by Henry Roth
“Hey!”
“Jesus!”
“Give a look! Id’s rain—
“Shawt soicit, Mack—”
“Mary, w’at’s goin’—”
“Schloimee, a blitz like—”
“Hey mate!”
On Avenue D, a long burst of flame spurted from underground, growled as if the veil of earth were splitting. People were hurrying now, children scooting past them, screeching. On Avenue C, the lights of the trolley-car waned and wavered. The motorman cursed, feeling the power drain. In the Royal Warehouse, the blinking watchman tugged at the jammed and stubborn window. The shriveled coal-heaver leaned unsteadily from between the swinging door—blinked, squinted in pain, and—
“Holy Mother O’ God! Look! Will yiz!”
“Wot?”
“There’s a guy layin’ there! Burrhnin’!”
“Naw! Where!”
“Gawd damn the winder!”
“It’s on Tent’ Street! Look!”
“O’Toole!”
The street was filled with running men, faces carved and ghostly in the fierce light. They shouted hoarsely. The trolley-car crawled forward. Up above a window slammed open.
“Christ, it’s a kid!”
“Yea!”
“Don’t touch ’im!”
“Who’s got a stick!”
“A stick!”
“A stick, fer Jesus sake!”
“Mike! The shovel! Where’s yer fuck’n’ shov—”
“Back in Call—”
“Oy sis a kind—”
“Get Pete’s crutch! Hey Pete!”
“Aaa! Who touched yer hump, yuh gimpty fu—”
“Do sompt’n! Meester! Meester!”
“Yuh crummy bastard, I saw yuh sneakin’—” The hunchback whirled, swung away on his crutches. “Fuck yiz!”
“Oy! Oy vai! Oy vai! Oy vai!”
“Git a cop!”
“An embillance—go cull-oy!”
“Don’t touch ’im!”
“Bambino! Madre mia!”
“Mary. It’s jus’ a kid!”
“Helftz! Helftz! Helftz Yeedin! Rotivit!”
A throng ever thickening had gathered, confused, paralyzed, babbling. They squinted at the light, at the outstretched figure in the heart of the light, tossed their arms, pointed, clawed at their cheeks, shoved, shouted, moaned—
“Hi! Hi down there! Hi!” A voice bawled down from the height. “Look out below! Look out!”
The crowd shrank back from the warehouse.
W-w-whack!
“It’s a—”
“You take it!”
Grab it!”
“Gimme dat fuck’n’ broom!”
“Watch yerself, O’Toole!”
“Oy, a good men! Got should—”
“Oooo! De pore little kid, Mimi!”
“He’s gonna do it!”
“Look oud!
“Dunt touch!”
The man in the black shirt, tip-toed guardedly to the rails. His eyes, screwed tight against the awful glare, he squinted over his raised shoulder.
“Shove ’im away!”
“Go easy!”
“Look odda!”
“Atta boy!”
“Oy Gottinyoo!”
The worn, blackened broom straws wedged between the child’s shoulder and the cobbles. A twist of the handle. The child rolled over on his face.
“Give ’im anudder shove!”
“At’s it! Git ’im away!”
“Quick! Quick!”
Once more the broom straws rammed the outstretched figure. He slid along the cobbles, cleared the tracks. Someone on the other side grabbed his arm, lifted him, carried him to the curb. The crowd swirled about in a dense, tight eddy.
“Oy! Givalt!”
“Gib’m air!”
“Is ’e boined?”
“Bennee stay by me!”
“Is ’e boined! Look at his shoe!”
“Oy, de pooh mama! De pooh mama!”
“Who’s kid?”
“Don’ know, Mack!”
“Huz pushin’?”
“Jesus! Take ’im to a drug-store.”
“Naa, woik on ’im right here. I woiked in a power house!”
“Do sompt’n! Do sompt’n!”
The writhing dipper was now almost consumed. Before the flaring light, the weird white-lipped, staring faces of the milling throng wheeled from chalk to soot and soot to chalk again—like masks of flame that charred and were rekindled; and all their frantic, gnarling bodies cut a darting splay of huge, impinging shadow, on dump-heap, warehouse, river and street—
Klang! The trolley drew up.
