Of all H.P. Lovecraft's stories, 'The Street', which was published in 1920, is one of his more controversial. Although he captures the sense of time passing so well; unfortunately it also shows the more negative side of his writing, in particular his racism. Although I think it is less offensive than the ending to 'Medusa's Coil', but I won't go there! To really appreciate my take on this tale it would be better to have read 'The Street'. It is out of copyright and Wikisource has the full text of Lovecraft's story. However, for those who haven't read it, he shows how a street (presumably in Boston) develops from a country lane in Colonial times, becoming a pleasant, prosperous road lined with rose gardens until, around the time of the Civil War with the coming of the industrial revolution, it gradually degenerates into a slum.
Then, and here Lovecraft's racism kicks into high gear, it becomes filled with swarms of hideous, non-WASP foreigners plotting violent revolution against the old order shortly after the First World War. However, before their evil plans come to fruition, all of The Street's buildings collapse at the same time killing the revolutionaries. Afterwards, a wandering poet claims he has seen a vision of the ancient wholesome Georgian street.
According to Daniel Harms, author of The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana, "If someone came up to me and said, 'Hey Daniel, I think H.P. Lovecraft was a wordy, overly-sentimental bigot whose stories don't make much sense,' this would be the last story I would hand to him to convince him otherwise."
This short tale looks at the events on The Street from a different point of view although I'm not sure H.P. Lovecraft himself would have appreciated this. Please note that I have previously published a slightly different version elsewhere on the Web and there is not much eroticism.
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The names, characters, places and events in this story are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. All characters are over the age of 18. Any similarities to real persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Thank for reading and I hope you liked this tale. Please do leave a comment as I read all of them and take them all onboard.
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From the Other Side of 'The Street'.
Slipping through the door, I pushed my way into Petrovitch's Bakery. The smell of unwashed, sweaty bodies -- hot and sour -- together with cheap tobacco overrode the usual yeasty smell of fresh rye bread. I didn't mind as I knew I stunk just as bad, or even worse, as I'd come straight from a ten hour shift at the meat-packers. Some of the men made way for me and I nodded to those I knew. "Vasyl, Yuri," I smiled tiredly.
A group of women, all wearing head-scarves, stood along one wall, those at the back leaning against Petrovitch's white tiles. Nodding apologies to those men I jostled, I made my way over to them. Closer, the women looked exhausted, worn-out and older than their years. Hardly surprising given the hours they slaved in drudgery for nickels and dimes.
Many of them had worked in munitions factories during the Great War -- hard jobs but well paid. But since the end of that terrible conflict, they had mostly been fired and now struggled to support their families with whatever work they could find -- piece-work seamstresses, street sweepers, washer women, cleaners or domestic servants. And they were the fortunate ones. Some, it was hinted, had to earn their living in less wholesome ways, servicing the lusts of equally downtrodden men.
Fortunately, my girlfriend, Rosa, worked as a nanny for a wealthy Anglo woman who treated her half-way decently. She looked round, saw me approach and her tired face lit up with a smile. I took her reddened, work-roughened hand, lifted it to my lips and kissed it. An Old World gesture, but she liked that. We both came from Minsk, a beautiful city in White Russia that neither would see again. With many others, we'd fled savage counter-revolutionaries and Tsarist loyalists fighting against the heroic people's Red Army. Clinging together we crossed Poland and Germany, ending up in Liverpool before scraping together enough funds to brave the storm-tossed Atlantic seeking better lives in the New World. We'd traveled in steerage, crammed in like cattle.
But our hopes were cruelly dashed when our ship docked. The only place we could find to live was herded with our compatriots in terrible, unsanitary slums -- exploited by Anglo landlords who stuffed as many tenants as they could into already overcrowded tenements. These tottering buildings were never designed to hold so many people.
I remembered my first week here. One of the men in the apartment I shared, only one step up from a flop house, took me along to the meat-packers where he worked. The bosses were always looking out for strong men who would work all the hours in a day. Men who could stand up to the daily grind of hard labor. Accidents were common, especially in the stock yards. And for the privilege of coming home filthy and exhausted every day the Anglo owners paid a wage to starve on. Life has to be better than this.
"Is he here?" I asked, breaking away from my thoughts.
Rosa shook her head. "I think he's in with Petrovitch and the committee in the back. He'll be out soon."
We were all here to listen to Klein -- a revolutionary firebrand speaker. Klein had come from Russia to organize a series of strikes and protests about our terrible jobs and living conditions. Like everyone, we had come to America to improve our lives -- not merely to live and work as beasts of burden. The Anglo establishment ground us into the dust but Klein would make them fear us and give in to our just demands.
Other meetings were taking place in the neighborhood this evening -- at the Rifkin School of Modern Economics, the Circle Social Club and the Liberty Café. Our grievances were numerous and widespread and resentment had built up to a point where we could take no more. There was a stir, rippling out from the front of the bakery. I stood on tiptoe, craning my neck to peer above the masses before me. A door leading to smoky backrooms opened.
"Is that him, Leonid?" Rosa hissed.
"I can't tell," I replied. I looked down at her upturned face as she peered through the crush of bodies at the store front. Everyone else's stare was also directed at the front so on an impulse I leaned forwards and kissed her lips. They were dry, chapped by the salt breeze but to me they were delightful. Her lips opened and our tongues sought the others in a stolen moment of pleasure. I pressed her close to my chest and felt her breasts through her linen shirtwaist as I held her to me. My heart soared with love and a warm feeling filled me.
Murmurs, spreading like waves, came from the front of the room. Reluctantly, we broke apart. "Klein," the men said. Over the susurration I heard a scraping sound as a box was dragged out. Then Klein himself stepped up onto Petrovitch's bread counter.
Klein was a short man who looked like he knew hard work. His face was sunburned -- what we could see of it that wasn't hidden beneath a thick, black beard. His deep-set brown eyes seemed to take in everyone in the room at once -- to see us as individuals and also, at the same time, as members of America's downtrodden proletariat.
