The Web and the Root

by Thomas Wolfe

  They slammed yard gates and vaulted fences; they dodged round trees, ducked warily behind telephone poles, chased each other back and forth, gripped briefly, struggling strenuously, showed off to each other, making raucous noises, uttering mirthless gibes. One chased another around a tree, was deftly tripped, fell sprawling to the roar of their derision, rose red and angry in the face, trying mirthlessly to smile, hurled his wet, wadded towel at the one who tripped him—missed and was derided, picked his towel up, and to save his ugly face and turn derision from him cried out—“Pee-e-nuts!”—loudly passing Pennock’s house.

  The boy surveyed them with cold loathing—this was wit!

  They filled that pleasant street with raucous gibes, and they took hope and peace and brightness from the day. They were unwholesome roisterers, they did not move ahead in comradeship, but scampered lewdly, raggedly around, as raucous, hoarse, and mirthless as a gob of phlegm: there was no warmth, no joy or hope or pleasantness in them; they filled the pleasant street with brutal insolence. They came from the west side of town, he knew them instinctively for what they were—the creatures of a joyless insolence, the bearers of the hated names.

  Thus Sidney Purtle, a tall, lean fellow, aged fifteen, and everything about him pale—pale eyes, pale features, pale lank hair, pale eyebrows and a long, pale nose, pale lips and mouth carved always in a pale and ugly sneer, pale hands, pale hair upon his face, pale freckles, and a pale, sneering, and envenomed soul:

  “Georgeous the Porgeous!” A pale sneer, a palely sneering laugh; and as he spoke the words he smacked outward with his wet and loathsome rag of towel. The boy ducked it and arose.

  Carl Hooton stood surveying him—a brutal, stocky figure, brutal legs outspread, red-skinned, red-handed, and red-eyed, red-eyebrowed, and an inch of brutal brow beneath the flaming thatch of coarse red hair:

  “Well, as I live and breathe,” he sneered (the others smirked appreciation of this flaming wit), “it’s little Jocko the Webber, ain’t it?”

  “Jockus the Cockus,” said Sid Purtle softly, horribly—and smacked the wet towel briefly at the boy’s bare leg.

  “Jockus the Cockus—hell!” said Carl Hooton with a sneer, and for a moment more looked at the boy with brutal and derisory contempt. “Son, you ain’t nothin’,” he went on with heavy emphasis, now turning to address his fellows—“Why that little monk-faced squirrel’s—they ain’t even dropped yet.”

  Loud appreciative laughter followed on this sally; the boy stood there flushed, resentful, staring at them, saying nothing. Sid Purtle moved closer to him, his pale eyes narrowed ominously to slits.

  “Is that right, Monkus?” he asked, with a hateful and confiding quietness. A burble of unwholesome laughter played briefly in his throat, but he summoned sober features, and said quietly, with menacing demand: “Is that right, or not? Have they fallen yet?”

  “Sid, Sid,” whispered Harry Nast, plucking at his companion’s sleeve; a snicker of furtive mirth crossed his rat-sharp features. “Let’s find out how well he’s hung.”

  They laughed, and Sidney Purtle said:

  “Are you hung well, Monkus?” Turning to his comrades, he said gravely, “Shall we find out how much he’s got, boys?”

  And suddenly alive with eagerness and mirthful cruelty, they all pressed closer around the boy, with secret, unclean laughter, saying:

  “Yes, yes—come on, let’s do it! Let’s find out how much he’s got!”

  “Young Monkus,” said Sid Purtle gravely, putting a restraining hand upon his victim’s arm, “much as it pains us all, we’re goin’ to examine you.”

  “Let go of me!” The boy wrenched free, turned, whirled, backed up against the tree; the pack pressed closer, leering faces thrusting forward, pale, hateful eyes smeared with the slime of all their foul and secret jubilation. His breath was coming hoarsely, and he said: “I told you to let go of me!”

  “Young Monkus,” said Sid Purtle gravely, in a tone of quiet reproof, wherein the dogs of an obscene and jeering mirth were faintly howling—“Young Monkus, we’re surprised at you! We had expected you to behave like a little gentleman—to take your medicine like a little man…. Boys!”

