Call It Sleep

by Henry Roth

  Noises to the right. He peered out. Before the tailor shop near the corner, a cluster of boys had gathered. Did he dare go over? What if Yussie were among them? He tried to find him. No, he wasn’t there. Then he could go over for a little while. He’d come back before Yussie came. Yes.

  He drew near, warily. That was Sidney, Yonk. He knew them. The others? They lived around the corner maybe.

  Sidney was in front; the rest followed him. David stood watching them.

  “Wanna play?” Sidney asked.

  “Yea.”

  “So git back of de line. Foller de leader. Boom! Boom! Boom!” He set the pace.

  David fell into step behind the last boy. They marched cross the street in single file and stopped before a tall hydrant.

  “Jump on Johnny Pump!” commanded Sidney leaping up on the two stumpy arms of the fire-plug. “One two t’ree! Yee!” He jumped off.

  In their turn, the rest leaped up, and then ran after him, shouting. Sidney zig-zagged back and forth across the street, lurching against ash-cans, leaping up and down stoops, stepping only on lines in the pavement, and obeying every stray whim that drifted through his head. David liked the game.

  Arrived at the barber-pole, Sidney waited for his breathless cohorts to draw up.

  “Follow de blue one,” he ordered, and beginning at the bottom of the blue spiral, wound around and round the pole until he stood tiptoe and the band he traced was beyond his reach. When the others had accomplished this feat, he crouched down, crept under the corbel of the barber-shop window, and when he reached the end, poked his head into the doorway and chanted in a croaking voice: “Chickee de cop, behin, de rock. De monkey’s in de ba’ba shop!” And he fled.

  The rest squealed the words as he had done, but with increasing haste and diminishing lustiness and sped after him. By the time David’s turn had come, the barber was already at the threshold fuming with irritation. David mutely skirted the doorway and scurried on.

  “He didn’ say it!” they jeered.

  “Sca’cat w’yntcha say it?” Sidney rebuked him.

  “I couldn’t,” he grinned apologetically. “He wuz stannin’ dere awreddy.”

  “Foller de leader nex’ time!” Sidney warned him.

  Chagrined, David resolved to do better, and thereafter followed faithfully all his leader’s antics, not even balking at running up and down the wooden stairs that led into the ice-man’s cellar.

  The game had reached a high peak of excitement. The boy immediately preceding David had just rolled over the lower of two railings before the tailor’s shop, and now it was David’s turn. He grasped the bar, leaned against it, as the rest had done, and began a slow and cautious spin about it. In that strange moment of chaos when house-top and sky hung upside down and the others seemed standing on their heads in air, the inverted face of a man passed through and revolved with the revolving space. A glimpse of black pits, his nostrils, fat cheeks under the rim of his derby, all moving below legs. “Funny,” he thought as the soles of his feet landed on the pavement again. “Upside down like that. Funny.”

  He glanced casually after the retreating figure.

  Right side up now like everybody else. But—Wide shoulders, grey coat. That derby. That was—he struggled against the ineluctable recognition. No! No! Not him! But he walked like … His hands in his pockets. It was! It was!—

  “Hey, c’mon!” Sidney called out impatiently.

  But never budging, David stared straight forward. Now the man turned to cross the street, his face in profile.

  It was! It was Luter! He was going to his house.

  “Waddayuh lookin’ at?” Sidney was provoked. “Doncha wanna play?”

  David wrenched himself from his trace. “Yea! Yea! Sure I wanna play.”

  He ran into his place in the rank, but a moment later forgot where he was and gazed toward his house in terror. Luter had reached the doorway now, was going in, was gone.

  That game now. Oh! That game now! No! No! Foller de leader! Play!

  “Hurry up!” said Sidney, “It’s your chanst.”

  David looked at him blankly. “W’a wuz yuh doin’, I didn’ see.”

  “Aaa!” Disgustedly. “Jump down ’em two steps.”

  David climbed up, jumped down, landed with a jarring thud, and followed after.

  He knew it! He knew it! That’s why he had come. That game! He was going to make her play now. Like Annie. In the closet!…

  “Hey, you ain’ gonna play, dat’s all!”

