“I never thought of it. I haven’t got any money. If I did, I’d get myself a pushcart . . . fruit, I know.”
“How much would you need?”
He grew pensive. Economic problems always fascinated him. Working for himself would make him independent.
“About fifty dollars. But where would I get it? Tell me that?”
Her brow ruckled, and his momentary elation vanished. Hopeless situation. For someone on Relief, the idea of starting up a business was preposterous. He couldn’t buy himself a cup of coffee.
“Funny, I’m twenty years old, and I’ve worked for seven years,” she said with a faint hint of despondency. “Seven years . . . not much fun when you’re a kid. Yeah, we’ve all got sad stories. Must’ve been tougher on you than me. We’ve always had what to eat and decent clothes, but not much else. Everything goes on paying doctor bills. And in all that time I’ve only saved seventy-five dollars.”
He grew more uncomfortable and decided to say good night. Awkward position to put her in - a comparative stranger. Either a sense of decency or anything that might be described as principles constrained him; it was rather a sense of depriving himself of his manhood that made him get up and put on his jacket. He coiled the scarf around his neck and rolled a cigarette before leaving: too windy outside.
“I’ll give it to you,” Rhoda said.
He dropped the tobacco on the carpet and in a dream swept it under the sofa with his shoe, then he bent down to scoop it up, stopped, not remembering what he intended to do in the first place. She handed him a cigarette, lit it for him, and he stood in the center of the room puffing. He picked up a knitting magazine and leafed through it, then began reading an article that he did not understand on crocheting tablecloths. After a minute he put the magazine down, strode to the mantelpiece, shook the cuckoo clock, and smelled some wax tulips.
“Good night,” he said.
“You’re going?”
Halfway out of the door, he stopped again and remembered that he had not rolled a cigarette, and he stood in the darkened hallway with his pouch of Bull Durham.
“It’s ridiculous,” Rhoda said. “I’ve saved for the dowry that Poppa can’t afford to give me. And it’s seventy-five dollars. It’s no money. Either you come to a man with a proper dowry or you go to him with just the clothes on your back. Seventy-five dollars is so stupid. I’ve been kidding myself for seven years. It’s yours . . .”
“You’re not making sense,” he said.
“I love you.”
“And . . .” he faltered, “I love you.”
“You didn’t have to say that. I’ll give you the money without that.”
“How could I take it?”
“Eay. You don’t love me now, but maybe someday.”
An unemployed carpenter, temporarily employed by an unsuccessful trio of thieves, came to make Jay’s pushcart. The wood was purchased from a lumberyard overstocked with unsalable varieties, and Jay was assured that it was the best mahogany. That the wood was not even a distant cousin to mahogany - the closest it ever got to mahogany was when it lay some fifty yards away from it in the lumberyard - mattered little to Jay. The wheels of this failed rickshaw - had Jay but known - could have made him fifty dollars from the Smithsonian Institution, for they had crossed America in the 1849 Gold Rush.
Christmas and the New Year had come and gone, and all Jay and Rhoda had to show for it was the memory of an unpleasant party at which both food and drink were absent. The new year - 1936 - they decided would be their year. Like two hungry children listening to a fairy tale in which a mountain of chocolate figured prominently, they stretched out their hands trying to gather in the elusive luck that they sensed was the reward they were both entitled to. During the winter months, Jay just managed, by handling few perishables, to stay alive. The profit was in fruit, and he sold vegetables - they were safer. He lived from week to week, mainly on Rhoda’s confidence - her capital had already been depleted.
