Studs Lonigan (135 page)

And this was what the A. P. A. professors did. They ought to be jailed, run out of town on a rail, tarred and feathered.

A corpulent policeman with stern features and fattening cheeks smiled cordially at Lonigan. The face seemed very familiar to Lonigan, who returned the cop's glance, smiling, searching his memory to place who it was. He had an impression of a swarm crowding past him, and from the corner of his eye noticed a group that looked like workingmen, singing with their clenched right fists raised.

“Hello, Mr. Lonigan,” the policeman said. Lonigan still struggled to remember who it was. “I'm Jim Doyle.”

“Oh, how are you? I'm glad to see you. And I see that you're on the force now.”

“Yes, I'm on the force,” Jim said. “This is a surprise to see you here, Mr. Lonigan,” he added as a file of marchers caused Lonigan to flinch by booing him and Jim Doyle.

“I had some business to transact near here, and I stumbled into this. And years ago, when I was a kid, I used to live around here. The neighborhood's sure changed a lot, though, since I was a shaver.”

“The Reds are making a lot of noise today. They call this an antiwar demonstration.”

“This is a disgrace and it shouldn't be permitted. The city shouldn't allow these dirty Reds to be out here agitating and disrupting the way they are,” Lonigan said with a rising, self-righteous anger, aware of the scuffle of passing feet as he spoke.

“Most of them are just poor people. That's the reason a lot of them are in the parade. It's being out of work and having no money that makes Communists out of many of them,” Jim said.

“But look, Doyle,” Lonigan said with a perplexed stare, “they're inciting the poor people around here to revolution. I saw a poor family down a few blocks being put out on the street, and if these people get to a poor man like that, they might make him desperate. Why, there was nearly a riot as I passed. And look up there,” Lonigan pointed at the second story of a grimy brick building across the street. Jim and Lonigan watched a stout woman, with a dirty rag about her head, energetically wave a red blanket and receive cheers and salutes from the marchers.

“Comrades, join our ranks.”

“I know. And I'm not a Red, and never will be one, because they're against the church and the home.”

“But I know most of these people are out here because they're poor and want something to eat and a job. Times are hard, and people are beginning to feel it. A lot of other cops, I know, club and beat hell out of them whenever they can. We've got one big mick down at the station named Gavin who always brags about how he can call the spot where he'll land on a Red's head. But some guys are like that. I don't like to hit anybody with a club unless I've got to.”

“They ought to be clubbed until they get some sense knocked into their heads. This is America, not Russia, and the sooner we teach them so, the better.”

“Comrades, join our ranks.”

Lonigan thought that he had a bigger squawk than these people, because he was losing more. And still he wasn't a Red, was he? The marching feet shuffled and scraped, and he watched uneven columns pass, noticing the shifting faces, the different types and sizes, the clothing of the demonstrators. A pimply young man along the side of the parade thrust a handbill into his hand. Embarrassed, he looked at the boldfaced type.

 

 

He crumpled the paper, threw it down.

“How is Studs? I haven't seen him for a year or so?” Jim asked, noticing a wistful look come into Lonigan's face.

“Bill's got pneumonia.”

“Why, I didn't know that. I'm awfully sorry to hear it. He always was a fine fellow, and so healthy. I'm sure he'll pull through.”

“He's pretty sick, and naturally we're worried. But we're hoping that he'll pull through.”

“Gee, Mr. Lonigan, that's too bad. I'm very sorry to hear that.”

 

 

“In cases like Bill's, we got to let Nature take its course. It's all in the hands of God, and we're hoping for the best.”

Jim shook his head sadly, and both of them turned back toward the parade, with nothing more to say to one another.

 

 

Lonigan watched like a man in a trance. His few words with Jim Doyle had brought his mind back to his son. He shook his head in impotent sadness, compressed his lips. All these troubles coming down on his head at this late date in his life.

