You follow the crowd north and the thousands of faces seems like a text and a cheerful one. You have never seen such expensiveness and elegance and you think that even Mrs. Theophilus Gates would look seedy in a place like this. At the park you leave the avenue and wander into the zoo. It is like a paradise; greenery and water and innocence in jeopardy, the voices of children and the roaring of lions and in the underpasses obscenities written on the walls. Leaving the park you are surprised at the display of apartment houses and you wonder who can live in them all and you may even mistake the air-conditioning machinery for makeshift iceboxes where people keep a little milk and a quarter of a pound of butter fresh. You wonder if you will ever enter such a building—have tea or supper or some other human intercourse there. A concrete nymph with large breasts and holding a concrete lintel on her head causes you some consternation. You blush. You pass a woman who is sitting on a rock, holding a volume of the Beethoven sonatas in her lap. Your right foot hurts. There is probably a hole in your sock.
North of the park you come into a neighborhood that seems blighted—not persecuted, but only unpopular, as if it suffered acne or bad breath, and it has a bad complexion—colorless and seamed and missing a feature here and there. You eat a sandwich in one of those dark taverns that smells like a
Now the people are mostly colored and the air rings with jazz. Even the pills and elixirs in the cut-rate drugstore jump to boogie-woogie and on the street someone has written in chalk: JESUS THE CHRIST. HE IS RISEN. An old woman on a camp stool sings from a braille hymnal and when you put a dime into her hands she says, God bless you, God bless you. A door flies open and a woman rushes into the street with a letter in her hand. She stuffs it into a mailbox and her manner is so hurried and passionate that you wonder what son or lover, what money-winning contest or friend she has informed. Across the street you see a handsome Negress in a coat made out of cloth of gold. “Baloney John and Pig-fat’s both dead,” a man says, “and me married five years and still don’t have a stick of furniture. Five years.” “Why you always comparing me to other girls?” a girl asks softly. “Why you always telling me this one and that one is better than me? Sometimes it seems you just take me out to make me miserable, comparing me to this one and that one. Why you always comparing me to other girls?”
Now it is getting dark and you are tired. There is a hole for sure in your sock and a blister on your heel. You decide to go home by subway. You go down some stairs and board a train, trusting that you will end up somewhere near where you began, but you won’t ask directions. The fear of being made ridiculous—a greenhorn—is overpowering. And so, a prisoner of your pride you watch the place names sweep by: Nevins Street, Franklin Avenue, New Lots Avenue.
Writer enterprising although perhaps immodest to say so (Leander wrote). Bought sick calf in spring for two dollars. Nursed. Fatted. Sold in autumn for ten. Sent money to Boston for two-volume encyclopedia. Walked to post office to get same. Barefoot through autumn night. Heart beating. Remember every step of way on bare feet. Sand, thistles. Coarse and silky grass. Oyster shells and soft dirt. Unwrapped books outside of town on river path. Read in fading light. Dusk. Aalborg. Seat of a bishopric. Aardwolf. Aaron. Never forget. Never will forget. Joy of learning. Resolved to read whole encyclopedia. Memorize same. Memorable hour. Fires going out in west. Fires lighted on moon. Loved valley, trees and water. River smelled of damp church. Turn your hair gray. Grand night. Sad homecoming.
Father’s star descending. Handsome man. Straight. Black haired. People said was spoiled and idle but never believed same. Loved same. Made four voyages to East Indies. Proud. Cousins found work for him in gold-bead factory but he refused. Why not? He was a proud man, not meant to make gold beads. Many family conferences. Dark country of visiting relations. Whispering in the parlor. No money, no supper, no wood for fires. Father sad.
