by Sam Ross
“Noise,” his mother called it. “Plain noise.”
“But that’s the real American music. That’s the real American spirit.”
“It could make one go crazy.”
“But it’s life, Ma. It’s living in a great big way.”
“Do me a favor and let me live in a small way, then.”
“But, Ma, if you don’t like this you don’t like America.”
“I don’t like bums, but they’re a part of America. Do I have to like them?”
“Ah, Ma, you just don’t understand.”
Then one night the full impact of the varied music came into play. After supper, Hershy’s father took the cardboard horses, cowboys, Indians, and jockeys off the turntable and, while his mother was finishing up the dishes in the kitchen, played some Yussel Rosenblatt records. Then his mother came into the parlor and played some operatic records. Hershy heard them but didn’t listen; he was too absorbed in trying to get three beebies that were under a glass into three tiny holes which were punched into a clown’s face.
Then Rachel came home late from work with a box under her arm. She explained that she had been working overtime. After she ate she went into her bedroom and closed the door. When she came out, Hershy looked up quickly at the sound of his mother’s gasp.
“But where did you get it?” she asked.
“I made it in the shop,” Rachel said. “That’s why I was late.”
“But what is it?” asked Hershy’s father.
“A dancing dress,” Rachel said.
“But you look so naked,” said his father. “Where can one dance in a dress like that?”
“On the stage,” Rachel said.
“And you wouldn’t be ashamed?” his mother asked.
“Are the girls in the opera ballet ashamed when you see them?” Rachel said.
“No,” his mother admitted. “But they’re artists. Besides, you can catch a cold running around like that.”
“And don’t forget,” his father added, “you’re not on the stage yet.”
“But I will be,” Rachel said. “Someday, you’ll see, I will be. This is my audition dress. Do you like it?”
Everybody stared at her.
“Say you like it,” she begged. And, when nobody answered, she said: “Say something, will you!”
Hershy finally answered for his mother and father.
“Yowie!”
For there she stood, full and tall and graceful, like a circus queen, with parts of her showing which none of them had ever seen before. Her arms were bare and her hair was wound into a tight biscuit at the nape of her neck; her plump breasts mounded out of a tight bodice that glittered with silvery spangles; the curve of her back and hips flowed into a short ruffled skirt; and her legs, which had never been seen above the ankles, were firm and shapely in pink silk stockings.
“A regular queen of Sheba,” said Hershy’s mother finally.
“I’m going to give you a free show,” said Rachel.
“Noo, let’s see already,” his mother said. “Let’s see what all your dancing lessons have done for you.”
“First we have to roll the rug back,” said Rachel.
Hershy helped his father roll the rug back. Then he sat down on the couch between his mother and father. His mother settled back with her hands clenched on her lap. His father crossed his legs and tried to look unconcerned. Hershy shifted eagerly from side to side.
“You’re sitting in the dark, see,” said Rachel. “Then, when the music starts, a spotlight’s going to shine on me. Like silver and gold, it’ll make me look. Ready?”
“Ready,” said Hershy.
“Okay, here goes.”
The blare of music startled them. His mother’s hands came up to her ears. His father cocked his head and stared. Hershy leaned forward with his mouth open, held by the glitter of her spangled breasts and jiggling body. On the second chorus he almost stopped breathing.
“No.”
“Look out, Rachel.”
“You’ll kill yourself.”
Rachel had gone into a cartwheel and jounced on the floor in a full split. Then she worked from cartwheels and full splits, interspersed with taps, into a slow backward dip to the floor, from which she rolled upward to her feet, and then into walking on her hands with her legs spread horizontally. Hershy applauded and yelled while his mother and father, terrified, kept begging her to stop it. Finally, she bounced on one toe, her cleated sole tapping to the music; her other leg was raised so that her toe pointed to her face; and, as she scolded that toe with her finger, the music ended and she ran out of the room.
“Hey, Ma. Hey, Pa,” Hershy shouted. “Did you see that? An acrobat. Rachel can go in a circus.”
But when he looked up there were tears in his mother’s eyes.
“Like Pavlowa she used to dance when she was a little girl,” she said. “Now look at her, like a wild Indian, so crazy, so ugly.”
His father tried to soothe her. “It’s the American style,” he said. “To an American, I suppose, it’s beautiful.”
But Hershy thought Rachel was the greatest dancer in the world. He suddenly saw her as a different being, a part of the charmed world of acrobats, magicians, and clowns. He was ready to fall in love with her, if only she would teach him all those tricks.
After that night he added her music to the music of his whirring motor, which sent his horses and cowboys and Indians and jockeys into action.
BOOK TWO
CONVERSION
CHAPTER SIX
1.
When his father first came home, Hershy used to wait for him near the newsstand at the end of the carline to meet him as he came from work. He always pretended that he was there by accident.
“Were you waiting for me?” his father would ask.
“No,” Hershy would say. “I was just coming from a kid’s house.” Or, he’d make up another excuse.
“Oh,” his father would say. He’d pat Hershy’s head and then they’d walk home together, usually in silence, with Hershy carrying his father’s lunch pail.