  He turned, addressing copemates in a tone of solemn admonition, grave surprise: “It seems the little Monkus is trying to get hard with us. Do you think we should take steps?”

  “Yes, yes,” the others eagerly replied, and pressed still closer round the tree.

  And for a moment there was an evil, jubilantly attentive silence as they looked at him, naught but the dry, hard pounding of his heart, his quick, hard breathing, as they looked at him. Then Victor Munson moved forward slowly, his thick, short hand extended, the heavy volutes of his proud, swart nostrils swelling with scorn. And his voice, low-toned and sneering, cajoling with a hateful mockery, came closer to him coaxingly, and said:

  “Come, Monkus! Come little Monkus! Lie down and take your medicine, little Monk!…Here Jocko! Come Jocko! Here Jocko! Come Jocko!—Come and get your peanuts—Jock, Jock, Jock!”

  Then while they joined in hateful laughter, Victor Munson moved forward again, the swart, stub fingers, warted on the back, closed down upon the boy’s left arm; and suddenly he drew in his breath in blind, blank horror and in bitter agony, he knew that he must die and never draw his shameful breath in quietude and peace, or have a moment’s hope of heartful ease again; something blurred and darkened in blind eyes—he wrenched free from the swart, stub fingers, and he struck.

  The blind blow landed in the thick, swart neck and sent it gurgling backwards. Sharp hatred crossed his vision now, and so enlightened it; he licked his lips and tasted bitterness, and, sobbing in his throat, he started towards the hated face. He arms were pinioned from behind. Sid Purtle had him, the hateful voice was saying with a menacing and now really baleful quietude:

  “Now, wait a minute! Wait a minute, boys!…We were just playin’ with him, weren’t we, and he started to get hard with us!…Ain’t that right?”

  “That’s right, Sid. That’s the way it was, all right!”

  “We thought he was a man, but he turns out to be just a little sorehead, don’t he? We were just kiddin’ him along, and he has to go and get sore about it. You couldn’t take it like a man, could you?” said Sidney Purtle, quietly and ominously into the ear of his prisoner; at the same time he shook the boy a little—“You’re just a little cry-baby, ain’t you? You’re just a coward, who has to hit a fellow when he ain’t lookin’?”

  “You turn loose of me,” the captive panted, “I’ll show you who’s the cry-baby! I’ll show you if I have to hit him when he isn’t looking!”

  “Is that so, son?” said Victor Munson, breathing hard.

  “Yes, that’s so, son!” the other answered bitterly.

  “Who says it’s so, son?”

  “I say it’s so, son!”

  “Well, you don’t need to go gettin’ on your head about it!”

  “I’m not the one who’s gettin’ on his head about it; you are!”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes, that’s so!”

  There was a pause of labored breathing and contorted lips; the acrid taste of loathing and the poisonous constrictions of brute fear, a sense of dizziness about the head, a kind of hollow numbness in the stomach pit, knee sockets gone a trifle watery; all of the gold of just a while ago gone now, all of the singing and the green; no color now, a poisonous whiteness in the very quality of light, a kind of poisonous intensity of focus everywhere; the two antagonists’ faces suddenly keen, eyes sharp with eager cruelty, pack-appetites awakened, murder-sharp now, lusts aware.

  “You’d better not be gettin’ big about it,” said Victor Munson slowly, breathing heavily, “or somebody’ll smack you down!”

  “You know anyone who’s going to do it?”

  “Maybe I do and maybe I don’t, I’m not sayin’. It’s none of your business.”

  “It’s none of your business either!”

  “Maybe,” said
Victor Munson, breathing swarthily, and edging forward an inch or so—“Maybe I’ll make it some of my business!”

  “You’re not the only one who can make it your business!”

  “You know of anyone who wants to make it anything?”

  “Maybe I do and maybe I don’t.”

  “Do you say that you do?”

  “Maybe I do and maybe I don’t. I don’t back down from saying it.”

  “Boys, boys,” said Sidney Purtle, quietly, mockingly. “You’re gettin’ hard with each other. You’re usin’ harsh language to each other. The first thing you know you’ll be gettin’ into trouble with each other—about Christmas time,” he jeered quietly.

  “If he wants to make anything out of it,” said Victor Munson bitterly, “he knows what he can do.”

  “You know what you can do, too!”