The month of scallions, cucumbers, radishes, and grapes (green gold, he called them) brought with it the thaw he had worked for in his relations with Borough Park’s matriarchy, many of whom, during his first months’ business, mistook him for an impostor, thief or pimp. March, however, also brought his emotional relationship with Rhoda to a dramatic head. Were they “keeping company,” or was he living off her? As he had not yet done the deed, he came to regard his relationship with her as like that of a priest with a nun. For him, the whole stillborn affair was something of an ordeal. Although he still had the occasional Saturday night in Scranton with Barney, and a twice-a-week exchange with the landlord’s resilient daughter, he began to feel that, as far as Rhoda was concerned, apart from some innocent necking and his intimate knowledge of the trunk section of her anatomy, he would never gain the precious ground needed to secure entrance to the darker mysteries. Outrage gave way to silent melancholy, and he devised a plan of rape, by arithmetic progression - slip, followed by bra, followed by panty-girdle - which failed miserably during February. His physical lust for her became so great that he feared he would do violence to gain his objective, which as he well perceived, once gained, would commit him irretrievably to precisely what he was trying to avoid: marriage.
Every evening, with unfailing regularity, he met her at the entrance of Modes Dress Shoppe; his appearance was too disreputable to allow him to enter without raising questions and jeopardizing Rhoda’s position.
“Want to go to a movie?” he asked her one evening, outside the shop. Lately, he had gone to the movies whenever he could, regarding it with pragmatic certainty as the key to higher things and experiences he had never had. It had improved his manners and Rhoda encouraged him to go, even on his own; his conversation, formerly a compound of sex and vegetables, was now broadened to include glittering references to stars. The plots of every film he had seen he bandied with anyone who would tolerate such a discussion, and the intimate details of the stars’ personal lives he announced with the confidence of a paid informer.
“Can’t, I’ve got to sit,” she answered.
“What’s the matter with Myrna?”
“She’s got tickets to a concert and Poppa’s going with her. Takes him out of himself.”
“A new music lover. So we’ve gotta sit in?”
“You can go on your own if you like.”
“Have a heart, Rho, I’ve been three times without you.”
Reluctantly he accompanied her home, waited till she had given her mother dinner and put Miriam to bed before he could eat with her.
“You can have a bath if you want,” Rhoda said. “I’ve got clean things for you that you forgot to take last week.”
He accepted her offer although with some suspicion. He had wanted to ask her countless times, but she had never given any sign of noticing his condition. He looked and smelt like a garbage collector. A short while later, morbidly clean, he appeared at the table, tunelessly trilling “Melancholy Baby.” He allowed Rhoda to begin first - one of Robert Taylor’s tricks - before annihilating his dinner. She sat moodily and silently picking at her food.
“Something wrong? I’ve done something?”
“No, just not hungry, I guess. I’m a little down in the dumps.”
The emotional state of women meant virtually nothing to him, and he could only relate unhappiness to physical deprivation. Trying hard to overcome his total lack of curiosity and the apathy that set in when he had eaten he said: “Weighing you down at home, huh?” He waited for confirmation, and when she did not answer, he got up from the table and ambled into the living room. “C’mon in, we’ll listen to the radio.” Patiently, he waited for her to join him and after an hour he went back to the kitchen.
“You’re still sitting there moping. Maybe I oughta go home?” There was a ghost of a chance that he might catch Barney.
“No, don’t go yet.”
“What’s the good of me staying if you don’t want me to?”
“Of course I want you to stay.
It’s just . . . I don’t know, myself.”
“You do, but you’re not telling.”
“You’ve had the pushcart three and a half months.”
“Yeah, so?”
“Oh, we don’t seem to be getting anywhere.”
“I’ve made twenty-five dollars this week. I wouldn’t call that standing still, would you? I’ve got a future, thanks to you and I’m not forgetting.”
“You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?”
His eyes lit up angrily, and, when she turned to him, she thought that she had never loved anyone so deeply in her life.
“I’m not stupid. Maybe I didn’t go to school, but I’m not stupid.”
“Who ever said you were?”
“I’m struggling to make a living, to make something of myself.”
“Don’t be angry with me, Jay. It’s just - I feel all mixed up, deep inside.”
“Everyone’s mixed up too, if that makes you feel any better.” A remarkable statement from someone who apart from catering to his basic drives had never given evidence of confusion, she thought.
“The better we get to know each other, the less we seem to know about each other.”
It took him a moment to digest this oracular generalization; he was not at all fond of rebuses and he attempted to devise an answer that would put the burden on her.
“That’s according to Hoyle?”
“I’m not explaining myself well.”
