Studs Lonigan (105 page)

Was Catherine asleep now, and if she wasn't, what was she thinking about?

A cloud, like a large, white island, was floating just over the apartment hotel, white, puffy, its edges like strand or even like the hockings of a man with the con.

The thought of consumption made him afraid, lest he have it. He rolled over to look at the shadowy wall, trying to shutter out of his mind the image of that cloud, which seemed to grow into an enormous lump of consumptive spittle. Martin breathing so easily in sleep. Christ, to sleep!

Perhaps it meant the finish of everything between himself and Catherine. How would he explain it to the family? And how would he feel about it, going back to the way things had been before he'd started going regularly with her? Wishing on so many nights that he would have his own girl to take out. And with the old gang broken up, and his health not permitting him to tear around, how would it be, fidgeting at night, too broke to spend a lot of money, nothing to do?

He realized that he was, no matter what he thought or tried to make himself think, pretty much nuts about Catherine. And now, whoops, goodbye and the end of it.

Was she awake, crying, sorry? He could see her going to a show with some other guy, in the hallway afterward, the fellow taking her in his arms, kissing her, she lifting her face to be kissed, her body close and another fellow touching her. He remembered how he would hold and kiss her, feel her hard and hot against him, and now another guy.

Well, if she was that way, it would only prove that she was a bitch.

But after they had gotten as far as they did, such a thing happening! He could see himself socking some guy who was trying to make her. And after he would have battered hell out of the guy, she would come to him humbly and say that it had all been a mistake, and then they would go on again just as they had before the quarrel this evening.

He remembered that night two weeks ago when they'd talked in her hallway and she'd suddenly flung her arms around him, kissed him hotly, opened her mouth, french-kissed him. And he'd lost control of himself, grabbed her, sat her down on the steps, bent over her, lay on top of her, run his hand along her warm thighs until she had quivered. Never before had he been able to excite a woman that much. She'd wanted to, right then and there, and at the last minute she'd pushed him away, said no, stood up all ruffled, with her hair mussed, and rushed upstairs. She'd stood at the glass of the inside door, breathing heavily, that look still on her face, blown him a last kiss, gone up. The next time he'd seen her, she'd said they had to be careful with each other, because they would have to wait until they were married. And Jesus, after coming that close, not to get it, never to see or speak to her again! To have her in his arms this minute. He tried to remember and make himself feel just the way he had felt, holding and kissing her and stroking her thighs. Just thinking of it made him ga-ga. He could see, too, why guys liked to be married.

Brother, I want a woman, he told himself, thinking how he hadn't had a woman in one hell of a long time.

And he'd put his hands under Lucy's dress, too, once, and that had been all, and now the same with Catherine. That night by the lake when they'd become engaged, that seemed to be so far away. He closed his eyes, rolled onto his back, thought that she was only a broad, and the world was full of broads. In the old days, when Red Kelly got drunk, he'd call his girl up and tell her, up your back Charlie.

Up your back Catherine.

One thing after another was hitting him like bolts of lightning out of the sky. He pitied himself, with his health shot, a bum heart, most of his dough lost, the old man watching everything he had go straight up the creek, and now losing his girl. There was no fairness in him getting all these tough breaks when fellows like Red Kelly were starting to swim in gravy. He put his right leg over the covers and asked himself, why in the name of Jesus Christ he had to take so many jolts on the chin from every side? Hadn't that pneumonia been enough? He felt that all this bad luck dated from that New Year's Eve party because then the cards had been shuffled the wrong way on him, and now it wasn't easy to unshuffle the pack. He was just a goddamn mess, and he wanted to go to sleep, and felt rotten and all-in, and too nervous to sleep.

