Call It Sleep

by Henry Roth

  They guffawed. “Yer a card!” said the coal heaver. “Yer a good lad!—”

  As though he had struck the enormous bell

  of the very heart of silence, he

  stared round in horror.

  “Gaw blimy, mate!” Jim Haig, oiler on the British tramp Eastern Greyhound, (now opposite the Cherry Street pier) leaned over the port rail to spit. “I ain’t ’ed any fish ’n’ chips since the day I left ’ome. W’y ain’t a critter thought of openin’ a ’omely place in New York—Coney Island fer instance. Loads o’ prawfit. Taik a big cod now—”

  Now! Now I gotta. In the crack,

  remember. In the crack be born.

  “Harrh! There’s nights I’d take my bible-oath, these stairs uz higher.” On the first floor, Bill Whitney stopped, gazed out of the window that faced the East River. “Stinkin’ heap out there!” And lifting eyes above the stove-in enameled pots, cracked washtubs, urinals that glimmered in the black snarl, stared at the dark river striped by the gliding lights of a boat, shifted his gaze to the farther shore where scattered, lighted windows in factories, mills were caught like sparks in blocks of soot, and moved his eyes again to the south-east, to the beaded bridge. Over momentary, purple blossoms, down the soft incline, the far train slid like a trickle of gold. Behind and before, sparse auto headlights, belated or heralding dew on the bough of the night. “And George a’gappin’ and me a’hollerin’ and a’techin the ground with the toe of my boot and no wheels under me. Ha! Ha! Mmm! Wut cain’t a man dream of in his sleep … A wheel … A bike…” He turned away seeking the clock. “And I ain’t been on one … not sence … more’n thirty-five … forty years. Not since I uz a little shaver…”

  Clammy fingers traced the sharp edge of

  the dipper’s scoop. Before his eyes

  the glitter on the car tracks whisked …

  reversed … whisked …

  “Say, listen O’Toole dere’s a couple o’ coozies in de back.” The bar-keep pointed with the beer knife. “Jist yer speed!”

  “Balls!” Terse O’Toole retorted. “Wudjah tink I jist took de bull-durham sack off me pecker fer—nuttin’? I twisted all de pipes I wanna w’en I’m pissin’!”

  “No splinters in dese boxes, dough. Honest, O’Toole! Real clean—”

  “Let ’im finish, will ye!” the hunchback interrupted sourly. “O’Toole don’ have to buy his gash.”

  “Well, he says, yea. An’ I says yea. An’ all de time dere wuz Steve an’ Kelly unner de goiders belly-achin’—Hey trow us a rivet. An’ I sez—”

  —Nobody’s commin’!

  Klang! Klang! Klang! Klang! Klang!

  The flat buniony foot of Dan Maclntyre the motorman pounded the bell. Directly in front of the clamorous car and in the tracks, the vendor of halvah, candied-peanuts, leechee nuts, jellied fruits, dawdled, pushing his pushcart leisurely. Dan Maclntyre was enraged. Wasn’t he blocks and blocks behind his leader? Hadn’t his conductor been slow as shit on the bell? Wouldn’t he get a hell of a bawling out from Jerry, the starter on Avenue A? And here was this lousy dago blocking traffic. He’d like to smack the piss out of him, he would. He pounded the bell instead.

  Leisurely, leisurely, the Armenian pedlar steered his cart out of the way. But before he cleared the tracks, he lifted up his clenched fist, high and pleasantly. In the tight crotch of his forefingers, a dirty thumb peeped out. A fig for you, O MacIntyre.

  “God damn yuh!” He roared as he passed. “God blast yuh!”

  —So go! So go! So go!

  But he stood as still and rigid as

  if frozen to the wall, frozen fingers

  clutching the dipper.

  “An’ hawnest t’Gawd, Mimi, darlin’.” The Family Entrance to Callahan’s lay through a wide alley way lit by a red lamp in the rear. Within, under the branching, tendriled chandelier of alum-bronze, alone before a table beside a pink wall with roach-brown mouldings, Mary, the crockery-cheeked, humid-eyed swayed and spoke, her voice being maudlin, soused and reedy. Mimi, the crockery-cheeked, crockery-eyed, a smudged blonde with straw-colored hair like a subway seat, slumped and listened. “I was that young an’ innercent, an’ hawnest t’ Gawd, that straight, I brought it t’ the cashier, I did. And, Eeee! she screams and ducks under the register, Eeee! Throw it away, yuh boob! But what wuz I t’know—I wuz on’y fifteen w’en I wuz a bus-goil. They left it on a plate—waa, the mugs there is in de woild—an’ I thought it wuz one o’ them things yuh put on yer finger w’en ye git a cut—”

  “A cut, didja say, Mary, dea’?” The crockery cheeks cracked into lines.