“Oyeee! Ers toit! Ers to-i-t! Oye-e-e-e!” A woman screamed, gagged, fainted.
“Hey! Ketch ’er!”
“Schleps aveck!”
“Wat d’ hell’d she do dat fer—”
“Vawdeh!”
They dragged her away on scuffing heels to one side.
“Shit!” The motorman had jumped down from the car and seized the broom—
“Fan ’er vid de het!”
“Git off me feet, you!”
“At’s it! Lean on ’im O’Toole! Push ’im down! At’s it! At’s it! I woiked in a power house—”
And with the broom straws the motorman flipped the mangled metal from the rail. A quake! As if leviathan leaped for the hook and fell back threshing. And darkness.
Darkness!
They grunted, the masses, stood suddenly mute a moment, for a moment silent, stricken, huddled, crushed by the pounce of ten-fold night. And a voice spoke, strained, shrunken, groping—
“Ey, paizon! She ’sa whita yet—lika you looka da slacka lime alla time! You know?”
Someone shrieked. The fainting woman moaned. The crowd muttered, whispered, seething uneasily in the dark, welcomed the loud newcomers who pierced the dense periphery—
“One side! One side!” Croaking with authority, the stone-grim uniformed one shouldered his way through. “One side!”
“De cops!”
“Dun’t step on ’im!”
“Back up youz! Back up! Didja hea’ me, Moses? Back up! Beat it! G’wan!” They fell back before the perilous arc of the club. “G’wan before I fan yiz! Back up! Let’s see sompt’n’ in hea’! Move! Move, I say!” Artificial ire flung the spittle on his lips. “Hey George!” He flung at a burly one. “Give us a hand hea, will yiz!”
“Sure! Git back you! Pete! Git that other side!”
The policeman wheeled round, squatted down beside the black-shirted one. “Don’ look boined.”
“Jist his shoe.”
“How long wuz he on?”
“Christ! I don’t know. I came ouda Callahan’s an’ de foist t’ing I know somebody lams a broom out of a winder, an’ I grabs it an’ shoves ’im off de fuck’n t’ing—”
“Sh! Must a done it himself— Naa! Dat ain’t de way! Lemme have ’im.” He pushed the other aside, turned the child over on his face. “Foist aid yuh gits ’em hea.” His bulky hands all but encompassed the narrow waist. “Like drownin’, see?” He squeezed,
Khir-r-r-r-f! S-s-s-s-.
“I hoid ’im!”
“Yeah!”
“He’s meckin’ him t’ breed!”
“See? Gits de air in ’im.”
Khir-r-r-r-f! S-s-s-s.
“Looks like he’s gone, do. W’ere de hell’s dat ambillance?”
“Vee culled id a’reddy, Ufficeh!”
“Arh!”
“Rap ’im on de feet arficer, I woiked
in a power—”
Khir-r-r-r-f! S-s-s-s
“Anybody know ’im? Any o’ youz know dis kid?”
The inner and the craning semi-circle muttered blankly. The policeman rested his ear against the child’s back.
“Looks like he’s done fer, butchuh can’t tell—”
Khir-r-r-r-f! S-s-s-s.
“He sez he’s dead, Mary.”
“Dead!”
“Oy! Toit!”
“Gott sei donk, id’s nod mine Elix—”
Khir-r-r-r-f. S-s-s-s.
“Sit im helfin vie a toitin bankis.” The squat shirt-sleeved Jew whose tight belt cut his round belly into the letter B turned to the lime-streaked wop—squinted, saw that communication had failed. “It’ll help him like cups on a cawps,” he translated—and tapped his chest with an ace of spades.
Khi-r-r-r-f. S-s-s-s.
(E-e-e-e. E-e-e-e-.
One ember fanned … dulling … uncertain)
“Here’s the damned thing he threw in, Cap.” The motorman shook off the crowd, held up the thinned and twisted metal.
“Yea! Wot is it?”
“Be damned if I know. Hot! Jesus!”