How often in a fellow's life just one thing goes wrong, and then that guy is through and doesn't come back! One wild, accidental punch below the belt or on the chin. Some little thing, getting too drunk and going to a party and then . . . If he'd met some girl that night, taken her to a room, slept with her, his life would have been different, and he'd have woke up with her instead of in a hospital. Just such things that gave a guy a deuce instead of an ace. And he'd been chump enough to let those little things happen, so here he was. Or was it that he was just the kind of a guy who couldn't take it? He fought the question out of his mind, told himself that the harder the breaks, the more he had to fight, and the sweeter it would be coming through.

He tossed until he lay on his back with his feet spread widely apart. Martin snored, and it made him ask why Martin was younger and healthier than himself, sleeping now when he couldn't sleep?

All along, always during the old days, he had felt that somehow, some day, he was going to pull a royal flush out of the deck of life. He tried to feel that way now, to convince himself that he was just stewing up unnecessary grief for himself. In the morning, maybe it would all pass away, the market would start going up, Catherine might telephone, and even if she didn't change her tune, well, he'd go right on living, and one loss might lead to a better gain later on. Maybe yes, things were just getting hard because they were going to lead to making it all the easier later on. A hard-won victory might be in store for him. He and Catherine would patch it up, prosperity might now really be around the corner, it would all turn out hotsy-totsy, and Studs Lonigan would be singing in the bathtub, and singing in the rain, and singing.

Martin asleep there, breathing so easily, he didn't know how lucky he was. Studs rolled to the left side of the bed, looked vacantly out of the window, unaware of his thoughts still rolling around and around in his mind, seeing the sky, clouds, black buildings, as if in sleep. Suddenly he opened his eyes widely, sat up terrifyingly awake, afraid without knowing why. He lay back, laughed at himself, blankly held his eyes on the black ceiling. Jesus Christ, sleep, sleep, sleep. He bit his nails, scratched his head, asked himself was he going nuts. He turned on his right side, sank his eyes against his arm muscles, realized how dry, dull, tired, he was. In the morning if he only felt different. This was like having crabs on the brain. He heard an automobile pass outside, then Martin's regular breathing, then footsteps on the street.

Sleep, Jesus, anything so that he would just feel less alone.

BLINKING his eyes, Studs stared up and down the sunny street as if there was something interesting to see. He felt dopey from his restless night. But anyway, it was a quarter to eleven, and most of the morning, at least, was killed. He wished that he'd caught Martin before the kid had gone out. They could have bummed around today. If he was with somebody, it would be easier to keep his mind off Catherine. She hadn't telephoned, either, as he'd kind of hoped. Well . . .

An old man came toward him on shaky, twitching legs, leaning on a heavy cane with every step. Studs observed his dried and wrinkled face, his watery eyes, his drooling, quivering lips, his tight, death-like skin, the sack of flesh under the chin. Seeing the poor old duffer was like seeing death.

“Good morning, Mr. Dingby,” Studs said.

“ten?”

“I said good morning, Mr. Dingby,” he repeated loudly.

Studs saw purplish gums as the old man laughed. With a blueveined hand, he feebly poked Studs' ribs.

“Eh . . . they don't wear pants nowadays. He! He! He!”

Studs left old man Dingby leaning on his cane, his body jittering with palsied laughter. The sight of the old man was just too much. And how did such a fellow feel, knowing that there wasn't any life left in him, that he couldn't ever walk straight like a healthy man, eat a decent meal, ever again enjoy a fast and sweet jazz? All over but the shouting. And some day he, Studs Lonigan, might be like that. He shuddered.

Would Catherine telephone him while he was out? If so, it would leave him in a strong position and still give him a good excuse for calling her up. It might keep her worrying, and he guessed that that was the best way to treat a girl. Then she wouldn't get the idea that she could ride all over a guy on her high horse.

He sauntered along to Seventy-first and Jeffery, and bought a package of cigarettes and a telephone slug at the chain drug store. He walked out of the telephone booth, disappointed with his mother's message that no one had telephoned him. Catherine was showing just too damn much crust, and if she could act like that, it just showed that she didn't give two hoots in hell for him. Just as well to find it out now rather than after getting married.

But what should he do?

He walked by several store fronts, and halted at the entrance to a shoe store.

