyed, fair countenance — himself and that rusty pederast, but different. “What a goddamn world!”

“We could go into a telephone booth,” Stella ventured.

“A what?” Ira was startled.

“Down in the subway.”

“And then what?”

“Hold a newspaper in front of the glass like.”

“Hold a newspaper?”

“I could go around the world. Underneath.”

“Christ’s sake, when’d you learn that?” She reddened, but kept mum. “I just got an idea. C’mon!”

“Where? Where, I said?”

“No, I’ve got a better idea. Let’s go.” And when she balked, his voice sharpened. “I said, let’s go.”

“But I can’t. I gotta be home. I told you.”

“Tell Mamie it’s a goddman Thanksgiving party. A party, a little party after school everybody stayed for. Why not?”

Overborne, she was fearful, whined, yet submitted to his lead. “Where you gonna take me?”

“You’ll be a few minutes late, that’s all. We can be real quick. I’m not going to take you a mile away. I know you have to be home.”

They stopped only briefly at the impacted, milling intersection of 14th and Broadway. The same young cop Ira had seen before now stood in midstreet, unkinking anarchy with beckoning hand and whistle. He pointed to his feet in strict signal to the left-turn driver. “Ira, where are you going?” Stella pleaded. “Oh, will I get it from Mama.”

“No. It’s right here.”

“Where?”

“The same street. The other side.” Her gaze ranged along the low drab row of buildings. “Read the name,” Ira encouraged.

“You mean that theater?”

“Fox’s. Right.”

“So what d’you wanna go in there for?”

“I worked there.”

“Yeah, but you gotta pay to get in now, don’t you?”

“Damn sight better than a telephone booth. C’mon, you’ll see,” he encouraged. “It’ll be in and out, in and out. Maybe you won’t even be ten minutes late.”

She let the elbow he was holding relax permissively. “Oh, in there?”

“Smart, huh? Let’s cross here.”

“I never was in Fox’s.”

“It’s a good place. Used to be. It’s got a great balcony.”

“Oh.”

“All right? Boy, am I dying. Hey, maybe I’ll let you. I never tried it. You still got your period?” He squeezed her arm, masterfully amorous, steering her toward the run-down theater marquee. “A-ah. You still—?”

“What?”

“Got your period?”

“No. I finished.”

“What?!”

“I finished this morning already.”

“You did!” He all but came to a halt. “How could you?”

“I began Sunday, that’s why, right after you called. Isn’t that funny? Nearly right after I just hung up.”

“Holy crow! I suffered all those days, thinking you— And I made arrangements. Jesus, I haven’t even told her. And boy.” He screwed up his face, clawed at his brow. “I spilled the beans. All about — me. Jesus, I didn’t have to. If I’d only known— Why couldn’t you have stayed home that goddamn afternoon? Roxy, shmoxy.” The words poured out of him rife with contempt.

“You’re not the only one.” She turned on him resentfully. “It’s what I keep telling you, Ira. Only you count. Just like Zaida.”

“Just like — now, listen—” He nipped off his truculence. Jesus Christ, he’d lose her if he didn’t. “All right,” he appeased. “All I’m saying is you could have given me a break. You could have let me know. Somehow. Oof, Jesus. Have I got luck.”

“What d’you think I did? I tried to tell you.” Stella lifted her face in bland challenge.

“What d’you mean? What did you do?”

“And I got myself in trouble, too.”

“When?”

“You know how much I love your neighborhood, with all the Irish and the Italians. They’re worse than the Portorickies. Even your hallway. That long, dark — o-o-h. Don’t tell me I wasn’t afraid.”

“Is that what you mean? What were you doing in my neighborhood? My house? You mean 108 East 119th Street?”

“Yes, I mean 108 East 119th,” she repeated. “Your house. Where else?” And she suddenly added: “Let’s go back.”

“Oh, no, no!” Ira truckled. “There’s the theater. Where was I? Me?”

“You weren’t home.”

“I wasn’t?”

“No.”

“I wasn’t!”

“You talk about me? Why shouldn’t I go to the Roxy afterward? I’m gonna wait? You’ll find out later.”

“Oh, that was Sunday morning! Oh, Jesus Christ Almighty! I would go get advice I didn’t need. Oh, Jesus!” he wailed. “Talk about Romeo and Juliet.”

“Who?”

“Oh, you know, Romeo and Juliet. Christ.” His voice slowed under freight of utter disgust. “Oh—” And then suddenly spurred on: “So how’d you get in trouble? Some mick follow you in the hall, or what?”

“No. And don’t think there wasn’t somebody on the stoop.”

“Then what? So what happened?” Again, her mum, obdurate mien met his question. How could she be so blue-eyed, blank, and recalcitrant: sappy enigmatic. “Okay. Forget it, none of my business,” he slurred. “Let’s go.”

“But not to watch anything? No flick?”

“No, no. I told you. Listen, the subway gets jammed.” He gesticulated. “It’s a holiday tomorrow. Things like that can happen.”