  David started guiltily to see the rest waiting for him again.

  “Don’ led ’im play, Sid.” They turned on him.

  “He ain’ even follerin’.”

  “Yuh big dope, yuh can’ even do nuttin’.”

  “Gid odda hea.”

  A sudden shout and then the patter of running feet distracted them. They looked to see who it was.

  “Hey give us a game!”

  It was Yussie, heading toward them. At the sight of him, David began edging away, but Yussie had already spied him.

  “Yee!” he squealed delightedly, “Wadda lickin’ you god!”

  “Who god?” Sidney asked.

  “He god!” He pointed to David. “Hey, Sidney, you shoulda see! Bing! his fodder wend. Bang! An’ he laid down, an’ he wen’ Yow!”

  The others began to laugh.

  “Ow!” Yussie capered about for their further benefit. “Please, papa, lemme go! Ooh lemme go! Bang! Annudder smack he gabe ’im. Right inne ass!”

  “Wad ’e hitcha fuh?” They circled about him.

  “He hid ’im becuz he kicked me righd inna nose,” crowed Yussie. “Right over hea, an’ made blood.”

  “Yuh led ’im gid away wid it?”

  “I ain’ gonna,” growled Yussie waiting for further encouragement.

  “Gib’m a fighd, Yussie!” They raised an eager cry.

  “G’wan Yussie, bust’m one!”

  “Righd inna puss!”

  At the sight of David backing away, Yussie doubled his fists and screwed up his face pugnaciously. “C’mon, I’ll fightcha.”

  “G’wan, yuh big cowid!” they taunted.

  “I don’ wanna fighd,” he whimpered, looking about for a way of retreat. There was none. They had completely encircled him.

  “Don’ led ’im ged away, Yussie! Give ’im two, four, six, nine!”

  Egged on, Yussie began hammering his shoulders. “Two, four, six, nine, I c’n beatchoo any old time!”

  His fists struck the separate cores of yesterday’s bruises. The places where the clothes-hanger had landed rayed out in pain. Tears sprang to his eyes. He cowered.

  “He’s cryin’!” they jeered.

  “Look ad ’im cryin’.”

  “Waaa!”

  “Cry baby, cry baby suck yer mudder’s tiddy!” one of them began. “Cry baby, cry baby, suck yer mudder’s tiddy.” The rest took up the burden.

  The tears streaming down his face, David groped his way blindly through them. They opened a gap to let him pass and then followed him still chanting.

  “Cry baby, cry baby, suck yer mudder’s tiddy!”

  He began running. With a loud whoop of glee, they pursued. In a moment, someone had clutched his coat-belt and was yanking him to a halt. The pack closed in. “Ho, hussy!” they hooted, prancing about him. “Ho op!”

  And suddenly a blind, shattering fury convulsed him. Why were they chasing him? Why? When he couldn’t turn anywhere—not even upstairs to his mother. He wouldn’t let them! He hated them! He bared his teeth and screamed, tore lose from the boy who was dragging at his belt and lunged at him. Every quivering cell was martialed in that thrust. Before his savage impact, the other reeled back, tripped over his own feet and fell, arching to the ground. His head struck first, a muffled distant jar like a blast deep underground. His arms flopped down beside him, his eyes snapped shut, he lay motionless. With a grunt of terror, the rest stared down at him, their faces blank, their eyes bulging. David gasped wit
h horror and fled toward his house.

  At his doorway, he threw a last agonized glance over his shoulders. Attracted by the cries of the children, the tailor had come running out of his shop and was now bending over the boy. The rest were dancing up and down and yelling:

  “Dere he is! In dat house! He done it!”

  The tailor waved his fist threatening. “Bestit!” he shouted. “I’ll give you! Vait! A polizman I’ll get!”

  David flew into the hallway. A policeman! He grew faint with terror. What had he done! What had he done! A policeman was coming. Hide! Hide! Upstairs. No! No! He was there. That game. He would tell. Where? Any place. He dove behind the bannister and under the stairs. No! They would look for him there. He darted out. Where? Up. No! Trapped, frenzied, he stared wildly about him … The door.… No! No! Not there! No!… Must … No! No!… Policeman … Run out … No, they’d catch … Thought, fear and flight, rebellion and submission, alternated through his head in sharp, feverish pulses. Must! Must! Must! His mind screamed down opposition, and he sprang to the cellar door and pulled it open—Darkness like a cataract, inexhaustible, monstrous.

