Studs Lonigan (129 page)

“Mrs. Lonigan, you had better call Dr. O'Donnell. And also, he is moaning for the priest,” the nurse said to Mrs. Lonigan, who was haggard and worn, her face pinched, shadows indented like circles beneath her eyes.

“Oh, God! Is he dying? Is my boy dying? Oh, Blessed Mother of God!”

“Please, Mrs. Lonigan,” the nurse said patiently and with gentleness.

“Is he dying?”

“He is in a restless coma, and his condition is critical. His temperature has gone up to one hundred and three, and we had better have the doctor. After Dr. O'Donnell comes it will be best then to have the priest, because he may come out of this coma and be able to confess. We'll just hope for the best.”

“Oh, my son! My first born baby son!” Mrs. Lonigan exclaimed, blessing herself.

“We must give him all the chance we can and let the will of God and Nature take its course. Come now, dear, I know how you feel, and I want you to bear up like the brave mother that you are.”

“God have mercy on me, a poor mother carrying this cross at the end of my old days. Oh, Blessed Mary, Mother of God, be with me in my hour of tribulation.”

Following the nurse into the sick room, Mrs. Lonigan dipped her hands into the holy water found hanging by the door, blessed herself, sprayed the room, formed the sign of the cross over Studs with wetted fingers while the nurse wiped his lips. She looked down at the emaciated and tortured parcel of flesh that was her son. She blessed herself, muttered words of prayer, walked out of the room, and the nurse heard her at the telephone.

The window curtain stirred. A troop of shouting children passed in the alley, and Studs tossed with the echoing of their cries. He quivered, coughed deep from his chest. He looked up beseechingly with glassy, half-opened eyes as the nurse wiped his lips. Why must he be tortured with a rough mattress?

His eyes closed. He knew that he had been left alone to burn up, to be bruised and hurt by a rough mattress. His ears buzzed. Turmoil seethed in his head. He had to get out. To sleep, to die, even death, anything but this fire and weakness in him, and this stiff, hard mattress. With relief, he felt a cold cloth on his face. His head sagged. He was aware of an enveloping blackness, and colors, colors that seemed sick and mysterious, orange streaks, green and scarlet bands, purple lines, wheels and rainbows of colors shot like firecrackers and skyrockets, scarred all this blackness. He knew now what it was. He was dying, and he felt fear, like a great puke, sweep through him. And somewhere in this world of colors and blackness God awaited him. And the voice of God rumbled out of this blackness like some tremendous command.

Verily, verily, I say unto you if you want a soft bed, honor thy father and thy mother.

And the thin distorted figure of his mother rose against a purple background, and the flapping lips on her witch's face opened in a moan.

You'll never have another mother.

I'm damn glad of that, he said, knowing that his words would only sink his soul more deeply in Hell.

Bloated to about a half ton, and wearing the uniform of a clown, his father dropped off a moving band of color that was like golden sunlight, stood beside his mother, and cried out.

The son who put one gray hair on the head of a mother or a father will rue the day, rue the day, rue the day.

What you say, Charlie? Studs asked.

A fat priest in a black robe with a red hat stepped from behind a wide band of wine red, like an actor making an entrance on the stage, and spoke in a solemn pulpit voice.

Remember, O Lonigan, that thou art dirty dust, and like a dirty dog thou shalt return to dirtier dust.

Hey, don't talk so much, Studs said.

Sister Bertha, with the twisted face of a maniac in a motion picture close-up, danced a drunken jigg around him, flung her nun's black robe high, exposing the legs of a skeleton, and wailed in a toothless idiocy.

Now you die like a thief because you shot spit-balls in the class.

And his mother knocked Sister Bertha over, to get in front of her, and said:

No one loves you like your mother.

And George Washington appeared in moth-eaten rags with a purple cloak flung around his chest and a bartender's towel wrapped around his gray wig, and he shouted, striking a Napoleonic attitude:

Your country right or wrong, but your country, my boy, jazz her.