“That’s a fact. You aren’t explaining at all.”
“You make it so hard.”
“Hard? I haven’t said a word.”
“I’ve got to talk to you, make you understand.”
“Who’s stopping you? I’m interested to know myself. More I can’t say.”
“Three and a half months we’ve been seeing each other.”
“That’s not a lifetime.”
“Oh, Christ!”
“What are you picking on?”
“I think you’re purposely playing dumb. You don’t want to know.”
Couldn’t be him, he hadn’t put a hand on her. Immaculate Conception or something like that.
“Have you gone to a doctor?”
“A doctor . . . what for?”
“To be examined.”
“What are you talking about? I don’t need a doctor, I need you.”
Marriage, better keep his mouth shut.
“Let’s listen to the radio.”
“I’m sick of the goddamned radio.”
“I’ll catch a movie, maybe. Sylvia Sydney’s on at the Loew’s Delancey.”
“Just walking out on me like that? Pick yourself up and walk out.”
“Go to bed early . . . you’ll feel better in the morning. And we’ll go for a walk to Prospect Park.”
“I don’t want to go for a walk.”
“Coney Island then? That’ll make you happy?”
“One thing’ll make me happy and you know what it is. Do you love me, or don’t you?”
Good question, he thought, no dodging it.
“Of course.”
“What kind of answer is of course? Don’t say anything you don’t mean, I really couldn’t bear it.”
Definitely dropped in the shit, no doubt about it.
“I told you I loved you.”
“Well, it’s your move, isn’t it?”
“My move, huh?”
“What are you gonna do about it?”
A good systematic bang, that’s what.
“I’m waiting . . .”
“Look, let’s go to Scranton next week. Your father makes me nervous.”
“What’s he got to do with it? I’m talking about marriage.”
“Marriage?” He snapped his fingers in her face. “Just like that? For marriage, you need money.”
“Between us we’re earning.”
“Oh, sure. I banked a million dollars last week. You’re forgetting I’ve got a mother that needs . . . and a father that hasn’t worked from the day he arrived here. I’m his meal ticket. And a brother that’s a bum that sits all day on his fat ass in front of the window, and only gets laid when I slip him a buck.”
“Excuses I can live without. I’m not gonna sit around waiting for them all to drop dead.”
“God forgive you,” Jay said, wringing his hands like Guildenstern, trying to extricate himself by theatrical gestures. He worked himself into a rage, his face plum red, his hands shaking in anger, his balls in a proper uproar. “Cursing my family! You like putting people on the spot!”
“Good night, Jay. Hope you enjoy the movie.”
“Russian roulette, that it? Playing with fire?”
“I haven’t got anything to lose. It’s one way or the other. The not knowing is what kills people.” She started to cry soundlessly. He made a move to leave, and when she bit her lip to prevent herself from making an outcry, he knew she had him, and he cursed her for possessing stronger weapons than he had. The tears he could cope with; her forbearance defeated him. He wondered if a good beating, a beating carried out in cold blood without mercy or love, would release him from her. It would probably bind them even closer, the Gordian knot of the blows, the shared violence, in which the beater is even more subtly victimized than the victim, would make their union indivisible.
“Okay, what do you want from my life?”
“Just be a man. Have some guts for once in your life and stop moaning and complaining about what you had and didn’t have, that’s all I want. And I don’t want it for me, but for you. You could have done what you wanted to me three and a half months ago on the night we met, but you didn’t have it in you. It had to be a cinch. Well, I’m not an easy lay. And not because I think that what I’ve got’s so goddamned precious or any crap about never being the same afterwards. It’s because I want a man to lay me and to know when he does he’s laying a woman and not some piece that’s been handed around by everyone who’s got a prick. A beauty I’ll never be, but I’m not sorry about that because I’m not so bad. But someone to give me a bang I won’t have trouble getting. That answer your question?”
She was speaking his language and fighting him on his ground. She terrified him, and he hated her for it. She got up from the table, pushed him out of her way and went into the living room. He heard the radio. Astonished that his body was responding, he found himself standing over her in a threatening position. She was smoking a cigarette, and he stared with fascination at the lighted end. She held out the cigarette to him.
