“Move!” he said.
David scrambled to one side. His father reached into the back of the wagon, dragged out two steel trays and set them on the ribbed wagon floor. From three boxes, all of which were filled with bottled milk and covered with ice, he loaded both trays, and when every square in the trays had been planted, shored bottles against leaning bottles in glistening white pyramids. In the last box only four bottles sprouted from between the cracked ice. These he left behind, and shoving both trays near the door-way, he climbed out into the sunlight. One after another he swung them down, grunting as he did so, the sinews of his throat leaping like bow-strings.
“This time don’t forget,” he said, glancing about. “Stay where you’re told, hear me?” His brief nod was full of meaning, and then he turned away and lunged forward and with stiff, jerky gait, hurried down a narrow lane between squat and dingy shacks. As he drew away, deeper and deeper shadows pitted the stretched thews of his long bare arms. Under his flat springless tread, the crushed stones on the ground slid and crunched. The path turned, curving round a gas tank. With a last clink of bottles he disappeared.
III
UNREAL quiet … Against the drowsy, dwindled hum of the city only the sound of the horse champing softly on his bit, pawing or rattling his traces could be heard. The arid cobbles, distinct close at hand and hemmed in by peeling bill boards, blackened hovels, vacant storage houses, contracted to scales in middle distance, slurred further on and slid up a narrow groove of houses into dusty blue sky. Rarely and even then too far for a sound to travel, a horse and wagon crossed the street. From the trench in the pavement, the rank, persistent damp mingled with the odor of rancid milk in the wagon. Time dragged.
Two men slanted past the corner. After the strange silence of the street and the strange disquiet in himself, David found the scrape of soles on sidewalk suddenly welcome. One of the men seemed about to cross the street, but his companion gave his arm a short tug, said something and both swerved from their course and shambled leisurely toward the wagon. Their coats were slung over their shoulders and as they walked they wiped their faces in the lining. A grey rope held up the pants of one, the other had safety pins in his suspenders. Both wore dirty, blurry, striped shirts, torn under the neck-bands and collarless. Their features, as they grew more distinct, were blunt and coarse, pocked and purplish as peach-stones. The leaner was the shaggier of the two, his hair, the blonde of a gunny sack, matted under his brown felt hat. The stockier, under his tilted cap, had a moon-shaped brow, good-humored, piggish eyes, and between puffy jowls a short mustache like oiled hemp, smoke-singed at the fat lips. There had been something significant about the way they had nudged each other and then changed their course, and now as they sauntered within a few feet of the wagon, David began to hope that they would pass without stopping.
“I told yuh it wuz a kid,” he heard the stocky one say. And then loudly. “Hullo dere, big boy!” Opposite the doorway of the wagon, he smiled affably, widely, yellow butts of his teeth circled on top like bitten grains of corn. “Waddaye say?”
“Hot ain’ id?” the other grinned beside him. “Whew!” Saliva on his protruding upper teeth glistened, gathered; leisurely he sucked it in as it fell.
Without answering, David stared at them irresolutely.
“Ol’ man’s wagon?” asked the first, his pudgy finger sliding from his mustache to worry a pimple on his chin. “Go in wid a big load, didn’t ’e?” His bright, amiable eyes fixed on the graveled lane, “Didn’t ’e?”
“Yea.”
“Long ago?”
“Yea.”
“Nice kid, ain’ ’e?”
The other winked, curled his tongue out for the sliding drop. “Maybe he wantzuh see de gas house? Woik fast!”
“Say! I’ll betcha shirt he does! Ever been in a gas house?’
“No!” apprehensively. He wished they would go away.
“No? Say, we’ll show yuh de whole woiks!”
“No!”
“Layin’ out?” He leaned inside the doorway.
“Yep,” the other grunted. He had shifted his position so that he partly faced the graveled lane.
“C’mon!” the stocky one urged pleasantly. “We c’n show yuh all de fires — biggest fires, biggest foinisses in Noo Yawk. Show yuh yer ol’ man.” Suddenly he leaned forward. Blacknailed, outstretched fingers gripped David’s buttocks. He wrenched free, sprang away.
