Comrades
a novel by Earl Coleman

Chapter 6

Sunday was cold and bright. Joel wore his BVD's under his clothes. The treasure in his cheese box, still protected by his old lead soldiers, added up to less than ten dollars. If he could make two dollars a week, in a year he'd have over a hundred dollars to give his mother! A hundred dollars!

He wanted to look good for Clara. Could she be the love life Eric said he needed? If she was, would he lose his Indian maiden who waited for him always in his dreams, who moved with him so slowly, made him thrill? Clara's face, the touch of her hand on his arm, the memory of the fleeting pressure of her breast excited him. She was older than he. How would he know if she was the woman Eric said he'd want?

He thought of her as he dressed. Should he wear a tie along with his new jacket and pants? Was it politically correct for a Yipsil to care about looks, clothes?

His mother was working on insurance papers at the dining table. "Look at this," she exclaimed as he came toward her -- "who is this young, handsome stranger? I would love to know you. Could you introduce yourself, please?"

"Yes," he said, his voice staying low, if unsteady, "my name is Joel Levy."

"I've heard of you," she said. "Aren't you the one who gets all 100s in composition and history and public speaking?"

"Well . . ." They both laughed.

"Your first day on a real job. And you look -- oh," Rachel got up from her papers and came to him to take him in her arms. "You know you're taller than me? Yes, you are. Come look in the mirror. See?" And they stood side by side. "Well, the same height." He saw a woman, no longer as slender as she had been, her hair piled in a large bun with her favorite amber pins through it, her face still flowerlike and beautiful, her nose slim, her head carried gracefully on her neck. He saw himself, skinny, in his new navy jacket and dark brown pants, a white shirt and a red tie, his thick curly hair parted on the right, his nose and mouth like his mother's, his forehead high and his eyes dark like his father's. "You'll have some lunch there, Joel? Here's a quarter. When you work you have to eat to keep up your strength. You know how to get there? It won't be too much for you until seven o'clock? Seven o'clock! So you'll be home by eight or so?"

"Yes mama."

"Good luck, Mister Joel Levy. I enjoyed meeting you. Come in and visit when you're in the neighborhood."

He hugged her and kissed her cheek and walked to the subway, not exactly in a hurry, but impatient to get started. A hundred dollars!

*

Hester Street was an amazement at eleven o'clock in the morning. Swarms of people stopped at the pushcarts to handle the merchandise, to bargain, everyone yelling as though on Hester Street there was a rule that only yelling was permitted. The stream of traffic not only went in both directions at once, it flowed across and through, it eddied and swirled, hundreds, thousands of people, men and women, coursed through the street like a multi-streamed torrent, bumping, pushing, dawdling. It took Joel ten minutes just to find the store. Then he saw Clara and didn't need to check the address.

"You're late," she said as he came up. "Come." She led him into the store, long, deep, dark, one pale bulb over the front counter. A man with steel-frame glasses and a yarmulkeh on his black hair was behind the counter, his dark beard worn full, surrounding thick, sensuous lips. "Papa, I'd like you to meet Joel. He's going to sell. Joel Levy, my papa, Aaron Cohen."

"What happened to Rudy?" Mr. Cohen asked Clara.

"Joel's taking his place."

"You know how to sell, change money, keep your eyes sharp, they'll steal you blind? You ever sell from a pushcart?"

Clara answered for him. "Of course he has, papa. And I'll help him set up."

"How old are you young fellow?" he asked. Clara answered for him again. "Papa. I'll invite him home you'll have a social visit. We have to lay out the merchandise. It takes time. Come, Joel." Joel found her remarkable. So businesslike! He followed her toward the rear of the store, cavernous in its darkness, the walls shelved from floor to ceiling, heaped with boxes, cartons, bags, loose gloves. "We go downstairs," she said. "Hurry."