Soon, however, his father’s being home was no longer a novelty and Hershy stopped waiting for him at the car stop. His father assumed his traditional role of The Man, who left in the morning, did his work, which was taken for granted and seldom discussed, and came back at night. Nevertheless, the whole order of the household was geared around his coming home each evening, and suppertime was Papa’s time, during which the day was summed up, judged, and put aside for the next day. Being a man who seldom gave himself over to comparisons and who was free of pretension and envy, he was never harsh in his judgments. His dreams were small and easily satisfied, anchored by his skill as a cabinet maker, his love for his family, the weekly wage that provided for them, and a belief that what he had was sufficient. And if the end of the day yielded a hot meal, a warm stove, some bits of gossip, a few complaints, and a luxurious groan in a soft bed, then he was satisfied. What more could a man want?
Only on Sunday was the routine different. Then it was strange to be able to see him any time one wanted. But sensing this, and since he was restless unless his hand were busy, he usually spent his mornings in the basement building things for the house or for a neighbor. Then he could come up for dinner, as though he’d been away from the house that day.
The role of Hershy’s mother was to order the house around The Man, despite the fact that The Man made no demands and that she complained bitterly of how boring and tiring her routine was: in the foraging for food and bargains, cooking, cleaning, washing, making the beds, doing the dishes. A man was an emperor, a woman his slave, but that was the order of things, and she found escape finally from the small circumference of her world through the movies, the stories read to her at night, through prying into Rachel’s affairs, and dreams.
“Oy, if we had money,” she’d say.
“Yes?” his father’d prompt her. “If you had money?”
“Oy,” she’d sigh.
; “Oy,” his father’d mimic her, and then say: “Is your sister Reva happier with money? Does she find life more exciting?”
“I’m not Reva,” she’d say. “I’d know what to do.”
“What would you do?” his father’d urge her.
“Don’t worry,” she’d assure him. “I’d know.”
“What would you do?” his father’d say. “Become a society lady, a card player, a gossip?”
“Don’t worry,” she’d interrupt. “With money one can do anything.”
“Foolish woman,” his father’d conclude. “A man works. A woman dreams. But that’s life.”
“Is that so?”
Life in the household was reduced to the pattern Hershy had always known, and from which, without his knowing it, he took strength.
2.
Presently, a number of things happened in such rapid succession that to Hershy it seemed as though he were a runaway kite, soaring in a great blue sky.
There was the rediscovery of Rachel. Ever since she had grown up he had been indifferent to her. She came and went, a secret behind a closed door. Suddenly, she left the door ajar. And he saw a circus queen. And, in transferring his affection to her, he began to wait for her near the newsstand at the end of the carline to meet her accidentally as she came from work.
“Cookie,” she’d say. “You were waiting for me.”
“No,” he’d say. “I just seen you when I was coming from a kid’s house, so I waited a second.”
“Sweet cookie.”
Sometimes she stooped over and kissed him, and the nice smell of her powder and the nice touch of her soft lips made his heart run wild.
One day he discovered that he wasn’t the only one who waited for her to get off the streetcar. He began to notice that Joey Gans had taken to standing outside his restaurant, where in the back room pool, dice, card games, and betting on the horses went on. Every time Rachel lifted her skirt to her knee to keep from tripping as she stepped down to the street from the car, Joey crushed a pair of springs he held in his hands and whistled.
“Plenty hot gams,” Joey remarked aloud to himself.
A strange quivery sensation came over Hershy.
“Plenty knockers, too,” Joey added.
Though Rachel hurried across the street it seemed that she was pinned to Joey’s eyes and changed into another kind of being.
“She could make a cowboy out of me,” Joey concluded.
And when Joey went back into the restaurant, only then did Hershy feel released, as though he had been rooted to Joey, and then he was free to run across the street and catch up with Rachel. Studying her as they walked together, he remembered the clean firm length of her legs and the arch of her back and her spangled breasts when she had danced almost naked in the house. He rediscovered her again in a way that was altogether different than ever before. It sent a kind of fear and a kind of excitement through him. But then her attraction for Joey took on a different meaning for him. It brought him close to Joey. It gave him a big tight feeling being that close to him. And he almost died one day when Joey approached him.
“Hey, kid, you know the broad?”
A lump formed in his throat.
“I seen her kiss you. Who is she, your sister?”
“Yah,” he managed to say.
“Put in a word for me. Tell her who I am.”
“Okay.”
“Tell her I like her style.”
“Okay.”
“Tell her to come on over. Tell her Joey Gans wants to meet her.”
“Okay.”
“What’s your name?”
“Melov. Hershy Melov.”
“What’s your sister’s name?”
“Rachel. I mean, Rae.”
“Okay. Now tell her like I told you. I’ll learn you how to fight then. I’ll put you in my gang when you grow up. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Hershy rushed to Rachel when she got off the streetcar. There was a guy, he blurted, nuts about her. The greatest guy in the world. He liked her style. He wanted her to come on over and meet him. Boy, if he was only her sweetheart. Boy, if she married him, Joey’d be like his big brother. Boy, to have a big brother like that.