“No!” Sudden fear made him cling to the opposite side of the wagon. “No! I don’t wanna go — no place! Lemme alone!”
“Gettin’ hot, Augie?”
The other cackled. “No go, Wally. We gotta get it an’ skin out o’ hea.”
“Yea,” drawled the other still smiling, and then briskly. “All right, kid, won’t show ’em to yuh dis time— I see yer ol’ man’s got a liddle milk left, ain’ he? Nice and cool, I bet. Well, we’ll buy a couple o’ bottles. He knows us, see—? Clear, Augie?”
“Shoot!”
“Jest a couple.” He swept away the ice, calmly uprooted two bottles of milk. “We gid it every day. Tell ’im Hennesy took it. Tree Star Hennesy — he’ll remember.” He passed a bottle to the other. “We pays him reggileh,” he added, slouching off in the direction he, had come. “So long, big boy! Show yuh de gas house sometime.”
His lips quivering in terror and too dazed even to breathe, David watched them wrap their coats about the bottles, quicken their pace as they neared the corner, wheel round it and vanish.
He gasped. They had stolen the bottles! He knew it! He knew the moment that man reached over he was going to steal them. What would his father say? You left the wagon! You left the wagon! And after I told you not to. Papa, no! I never left it! I thought you knew them! They said you did. You left the wagon! I didn’t! They came—! His mind seemed to have burst into myriads of razor-edged shards hurtling through his skull. Ow! When he comes! When he looks in! And two missing. Why didn’t you stop them? Why didn’t you tell them to wait till I came? Why didn’t you cry out? I did, papa! I did! I mean—! they said—! The whip — there. He’d take it. Ow!
His frantic nails dug under his cap, harrowed the scalp beneath, which stung and prickled as though a rash had broken out upon it. A cold sweat sprang out over his face and throat, and his writhing body grew suddenly hollow and agonized. Without desire or strength to still them, he listened to the sick chattering of his teeth. Already feeling the lash on his back, he cowered down and lifted his hands to his face.
— Ow! Ow! Papa! Papa! Ow! Don’t! I didn’t mean it. They tried to grab me. Push me out … (He tried to flee from himself as he had once done in the darkness behind his palms. Where could he flee to? Where?) Like that time then. In cellar was and ran. In up-and-out pictures ran. In street now, where—? Mama! Make her look. Make how she looks. Her face. Make! MAKE! I want her face. Mama! MAMA! Make her look. (He concentrated, culling dispersion with every force of his will — failed. Tried again, failed. The face would not fuse. His own mother’s face eluded him.) Can’t! I can’t! Oh, mama! Mama! Can’t … (He rocked back and forth). I’ll make believe I’ll go home first. Yes. Like that I’ll get it. All the streets. Rrrrp! Ninth Street. Now up stoop go. Hot is brass bannister. No touch, janitor says. Cold in winter. Hall inside — No! No! Not this one! Not this! Funny! Old hall from way then, Brownsville pushed right in. Old cellar hall. Got it, Ninth Street back. Now keep. Don’t let go. Baby carriages under the stair here. Milk-stink on ’em. Now go. First floor, see the steps, see the toilets. Bloop! Slipped, slipped down. Gee! Baby carriages. She’s waiting. Upstairs. Fourth floor, waiting. Now go! Bing! One, two, three, four— Aaa, shit — slipped! Baby carriages. Milk stink pulls, pulls me back. This time, jump! All the way up! One jump all the way! One, two, go—! Wrong! It’s wrong! Wrong hallway! No! No! No cellar door. Not in my house. Not open! Not open! Like — Like I just smelled. Street open. Street — open-stink, where they’re digging. Aaa! (He ground his teeth in sudden fury) I’m going up! I’m going up anyway! You won’t stop me! YOU WON’T! I’ll hold it! Now! (His fingers pinched his nose till it hurt) Now I’ll go! What—!