Khir-r-r-f. S-s-s.
(E-e-e-e-e.
Like the red pupil of the eye of darkness, the ember
dilated, spun like a pinwheel, expanding, expanding,
till at the very core, a white flaw rent the scarlet
tissue and spread, engulfed the margin like a stain—)
“Five hundred an’ fifty volts. What a wallop!”
“He’s cooked, yuh t’ink?”
“Yea. Jesus! What else!”
“Unh!” The policeman was grunting now with his efforts.
Kh-i-r-r-r-f! S-s-s-s.
“Hey, Meester, maybe he fell on id—
De iron—”
“Sure, dot’s righd!”
“Id’s f’om de compeny de fault!”
“Ass, how could he fall on it, fer the love O Jesus!”
The motor-man turned on them savagely.
“He could! Id’s easy!”
“Id vuz stink—stick—sticken oud!”
“He’ll sue, dun’ vorry!”
“Back up, youz!”
Khi-r-r-r-f! S-s-s.
(Eee-e-e-e
And in the white, frosty light within
the red iris, a small figure slanted
through a desolate street, crack-paved,
rut-guttered, slanted and passed, and
overhead the taut, wintry wires whined
on their crosses—
E-e-e-e-e.
They whined, spanning the earth and sky.
—Go-d-d-b! Go-o-o-ob! G-o-o-b! G’bye!…)
“Makin’ a case fer a shyster. C’n yuh beat it!”
“Ha-a-ha! Hunh!”
“I’m late. Dere it is.” The motorman dropped the gnarled and blackened dipper beside the curb.
“An Irisher chuchim!”
“Ain’t it a dirty shame—”
“Noo vud den!”
“Wat’s happened, chief?”
“Dere give a look!”
“Let’s git troo dere!”
“Unh!”
Kh-i-r-r-r-f! S-s-s-s.
(—G’by-e-e. Mis-s-s-l-e. M-s-ter. Hi-i-i-i.
Wo-o-o-d.
And a man in a tugboat, hair under
arm-pits, hung from a pole among the
wires, his white undershirt glittering.
He grinned and whistled and with every
note yellow birds flew to the roof.)
“T’ink a shot o’ sompt’n’ ’ll do ’im any good?”
“Nuh! Choke ’im if he’s alive.”
“Yeh! If hiz alife!”
“W’ea’s ’e boined?”
“Dey say id’s de feet wid de hen’s wid eveytingk.”
“Unh!”
Khi-r-r-r-f! S-s-s-s.
(We-e-e-e-
The man in the wires stirred. The
Wires twanged brightly. The blithe
and golden cloud of birds filled the
sky.)
“Unh!”
(Klang!
The milk tray jangled. Leaping he
neared. From roof-top to roof-top,
over streets, over alley ways, over
areas and lots, his father soared with
a feathery ease. He set the trays
down, stooped as if searching, paused—)
“Unh!”
(A hammer! A hammer! He snarled,
brandished it, it snapped like a whip.
The birds vanished. Horror thickened
the air.)
“Unh!”
“He’s woikin’ hard!”
“Oy! Soll im Gott helfin!”
“He no waka.”
(Around him now, the cobbles stretched
away. Stretched away in the swirling
dark like the faces of a multitude aghast
and frozen)
“Unh!”
(W-e-e-e-e-e-p! Weep! Overhead the
brandished hammer whirred and whistled.
The doors of a hallway slowly opened.
Buoyed up by the dark, a coffin drifted
out, floated down the stoop, and while
confetti rained upon it, bulged and
billowed—)
“Unh!”
Khi-r-r-r-rf! S-s-s-s-
(—Zwank! Zwank! Zwank!
The man in the wires writhed and
groaned, his slimy, purple chicken-
guts slipped through his fingers.
David touched his lips. The soot
came off on his hand. Unclean.
Screaming, he turned to flee, seized
a wagon wheel to climb upon it. There
were no spokes—only cogs like a
clock-wheel. He screamed again, beat
the yellow disk with his fists.)
“Unh!”