They descended a flight of sagging wooden steps and they were in the blackness of the basement, just dimly lit by the light from the stairwell. Clara walked purposefully forward, leaving Joel standing at the foot of the stairs, and pulled a small string to turn on the naked bulb above a table. "Help me," she said, and motioned to a huge open box on the floor. She took one end and he the other and they lifted it to the table. "You want size for size, style for style, color for color, ten pairs of each. Look. Style C-134 black, small. Style C-134 black, medium. Style D-94 brown, large. Understand? Ten pairs of each. Watch." She opened the carton on the shelf before her, counted out ten pairs rapidly and laid them in a stack on the bottom of the box on the table. "You keep all the styles together, you'll never have trouble finding them to sell or counting the inventory later. Understand? OK. Hurry."

Joel took off his new jacket, hung it carefully on the stair-post, rolled up his shirtsleeves, and returned to where she waited. "You start at that end and I'll start at this. You have the bottom half of the alphabet and I have the top. Understand? Shnell." Joel didn't know Yiddish but knew she wanted him to hurry. He should have left his house earlier. She seemed to like him so much yesterday but now she wasn't even glad to see him.

He followed Clara's lead, all business now. He understood the system within minutes. He began to make a game of it to see if he could finish his half before she finished hers. She said nothing, concentrating on her task, so he was silent too, working quickly. They finished in a dead heat. It had only taken twenty minutes.

"Come," she said, and again she took one end of the homemade wooden box and he the other and they lifted it off the table and set it on the floor. It was very heavy with all the gloves piled neatly in it.

"Should I have some lunch before I start selling?" he asked.

"Lunch?" She went to the side of the table and, using the palms of her hands, pushed herself up to sit on its edge. "Come here, Joel," she said. He did and stood before her. She reached up behind her without looking and tugged the string to the light and they were in the pitch dark again. He didn't understand what was happening but his heart began to pound heavily. He heard rustling, movement, heavy breathing, and then felt his right hand being gripped by her firm fingers and led, led to where he could feel her belly under her skirt. "OK?" she asked. He could see the shape of her moving away from him so that she was lying on her back on the table and his hand was resting on her, on her . . . his penis felt as though it was being bent out of shape, bound as it was by BVDs and pants, trying to rise but fettered in place. "OK?" She sounded impatient. It was happening so fast! What was it that was happening?

At first he stroked her with the flat of his hand, not knowing what else to do. His fingers, his hand traced the wonder of where her legs were joined, where her soft belly began . . . "No," she said, seeming so far from him, her whisper sharp and urgent. She struggled to reach his hand, grasped it, and put it back on her mound which was now moist, probably from the heat of this basement, he thought. He too was perspiring, his penis trying achingly to be erect. He followed the moisture with the tip of his index finger.

Her lips parted and she spread her legs further until he found that he had entered her. He hesitated. Would she be angry? "Yes," she said, and struggled again to capture his hand, spread his fingers. "There!" and she placed his index finger on the subtlest bump, a concentrated swelling.

An amazing smell arose, a smell of fish, the Bronx River, a smell that was powerful, almost unpleasant, but intoxicating. His testicles began to hurt as bad as the time he was kicked there in a fight and he couldn't walk or sit down for days. He didn't dare complain because he didn't know the rules. Her center was so warm and wet that he found his index finger could go in and in . . . he was inside her, his finger exploring her silken mystery, the dark of her body, withdrawing, returning to the warm moist, rotating itself. He tried two fingers at the same time and found the entrance to her tight. He exerted more pressure. It made her groan and thrust up to him so violently he was afraid he was hurting her but suddenly she seized his hand and held it firmly in place and gasped aloud and he could feel her pulsing against his fingers and he remembered his own pulsing in the bathtub. Her pulsing went on and on, much longer than his had. He stood there, feeling her rhythmic pulse, sweated, lightheaded, hearing her groans, his testicles broken, his penis crushed. It was confusing and painful and he found himself groaning with her.

At last she stirred. She let go of his hand and his fingers left her and he helped her rise so that she sat up. Her breasts brushed against his arms. He reached to take them in his hands. She slapped his fingers. "Later," she said. And still sitting there with her legs open, she reached up her hand and pulled his head down toward her so she could whisper in his ear. He thought he was about to die. "Next Sunday come a little earlier. Now, go sell. Sell everything so when you come back in at five there won't be anything to put away. I'll come out to help -- unless I'm busy in the store."