  “Yea a cut— a cu— Wee! Hee! Hee! Hee! Hee! Mimi, darlin’ you’re comical! Wee! Hee! Hee! He! But I wuz that young an’ innercent till he come along. Wee! Hee! Hee! Hawnes’ t’ Gawd I wuz. I could piss troo a beer-bottle then—”

  Out of the shadows now, out on the dimlit, vacant

  street, he stepped down from the broken

  curb-stone to the cobbles. For all

  his peering, listening, starting, he

  was blind as a sleep-walker, he was

  deaf. Only the steely glitter on the

  tracks was in his eyes, fixed there like

  a brand, drawing him with cables as

  tough as steel. A few steps more and

  he was there, standing between the

  tracks, straddling the sunken rail.

  He braced his legs to spring, held

  his breath. And now the wavering point

  of the dipper’s handle found the long,

  dark, grinning lips, scraped, and

  like a sword in a scabbard—

  “Oy, Schmaihe, goy! Vot luck! Vot luck! You should only croak!”

  “Cha! Cha! Cha! Dot’s how I play mit cods!”

  “Bitt him vit a flush! Ai, yi, yi!”

  “I bet he vuz mit a niggerteh last night!”

  “He rode a dock t’ luzno maw jock—jeck I shidda said. Cha! Cha!”

  “He’s a poet, dis guy!”

  “A putz!”

  “Vus dere a hura mezda, Morr’s?”

  “Sharrop, bummer! Mine Clara is insite!”

  Plunged! And he was running! Running!

  “Nutt’n’? No, I says, nutt’n’. But every time I sees a pretty cunt come walkin’ up de street, I says, wit’ a mean shaft an’ a sweet pair o’ knockers, Jesus, O’Toole, I says, dere’s a mare I’d radder lay den lay on. See wot I mean? Git a bed under den a bet on. Git me?”

  “Haw! Haw! Haw! Bejeeziz!”

  “Ya! Ha! He tella him, you know? He lika de fica stretta!”

  They looked down at the lime-streaked, overalled wop condescendingly, and—

  “Aw, bulloney,” he says, “Yeah, I says. An’ booze, I says, my booze is wut I c’n suck out of a nice tit, I says. Lallal’mmm, I says. An’ w’en it comes t’ prayin’, I says, c’n yuh tell me anyt’ing bedder t’ pray over den over dat one!” O’Toole hastily topped the laugh with a wave of his hand. “Yer an at’eist, yuh fuck, he hollers. A fuckin’ at’eist I says— An’ all de time dere wuz Steve and Kelly unner de goiders hollerin’, hey trow us a riv—”

  Running! But no light overtook him,

  no blaze of intolerable flame. Only

  in his ears, the hollow click of iron

  lingered. Hollow, vain. Almost within

  the saloon-light, he slowed down, sobbed

  aloud, looked behind him—

  “But who’d a thunk it?” Bill Whitney mounted the stairs again. “By Gawd, who’d a thunk it? The weeks I’d held that spike for ’im … Weeks … And he druv and never a miss … Drunk? Naw, he warn’t drunk that mornin’. Sober as a parson. Sober. A’swingin’ of the twelve pound like a clock. Mebbe it was me that nudged it, mebbe it war me … By Gawd, I knowed it. A feelin’ I had seein’ that black sledge in the air. Afore it come down, I knowed it. A hull damned country-side it might of slid into. And it had to be me … Wut? It wuz to be? That cast around my leg? A pig’s tit! It wuz to—�
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  Like a dipped metal flag or a gro-

  tesque armored head scrutinizing the

  cobbles, the dull-gleaming dipper’s

  scoop stuck out from between the rail,

  leaning sideways.

  —Didn’t. Didn’t go in. Ain’t lit. Go back.

  He turned—slowly.

  —No—body’s—look—

  “Bawl? Say, did I bawl? Wot else’d a kid’ve done w’en her mont’ly don’ show up—Say! But I’ll get even with you, I said, I’ll make a prick out of you too, like you done t’ me. You wait! You can’t get away with that. G’wan, he said, ye little free-hole, he called me. Wott’re ye after? Some dough? Well, I ain’t got it. That’s all! Now quit hangin’ aroun’ me or I’ll s-smack ye one! He said.”

  “Where d’ja get it?”

  “I borreed it—it wuzn’t much. She called herself a m-mid-wife. I went by m-meself. My old-huhu—my old l-lady n-never—O Jesus!” Tears rilled the glaze.