Kh-i-r-r-rf! S-s-s-s.
“Didja see it?”
“See it? Way up on twelft’!”
“I could ivin see id in de houz—on de cods.”
“Me? I vas stand in basement—fok t’ing mack blind!”
“Five hundred an’ fifty volts.”
(As if on hinges, blank, enormous
mirrors arose, swung slowly upward
face to face. Within the facing
glass, vast panels deployed, lifted a
steady wink of opaque pages until
an endless corridor dwindled into
night.)
“Unh! Looks Jewish t’ me.”
“Yeah, map o’ Jerusalem, all right.”
“Poor bastard! Unh!”
“Couldn’t see him at foist!”
“Unh!”
Kh-ir-r-rf! S-s-s-s.
(“You!” Above the whine of the
whirling hammer, his father’s voice
thundered. “You!”
David wept, approached the glass,
peered in. Not himself was there,
not even in the last and least of
the infinite mirrors, but the cheder
wall, the cheder)
“Junheezis!”
Kh-i-r-r-rf! S-s-s-s.
(Wall sunlit, white-washed. “Chadgodya!”
moaned the man in the wires. “One
kid one only kid.” And the wall dwindled
and was a square of pavement with a foot-
print in it—half green, half black,
“I too have trodden there.” And
shrank within the mirror, and the
cake of ice melted in the panel be-
yond. “Eternal years,” the voice
wailed, “Not even he.”)
“Unh!”
“Gittin’ winded? Want me to try it?”
“Nunh!”
“Look at ’im sweat!”
“Vy not? Soch a coat he’s god on!”
“Wot happened, brother?”
“Cheh! He esks yet!”
“Back up, you!”
“Unh!”
Kh-i-r-r-r-f! S-s-s-s.
(And faded, revealing a shoe box full
of calendar leaves, “the red day must
come.”)
“Unh! Did he move or sumpt’n?”
“Couldn’t see.”
(which lapsed into a wooden box with
a sliding co
ver like the chalk-boxes
in school, whereon a fiery figure
sat astride a fish. “G-e-e-e o-o-o d-e-e-e-!”
The voice spelled out. And shrank and was
a cube of sugar gripped be-)
“Unh!”
Kh-i-r-r-r-f! S-s-s-s.
“Shah! Y’hea id?”
“W’a?”
“Yea! It’s commin!”
“Id’s commin’!”
“I sees it!”
“Meester Politsman de—”
“Back up, youz!”
A faint jangle seeped through the roar of the crowd.
“Unh!”
(tween the softly glowing tongs. “So
wide we stretch no further—” But when
he sought to peer beyond, suddenly the
mirrors shifted, and—
“Go down!” his father’s voice thun-
dered, “Go down!” The mirrors lay
beneath him now; what were the groins
now jutted out in stairs, concentric
ogives, bottomless steps. “Go down!
Go down!” The inexorable voice beat
like a hand upon his back. He
screamed, de—)
Jangle! Angle! Angle! Angle!
“Dere! It’s comin’!”
“Look! Look hod dere!”
“Orficer!”
Angle! Jang!
“Christ’s about time!”
The crowd split like water before a prow, reformed in the wake, surged round the ambulance, babbling, squall—
(scended. Down! Down into darkness,
darkness that tunneled the heart of
darkness, darkness fathomless. Each
step he took, he shrank, grew smaller
with the unseen panels, the graduate
vise descending, passed from stage
to dwindling stage, dwindling. At
each step shed the husks of being,
and himself tapering always downward
in the funnel of the night. And now
a chip—a step-a flake-a step-a shred.
A mote. A pinpoint. And now the seed
of nothing, and nebulous nothing, and
nothing, And he was not.…)
ing, stabbing the dark with hands. “Ppprrr!” Lips flickered audibly as the blue-coat rose. With one motion, palm wiped brow, dug under sweat-stained collar. Softly bald, the bareheaded, white garbed interne hopped spryly from the ambulance step, black bag swinging in hand, wedged whitely through the milling crowd. Conch-like the mob surrounded, contracted, trailed him within the circle, umbiliform—
