The Web and the Rock - Thomas Wolfe Read online

  The boy lay on his belly in the young and tender grass. Jerry Alsop, aged sixteen, fat and priestly, his belly buttoned in blue serge, went down along the other side of the street. He was a grave and quiet little figure, well liked by the other boys, but he was always on the outer fringes of their life, always on the sidelines of their games, always an observer of their universe--a fat and quiet visitant, well-spoken, pleasant-voiced, compactly buttoned in the blue serge that he always wore.... There had been one night of awful searching, one hour when all the torment and the anguish in that small, fat life had flared out in desperation. He had run away from home, and they had found him six hours later on the river road, down by the muddy little river, beside the place where all the other boys went to swim, the one hole deep enough to drown. His mother came and took him by the hand; he turned and looked at her, and then the two fell sobbing in each other's arms.... For all the rest, he had been a quiet and studious boy, well thought of in the town. Jerry's father was a dry goods mer chant, and the family was comfortably off in a modest way. Jerry had a good mind, a prodigious memory for what he read, all things in books came smoothly to him. He would finish high school next year....

  Jerry Alsop passed on down the street.

  Suddenly, the Webber boy heard voices in the street. He turned his head and looked, but even before he turned his head his car had told him, a cold, dry tightening of his heart, an acrid dryness on his lips, a cold, dry loathing in his blood, had told him who they were.

  Four boys were coming down the street in raffish guise; advancing scattered and disorderly, now scampering sideways, chasing, tussling in lewd horseplay with each other, smacking each other with wet towels across the buttocks (they had just come from swimming in Jim Rheinhardt's cow pond in the Cove), filling the quiet street with the intrusions of their raucous voices, taking the sun and joy and singing from the day.

  They slammed yard gates and vaulted fences; they dodged round trees, ducked warily behind telephone poles, chased each other back and forth, gripped briefly, struggling strenuously, showed off to each other, making raucous noises, uttering mirthless gibes. One chased an other around a tree, was deftly tripped, fell sprawling to the roar of their derision, rose red and angry in the face, trying mirthlessly to smile, hurled his wet, wadded towel at the one who tripped him- missed and was derided, picked his towel up, and to save his ugly face and turn derision from him cried out--"Pee-e-nuts!"--loudly passing Pennock's house.

  The boy surveyed them with cold loathing--this was wit!

  They filled that pleasant street with raucous gibes, and they took hope and peace and brightness from the day. They were unwholesome roisterers, they did not move ahead in comradeship, but scampered lewdly, raggedly around, as raucous, hoarse, and mirthless as a gob of phlegm; there was no warmth, no joy or hope or pleasantness in them; they filled the pleasant street with brutal insolence. They came from the west side of town, he knew them instinctively for what they were- the creatures of a joyless insolence, the bearers of the hated names.

  Thus Sidney Purtle, a tall, lean fellow, aged fifteen, and everything about him pale--pale eyes, pale features, pale lank hair, pale eyebrows and a long, pale nose, pale lips and mouth carved always in a pale and ugly sneer, pale hands, pale hair upon his face, pale freckles, and a pale, sneering, and envenomed soul: "Georgeous the Porgeous!" A pale sneer, a palely sneering laugh; and as he spoke the words he smacked outward with his wet and loathsome rag of towel. The boy ducked it and arose.

  Carl Hooton stood surveying him--a brutal, stocky figure, brutal legs outspread, red-skinned, red-handed, and red-eyed, red-eyebrowed, and an inch of brutal brow beneath the flaming thatch of coarse red hair: "Well, as I live and breathe," he sneered (the others smirked appreciation of this flaming wit), "it's little Jocko the Webber, ain't it?"

  "Jockus the Cockus," said Sid Purtle softly, horribly--and smacked the wet towel briefly at the boy's bare leg.

  "Jockus the Cockus--hell!" said Carl Hooton with a sneer, and for a moment more looked at the boy with brutal and derisory contempt.

  "Son, you ain't nothin'," he went on with heavy emphasis, now turning to address his fellows--"Why that little monk-faced squirrel's--they ain't even dropped yet."

  Loud appreciative laughter followed on this sally; the boy stood there flushed, resentful, staring at them, saying nothing. Sid Purtle moved closer to him, his pale eyes narrowed ominously to slits.