“Hello,” said a beefy young policeman whom Studs had seen before, while Studs stood slumped, looking emptily at the people passing along the street.

“How are you?” he answered as if he knew the cop, anxious to talk with him.

“I've seen you around before. Live in the neighborhood?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Work around here?”

“No, I work anywhere,” Studs smiled, and then, seeing the blankness and suspicion on the policeman's face, he grew uneasy with an old fear of cops from his kid days.

“What kind of a business is that?”

“I work with my old man in the painting and decorating business. But there's not much doing these days, and I've got more time on my hands than I know what to do with.”

“What's your name?”

“Lonigan,” Studs answered, controlling sudden anger, because anyway he'd done nothing, and there was no use in getting snotty.

“Around here much in the morning?” the cop asked, and Studs wondered did he think he was Hawkshaw, the great sleuth, or what?

“Oh, now and then.”

“Listen, if you see any suspicious-looking characters around here any time, let me know. There's been too many histing jobs pulled off lately in this neighborhood, and the sergeant has been hopping on my tail about them. Some of these bastards, you know, are just getting too goddamn reckless, even holding up stores along the street here in the daytime.”

“Sure I will,” Studs said, wondering why the queer look on the cop's mug.

“Looks like it's going to be a hot day.”

Studs took a cigarette and offered one to the policeman, who shook his head no. Lighting his, he tried to think of something to say to show the cop that he was somebody, and also a regular fellow. A stout, untidy woman wheeled a baby buggy by and a tall, thin young fellow with a smart-aleck smirk ambled along in her wake. A coarse-faced middle-aged woman dragged a dirty-faced inquisitive child eastward. Bells rang and a train swept by, and Studs watched people rush to catch it. His eye wandering, he casually noticed how the sun seemed to turn the steel tracks into glittering, dazzling thin bands.

“You say your old man's in the carpenter racket and you help him?” the cop said, his puzzling suspicion seeming to persist.

“Painting and decorating.”

“Oh, yeh, painting and decorating. I see. Your old man's in the painting and decorating racket, and you ain't working today.”

“I can prove it, too. I've got nothing to hide,” Studs said, his face turning pale from a rush of anger.

“Take it easy! Take it easy! You know, we're used to handling guys who get tough.”

“I ain't tough or trying to get snotty. Only you're acting as if I'd done something.”

“How do I know you didn't?”

“I'm telling you, ain't I?”

“If I was to pick up Al Capone this minute on suspicion, he'd tell me he ain't done nothin' either. I just got my orders to watch for all suspicious characters along here. How do I know you ain't a suspicious character? Here, let's see if you got any heat on you?” the cop said, hastily and awkwardly tapping along Studs' pockets.

Studs was too sore to speak, and he noticed several people stop to look at the cop and himself.

“Now, what did you say your name was?”

“I told you.”

“Oh, so that's it, huh?” the cop said ironically. “All right, you're arrested as a suspicious character and for resisting arrest. How you like that?”

“All right, my name is Lonigan. I've talked straight, and if you want me to prove it, I'll take you home with me. We own the building there. Or else you can go in the drug store and telephone my home. I'm no crook, and I can prove who I am. But I don't like to be manhandled around, and my old man wouldn't like it, either. He grew up with guys who got plenty of drag in this town, Barney McCormack, Judge Gorman, Judge Joe O'Reilley,” Studs said, speaking rapidly and with growing pride.

“Just a minute, fellow. I didn't mean nothing personal. The sergeant's just on my tail because there's been so many histing jobs pulled off around here, and I got my orders to keep my eyes peeled for suspicious-looking characters. I seen you here, and the only way I could find out whether you was a suspicious character or not is by asking you questions and finding out, isn't it? It's nothing personal. And my name's McGoorty.”

“Sure, I know,” Studs said, toning down. “I was just walking around, and it sounded kind of funny because, hell, I ain't got nothing to hide, and I was just out walking around because I didn't have anything else to do.”