First they set up two small end tables on the sidewalk under the store's awning. Then Clara and he carried up the heavily loaded wooden box. At each step he felt that if something, anything, touched his testicles they would explode into smithereens. They placed the box on the tables outside so that he had just space enough to stand behind it. Mr. Cohen counted out fifty singles, six fives and two tens. "A hundred dollars -- what's your name?"

"Joel." It was more money than he had ever seen. This was a hundred dollars. In his hand.

"A hundred dollars Joel. Into your pants pocket, Joel, in the front. Eyes open, they'll steal you blind. We lose forty, fifty pairs a week from that stand. Pay attention. No coins, only bills. Three dollars each pair. Correct change, Joel. Give correct change. Pay attention. Count. You're paying attention, Joel?"

"Yes sir."

"I like you, Joel." He smiled then, warmth radiating from his face, from his beard. He patted Joel's cheek several times with his right hand. "Go. Sell. Pay attention."

Joel slid behind the box under the awning. His center, his testicles hurt unbearably. He was besieged immediately, shoppers looking, lifting, hefting, thumbing, trying on. His eyes were everywhere, determined there would be no missing pairs today. He sold and made change even as he watched. When there was a lull he began to yell like the other merchants at their pushcarts, joining his noise to theirs. "Gloves to warm your hands. Christmas is coming, Chanukah is coming. Gloves. Three dollars a pair." His yelling took his mind off his pain and attracted customers. The next time there was a lull he began to sing "Vesti la Giubba" at the top of his voice and customers flocked to his box, smiling. Mr. Cohen came out of the store, looked, shook his head and went back in. Sometimes Clara came out and asked him for whatever twenties he had changed so that there would be less money out in the street.

Little by little the pain subsided and he was astonished to find the sun fading and Clara beside him saying, "OK. It's five. Come." He hadn't had the time to be hungry but now he was so hungry he could eat anything! She took one side of the box and he took the other, sorry it was over, still excited by the action, the rapid exchanges, the noise. When they got to the back of the store Clara propped her side of the box on some cartons and descended the stairs to turn on the light so they would be able to see their way. They carried the box down and put it on the table.

Joel took all the money from his pocket, astonished at the ones, fives, tens, in enormous profusion. Clara had a pencil and paper and did several rapid calculations, totals, subtractions, more totals, added a pile of twenties from her bra, counted the money, put it in two stacks at the edge of the table. "Joel! Excellent. One hundred and fourteen pair. Quick. I'll take the top of the alphabet again, you take the bottom, and we'll put the inventory back." She looked at her watch. "We have an hour and thirty-five minutes. Hurry."

Joel wanted to be back out on the street. He'd been happy selling. He wanted to be asleep as he was last night with his Indian maiden behind his eyes. Clara didn't share this mystery with him. He wanted to cry.

He worked slowly. He didn't want the picture of Clara on the inside of his eyelids. He tried to conjure up his Indian maiden but couldn't and was afraid that he'd lost her. He anticipated the string to the light being pulled and his testicles began to hurt.

Clara was finished long before he was. She noted the slowness of his movements. "I'll help you," she said, and worked beside him rapidly. They were done in minutes. "Come. Take your jacket off," she said. He shook his head, eyes averted.

She looked at him, perplexed. She took two five dollar bills from one of the piles on the table and tucked them into her bra, one over each breast so that just the edge of each bill peeped out. She turned to Joel, smiling coyly, her eyes downcast, almost demure, and moved first one breast toward him and then the other. "Comrades should share," she said. "Grade A, Grade B, or both?"

His penis began to thicken involuntarily and the ache returned. The pit of his stomach felt empty, hurt. In spite of his pain he was impelled to put his hands out to cup her elusive breasts, now so close, thrust toward him, tantalizing. She let him hold them for a plastic, tender instant and then stepped away. "First you make me come, Joel. That's the game."

"Come where? What's the game?" His pain was intense.