And the Pope of Rome, with a thin face, was carried by six darkskinned altar boys and dropped unceremoniously on his buttocks. In a stern authoritarian voice, he asked:

Do you receive the Sacraments regularly?

And like drunken Indians they did a war dance, whooping and bending, while bands of gold and yellow and orange and green and red like a fiery rainbow shot and whirled behind them. And out of the dancers, his sister Loretta, with a pregnant belly, called:

Cleanliness is next to Godliness.

And Sister Bertha halted and shrieked like a drunken hag.

Don't throw erasers in my classroom.

And President Wilson tripped before him like a fairy, with rings on his fingers, green earrings, and said, pursing his lips:

Join the colors now.

And his mother stepped in front of President Wilson and said, in tears:

The home is the most sacred thing on earth.

And Father Gilhooley in gold vestments thumbed his nose at Studs and said:

Contribute to the support of your pastor.

And Red Kelly and his father, Sergeant Kelly, staggered drunkenly before him with gin bottles held aloft like torches and shouted:

Obey the law.

And his father stepped up, took off a clown's mask, and said:

Drink is the curse of mankind.

And Dr. O'Donnell, carrying a syringe and a hypodermic needle, came to him, and said:

If you jazz, you'll get the clap.

And Mrs. George Jackson wriggled her tattooed belly, and sneered:

You can't jazz.

And the wife of Mr. Dennis J. Gorman in the red robes of the master of ceremonies of the order of Christopher came forward and said:

Join the boy scouts.

And Father Shannon, on the arm of Lucy Scanlan who was naked and bleeding from her young breasts, stopped before him and said:

Be a man.

And his father reappeared and said:

Come home early tonight.

And his sister Frances in a transparent nightgown said:

Wash your face. . . .

And again they danced around and around him like drunken Indians in a war dance, and colors fell like sparks raining upon them, and Studs knew they were dancing the dance of his own death, and he wanted them to go away, and he arose and ran shouting.

Save me. Save me. Save me.

And they chased him and he ran, still screaming, and they shouted:

Stop thief.

Save me! Save me! Save me!

“He's dying,” Mrs. Lonigan screamed, and the nurse rushed into the sick room. Mrs. Lonigan soaked her fingers in the holy water font, and stood over the bed, sprinkling her tossing, squirming, delirious son with holy water in the sign of the cross. She dropped to her knees and prayed, her body shaken with sobs.

“Well, Mary, how is Bill now?” Dr. O'Donnell asked, stepping into the house.

He was a short, thick-faced man with a clipped gray mustache, gray hair, ruddy complexion and a large head.

“Oh, Doctor, he's very bad. I'm so worried.”

“Well, we'll take a look at him. Maybe you're more worried than you should be. You know, sometimes in these pneumonia cases the patient will look to be much worse than he is,” Dr. O'Donnell said, hanging his hat on the hall tree and setting down his bag.

“Doctor, I do hope so,” she said.

“Mary, don't you worry. What you want to do is to take care of yourself, and let us watch Bill. How are the girls?”

“Fine, Doctor. Both Frances and Loretta are happy. They both married such fine, decent boys.”

“Ha, I remember them when they were tots. And Paddy, how is he?”

“He's not so well, Doctor. You know these worries he has on his mind.”

“Mary, check the worries now, and you'll be better off.”

“Doctor, it's just what I hope Paddy will do.”

“You'll tell him I prescribed it. And now I better take a look at Bill.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

He walked to the sick room, followed by Mrs. Lonigan.

“Mary, I think you had just better let me look at him, and I'll come out and tell you.”

“Yes, Doctor. And Doctor, would you like a cup of tea?”

“No thanks, Mary. I have another call right after this one.”

“Well, how is he?” Dr. O'Donnell asked the nurse.

“He's been in a restless coma, and here is his fever chart, Doctor. He doesn't look very good, so I advised Mrs. Lonigan to call you.”