  “Say—toin off de tap, Mary, f’Gawd’s sake!”

  “Aw! Sh-hu-hu-shut up! Can’t I b-bawl if I—I—uh-hu-uh—G-go p-peddle yer h-hump, h-he says—”

  “But not hea’, Mary, f’r the lova Pete. We all gets knocked up sometimes—”

  —Horry op! Horry op back!

  “They’ll betray us!” Into the Tenth Street Crosstown car, slowing down at Avenue A, the voice of the pale, gilt-spectacled, fanatic face rang out above all other sounds: above the oozy and yearning “Open the door to Jesus” of the Salvation Army singing in the park; above the words of the fat woman swaying in the car as she said, “So the doctor said cut out all meat if you don’t want gall-stones. So I cut out all meat, but once in a while I fried a little boloney with eggs—how I love it!” Above the muttering of the old grey-bearded Jewish pedlar (he rocked his baby carriage on which pretzels lay stacked like quoits on the upright sticks) “Founder of the universe, why have you tethered me to this machine? Founder of the universe, will I ever earn more than water for my buckwheat? Founder of the universe!” Above the even enthusiasm of the kindly faced American woman: “And do you know, you can go all the way up inside her for twenty-five cents. For only twenty-five cents, mind you! Every American man, woman and child ought to go up inside her, it’s a thrilling experience. The Statue of Liberty is—”

  —He stole up to the dipper warily,

  on tip—

  “Shet up, down ’ere, yuh bull-faced harps, I says, wait’ll I’m troo! Cunt, I says, hot er snotty ’zuh same t’ me. Dis gets ’em’ hot. Dis gets em hot I sez. One look at me, I says, an yuh c’n put dat rivet in yer ice-box—t’ings ’ll keep! Yuh reams ’em out with dat he says—kinda snotty like. Shit no, I says I boins ’em out. W’y dontcha trow it t’dem, he ays, dey’re yellin’ fer a rivet. Aaa, I don’ wanna bust de fuckin’ goider I says. Yer pretty good, he says. Good, I says, didja ever see dat new tawch boinin’ troo a goider er a flange er any fuck’n’ hunka iron—de spa’ks wot goes shootin’ down—? Didja? Well dat’s de way ’I comes. Dey tol’ me so. An’ all de time dere wuz Steve and Kelly unner de goiders havin’ a shit-hemorrage an’ yellin’ hey, t’row—”

  toe, warily, glancing over his

  shoulders, on tip-toe, over serried

  cobbles, cautious—

  “Wuz t’ be. And by Gawd it might hev gone out when I went to bed a’ suckin’ of it. By Gawd it hed no call t’ be burnin’.… Wuz to be—Meerschaum, genuwine. Thankee I said. Thankee Miz Taylor. And I stood on the backstairs with the ice-tongs. Thankee and thank the Doctor … Boston, the year I—Haw, by Gawd. And the hull damn sheet afire. And Kate ascreamin’ beside me … Gawd damn it! It hadn’t ought to ’a’ done it … A’lookin’ at me still now … A’stretchin’ of her neck in the white room … in the hospital—”

  As though his own tread might shake the

  slanting handle loose from its perch

  beneath the ground. And now, and—

  “Why not? She asks me. Pullin’ loaded dice on Lefty. The rat! He can’t get away with that y’know. I know, Mag, I said. It’d do my heart good to see a knife in his lousy guts—only I gotta better idee. What? She asks me. Spill it. Spill it is right, I says t’ her. I know a druggist-felleh, I said, good friend o’ mine. O yea, she looks at me kinda funny. Croak him with a dose o’—No! I said. No poison. Listen Mag. Throw a racket up at your joint, will ye? Give him an invite. He’ll come. And then let me fix him a drink. And I winks at her. Dintcha ever hear o’ the Spanish Fly—”

  over it now, he crouched,

  stretched out a hand to

  “They’ll betray us!” Above all these voices, the speaker’s voice rose. “In 1789, in 1848, in 1871, in 1905, he who has anything to save will enslave us anew! Or if not enslave will desert us when the red cock crows! Only the laboring poor, only the masses embittered, bewildered, betrayed, in the day when the red cock crows, can free us!”

  lift the dipper free. A sense almost

  palpable, as of a leashed and imminent

  and awful force.

