didn’t fit. This wasn’t the continent of the group, socialism, a million jam-packed cities. This was the country of the particular person, private enterprise, vast and empty grassland counties, the Protestant Jesus who went by his first name and saved souls one by one, depending on Do you believe, in your private heart, or don’t you? This crowd did not belong in this place.
And the kids hunched in the windows and straddled the exposed I beams.
The doors of the church swung open, and three boys in red cassock and white surplice were first down the steps: Two carried candles as tall as themselves; the other bore a staff. At the top of the staff, of course, was the golden, emaciated figure, stretched and pinned, either dying or dead, of an individual man who had been tortured and executed by a mob. And night was falling.
Rocco was alone in the crowd, trying to make it to the bakery. He wanted a cigarette, but there wasn’t enough room between his mouth and the hair of the woman in front of him. He might have enjoyed a sausage sandwich and some peppers, but the buns these people were using were beneath the honor of the swine that had died to stuff them. He wanted to get a move on, there was the New Jersey to reach in two days’ time, the face of Loveypants, a commandment he was shaping. There was the need while in a crowd to seek out a darkened corner where nobody could get at him with their paws. He also knew that to escape from the crowd was to rip off and kill the part of himself that was attached to it. You had to gnaw off the leg that was trapped in the trap. And once in fact you left you felt as lonely as you were ever likely to feel.
While fording the human current in the direction of the alley behind the Twenty-fourth Street nickelodeon, he inadvertently stepped on the foot of a white-haired boy of perhaps three years in denim coveralls and brought him screaming to the ground, but Rocco kept forcing his way through the crowd. He made a right and a right and a left through the labyrinth of alleys that led to the alley between his store and Mrs. Marini’s house. Half a dozen boys in linen blazers, their hair in uniform flattops, were shooting off fizgigs in his alley and paid him no mind as he pretended to use his key to unlock the alley-oop door.
Immediately he heard a shrill, unbroken keen, as if from an ailing electrical device, the residue that tremendous noise leaves in the skull upon one’s entering a quiet place. He put his head under the tap and drank. The ventilator was off, and the air in here, even with the coal burned out, even to Rocco, felt tropical and oppressive. He hung his hat atop the pile of springform pans, verified that the deep fryer was off, pulled aside the flag of the state of Ohio, slouched into the front room, and sat on the floor in the crawl space of relative cool. On the other side of the storefront windows he beheld the arms and hips and wilting hairdos of the masses squishing against the glass, smearing it with sweat and pomade. The crowd had stopped moving along the street as, just above head level, the Virgin hovered slowly up the hill. He was safe from them in his little box in here. Half of the moon had risen over the tenement roof across the street. The balconies and fire escapes abounded with onlookers whose faces were indistinct in the twilight. Did he have any friends? No, not really.
He dumped fifty pounds of serviceable, if oversour, sponge dough into the rubbish because the Lord had called him to more crucial work in the days ahead. The pastries were in the walk-in cooler at the rear of the kitchen. Maybe he’d stay in there for a minute, in the walk-in, and collect himself. He sprung the walk-in latch and had gone so far as to lift a tray of crescent rolls from the wire shelf, when he turned his head and was stricken to discover that he wasn’t alone in here, either.
A lime white man facing the rear of the cooler was seated on a box of vegetable shortening.
And the kids hunched in the windows and straddled the exposed I beams.
The doors of the church swung open, and three boys in red cassock and white surplice were first down the steps: Two carried candles as tall as themselves; the other bore a staff. At the top of the staff, of course, was the golden, emaciated figure, stretched and pinned, either dying or dead, of an individual man who had been tortured and executed by a mob. And night was falling.
Rocco was alone in the crowd, trying to make it to the bakery. He wanted a cigarette, but there wasn’t enough room between his mouth and the hair of the woman in front of him. He might have enjoyed a sausage sandwich and some peppers, but the buns these people were using were beneath the honor of the swine that had died to stuff them. He wanted to get a move on, there was the New Jersey to reach in two days’ time, the face of Loveypants, a commandment he was shaping. There was the need while in a crowd to seek out a darkened corner where nobody could get at him with their paws. He also knew that to escape from the crowd was to rip off and kill the part of himself that was attached to it. You had to gnaw off the leg that was trapped in the trap. And once in fact you left you felt as lonely as you were ever likely to feel.
While fording the human current in the direction of the alley behind the Twenty-fourth Street nickelodeon, he inadvertently stepped on the foot of a white-haired boy of perhaps three years in denim coveralls and brought him screaming to the ground, but Rocco kept forcing his way through the crowd. He made a right and a right and a left through the labyrinth of alleys that led to the alley between his store and Mrs. Marini’s house. Half a dozen boys in linen blazers, their hair in uniform flattops, were shooting off fizgigs in his alley and paid him no mind as he pretended to use his key to unlock the alley-oop door.
Immediately he heard a shrill, unbroken keen, as if from an ailing electrical device, the residue that tremendous noise leaves in the skull upon one’s entering a quiet place. He put his head under the tap and drank. The ventilator was off, and the air in here, even with the coal burned out, even to Rocco, felt tropical and oppressive. He hung his hat atop the pile of springform pans, verified that the deep fryer was off, pulled aside the flag of the state of Ohio, slouched into the front room, and sat on the floor in the crawl space of relative cool. On the other side of the storefront windows he beheld the arms and hips and wilting hairdos of the masses squishing against the glass, smearing it with sweat and pomade. The crowd had stopped moving along the street as, just above head level, the Virgin hovered slowly up the hill. He was safe from them in his little box in here. Half of the moon had risen over the tenement roof across the street. The balconies and fire escapes abounded with onlookers whose faces were indistinct in the twilight. Did he have any friends? No, not really.
He dumped fifty pounds of serviceable, if oversour, sponge dough into the rubbish because the Lord had called him to more crucial work in the days ahead. The pastries were in the walk-in cooler at the rear of the kitchen. Maybe he’d stay in there for a minute, in the walk-in, and collect himself. He sprung the walk-in latch and had gone so far as to lift a tray of crescent rolls from the wire shelf, when he turned his head and was stricken to discover that he wasn’t alone in here, either.
A lime white man facing the rear of the cooler was seated on a box of vegetable shortening.
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