“Here burn me with it, beat me up. Just do something . . . don’t threaten to do something and then not do anything.” He sank down on his knees before her, and she wiped her eyes with the frayed sleeve of her dress. Then he sprang up almost in a trance and kissed her. Her mouth was open, and her tongue flicked out at his.
Without moving away, he started to undo the buttons of her dress. He stopped, waiting for her to raise an objection, to move his hand away. Her mouth pulled at his and he felt as though she were swallowing him up, and he tried to break away, but she tightened her grip around his neck. He could hardly breathe. She was all over him at once, taking, taking, taking, and he continued unbuttoning the front of her dress. She looked at him, still on his knees, with resigned affection, then she slipped her arms out of the dress.
She was about to undo her brassiere strap, her arms were spread-eagled behind her, and then as though remembering that Jay was cast in the major role, she brought her arms back and clasped his neck, waiting. He slid his head on her breasts and kissed her for what seemed to be a long time in the hollow of her breasts. She lost her breath, and he took this as a signal to go further. He eased off her panties and stroked her gently between her thighs and she sat back deeper in the sofa, her eyes glazed, moaning.
“I won’t hurt you, promise.”
“I don’t care.”
He continued to stroke her, and when she looked up she saw that he had undressed himself down to his socks, and she wondered vaguely when he had do
ne it. Except for infant boys, she never remembered seeing a man’s organ, and she stared at it with interest. She stretched out her hand until she had it, and she held it tightly in her fist, and it excited her to feel it alive in her hand. Without releasing him, she slipped down to the floor, and they sat facing each other like conspirators without a plan. Slowly he guided her head to him and before she reached him she kissed him anxiously on the mouth, moving quickly, then allowing him to guide her again. She rested her head on his lap and like a child he fed it slowly into her mouth. She held it tightly in her mouth as she had with her hand, and then he put his hands on both her cheeks and she moved her head up and down slowly, then quickly, when she sensed his excitement. He watched her, and she knew he was watching her and he stroked her lips, exciting her, and making her want to please him even more. His body became suddenly rigid, and she felt it oozing into her mouth. Almost in pain, he forced her head off with a sharp push at her forehead. He looked at her fearfully, and his face was white with shock.
“Spit it out!”
“That what whores do?”
“Spit it out!”
“Dew. Your dew.”
She pressed her head against his chest and his warm flesh reassured her.
“Why did you . . . ?”
“Why? I love you, silly. It’s yours . . . it belongs to you.” She paused, lifted her head up. “Now . . . ?”
“Have to wait a few minutes.”
She moved her head passively back to his chest and for the first time since they had met, she felt stronger than him. She looked at him and now it was small, and there was sperm gathered at the head of the opening. She held him for a long time, until it seemed to her that her excitement had subsided. She forgot where she was and what they were doing, only that she was warm and secure. He opened the hook of her brassiere strap and then she remembered what they were doing. He cupped her breasts in his hands and slowly licked the nipples of her breasts. It gave her an uncomfortable tingling sensation, and she felt vulnerable. Then he moved himself between her legs and began rubbing against them. She bent her head and kissed it again, and it was hard and throbbing. She spread her legs, and he pushed his fingers inside her, rhythmically from side to side, forcing the lips to open. She felt wet inside, and she became embarrassed, but she did not remove his fingers. Her back was slowly edging to the floor, and then she was lying flat. He moved on top of her, but his finger still held her lips and she sensed that he was slowly moving inside her. The movement was slow and easy as though he were frightened of injuring her, and then she felt a sharp, stinging pain as if she had cut herself with a piece of jagged glass and he was pushing harder and the pain subsided but it began to irritate her flesh. He swayed from side to side, and she felt something uncontrollable, like a fever, come over her, and she moved with him to increase the feeling of fever. The fever was reaching its height, and she worked under him like a slave given a task by his master. They came together, and he rolled off her. He lay by her side gasping. When he could catch his breath, he took her face in his hands and kissed her.
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