  “You’re de woist fuckin’ liar I ever seen he sez an’ ducks over de goiders.”

  focused on his hand across the hair-

  breadth

  “Yuh god mor’n a pair o’ sem’ns?”

  gap between his fingers and the

  scoop. He drew

  “It’s the snug ones who’ll preach it wuz to be.”

  back, straightened. Carefully bal—

  “So I dropped it in when he was dancin’—O hee! Hee! Mimi! A healthy dose I—”

  anced on his left, advance—

  “Yeah. I sez, take your pants off.”

  ed his right foot—

  Crritlkt!

  —What?

  He stared at the river, sprang away

  from the rail and dove into the shad-

  ows.

  “Didja hear ’im, Mack? De goggle-eyed yid an’ his red cock?”

  The river? That sound! That sound

  had come from there. All his senses

  stretched toward the dock, grappled with

  the hush and the shadow. Empty…?

  “Swell it out well with batter. Mate, it’s a bloomin’ goldmine! It’s a cert! Christ knows how many chaps can be fed off of one bloody cod—”

  Yes … empty. Only his hollow nos-

  trils sifted out the stir in the

  quiet; The wandering river-wind seamed

  with thin scent of salt

  “An’ he near went crazy! Mimi I tell ye, we near bust, watchin—”

  decay, flecked with clinging coal-tar—

  Crrritlkt!

  “Can’t, he sez, I got a tin-belly.”

  —It’s— Oh— It’s—it’s! Papa. Nearly

  like. It’s—nearly like his teeth.

  Nothing … A barge on a slack hawser or

  a gunwale against the dock chirping

  because a

  “I’ll raise it.”

  boat was passing.

  —Papa like nearly.

  Or a door tittering to and fro in the wind.

  “Heaz a can-opener fer ye I sez.”

  Nothing. He crept back.

  “Hemm. These last durn stairs.”

  And was there, over the rail. The

  splendor shrouded in the earth, the

  titan, dormant in his lair, disdain-

  ful. And his eyes

  “Runnin’ hee! hee! hee! Across the lots hee! hee! jerkin’ off.”

  lifted

  “An’ I picks up a rivet in de tongs an’ I sez—”

  and there was the last crossing of

  Tenth Street, the last cross—

  “Heazuh flowuh fer yea, yeller-belly, shove it up yer ass!”

  ing, and beyond, beyond the elevateds,

  “How many times’ll your red cock crow, Pete, befaw y’ gives up? T’ree?”

  as in the pit of the west, the last

  “Yee! hee! Mary, joikin’—”

  smudge of
rose, staining the stem of

  “Nawthin’ t’ do but climb—”

  the trembling, jagged

  “Show culluh if yuh god beddeh!”

  chalice of the night-taut stone with

  “An’ I t’rows de fuck’n’ rivet.”

  the lees of day. And his toe crooked into

  the dipper as into a stirrup. It

  grated, stirred, slid, and—

  “Dere’s a star fer yeh! Watch it! Tree Kings I god. Dey came on huzzbeck! Yee! Hee Hee! Mary! Nawthin’ to do but wait fer day light and go home. To a red cock crowin’. Over a statue of. A jerkin’. Cod. Clang! Clang! Oy! Machine! Liberty! Revolt! Redeem!”

  Power

  Power! Power like a paw, titanic power,

  ripped through the earth and slammed

  against his body and shackled him

  where he stood. Power! Incredible,

  barbaric power! A blast, a siren of light

  within him, rending, quaking, fusing his

  brain and blood to a fountain of flame,

  vast rockets in a searing spray! Power!

  The hawk of radiance raking him with

  talons of fire, battering his skull with

  a beak of fire, braying his body with

  pinions of intolerable light. And he

  writhed without motion in the clutch of

  a fatal glory, and his brain swelled

  and dilated till it dwarfed the galaxies

  in a bubble of refulgence—Recoiled, the

  last screaming nerve clawing for survival.

  He kicked—once. Terrific rams of dark-

  ness collided; out of their shock space

  toppled into havoc. A thin scream wobbled

  through the spirals of oblivion, fell like

  a brand on water, his-s-s-s-s-ed—

  “W’at?

  “W’ut?

  “Va-at?

  “Gaw blimey!

  “W’atsa da ma’?”

  The street paused. Eyes, a myriad of eyes, gay or sunken, rheumy, yellow or clear, slant, blood-shot, hard, boozy or bright swerved from their tasks, their play, from faces, newspapers, dishes, cards, seidels, valves, sewing machines, swerved and converged. While at the foot of Tenth Street, a quaking splendor dissolved the cobbles, the grimy structures, bleary stables, the dump-heap, river and sky into a single cymbal-clash of light. Between the livid jaws of the rail, the dipper twisted and bounced, consumed in roaring radiance, candescent—