  "Is that right, Monkus?" he said, with a hateful and confiding quietness. A burble of unwholesome laughter played briefly in his throat, but he summoned sober features, and said quietly, with men acing demand: "Is that right, or not? Have they fallen yet?"

  "Sid, Sid," whispered Harry Nast, plucking at his companion's sleeve; a snicker of furtive mirth crossed his rat-sharp features. "Let's find out how well he's hung."

  They laughed, and Sidney Purtle said: "Are you hung well, Monkus?" Turning to his comrades, he said gravely, "Shall we find out how much he's got, boys?"

  And suddenly alive with eagerness and mirthful cruelty, they all pressed closer in around the boy, with secret, unclean laughter, saying: "Yes, yes--come on, let's do it! Let's find out how much he's got!"

  "Young Monkus," said Sid Purtle gravely, putting a restraining hand upon his victim's arm, "much as it pains us all, we're goin' to examine you.

  "Let go of me!" The boy wrenched free, turned, whirled, backed up against the tree; the pack pressed closer, leering faces thrusting forward, pale, hateful eyes smeared with the slime of all their foul and secret jubilation. His breath was coming hoarsely, and he said: "I told you to let go of me!"

  "Young Monkus," said Sid Purtle gravely, in a tone of quiet reproof, wherein the dogs of an obscene and jeering mirth were faintly howling--"Young Monkus, we're surprised at you! We had expected you to behave like a little gentleman--to take your medicine like a little man.... Boys!"

  He turned, addressing copemates in a tone of solemn admonition, grave surprise: "It seems the little Monkus is trying to get hard with us. Do you think we should take steps?"

  "Yes, yes," the others eagerly replied, and pressed still closer round the tree.

  And for a moment there was an evil, jubilantly attentive silence as they looked at him, naught but the dry, hard pounding of his heart, his quick, hard breathing, as they looked at him. Then Victor Munson moved forward slowly, his thick, short hand extended, the heavy volutes of his proud, swart nostrils swelling with scorn. And his voice, low-toned and sneering, cajoling with a hateful mockery, came closer to him coaxingly, and said: "Come, Monkus! Come little Monkus! Lie down and take your medicine, little Monk!... Here Jocko! Come Jocko! Here Jocko!

  Come Jocko!--Come and get your peanuts--jock, jock, jock!"

  Then while they joined in hateful laughter, Victor Munson moved forward again, the swart, stub fingers, warted on the back, closed down upon the boy's left arm; and suddenly he drew in his breath in blind, blank horror and in bitter agony, he knew that he must die and never draw his shameful breath in quietude and peace, or have a moment's hope of heartful ease again; something blurred and darkened in blind eyes--he wrenched free from the swart, stub fingers, and he struck.

  The blind blow landed in the thick, swart neck and sent it gurgling backwards. Sharp hatred crossed his vision now, and so enlightened it; he licked his lips and tasted bitterness, and, sobbing in his throat, he started towards the hated face. His arms were pinioned from behind.

  Sid Purtle had him, the hateful voice was saying with a menacing and now really baleful quietude: "Now, wait a minute! Wait a minute, boys!... We were just play in' with him, weren't we, and he started to get hard with us!...

  Ain't that right?"

  "That's right, Sid. That's the way it was, all right!"

  "We thought he was a man, but he turns out to be just a little sore head, don't he? We were just kiddin' him along, and he has to go and get sore about it. You couldn't take it like a man, could you?" said Sidney Purtle, quietly and ominously into the ear
of his prisoner; at the same time he shook the boy a little--"You're just a little cry-baby, ain't you? You're just a coward, who has to hit a fellow when he ain't lookin'?"

  "You turn loose of me," the captive panted, "I'll show you who's the cry-baby! I'll show you if I have to hit him when he isn't looking!"

  "Is that so, son?" said Victor Munson, breathing hard.

  "Yes, that's so, son!" the other answered bitterly.

  "Who says it's so, son?"

  "I say it's so, son!"

  "Well, you don't need to go gettin' on your head about it!"

  "I'm not the one who's getting on his head about it; you are!"

  "Is that so?"

  "Yes, that's so!"

