The Collected Stories, page 17
At this very moment, the thumb of Ricardo’s hovering shadow jabbed her in her left eye, revealing for all the world the shallowness of her water table. Rice could have been planted at that instant on the terraces of her flesh and sprouted in strength and beauty in the floods that overwhelmed her from that moment on through all the afternoon. For herself and Anita Franklin, Faith bowed her head and wept.
“Going already, Faith?” her father asked. He had poked his darling birdy head with poppy pale eyes into the sun-spotted room. He is not especially good-looking. He is ugly. Faith has often thanked the Germ God and the Gene Goddess and the Great Lords of All Nucleic Acid that none of them looks like him, not even Charles, to whom it would not matter, for Charles has the height for any kind of face. They all look a little bit Teutonish, like their grandmother, who thinks she’s German, just kind of light and even-featured, with Charles inclining to considerable jaw. People expect decision from Charles because of that jaw, and he has learned to give it to them—the wit of diagnosis, then inescapable treatment, followed by immediate health. In fact, his important colleagues often refer their wives’ lower abdominal distress to Charles. Before he is dead he will be famous. Mr. Darwin hopes he will be famous soon, for in that family people do not live long.
Well, this popeyed, pale-beaked father of Faith’s peered through the room into the glassy attack of the afternoon sun, couldn’t focus on tears, or bitten lips for that matter, but saw Faith rise to look for her jacket in the closet.
“If you really have to go, I’ll walk you, Faithy. Sweetheart, I haven’t seen you in a long time,” he said. He withdrew to wait in the hallway, well out of the circle of Mrs. Hegel-Shtein’s grappling magnetism.
Faith kissed her mother, who whispered into her damp ear, “Be something, don’t be a dishrag. You have two babies to raise.” She kissed Mrs. Hegel-Shtein, because they had been brought up that way, not to hurt anyone’s feelings, particularly if they loathed them, and they were much older.
Faith and her father walked through the light-green halls in silence to the life-giving lobby, where rosy, well-dressed families continued to arrive in order to sit for twenty minutes alongside their used-up elders. Some terrible political arguments about Jews in Russia now were taking place near the information desk. Faith paid no attention but moved toward the door, breathing deeply. She tried to keep her father behind her until she could meet the commitments of her face. “Don’t rush, sweetheart.” he said. “Don’t rush, I’m not like these old cockers here, but I am no chicken definitely.”
Gallantly he took her arm. “What’s the good word?” he asked. “Well, no news isn’t bad news, I hope?”
“So long, Chuck!” he called as they passed the iron gate over which, in stunning steel cursive, a welder had inscribed The Children of Judea. “Chuckle, chuckle,” said her father, grasping her elbow more firmly, “what a name for a grown-up man!”
She turned to give him a big smile. He deserved an enormous smile, but she had only a big one available.
“Listen, Faithl, I wrote a poem. I want you to hear. Listen. I wrote it in Yiddish, I’ll translate it in my head:
Childhood passes
Youth passes
Also the prime of life passes.
Old age passes.
Why do you believe, my daughters,
That old age is different?
“What do you say, Faithy? You know a whole bunch of artists and writers.”
“What do I say? Papa.” She stopped stock-still. “You’re marvelous. That’s like a Japanese Psalm of David.”
“You think it’s good?”
“I love it, Pa. It’s marvelous.”
“Well … you know. I might give up all this political stuff, if you really like it. I’m at a loss these days. It’s a transition. Don’t laugh at me. Faithy. You’ll have to survive just such events someday yourself. Learn from life. Mine. I was going to organize the help. You know, the guards, the elevator boys—colored fellows, mostly. You notice, they’re coming up in the world. Regardless of hopes. I never expected it in my lifetime. The war. I suppose, did it. Faith, what do you think? The war made Jews Americans and Negroes Jews. Ha ha. What do you think of that for an article? ‘The Negro: Outside In at Last.
“Someone wrote something like that.”