“Yes. It was lucky she caught me,” the doctor said, wrinkling his brows as he read the fever chart. He opened his bag and, with the nurse's assistance, turned Studs over on his back. Sitting on a chair beside the bed, he felt Studs' pulse and found it feeble, one hundred and ten a minute. He noticed the flushed and fevered face, and, opening the mouth, perceived a thick and ugly coating on the tongue.

“It doesn't look so good, does it?” he said meditatively.

He found that the respirations were shallow, forty a minute, and that the patient, in his coma, was very weak.

“He's not as restless as he was when I telephoned you, Doctor.”

“In a case like this, there is not much to do. We must let Nature take its course and hope for the best.”

He again looked at the patient and saw the blueness around the mouth, heard the grunting breathing, and Studs mumbled inarticulately.

“You gave him digitalis?” the doctor asked.

The nurse shook her head.

“He has rales, and a great deal of congestion. What we must watch for is cardiac failure. I'm afraid the heart is going to give us trouble, and I'll leave a prescription for strychnine. It had better be administered at once.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

“If he survives, I'll be greatly surprised.”

“He seems to have been losing steadily all day.”

“Well, we might as well do what we can and make him more comfortable,” the doctor said.

He and the nurse bathed the patient's limp, thin body by giving him an alcohol rub. The patient was set face downward again. He drew irregular breaths with a small clicking noise, and uttered feeble moans, and then a wailing, sad cry. The doctor looked meditatively at Studs, closed his case, left the room, meeting the shaken mother in the parlor.

“Doctor, how is he?”

“In such cases, Mary, it's difficult to say. Nature must take its course. All we can do is hope for the best and trust to the will of God. We'll do all we can and the rest is not in our hands.”

“Oh, Doctor, I know it. I know it. He's going to die. I was told it last night in a vision.”

“Now, Mary,” Dr. O'Donnell said gently, patting Mrs. Lonigan's shoulders, “you must wait and be prepared. There is no use jumping to conclusions.”

“Doctor, I'm his mother. Tell me the truth.”

“There's a great deal of congestion, and naturally the pneumonia infection has sapped his strength. The pulse is bad, and the heart reaction is unsatisfactory. The greatest danger in a case like this is heart failure with complications, so I'm leaving a prescription to be filled.”

“I knew it, Doctor. Oh, my son, my son,” Mrs. Lonigan said, looking confused while Dr. O'Donnell wrote out and handed her a prescription blank.

“Now, Mary, you must bear up. It's not lost yet,” Dr. O'Donnell said, patting her shoulders.

“Doctor, isn't there anything else we can do?”

“Well, I could put him in an oxygen tent which would make his breathing easier and help clear up the blueness of his lips and face. But that would be very expensive. If you can afford it, it would be good.”

“I'll talk to Patrick, and he will telephone you. Patrick has just taken a bad blow, you know, Doctor, the day my son come home to me sick, and cried like a little boy, ‘Mom, put me to bed,' that very day Patrick's bank closed and he's lost a lot of money, the money he had for the next mortgage payment on our building. Oh, Doctor, it's hard times indeed. That such misfortunes should be visited upon us in our last years!”

“It's sometimes for the best, Mary, so you must buck up! Tell Paddy to telephone me at six o'clock and we'll talk about that oxygen tent.”

“Doctor, I have called the priest.”

“That was wise, Mary. In cases like these, it is best not to wait too long, particularly since you know the patient's heart is weak and his illness is putting a severe strain upon it. Yes, that was wise, and it might be helpful. The hand of God in a case like this is likely to be of more help than us doctors.”

“Yes, Doctor,” she said, sighing, then facing him speechless.

“The nurse will keep me informed by telephone of Bill's condition, and you'll have Paddy telephone me at six so I can talk to him about an oxygen tent. Now, Mary, you're a brave mother, and I can vouch for it because I tended you when you brought your children into the world. I know you are going to keep up your spirits. You look tired yourself, and I'd advise you to take a rest.”

“Oh, Doctor, I can't. I can't!”

“Mary, don't say you can't. You just go lie down and take a rest.”

The doctor returned to the sick room, spoke to the nurse, and took his hat from the hall tree.