  There was a pause of labored breathing and contorted lips; the acrid taste of loathing and the poisonous constrictions of brute fear, a sense of dizziness about the head, a kind of hollow numbness in the stomach pit, knee sockets gone a trifle watery; all of the gold of just a while ago gone now, all of the singing and the green; no color now, a poisonous whiteness in the very quality of light, a kind of poisonous intensity of focus everywhere; the two antagonists' faces suddenly keen, eyes sharp with eager cruelty, pack-appetites awakened, murder-sharp now, lusts aware.

  "You'd better not be gettin' big about it," said Victor Munson slowly, breathing heavily, "or somebody'll smack you down!"

  "You know anyone who's going to do it?"

  "Maybe I do and maybe I don't, I'm not sayin'. It's none of your business."

  "It's none of your business either!"

  "Maybe," said Victor Munson, breathing swarthily, and edging for ward an inch or so--"Maybe I'll make it some of my business!"

  "You're not the only one who can make it your business!"

  "You know of anyone who wants to make it anything?"

  "Maybe I do and maybe I don't."

  "Do you say that you do?"

  "Maybe I do and maybe I don't. I don't back down from saying it."

  "Boys, boys," said Sidney Purtle, quietly, mockingly. "You're gettin' hard with each other. You're usin' harsh language to each other. The first thing you know you'll be gettin' into trouble with each other about Christmas time," he jeered quietly.

  "If he wants to make anything out of it," said Victor Munson bitterly, "he knows what he can do."

  "You know what you can do, too!"

  "Boys, boys," jeered Sidney Purtle softly.

  "Fight! Fight!" said Harry Nast, and snickered furtively. "When is the big fight gonna begin?"

  "Hell!" said Carl Hooton coarsely, "they don't want to fight. They're both so scared already they're ready to-----in their pants. Do you want to fight, Munson?" he said softly, brutally, coming close and menacing behind the other boy.

  "If he wants to make something out of it--" the Munson boy began again.

  "Well, then, make it!" cried Carl Hooton, with a brutal laugh, and at the same moment gave the Munson boy a violent shove that sent him hurtling forward against the pinioned form of his antagonist. Sid Purtle sent his captive hurtling forward at the Munson boy; in a second more, they were crouching toe to toe, and circling round each other.

  Sid Purtle's voice could be heard saying quietly: "If they want to fight it out, leave 'em alone! Stand back and give 'em room!"

  "Wait a minute!"

  The words were spoken almost tonelessly, but they carried in them such a weight of quiet and inflexible command that instantly all the boys stopped and turned with startled surprise, to see where they came from.

  Nebraska Crane, his bat upon his shoulder, was advancing towards them from across the street. He came on steadily, neither quickening nor changing his stride, his face expressionless, his black Indian gaze fixed steadily upon them.

  "Wait a minute!" he repeated as he came up.

  "What's the matter?" Sidney Purtle answered, with a semblance of surprise.

  "You leave Monk alone," Nebraska Crane replied.

  "What've we done?" Sid Purtle said, with a fine show of innocence.

  "I saw you," said Nebraska with toneless stubbornness, "all four of you ganged up on him; now leave him be."

  "Leave him be?" Sid Purtle now protested.

  "You heard me!"

  Carl Hooton, more brutal and courageous and less cautious than Sid Purtle, now broke in truculently: "What's it to you? What business is it of yours what we do?"

  "I make it my business," Nebraska answered calmly. "Monk," he went on, "you come over here with me."

  Carl Hooton stepped before the Webber boy and said: "What right have you to tell us what to do?"

  "Get out of the way," Nebraska said.

  "Who's gonna make me?" said Carl Hooton, edging forward belligerently.

  "Carl, Carl--come on," said Sid Purtle in a low, warning tone.

  "Don't pay any attention to him. If he wants to get on his head about it, leave him be."

  There were low, warning murmurs from the other boys.

  "The rest of you can back down if you like," Carl Hooton answered, "but I'm not takin' any backwash from him. Just because his old man is a policeman, he thinks he's hard. Well, I can get hard, too, if he gets hard with me."

  "You heard what I told you!" Nebraska said. "Get out of the way!"

  "You go to hell!" Carl Hooton answered. "I'll do as I damn please!"