  “Boys, boys,” jeered Sidney Purtle softly.

  “Fight! Fight!” said Harry Nast, and snickered furtively. “When is the big fight gonna begin?”

  “Hell!” said Carl Hooton coarsely, “they don’t want to fight. They’re both so scared already they’re ready to—in their pants. Do you want to fight, Munson?” he said softly, brutally, coming close and menacing behind the other boy.

  “If he wants to make something of it—” the Munson boy began again.

  “Well, then, make it!” cried Carl Hooton, with a brutal laugh, and at the same moment gave the Munson boy a violent shove that sent him hurtling forward against the pinioned form of his antagonist. Sid Purtle sent his captive hurtling forward at the Munson boy; in a second more, they were crouching toe to toe, and circling round each other. Sid Purtle’s voice could be heard saying quietly:

  “If they want to fight it out, leave ’em alone! Stand back and give ’em room!”

  “Wait a minute!”

  The words were spoken almost tonelessly, but they carried in them such a weight of quiet and inflexible command that instantly all the boys stopped and turned with startled surprise, to see where they came from.

  Nebraska Crane, his bat upon his shoulder, was advancing towards them from across the street. He came on steadily, neither quickening nor changing his stride, his face expressionless, his black Indian gaze fixed steadily upon them.

  “Wait a minute!” he repeated as he came up.

  “What’s the matter?” Sidney Purtle answered, with a semblance of surprise.

  “You leave Monk alone,” Nebraska Crane replied.

  “What’ve we done?” Sid Purtle said, with a fine show of innocence.

  “I saw you,” said Nebraska with toneless stubbornness, “all four of you ganged up on him; now leave him be.”

  “Leave him be?” Sid Purtle now protested.

  “You heard me!”

  Carl Hooton, more brutal and courageous and less cautious than Sid Purtle, now broke in truculently:

  “What’s it to you? What business is it of yours what we do?”

  “I make it my business,” Nebraska answered calmly. “Monk,” he went on, “you come over here with me.”

  Carl Hooton stepped before the Webber boy and said:

  “What right have you to tell us what to do?”

  “Get out of the way,” Nebraska said.

  “Who’s gonna make me?” said Carl Hooton, edging forward belligerently.

  “Carl, Carl—come on,” said Sid Purtle in a low, warning tone. “Don’t pay any attention to him. If he wants to get on his head about it, leave him be.”

  There were low, warning murmurs from the other boys.

  “The rest of you can back down if you like,” Carl Hooton answered, “but I’m not takin’ any backwash from him. Just because his old man is a policeman, he thinks he’s hard. Well, I can get hard, too, if he gets hard with me.”

  “You heard what I told you!” Nebraska said. “Get out of the way!”

  “You go to hell!” Carl Hooton answered. “I’ll do as I damn please!”

  Nebraska Crane swung solidly from the shoulders with his baseball bat and knocked the red-haired fellow sprawling. It was a crushing blow, so toneless, steady, and impassive in its deliberation that the boys turned white with horror, confronted now with a murderous savagery of purpose they had not bargained for. It was obvious to all of them that the blow might have killed Carl Hooton had it landed on his head; it was equally and horribly evident that it would not have mattered to Nebraska Crane if he had killed Carl Hooton. His black eyes shone like agate in his head, the Cherokee in him had been awakened, he was set to kill. As it was, the blow had landed with the sickening thud of ash-wood on man’s living flesh, upon Carl Hooton’s arm; the arm was numb from wrist to shoulder, and three frightened boys were now picking up the fourth, stunned, befuddled, badly frightened, not knowing whether a single bone had been left unbroken in his body, whether he was permanently maimed, or whether he would live to walk again.

  “Carl—Carl—are you hurt bad? How’s your arm?” said Sidney Purtle.

  “I think it’s broken,” groaned that worthy, clutching the injured member with his other hand.

  “You—you—you hit him with your bat,” Sid Purtle whispered. “You—you had no right to do that.”

  “His arm may be broken,” Harry Nast said, in an awed tone.

  “I meant to break it,” Nebraska said calmly. “He’s lucky that I didn’t break his God-damn head.”

  They looked at him with horrified astonishment, with a kind of fascinated awe.

  “You—you could be arrested for doing that!” Sid Purtle blurted out. “You might have killed him!”