“Is that a fact? It’s in the air. I tell you, I’m full of ideas. I don’t have a soul to talk to. I’m used to your mother, only a funny thing happened to her, Faithy. We were so close. We’re still friendly, don’t take me the wrong way, but I mean a funny thing, she likes to be with the women lately. Loves to be with that insane, persecution, delusions-of-grandeur, paranoical Mrs. Hegel-Shtein. I can’t stand her. She isn’t a woman men can stand. Still, she got married. Your mother says, Be polite, Sid; I am polite. I always loved the ladies to a flaw, Faithy, but Mrs. Hegel-Shtein knocks at our room at 9 a.m. and I’m an orphan till lunch. She has magic powers. Also she oils up her wheelchair all afternoon so she can sneak around. Did you ever hear of a wheelchair you couldn’t hear coming? My child, believe me, what your mother sees in her is a shady mystery. How could I put it? That woman has a whole bag of spitballs for the world. And also a bitter crippled life.”
They had come to the subway entrance. “Well, Pa, I guess I have to go now. I left the kids with a friend.”
He shut his mouth. Then he laughed. “Aaah, a talky old man …”
“Oh no, Pa, not at all. No. I loved talking to you, but I left the kids with a friend, Pa.”
“I know how it is when they’re little, you’re tied down, Faith. Oh, we couldn’t go anywhere for years. I went only to meetings, that’s all. I didn’t like to go to a movie without your mother and enjoy myself. They didn’t have babysitters in those days. A wonderful invention, babysitters. With this invention two people could be lovers forever.
“Oh!” he gasped, “my darling girl, excuse me …” Faith was surprised at his exclamation because the tears had come to her eyes before she felt their pain.
“Ah, I see now how the land lies. I see you have trouble. You picked yourself out a hard world to raise a family.”
“I have to go. Pa.”
“Sure.”
She kissed him and started down the stairs.
“Faith.” he called. “can you come soon?”
“Oh, Pa,” she said, four steps below him, looking up, “I can’t come until I’m a little happy.”
“Happy!” He leaned over the rail and tried to hold her eyes. But that is hard to do, for eyes are born dodgers and know a whole circumference of ways out of a bad spot. “Don’t be selfish, Faithy, bring the boys, come.”
“They’re so noisy, Pa.”
“Bring the boys, sweetheart. I love their little goyish faces.”
“O.K., O.K.,” she said, wanting only to go quickly. “I will, Pa, I will.”
Mr. Darwin reached for her fingers through the rail. He held them tightly and touched them to her wet cheeks. Then he said, “Aaah …” an explosion of nausea, absolute digestive disgust. And before she could turn away from the old age of his insulted face and run home down the subway stairs, he had dropped her sweating hand out of his own and turned away from her.
Gloomy Tune
There is a family nearly everybody knows. The children of this family are named Bobo, Bibi, Doody, Dodo, Neddy, Yoyo, Butch, Put Put, and Beep.
Some are girls and some are boys.
The girls are mean babysitters for mothers. The boys plan to join the army.
The two oldest mean babysitters go out to parties a lot. Sometimes they jerk people off. They really like to.
They are very narrow-minded. They never have an idea. But they like to be right. They never listen to anyone else’s ideas.
One after another, Dodo, Neddy, Yoyo, and Put Put got the sisters at the school into a state. The sisters had to give up on them and they got dumped where they belonged for being fresh: right in the public school.
Around four years old, they began to be bad by cursing, and they went on from there.
First they said ass, then bitch, then fuckn bitch. Then when they got a little bigger, motherfuckn bitch, and so on, but I don’t like to say.
The sister was strict first, very angry and cold as ice. You can hardly blame her. She wasn’t ever a mother, had children, or done anything like that.
She was strict and she was right to be strict. Of course, no strictness at home is the real reason for boldness and freshness.
Then the sister wanted to try kindness too. She spoke very kindly. She took all her own time to sit, especially with Neddy who was so cute, and she helped him in arithmetic.
She was good. She taught Yoyo checkers. But his mind wasn’t on it. When kindness was useless, she had to say in each case, As far as our school is concerned, sorry. God help you, you must go. You don’t deserve a wonderful education. There’s so many waiting behind you just for the chance.