  Nebraska Crane swung solidly from the shoulders with his baseball bat and knocked the red-haired fellow sprawling. It was a crushing blow, so toneless, steady, and impassive in its deliberation that the boys turned white with horror, confronted now with a murderous savagery of purpose they had not bargained for. It was obvious to all of them that the blow might have killed Carl Hooton had it landed on his head; it was equally and horribly evident that it would not have mattered to Nebraska Crane if he had killed Carl Hooton. His black eyes shone like agate in his head, the Cherokee in him had been awakened, he was set to kill. As it was, the blow had landed with the sickening thud of ash-wood on man's living flesh, upon Carl Hooton's arm; the arm was numb from wrist to shoulder, and three frightened boys were now picking up the fourth, stunned, befuddled, badly frightened, not know ing whether a single bone had been left unbroken in his body, whether he was permanently maimed, or whether he would live to walk again.

  "Carl--Carl--are you hurt bad? How's your arm?" said Sidney Purtle.

  "I think it's broken," groaned that worthy, clutching the injured member with his other hand.

  "You--you--you hit him with your bat," Sid Purtle whispered.

  "You--you had no right to do th

  3

  Two Worlds Discrete

  WHEN AUNT MAW SPOKE, AT TIMES THE AIR WOULD BE FILLED WITH unseen voices, and the boy knew that he was listening to the voices of hundreds of people he had never seen, and knew instantly what those people were like and what their lives had been. Only a word, a phrase, an intonation of that fathomless Joyner voice falling quietly at night with an immense and tranquil loneliness before a dying fire, and the unknown dead were moving all around him, and it seemed to him that now he was about to track the stranger in him down to his last dark dwelling in his blood, explore him to his final secrecy, and make all the thousand strange, unknown lives in him awake and come to life again.

  And yet Aunt Maw's life, her time, her world, the fathomless intonations of that Joyner voice, spoken quietly, interminably at night, in the room where the coal-fire flared and crumbled, and where slow time was feeding like a vulture at the boy's heart, could overwhelm his spirit in tides of drowning horror. Just as his father's life spoke to him of all things wild and new, of exultant prophecies of escape and victory, of triumph, flight, new lands, the golden cities--of all that was magic, strange, and glorious on earth--so did the life of his mother's people return him instantly to some dark, unfathomed place in nature, to all that was tainted by the slow-smouldering fires of madness in his blood, some ineradicable poison of the blood and soul, brown, thick, and brood ing, never to be cured or driven out of him, in which at length he must dro
wn darkly, horribly, unassuaged, unsavable, and mad.

  Aunt Maw's world came from some lonely sea-depth, some huge abyss and maw of drowning time, which consumed all things it fed upon except itself--consumed them with horror, death, the sense of drowning in a sea of blind, dateless Joyner time. Aunt Maw fed on sorrow with a kind of tranquil joy. In that huge chronicle of the past which her terrific memory wove forever, there were all the lights and weathers of the soul--sunlight, Summer, singing--but there was always sorrow, death and sorrow, the lost, lonely lives of men there in the wilderness. And yet she was not sorrowful herself. She fed on all the loneliness and death of the huge, dark past with a kind of ruminant and invincible relish, which said that all men must die save only these triumphant censors of man's destiny, these never-dying, all-consuming Joyner witnesses of sorrow, who lived, and lived forever.

  This fatal quality of that weblike memory drowned the boy's soul in desolation. And in that web was everything on earth--except wild joy.

  Her life went back into the wilderness of Zebulon County before the Civil War.

  "Remember!" Aunt Maw would say in a half-amused and half impatient voice, as she raised the needle to the light and threaded it.

  "Why, you fool boy, you!" she would exclaim in scornful tones, "What are you thinkin' of! Of course I can remember! Wasn't I right there, out in Zebulon with all the rest of them, the day they came back from the war?... Yes, sir, I saw it all." She paused, reflecting. "So here they came," she continued tranquilly, "along about ten o'clock in the morning--you could hear them, you know, long before they got there- around that bend in the road--you could hear the people cheerin' all along the road--and, of course, I began to shout and holler along with all the rest of them," she said, "I wasn't goin' to be left out, you know," she went on with tranquil humor, "--and there we were, you know, all lined up at the fence there--father and mother and your great uncle Sam. Of course, you never got to know him, boy, but he was there, for he'd come home sick on leave at Christmas time. He was still limpin' around from that wound he got--and of course it was all over or everyone knew it would be before he got well enough to go on back again. Hm," she laughed shortly, knowingly, as she squinted at her needle, "At least that's what he said-----"