  “Wouldn’t have cared if I had!” Nebraska said firmly. “He ought to be killed! Meant to kill him!”

  Their eyes were fixed on him in a stare wide with horror. He returned their look in Indian-wise, and moved forward a step, still holding his bat firm and ready at his shoulder.

  “And I’ll tell you this—and you can tell the rest of ’em when you get back to your side of town. Tell ’em I’m ready to brain the first West Side—who comes here looking for trouble. And if any of you ever bother Monk again, I’ll come right over there and climb your frame,” Nebraska Crane asserted. “I’ll come right over there and beat you to death…. Now you clear out! We don’t want you on our street no longer! You get out of here!”

  He advanced upon them slowly, his hard black eyes fixed firmly on them, his hands gripped ready on his bat. The frightened boys fell back, supporting their injured comrade, and, muttering furtively among themselves, limped hastily away down the street. At the corner they turned, and Sid Purtle put his hands up to his mouth and, with a sudden access of defiance, yelled back loudly:

  “We’ll get even with you yet! Wait till we get you over on our side of town!”

  Nebraska Crane did not reply. He continued to stare steadily towards them with his Indian eyes, and in a moment more they turned and limped away around the corner and were lost from sight.

  When they had gone, Nebraska took his bat off his shoulder, leaned gracefully on it, and, turning towards the white-faced boy, surveyed him for a moment with a calm and friendly look. His square brown face, splotched large with freckles, opened in a wide and homely smile; he grinned amiably and said:

  “What’s the trouble, Monkus? Were they about to get you down?”

  “You—you—why, Nebraska!” the other boy now whispered—“you might have killed him with that bat.”

  “Why,” Nebraska answered amiably, “what if I had?”

  “Wuh—wuh—wouldn’t you care?” young Webber whispered, awe-struck, his eyes still with wonder, horror, fascinated disbelief.

  “Why, not a bit of it!” Nebraska heartily declared. “Good riddance to bad rubbish if I had killed him! Never liked that redhead of his’n, anyway, and don’t like none of that crowd he runs with—that whole West Side gang! I’ve got no use for none of ’em, Monkus—never did have!”

  “B-but, Bras,” the other stammered, “wouldn’t you be afraid?”

  “Afraid? Afrai
d of what?”

  “Why, why—that you might have killed him.”

  “Why, that’s nothin’ to be afraid of!” said Nebraska. “Anyone’s likely to get killed, Monk. You’re likely to have to kill someone almost any time! Why, look at my old man. He’s been killin’ people all his life—ever since he’s been on the police force, anyway! I reckon he’s killed more people than he could remember—he counted up to seventeen one time, an’ then he told me that there was one or two others he’d clean lost track of! Yes!” Nebraska continued triumphantly, “and there was one or two before he joined the force that no one ever knowed of—I reckon that was way back there when he was just a boy, so long ago he’s plumb lost track of it! Why my old man had to kill a nigger here along—oh, just a week or so ago—and he never turned a hair! Came home to supper, an’ took off his coat, hung up his gun and cot-tridge belt, washed his hands and set down at the table, and had got halfway through his supper before he even thought of it. Says to my maw, all of a sudden, says—‘Oh, yes! I clean forgot to tell you! I had to shoot a nigger today!’ ‘That so?’ my maw says. ‘Is there any other news?’ So they went on talkin’ about first one thing and then another, and in five minutes’ time I’ll bet you both of them had forgotten clean about it!…Pshaw, Monk!” Nebraska Crane concluded heartily, “you oughtn’t even to bother about things like that. Anyone’s liable to have to kill someone. That happens every day!”

  “Y-y-y-yes, Bras,” Young Webber faltered—“b-b-but what if anything should happen to you?”

  “Happen?” cried Nebraska, and looked at his young friend with frank surprise. “Why what’s goin’ to happen to you, Monk?”

  “W-w-why—I was thinking that sometimes you might be the one who gets killed yourself.”

  “Oh!” Nebraska said, with a nod of understanding, after a moment’s puzzled cogitation. “That’s what you mean! Why, yes, Monk, that does sometimes happen! But,” he earnestly continued, “it’s got no right to happen! You ought not to let it happen! If it happens it’s your own fault!”