"Don't you know anything?" she whispered sharply. "If you do a lot better than you did this morning, you get to hold Grade B naked for a minute and you get to keep the five dollar bill. If you drive me wild you get to hold Grade A and Grade B naked for two minutes and you get to keep the whole ten dollars."

"But this is money from the gloves."

"Well of course it's money from the gloves."

"But I'm supposed to get two dollars for that," he said, pained.

She brushed her hair back, businesslike once more. "My papa will give you that. You disappoint me, Joel. You're a grave disappointment to me." She gathered up the money, thrusting one stack down her bra. They went upstairs and approached the front counter. Mr. Cohen looked up from his set of ledgers. "So. How did this young fellow do?"

"He sold eighty pairs, papa."

"Eighty pair! That's better than Rudy."

"Joel is better than Rudy. I didn't trust Rudy." She looked at Joel as if to say he was forgiven, that he was her accomplice, her friend, her comrade, as though she might let him try again.

"And you're finished putting away the inventory faster than Rudy also. So. Here's your two dollars, Joel. And here's ten cents carfare. And here's an extra dollar you're a good boy."

Joel hesitated for only a moment, his mind whirling, and took the money. "Thank you very much, Mister Cohen. I liked the selling."

"You'll come back next Sunday?"

"No," Joel said, "I won't be able to."

*

He had been named organizer for a new group of thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds. He inhabited the Yipsil library, preparing. He knew nothing! Why had they asked him?

When he found a thought that seemed useful he copied down the name of the book, the author and the page numbers. He had begun right after school and now, two hours later, he had to go home to be on time for supper. He couldn't read fast enough!

On the train, he studied his notes. When he came into his house he found his mother and Leonard at the dining table, their hands clasped, his mother's face damp, her eyes red, a balled handkerchief in front of her.

"Mama." He hurried to her and put his arm around her shoulder. "What's the matter?" Leonard looked dazed and pained. "Mama. What? What's wrong?"

Leonard rose and went to the window to stare out and Joel remembered his father doing just that when he was troubled.

"You wouldn't understand, Joel," she sobbed. "The stock market . . . the stock market . . . you wouldn't understand."

"The stock market, mama? Something happened to it? Something happened to you?"

"I had our money in it, Joel. Oh! . . ." and she burst out crying and held her handkerchief to her eyes. Joel looked over to where Leonard was standing at the window, certain he was the author of this trouble. "So hard, Joel, so hard. You work so hard -- and then it's gone!" She continued to weep.

Leonard came to her now and put his hand on her shoulder. Leonard's face was grim. Joel had never seen him like this, agitated, somber, no pipe between his teeth, looking almost -- frightened! Something had happened! Rachel sat there slumped and in tears, her two men with their protective arms about her.

"Today the market crashed, Joel," Leonard began and then cleared his throat. He spoke in a tone Joel had never heard him use, a tone of anger, betrayal, defeat. Joel remembered his father's voice on the night his meeting was attacked -- his father's pain for the men, his anger at the cops and the traitors to the Movement. He remembered a tone that said that he, Samuel Elijah, was responsible for what had happened, that the fault lay with him! "Joel. Today the stock market crashed. Millions of people lost everything they had. Everything."

"What does that mean, Leonard? Mama, what does he mean?"

"Oy Joel, Joel. It means that the money we had is gone, gone. Your papa's insurance. All my work. The things I had to do. For nothing -- nothing!, all for nothing." She banged her fist on the table repeatedly as though punishing it.

Leonard put his arm around Joel's shoulders. "Not only your mother, Joel. I have lost everything, just about everything, except for my house and my practice. I have to start again -- from the beginning. You can't know." Leonard shook his head. He seemed close to tears.

"How could such a thing happen, Leonard?" Joel asked. Neither of them noticed that he used Leonard's first name.

"I don't understand exactly how it happened, Joel. But all over America people are sitting as we are -- wiped out."

"Wiped . . . out! Are we still going to live here, mama?"

"Yes, Joel, yes -- but I was planning -- Oh, God, I was planning for us to move to a better . . . oh . . ." she bit her lip, tears coursing down her cheeks.

"Mama," Joel said. "I can work."

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