Call it Sleep (1934) by Henry Roth

Roth had (or, I guess, has) one of the weirdest careers in American letters. He wrote Call it Sleep in 1934, then wrote absolutely nothing for 60 years before publishing a follow-up of sorts in the mid-90s! I hope to be around for his third novel, should he ever get round to it ; meanwhile, this tale of a sensitive boy growing up in New York's Jewish ghetto round the turn of the century remains a remarkable debut.

(pp. 170-173)

He went down - wonderingly and just a little disturbed. He didn't mind being called a dunce. After all, she was only joking. Hadn't she laughed and kissed him? And besides, if he hadn't shown any interest in his future uncle, she hadn't shown any in himself. Forgetting Chinese nuts that way! When they were free too, and she knew how fond of them he was. He wondered if the Chinaman would give him any if he went in now and told him that his mother had just gotten some laundry out - what kind? Shirts. Yes. His father was going to dress up too. Maybe stiff collars, though the parcel didn't feel that way. Will you give me some nuts, Mr. - Mr. what? She forgot to ask, my mother forgot! Mr. - Mr. Chinee-Chink! Funny. Walk past anyway and look in. Funny. But - what? What? He had been wondering about something, he told himself. Yes. Something. But now he couldn't remember. Not chinee-nuts. No. Company was coming? Maybe, no.

He left the stoop, turned west. The Chinese laundry was near the corner of Tenth Street and Avenue C. He walked slowly, idly, aware but no longer overcome or even troubled by the movement of vehicles and people. He knew his world now. With a kind of meditative assurance, he singled out the elements of the ever-present din - the far voices, the near, the bells of a junk wagon, the sing-song cry of the I-Cash-clothes man, waving his truncheon-newspaper, the sloshing jangle of the keys on the huge ring on the back of the tinker. There was more blue in the air of afternoons now ; the air was brisker, fixing houses in a cold, sunless, brittle light. He looked up. They were both gone - the two cages on the first floor fire-escape. A parrot and a canary. Awk! awk! the first cried. Eee - tee - tee - tweet! the other. A smooth and a rusty pulley. He wondered if they understood each other. Maybe it was like Yiddish and English, or Yiddish and Polish, the way his mother and aunt sometimes spoke. Secrets. What? Was wondering. What? Too cold now. Birds go south, teacher said. But pigeons don't. Sparrows don't. So how? Funny, birds were. In the park on Avenue C. Eat brown. Shit green. On the benches is green. On the railings. So how? Don't you? Apples is red and white. Chicken is white. Bread, watermelon, gum-drops, all different colours. But - Don't say. Is bad. But everybody says. Is bad though ... And he drifted on towards the corner drug-store, glanced at the red and green mysterious fluid in the glass vases and turned right.

But was wondering. He shifted the mind's trinkets, searching for one elusive. Was wondering. Birds? Not birds. Bad words? No. Before that. When? Aunt Bertha, the new man? No. Can't find. Maybe his name? Mr - Mr What. Yes. Maybe. No - But - Approaching the laundry, he gazed up at the low sign, the dull black letters against the dull red. C-h-Chuh-Ch-ar-ley. Charley, American name. Just like Charley in school. But something else maybe, like Yussie is Joey. Gee, forgot. Yussie! L-i-n-g. Ling. Ling-a-ling. Is Jewish. Can't be. Ling. Don't like. How it hangs in the butcher shop. Mister Ling.

He stopped, looked at the window and as he was about to step closer, shrill familiar voices hailed him from behind.

"Hey, Davy!"

He turned. They were Izzy and Maxie ; both lived in his block and both were in his class in school.

"W'ea yuh goin'?" Izzy asked.

"No place."

"So w'y wuz yuh lookin' in de Chinkee-chinaman's windeh?"

" 'Cause my modder god hea de lundry, bot she didn' get no nots."

"So yuh wanna esk?" Izzy caught hold of the idea quickly. "Comm on, we'll all go in."

"Naa, I jos' wannid t'look." David thought rapidly. "Maybe my modder'll comm hea after, so I'll go in."

With one accord, they drew near the window, peered in under the shade of cupped hands. Within, behind the high counter, painted green, the queued and slant-eyed laundry-man blew a spray of water on a piece of laundry out of a tin atomizer. He seemed too absorbed in his work to notice them.

"Betcha yuh could ged now!" Izzy urged. "Hey, Maxie, you go in an' say yuh Davy, like dat. So he'll t'ink yuh Davy, so he'll give. So we'll ged. Yeh? Den Davy's mama'll comm so we'll ged again."

"Yaa!" Maxie declined. "Go in yuhself! Dey god long knifes!"

"Like a lady, he looks," said Izzy reflectively. "Wod a big tail he's god on his head. Led's knock on de windeh. Maybe he'll look op."

"Maybe he'll run afteh yuh too," Maxie objected.

Izzy pressed his nose against the glass. "I knew a Chinky," he declared. "Wot he didn' hev no hen's. So he wrote wit' de mout' wit' dot stick all de funny like dat" - he squirmed and contracted into ideographs - "on de tickets."

"So how did he irun, wise guy?" Maxie sneered almost wearily. "How did he hol' de bigl-irun?"

"He didn' hol' id. Sommbody else holded id."

"Yuh see w'ea de Chinee nots is?" Maxie peered obliquely into the window. "In dot box? Yee! yum! yum! Dey break foist easy. Den dere's inside soft an' good. Yum! Den dere's inside black wood. So id's hod an' slippery. So yuh hol' id in yuh mout', so it gives wawdeh."

"I know sommbody," Izzy contributed, "wod he bruck de hod pod wid a hemmeh. An' inside wuz anudder liddle suft an' good. An' inside wuz anudder liddle black one. So he bruck dat. An' inside wuz anudder liddle suft an' good one an' inside wuz unudder liddle hod one. So - "

"So wot?" Maxie demanded belligerently.

"So he lost id."

"Pfuy!"

They were silent a moment, and then Izzy wistfully. "Bet I could eat a million!"

"Me too!" concurred Maxie eagerly. "W'en's yuh modder commin'?"

David was startled. He hadn't thought they would take him seriously. "I don' know," he answered evasively and began backing away from the window.

"But yuh said she wuz commin'," they insisted, following him.

"Maybe she ain'. I don' know."

"So w'ea yuh goin'?" They turned south towards Ninth, he north towards Tenth.

"No place." He looked blank.

"Wadda boob!" said Izzy vehemently. "He neveh hengs oud wid nobody."

And so they parted.