  “Mama!” he moaned, peering down, “Mama!”

  He dipped his foot into night, feeling for the stair, found it, pulled the door shut behind him. Another step. He clung to the wall. A third. The unseen strands of a spider’s web yielded against his lip. He recoiled in loathing, spat out the withered taste. No further. No! No further. He was trembling so, he could barely stand. Another step and he would fall. Weakly, he sat down.

  Darkness all about him now, entire and fathomless night. No single ray threaded it, no flake of light drifted through. From the impenetrable depths below, the dull marshy stench of surreptitious decay uncurled against his nostrils. There was no silence here, but if he dared to listen, he could hear tappings and creakings, patterings and whispers, all furtive, all malign. It was horrible, the dark. The rats lived there, the hordes of nightmare, the wobbly faces, the crawling and misshapen things.

  XII

  HE GRITTED his teeth with the strain. Minutes had passed while he willed in a rigid pounding trance—willed that Luter would come down, willed that Luter would leave his mother. But on the stairs outside the cellar door all was still as before. Not a voice, not a footstep could he conjure out of the silence. Exhausted, he slumped back against the edge of the stair. But his ears had sharpened. He could hear sounds that he couldn’t hear before. But not above him now—below him. Against his will he sifted the nether dark. It was moving—moving everywhere on a thousand feet. The stealthy horrible dark was climbing the cellar stairs, climbing toward him. He could feel its ghastly emanation wreathing about him in ragged tentacles. Nearer. The foul warmth of its breath. Nearer. The bloated grisly faces. His jaws began to chatter. Icy horror swept up and down his spine like a finger scratching a comb. His flesh flowed with terror.

  —Run! Run!

  He clawed his way up the gritty stairs, fumbled screaming for the doorknob. He found it, burst out with a sob of deliverance and flung himself at the light of the doorway.

  —Out! Out! Before any body comes.

  Down the stoop and running.

  —No! That way, school! That house! Other way!

  At the corner, he swerved toward the right toward less familiar streets.

  —Light! Light in the streets! Could see now. Could look … Man there … No policeman … No one chasing … Could walk now.

  The keen, cold-scented air revived him, filtered through his coat, quickening the flesh beneath. The swift and brittle light on corners and upper stories comforted him. Things were again steadfast and plain. With each quick breath he took, a hoop of terror snapped from his chest. He stopped running, dropped into a panting walk.

  —Could stay here now … No one chasing … Could stay, could go … Next block, what?

  He turned a corner and entered a street much like his own—brick houses and wooden houses—but no stores.

  —Want different one … Could go next.…

  At the next corner he stopped with a cry of delight and gazed about him. Telegraph poles! Why hadn’t he come here before? On each side of the street, they stretched away, the wires on their crosses swinging into the sky. The street was wide, divided by a seamed and frozen mudgutter. At one end, the houses thinned out, faltering into open fields. The weathered poles crowded up the hill of distance into a sheen of frayed cloud. He laughed, filling his eyes with dappled reach, his lungs with heady openness.

  —They go way and away … Way, way, way.… Could follow.

  He patted the stout wooden pillar near his hand, examined the knots, darker than the grey, thrust at its patient bulk and laughed again.

  —Next one.… Race him!… Hello Mr. High Wood.… Good-bye, Mr. High Wood. I can go faster.… Hello, Second Mr. High Wood.… Good-bye Second Mr. High Wood … Can beat you …

  They dropped behind him. Three.… Four.… Five … Six.… drew near, floated by in silence like tall masts. Seven.… Eight.… Nine … Ten.… He stopped counting them. And with them, dwindling in the past, all he feared, all he loathed and fled from: Luter, Annie, the cellar, the boy on the ground. He remembered them still, yes, but they were tiny now, little pictures in his head that no longer writhed into his thoughts and stung him, but stood remote and harmless—something heard about someone else. He felt as if they would vanish from his mind altogether, could he only reach the top of that hill up which all the poles were striding. He hurried on, skipping sometimes out of sheer deliverance, sometimes waving at a laggard pole, gurgling to himself, giggling at himself, absurdly weary.

