“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!”