She went to see their mother, who was doing the wash in a terrible hurry before going to work. I don’t know what it is, sister, the mother said. They get in with the tough kids moving in the neighborhood, you know the ones I mean.
Oh, oh, said the sister who was tired of always hearing mean gossip, oh, oh, whose children are we, dear missus, every single one of us?
The mother didn’t say a word. Because she knew the sister couldn’t understand a thing. Now, the sister didn’t know what it was like to live next door to all kinds.
Ah listen sister dear, said the mother, could you keep an eye on Put Put? Bobo’s gonna be in any minute to watch out for him. I been late four times already on that job. I better go so help me. What the hell’s holding that girl up? You don’t know what’s gone on in the high schools today. Sister, I know your time ain’t your own.
Now you better hurry, said sister, getting to perspire in the place. Oh I am sorry about Neddy. And Yoyo. Oh, how I wish we could hold them.
Of course public school being what it is, they didn’t improve. Got worse and began to say, Go suck your father’s dick. I don’t think they really understood what they were saying.
They never stole. They had a teeny knife. They pushed people on the slides and knocked them all over the playground. They wouldn’t murder anyone I think.
They cursed a lot and pushed back a lot. Someone usually pushed them first or cursed them first. They had a right to curse back or push back.
One day, not later than was expected, Chuchi Gomez slipped in an olive-oil puddle left by a lady whose bottle broke. She picked up the bottle pieces, but didn’t do a thing about the oil. I wouldn’t know what to do about the oil either.
Chuchi said, turning to Yoyo in back of him, Why you push me bastard?
Who pushed you, you dope? said Yoyo.
You dumb bastard, you push me. I feel over here on my shoulder, you push me.
Aah go on, I didn push you, said Yoyo.
I seen you push me. I feeled you push me. Who you think you go around pushin. Bastard.
Who you callin bastard, you big mouth. You call me a bastard?
Yeh, said Chuchi, the way I figure, you a motherfuckn bastard.
You call me a motherfuckn bastard?
Yeh, you. I call you that. You see this here oil. That’s what I call you.
Then Yoyo was so mad because he and Chuchi had plans to go to the dock for eels Sunday. Now he couldn’t have any more plans with Chuchi.
So he hollered, You better not say my mother’s name, you hear me, Chuchi stinking Gomez. Your whole family’s a fuckn bitches starting with your father and mother and Eddie and Ramon and Lilli and all the way the whole bunch and your gramma too.
Then he picked up a board with two nails in it and clonked Chuchi on the shoulder.
That isn’t such a bloody place, but with the oil and blood and all, if you got a little vinegar, you could of pickled Chuchi.
Then Chuchi yelped and screamed, Don’ you murder me. And he ran home to his gramma who was in charge of him.
His gramma lay right down in bed when she saw Chuchi and hollered, I don’ wanna see no more in this bad country. Kill me, I beg you, somebody.
No, no, said Chuchi, don’t feel so bad Gramma. It wasn’t my fault. He started it. You better take me to the clinic.
His gramma was disgusted that she couldn’t even lie down a minute in her age to holler a little. But she had to take Chuchi to the clinic. They gave him a couple of shots for nail poisoning.
Well you see how Yoyo got well known for using a knife. The people from Greenwich House to Hudson Guild know his name. He is bold and hopeless.
In school he gets prayed for every day by all the kids, girls or boys.
Living
Two weeks before Christmas, Ellen called me and said, “Faith, I’m dying.” That week I was dying too.
After we talked, I felt worse. I left the kids alone and ran down to the corner for a quick sip among living creatures. But Julie’s and all the other bars were full of men and women gulping a hot whiskey before hustling off to make love.
People require strengthening before the acts of life.
I drank a little California Mountain Red at home and thought—why not—wherever you turn someone is shouting give me liberty or I give you death. Perfectly sensible, thing-owning, Church-fearing neighbors flop their hands over their ears at the sound of a siren to keep fallout from taking hold of their internal organs. You have to be cockeyed to love, and blind in order to look out the window at your own ice-cold street.
I really was dying. I was bleeding. The doctor said, “You can’t bleed forever. Either you run out of blood or you stop. No one bleeds forever.”