“What, are you crazy or something?” she said, and hurried home, with Hershy chasing after her.
The following evening, Joey approached him again.
“Well, kid, what’s the good word?”
Hershy shrugged his shoulders.
“Did you tell her?”
“Sure.”
“And?”
“Ah, you know how sisters are, Joey.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. You know.”
“Did you tell her like I told you, about she’s got style?”
“Yah.”
“Tell her again.”
But that evening, when Rachel stepped down from the car, she got off with more care. She glanced their way at the sound of Joey’s whistle and noticed that he was a powerful-looking man, with a tight coat over his big chest and broad shoulders. He had a broken nose, which made his eyes look small, wide apart, and crushed, and his hard face looked like it needed a shave. She carried herself differently as she crossed the street, tall and haughty, with a studied sway in the movement of her body. The chase was on. And when Hershy ran to her, she said: “I don’t want you to meet me any more.”
“Why not?”
“I just don’t want you to, that’s all.”
His eyes took on a bewildered look. He felt as though he were suddenly cut adrift, both from her and from Joey. There was no pleading or arguing with her. She wouldn’t listen. There was no threatening her, either. He wished he had something on her. If only he knew some secret about her, then he could have her in his power. How could a little guy get somebody in his power?
“All right for you, Rae.”
“So all right for me.”
“If you don’t let me wait for you I’ll tell everybody your name is Rachel, not Rae.”
“So my name is Rachel.”
“Yah? I’ll tell everybody. I’ll tell Joey, too.”
“Tell everybody. Tell Joey, too. I give a bibble.”
“Yah? I’ll tell everybody you’re a greenhorn.”
A shadow flickered over her face. He got ready to pounce on her: greenhorn, greenhorn. But she raised her head and said: “Tell everybody.”
“Yah?” He had no threat. He added futilely: “All right for you. Someday you’re going to ask me for a favor, someday you’re going to want me to do something for you. But you know what you’ll get? Bawbkes, you’ll get.”
But nobody was going to stop him from waiting for her. Nobody was going to keep him away from his pal Joey. She didn’t own the street or the corner where the car stopped. It was a free street. He could do anything he wanted on it. But the following day he waited for her alone.
See what she had done? She had chased Joey away. He wasn’t coming out any more. Now Joey’d never let him join his gang. Now he could never tell the guys he and Joey were pals. A black lump lay heavy in his chest. So what if she knew Joey? Would it hurt her? She had to know some guy. Why couldn’t it be a guy like Joey? Why couldn’t it be Joey? He hated her with all his might. He was through with her. Was Joey through with her, too? Give her another chance, Joey. Don’t be mad on her. Come on out and give her another chance. When she gets off the car, I’ll run after her and grab her and bring her to you and you’ll meet and it’ll be like you’re my big brother. Ah, Joey, come on out and give her another chance.
He stared anxiously through the restaurant window for Joey. A man sat at the counter drinking coffee. Through the door that led into the back room he could see a few men playing pool and some men were at a table playing cards. But he couldn’t see Joey. He was in front of the glass door, peering through it, when he heard an auto skid to a screeching stop. He turned about and his mouth hung open as two huge men with beefy faces got out with a little redheaded guy. The little guy was R
ed Doyle, whom Hershy recognized from a picture he had seen in the papers as the Father Protector of the Racketeers: he looked like a rabbit, with pink eyes and a pocked, hard-lined, reddish face, crammed between two bulls. They pushed Hershy out of the way when they got to the door.
Hershy watched them sit down at the counter near the cash register. They began to talk to Joey’s brother, Louie. The man drinking coffee got up and went into the back room. Then Joey came out and stood near the door, his eyes dead, his body big and tight, while Louie talked with his hands. Then Louie took some money out of the cash register and gave it to Red Doyle. Everybody smiled except Joey. Everybody was pals. Nothing was going to happen. Then Hershy’s heart leaped. As the men got up to leave, one of Red Doyle’s boys stepped on Joey’s foot and pushed him aside. Joey grabbed the guy’s coat, pushed him through the swinging glass door, and hit him. The guy fell to the sidewalk, right at Hershy’s feet, with a broken jaw, and Hershy stared down at his glazed eyes and the raw mouth that was twisted out of shape. At the same time, he saw the flash of a gun. He fell against the wall of the building and shut his eyes and tensed himself for the sound of the shot. Instead, he heard a tight, level voice.
“It’s okay, Jerry. Put it away.”
“Okay.”
Hershy opened his eyes to find Red Doyle talking.
“Hey, Joey, you got no respect?”
There was a wild gleam in Joey’s eyes, like when he looked at Rachel.
“Nobody pushes me around,” Joey said, his voice high and hoarse; it didn’t seem to belong to his body; the pitch of it made Hershy shiver.
“You ready to push up daisies for that?”
“Nobody’s pushing daisies.”
Red Doyle looked down at his bodyguard.
“Jerry,” he called his other bodyguard. “Put him in the back seat.”
The other bodyguard dragged the beefy man with the broken jaw into the car.
“Well,” Red Doyle said. “I need another boy now.”