PULL DOWN VANITYI
459
"Now cut it out, Hank." He was not afraid, merely ineffectual and
aware of
it;
but he looked back at Hank without rancor.
"Don' like my wife, do you? Think 'snot good enough for a god–
dam Jew. Show you who's good enough!" He swung a long slow blow
in
Herb's direction, his whole furious unbalanced body behind it. Some–
one screamed, but it landed no place, and baffled, he wheeled around
to face the lookers-on, "Who wantsa fight for the Jews? Who wantsa
fight?"
Each time he had said "Jew," my heart had leaped with the old
blind surge of fear and fury, and I could have wept at the thought that
I had unleashed that ancient terror, that he was striking at me through
the caricature of Herb Ginsburg-at my insolent, loved face through that
long-nosed, bespectacled, mournfully comic mask. I walked into the
circle to touch Hank on the arm, unsure of what I would say until
the words were out of my mouth; but it was my party and I had to
end it. I don't think I was at all afraid.
"Come on, Hank."
He half-turned, looking at me uncertainly for a moment, in a silence
as blunt and sudden as a shout. One balled fist was still poised, and his
huge body tilted crazily over my own short, slight fi gure; then, putting
an arm around one shoulder and leaning his weight on me like a trust–
ful child, he said in a little voice, "I'll come, Amsterdam. I like you."
"Let's get some air."
He must have lost consciousness completely as we climbed the steps,
for the sag of his body nearly pulled me over; but his embrace did not
loosen. As we passed the tree, I could see Fenton, much recovered now,
shaking all the beer cans within reach to see if one still gurgled. "Bloom
and Stephen," he cried in a loud, curious voice. "You can't tell the
players without a program." There was no malice in his glance, only
pleasure; and I knew he thought that I had laid Judith, was going to
fight Hank. I had misunderstood him all along; he had not hated me
at all, only wanted me to deserve the summer's admiration, to exploit
it as he would have thirty years before.
"Bloom and Stephen," he cried again, evoking sentimentally the
image of fatherhood that I did not resent. "Take it easy, son!" He had
found a not quite empty can, and was pouring the warm slops into his
mouth, wiping his untidy beard with one arm.
"Got sit down," Hank said suddenly, lurching forward so far that
his head almost hit the ground. I steered him around the corner, and
eased him down on to the curbstone, sitting myself beside him as a
prop. His arm had never relaxed its hold.
"Judy sno damgood." It was hard for him to make the sounds.