It seemed I was going to bleed forever. When Ellen called to say she was dying, I said this clear sentence: “Please! I’m dying too, Ellen.”
Then she said. “Oh, oh, Faithy, I didn’t know.” She said, “Faith, what’ll we do? About the kids. Who’ll take care of them? I’m too scared to think.”
I was frightened too, but I only wanted the kids to stay out of the bathroom. I didn’t worry about them. I worried about me. They were noisy. They came home from school too early. They made a racket.
“I may have another couple of months,” Ellen said. “The doctor said he never saw anyone with so little will to live. I don’t want to live, he thinks. But Faithy, I do, I do. It’s just I’m scared.”
I could hardly take my mind off this blood. Its hurry to leave me was draining the red out from under my eyelids and the sunburn off my cheeks. It was all rising from my cold toes to find the quickest way out.
“Life isn’t that great Ellen.” I said. “We’ve had nothing but crummy days and crummy guys and no money and broke all the time and cockroaches and nothing to do on Sunday but take the kids to Central Park and row on that lousy lake. What’s so great, Ellen? What’s the big loss? Live a couple more years. See the kids and the whole cruddy thing, every cheese hole in the world go up in heat blast firewaves …”
“I want to see it all,” Ellen said.
I felt a great gob making its dizzy exit.
“Can’t talk,” I said. “I think I’m fainting.”
Around the holly season. I began to dry up. My sister took the kids for a while so I could stay home quietly making hemoglobin, red corpuscles, etc., with no interruption. I was in such first-class shape by New Year’s. I nearly got knocked up again. My little boys came home. They were tall and handsome.
Three weeks after Christmas. Ellen died. At her funeral at that very neat church on the Bowery, her son took a minute out of crying to tell me. “Don’t worry Faith, my mother made sure of everything. She took care of me from her job. The man came and said so.”
“Oh. Shall I adopt you anyway?” I asked, wondering, if he said yes, where the money, the room, another ten minutes of good nights, where they would all come from. He was a little older than my kids. He would soon need a good encyclopedia, a chemistry set. “Listen Billy, tell me the truth. Shall I adopt you?”
He stopped all his tears. “Why thanks. Oh no. I have an uncle in Springfield. I’m going to him. I’ll have it O.K. It’s in the country. I have cousins there.”
“Well,” I said, relieved. “I just love you Billy. You’re the most wonderful boy. Ellen must be so proud of you.”
He stepped away and said, “She’s not anything of anything. Faith.” Then he went to Springfield. I don’t think I’ll see him again.
But I often long to talk to Ellen, with whom, after all. I have done a million things in these scary, private years. We drove the kids up every damn rock in Central Park. On Easter Sunday, we pasted white doves on blue posters and prayed on Eighth Street for peace. Then we were tired and screamed at the kids. The boys were babies. For a joke we stapled their snowsuits to our skirts and in a rage of slavery every Saturday for weeks we marched across the bridges that connect Manhattan to the world. We shared apartments, jobs, and stuck-up studs. And then two weeks before last Christmas, we were dying.
Come On, Ye Sons of Art
The way Zandakis comes on smiling! says Jerry Cook, biggest archbishopric in New Jersey in the palm of his hand; shy saints, relics all kinds: painted monks blessed by the dumbest ladies, bawling madonnas.
Everywhere in America, he says, giving Kitty a morning hour, New Jersey and Long Island man is looking at God and about Him, says Jerry Cook. I dream.
Oh, he says further, turning over to stare, as far as money is concerned, I love the masters. Baby, admit it, the masters are scientists. They add and they multiply. After that they water and they weigh. They’re artists. They lay low. They are smiling in a hot bath and the whole damn East Coast leather-goods industry grows up out of the crap in their teeth. They are bulldozers. Two Jew experts in any regular recession can mash twenty-five miserable Syrians. One old Greek, he’s half asleep, he puts his marble shoulder on fifty Jews. Right away a hundred thousand plastic briefcases get dumped into bargain bins of Woolworth, New York. Don’t mention the Japanese.