  And now the houses straggled, giving way to long stretches of empty lots. On either side of the street, splotches of yeasty snow still plastered the matted fields. On ledges above the rocks, the black talons of crooked trees clawed at the slippery ground. At the doorway of a chicken coop, behind a weathered, ramshackle house, a rooster clucked and gawked and strutted in. The level sidewalks had ended long ago; the grey slabs underfoot were cracked and rugged, and even these were petering out. A sharp wind was rising across the open lots, catching up cloaks of dust, golden in the slanting sun. It was growing colder and lonelier, the wintry bleakness of the hour before sunset, the earth contracting, waiting for night—

  —Time to look back.

  —No.

  —Time to look back.

  —Only to the end of that hill. There where the clouds fell.

  —Time to look back.

  He glanced over his shoulder and suddenly halted in surprise. Behind him as well as before, the tall spars were climbing into the sky.

  —Funny. Both ways.

  He turned about, gazing now behind him, now before.

  —Like it was a swing. Didn’t know.

  His mood was buckling.

  —Same. Didn’t know.

  His legs were growing tired.

  —It’s far away on the other side.

  Between coat-pocket and sleeve one wrist was cold, the other was throbbing.

  —And it’s far away on the other side.

  The tubers of pain under the skin of his shoulders were groping into consciousness now.

  —And it’s just the same.

  Slowly, he began retracing his steps.

  —Can go back.

  Despite growing weariness, he quickened his pace.

  They were all gone now, Luter was gone; they had finished that game. He and his mother. Could go back now. And the policeman was gone, couldn’t find him. Could go back. And his mother would be there, yes, waiting for him. Didn’t hate her now. Where were you? she would ask. No place. You frightened me; I couldn’t find you. Wouldn’t say. Why don’t you tell me where you were? Because. Why? Because—But must get back before his father came. Better hurry.

  Houses were gathering together again.

  And I looked out of the window, and I called, David, David, and I couldn’t find you. Wouldn’t tell her. Maybe she even went down stairs into the street. But if the pol
iceman told her. She wouldn’t tell his father. No. When he got into his street, he’d call her. She’d look out of the window. What? Wait in the hall, I’m coming upstairs. She’d wait and he’d run past the cellar. Hate it! Wish there were houses without cellars.

  The sky was narrowing; houses had closed their ranks. Overhead, a small flock of sparrows, beading the wires between two telegraph poles, tweaked the single dry string of their voices. On the railing of a porch, a grey cat stopped licking a paw and studied them gravely, then eyed David as he passed.

  Milk-supper, maybe, when he came upstairs. Sour cream, yum! Break pieces of bread into it. Sour cream with farmer-cheese. Mmm! Sour cream with eggs. Sour cream with what else? Borscht … Strawberries.… Radishes … Bananas … Borscht, strawberries, radishes, bananas. Borscht, strawberries, apples and strudel. No. They didn’t eat with sour cream. Sour. Cream. Sour. Cream. Like it, like it, like it. I—like—it. I like cake but I don’t like herring. I like cake, but I don’t like what? I like cake, but I don’t like, like, like, herring. I don’t don’t—How far was it still?

  The sidewalks were level again.

  Luter liked herring, don’t like Luter. Luter likes herring, don’t like Luter. Luter likes—would he be there to-night? He said maybe. Maybe he wasn’t coming. Wish he never comes. Never comes, never comes. Wishee, wishee, never comes, all on a Monday morning—How far was it still?

  Eagerly, he scanned the streets ahead of him. Which one was it. Which? Which one was—Long street. Long street, lot of wooden houses. On this side. Yes. Go through the other side. Then other corner … Right away, right away. Be home right away … This one?… Didn’t look like … Next one bet … Giddyap, giddyap, giddyap.… One little house … two little house … three little house … Corner coming, corner coming, corner—Here?

  —Here? This one? Yes. Looked different. No. Same one. Wooden houses. Yes.

  He turned the corner, hastened toward the opposite one.