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

“Today? Yes, sir. The store is just on Lenox Avenue.”

“You’ve got a few minutes.” Mr. Lennard’s voice was inviting and at the same time inflexible; it hinted at something Ira had heard before. It couldn’t be. It was: echo of that trim, rusty tramp in wooded Fort Tryon Park. It couldn’t be. It was: Mr. Lennard had gone to the door and given the knob that kind of twist that locked it. He returned, still composed, but emanating a darkness, relentless, unmistakable. “Let’s sit down here.” He indicated one of the spotted, gouged wooden surface-tops of a twin desk.

Ira sat down obediently, and Mr. Lennard sat beside him on the other desktop. He opened his fly, speaking casually: “You’ve grown a lot since that day your birthday was mixed up. I still remember it.” He opened Ira’s fly. “Do you pull off now?”

“No.”

“Don’t tell me you don’t.” He began a slow pumping on his own erection while he teased Ira’s limp penis out. “With all that hair on your cock?”

“Somebody tried to show me on the roof,” Ira shrank within himself. “I didn’t like it.”

“You didn’t come, is that it?” Mr. Lennard increased the movement of both hands. “Ever screw anybody?” And at Ira’s silence, “Come on, get a hard-on. Make believe you’re trying to take somebody’s ass.”

Too numb even to be resistive, just too numb; become part of what was around him, not himself: slate blackboards, erasers in the channels, stumps of chalk, school clock, inkwells in the scarred desktops. Long window pole beside the big school windows gaping at blue sky. Mr. Lennard’s hands bobbed up and down. “Come on, squeeze it, squeeze it, get a hard-on. See a nice big ass in front of you. Like your mother’s or your sister’s. You’ve seen it, haven’t you? Bend ’em over. Nice and big — o-oh.” His hands quickened to a flutter. “You get wet dreams. Nice wet dreams. Bring ’em out here in front of you. Come on. Get a hard-on.”

Specter of that rusty, lanky tramp the Irish couple saved him from. “Mr. Lennard, I gotta go. I’m gonna be late.”

“No, you won’t. Let’s go!” He hissed fiercely through his teeth. His features had become concentrated in hectic determination; his pince-nez vibrated so with the intensity of his pumping his own and Ira’s limp penis, he removed his hand from his own, squeezed the clip that removed his glasses, placed them on the desk in the next aisle. “Come on, boy! Make it stiff.”

“I can’t, Mr. Lennard. I’m in school. I can’t.” Whining, shrinking, his instinct clung to the only available escape. “Please, Mr. Lennard. I have to go — Mr. Klein is waiting.”

“Oh, hell!” Mr. Lennard terminated effort abruptly. “Button up.” He got to his feet, snatched his pince-nez from the desk, fixed it on his nose, then angrily went to the door, buttoning his fly. “All right, you’re excused.” He turned the knob. “Don’t forget to bring me a note tomorrow.” He threw the door open, looked out into the hall, scowled at Ira quickly approaching, school-book strap in one hand, his free hand forcing the last button into place on the fly of his knee-pants.

Past his unforgiving teacher, out of the classroom door, into the hall, brass knobs of closed classrooms marking his frightened progress. Self-accused, befouled, bewildered, harried by sick nightmare, he scurried down the iron staircase, alone between thick glass partitions’ dull translucence, the uriney basement. Why did it have to happen to him? Stupid. Mr. Klein told him what to do. Anh. The door, heavy oak school door. Out. Out. That lousy, rotten — bugger! Into the street, oh, better the street. Yell for everybody to hear, Mr. Lennard is a lousy, rotten bugger! Jesus, getting late.

He quickened his pace. He strode as fast as he could, feeling the bind of tightening calf muscles. Revulsion permeated his every fiber, an all-encompassing disgust. A teacher, no less. Like that morning in the gutter, soon after coming to live on 119th Street, the barber’s son and Petey Hunt: “Goggle a weeny,” they baited each other. “Gargle a weeny.” Oh, God, it was all true, it was all true. Everything. They didn’t imagine it. They didn’t exaggerate. It was all true. Fags. Fairies. Fluters. Teachers or rusty bums in the park: What could they see, pulling, holding his dink, his ass, pulling? What? Mother’s big ass, sister’s ass. Oh, he knew what, he knew what. But he wouldn’t say. Play dumb and get away. Play dumb and escape. Ira broke into a trot. Get to the store as fast as he could. Forget.

No, not necessary. Not necessary.

— What an odd way to put it.

I know. I know. So do you, Ecclesias.

— It’s still odd.

Odd or not, that’s my dilemma.

— You chose it.

As a precondition, yes. What are you going to do? Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight and burned is Apollo’s laurel bough. . What can you do? What can you make? As Mom would say in her pathetic Yinglish. Old mole of Hamlet threading underground, or the Ancient Mariner’s undersea sprite.

— But then.

Yes, old mole. ’Tis called a bind. Did ever a literary wight get himself into such pickle?

XXIII

In a daze, he trotted by quiet yellow-brick and brownstone, and now and then a pedestrian, a girl on Fifth Avenue, curls and rosy cheeks, like a calendar girl, in a meadow, by a brook, not this, this loathesomeness of people inside. How? How could it be? Whom to ask? Not Farley, no, couldn’t ask anyone. Only if Uncle Louie were Pop, ask how the everyday, the everyday prosaic proper waylaid. .

To the side entrance of the store he loped, strap of books under arm. And reaching the door, he was startled out of his inner turbulence by the sight of all three P & T delivery trucks at the curb next to the side entrance of the store. He went inside, always like slipping into the store’s shadows and aromas, skipped down the flight of steps to the basement — to meet Mr. Klein’s disapproving glance from the other side of the zinc-lined table. But frowning or not, his face welcome, familiar and trusted those snapping brown eyes, reorienting him to the known, the dependable, the consistent.

“Always you’re here ten minutes early, fifteen minutes early.” Mr. Klein stabbed the small, red city guide book at Ira. “Today, when I need you,” he wagged his head. “Nearly fifteen minutes late. What’s the matter with you? You know I’m shorthended like hell. You can see.” He threw the guidebook down on the table at the edge of the heap of groceries.

“It was my teacher,” Ira extenuated, shoved strap of books under counter.

“That’s the one who’s giving you permission for tomorrow?”

“Yeah.”

“So what’d he keep you so long? It took so long to say yes or no? And which is it?”

“He said yes.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure. I’m sure.”

“All right. Let’s get to work,” he grabbed his sheaf of invoices. “Wine vinegar, wine vinegar, wine vinegar. You see it?”

“Yeah. There.”

“All right. So the sugar must be next, the box of thyme. Now, don’t ask questions. I don’t know how to say it myself—”

“I’m not askin’ questions.”

“What’s the matter?” Mr. Klein’s brow etched in long frets.

“Nothing.”

“Nothin’? That’s all? All right. So thyme, th-ime, abi gesint . A big can crebmeat. Where? Artichokes— You hear what’s goin’ on?” He handed Ira the items.

“Yeah. What? I never heard that.” Ira noted the thumping noise coming from the wine and liquor vault as he duly stowed the goods into the hamper. “They’re fixing something? Hey, look. There’s Murphy. There’s Quinn. Everybody’s in the basement. What’re they doing over there? There’s Tommy. Who’s that guy?”