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

Some kind of sharp differences had arisen between Farley and the head of the parochial school, Father McGrath, differences over just what Ira paid too little attention to heed in his joy at finding an affinity, a companion. It had been because these sharp differences with Father McGrath had come to a head that caused Farley to prevail on his parents to consent to his leaving the St. Thomas Parochial School, leaving it even before he was graduated. Most likely it may have been the good Father’s insistence that Farley enroll in St. Pius Academy, a parochial high school, after graduation from St. Thomas. All his classmates did so — those who were going on in school — Farley alone chose not to. (Ira was to hear an allusion to the friction between priest and pupil later — from remarks made by former schoolmates.) Farley preferred, nay, he was determined, to attend Stuyvesant High School, a technical school, after graduation from grammar school, and this undoubtedly was the cause of the sharp differences between himself and his Catholic mentor. And because of that too, Farley no longer felt at ease in the school. His discontent met sympathy at home. He left St. Thomas’s — quite abruptly — to enroll in P.S. 24, only a block away from his home. His appearance in Mr. Sullivan’s class awoke in Ira the same kind of attraction Ira had felt years ago for Eddie Ferry, the Irish janitor’s son.

It was the same kind of attraction, only much wider in scope: Here was someone who took life in stride (the metaphor was destined for literal realization in the coming months and years). Happy, untroubled as were his blue eyes, tranquil, at home in the world, Irish, Catholic, and yet compatible, without prejudice almost, blithe and cordial with his new Jewish acquaintance. The attraction was mutual. In a matter of days, the two became fast friends. Farley took to Ira’s Jewishness as he did to everything else: casually. And he even went a step beyond: he mitigated Ira’s Jewishness with unexpected tact and clemency, as if loyalty called for no less, called for the dispersion of religious differences. His reason for attending P.S. 24 Junior High instead of going on to Stuyvesant after graduation was carefree — and characteristic—“I just feel like mopin’ around the old neighborhood for awhile longer.”

As the weather grew warmer, they went hitchhiking, the first time Ira had ever done so. Because Ira worked at Park & Tilford, they hitchhiked on Sundays — to Tarrytown, to Dobbs Ferry, to New Rochelle. In each of these towns, Farley had an aunt or an uncle. They fed the wayfarers peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (again a new experience for Ira), or blueberry muffins and milk fresh from the cow, or redolent, cinnamon-savory apple pie. In the steadiness, in the tranquility of Farley’s unassuming assurance, his good-humored poise, and the affectionate regard with which he was greeted and held by his kin, Americans all, part and parcel of America in their warm, tidy, suburban kitchens into which the breeze from the green outside seeped through the screen door, Ira could almost imagine that acceptance of himself was only a shadow away, no greater than the transient film of bemusement that covered their faces at first sight of Farley’s choice of friend.

So the two, inseparable pals, on warm Saturday evenings, “moped” about Farley’s haunts, in the environs of St. Thomas’s Church, palavered, kidded with his former classmates at the parochial school, their moment of skew regard of Ira abating when he recounted asinine predicaments at Park & Tilford, thus reassuring them he was too foolish to be wary of. And he succeeded, for they soon lapsed into normal pinch-lipped, mock-solemn, Irish chaffering. They called one another hoople-head or satchel-back; they bragged gravely: “Where I come from, the canaries sing bass.” And: “Where I come from, they play tiddlywinks with manhole covers.” Sometimes, and in neutral silence, Ira heard mention of missions and novenas, masses, Holy Communion. And once or twice, he was given an intimation of the reason for the antagonism that had developed between Farley and Father McGrath, a strong hint of an issue Ira had never suspected before: “You’ll be running for a bunch of black Protestants against Catholics, that’s what you’ll be doing,” said Steve, in eyeglasses, impassive in his sobriety, the most owlish of Farley’s friends.

“I’ll be running for myself, and I’m a Catholic,” Farley rejoined with uncommon heat. “That’s what got me sore at Father McGrath. I don’t have to go to St. Pius for my salvation. I go to church.”

“Yeah, but if you’re running for St. Pius, everybody’ll know you’re running for the glory o’ Catholics, not Protestants.”

“That doesn’t make me any better runner. And going to Stuyvesant doesn’t turn me into a Protestant either. That’s what I told Father McGrath. And that’s what I’m gonna do. Suppose I do go to St. Pius and don’t turn out to be so hot? Then everyone’ll say the same thing: He’s a Catholic. He can’t run. And I won’t be in the school I want to be in either.”

It took several minutes for the air of ill-will between Farley and his ex-schoolmates to dissipate.

It was Farley’s running ability that had made the Father so importunate. From the very outset, Ira had been impressed, chagrined at first and then startled at the phenomenal bursts of speed with which Farley overtook a vehicle that had slowed down to pick them up when they were hitchhiking. Farley was already holding the door open while Ira was still laboring to catch up. Suddenly Farley’s running ability took on a new and totally undreamed-of dimension.

Toward the end of the first term of junior high school, as the spring term neared summer, it brought fresh revelation of Farley’s potential in track events. Three of the new junior high schools in the uptown area were to take part in a track meet. On the appointed day for the meet, 128th Street, the street fronting P.S. 24, was roped off, lanes were chalked off for the sixty-yard dash, thick pads laid down to cushion high jump and broad jump. Competition began. Ira was soon eliminated from all events; he trailed in the very first heat of the sixty-yard dash — and failed in everything else, just as he expected. Farley did creditably in both broad jump and high jump, placing second and third to black students from further uptown. But it was in the sixty-yard dash that he was nothing short of sensational: He won every heat easily and just as easily outstripped the pack in the finals. Easily. Running with knees high, and fists clenched. Easily. Drawing away to the finish line from all those straining in pursuit. Incredulously Ira watched; even though he knew how fleet of foot his friend was, Ira’s chest still swelled with pride, with surrogate glory. Fleet, yes, that was one thing. But this kind of fleetness was no longer a matter of local repute, acknowledged by local praise. No, anyone could feel that Farley’s fleetness of foot had an extraordinary latency about it, an inkling of universal acclaim, a destiny. .

XV

Aching, aching, hurting, hurting (this cursed rheumatoid arthritis), and loving, loving that darling aged spouse of mine. What a silly thing to say. But true. Silly as bald truth so often is. That she enabled a rebirth in me into something I can more nearly live with, you well know, Ecclesias; I have said it before (and likely will again). It is all in vanity, according to your dictum, yours and Omar Khayyám’s: It comes to naught, to the same thing as if it hadn’t happened. Had there been no sense of regeneration, but rather had I remained as I was, what I was, contemptible, despicable in my own eyes, it would still have come to naught, alas. But once again I can only say, at my unsubtle level of thought, that beyond life’s limit, beyond death life is meaningless, as meaningless as the mark zero over zero, meaningless, that which an infinitely small instant before did have meaning. And so one has to speak of that, and to those still standing before the mortal instant when vanity is consummated. And therefore, my love, my love, I live, for whom I must live, who needs me. And for what little good my living may do the living.