And still they were passing. Suddenly, like a man making an intellectual discovery, Lonigan realized that these people were happy. He could see them laugh. He could see how, between their yells and cries, they grinned, and their faces seemed alive. That stiff-legged fellow with the gray mustache, hobbling. He seemed happy. That frail little woman in blue. They were happy. And they didn't look like dangerous agitators, that is, except the eight-balls. All black boys were dangerous, and they couldn't be trusted farther than their noses. But the white ones, they looked like men and women, with faces the same as other men and women. He could see that most of them were poor, and many of them, like that fellow in gray dragging his feet, were tired. He wondered how they could be Reds and anarchists, so dangerous and so perverted that they even made innocent little children into atheists. He shook his head in bewilderment, and repeated to himself that these people were happy.

 

FREE TOM MOONEY

 

“Say, is that the Mooney they got out on the coast in jail they're yelling about?” Lonigan asked Doyle.

“I guess it must be.”

“Well, if these Jews and jiggs are yelling about him, he must be guilty, and he belongs in the pen,” Lonigan said.

“I'll be damned. There's two of the O'Neill kids,” Jim said.

“Who?”

“Remember Danny O'Neill from the old neighborhood? He used to live on South Park Avenue?”

 

DEFEND THE SOVIET UNION

 

“Oh, yes, I think I've heard Bill and the girls speak of him.”

“Well, his kid brother and sister just passed.”

“Where?” Lonigan asked, searching the ranks.

“They're gone now.”

“What a shame! What a crime! And they were taught by the sisters at Saint Patrick's. Once, you know, they must have been decent kids like my own. And they came to this,” Lonigan said, sighing as he spoke.

“Their brother went to the A. P. A. University, and he's probably responsible for it,” Jim said.

“Somebody ought to put a stop to them A. P. A. professors, all right.”

“I'd like to see them stand up to a smart priest like Father Shannon.”

“Yes, he was a smart priest. And an even smarter priest is Father Moylan, who speaks over the radio. He gives hell to the Reds, the same as he does to the bankers.”

 

Lonigan looked down the street, and it seemed as if there were blocks and blocks of marchers still to come. He placed his weight on his right hip and leg, tired. He wondered if he hadn't better be going?

 

DOWN WITH THE HOOVER WALL STREET GOVERNMENT

 

Good. But why couldn't they be sensible about it? Be against Hoover and the bankers, but not want violence and anarchy. But Bill? How was he? And God, how was he himself going to end up, with all his worries, needing money as he did? He laughed, forgetting his thoughts completely while a stout Negress jigged before a policeman. He watched her pass on.

Again he thought of Bill. His boy couldn't die. It was impossible. It wasn't so. Bill couldn't die. He heard boos behind him and saw two young Irish fellows with slanting caps. He turned to the parade and saw a banner carried at the head of the column

 

IRISH WORKERS CLUB

 

“Say, they must be left-handed turkeys and Orangemen to be with this outfit. You'd never find a good Irishman who was true to the church and the memory of his good old Irish mother in this outfit,” Lonigan said.

“Maybe they're all Jews,” Jim said.

“They're micks, all right. That big, red-faced smiling fellow. But they must be insane to be Reds.” He smiled superciliously. Still, they seemed happy. And himself? But there was a funny little Abie. He watched the stunted, unshaven man who megaphoned through his hands with a pronounced Yiddish accent.

The demonstrators choked the street from curb to curb. Lonigan watched, spotting a fellow in blue denim overalls. The guy looked like a bum. Beside him, a Jew in a spotted blue suit. A tall, handsome brown Negro, limping. Powerful shine. A large woman wearing a blue gingham apron over a reddish purple dress, brushed by him.

“We'll starve no more,” she shouted loudly, in an Irish brogue.

Must be a drunken biddy, Lonigan decided, seeing her step beside a thin Negress. The marchers cheered her, and repeated her slogan in a multi-voiced cry.

 

 

The menacing roar gripped Lonigan with fear. These people were the mob, coming to wreck, and they would take all that he had and live in his building without paying rent, and maybe send him and his family to live in a hole in this neighborhood. His shoulders dropped in relaxation. Before they would come to take his building, the banks would have it.

He just couldn't make anything out any more. Too many things had been happening to him. He couldn't piece them together, and he felt that the world had passed him by, and he was no longer able to deal with it.

Just an unhappy old man, and even these people, anarchistic Reds, communists, niggers, hunkies, foreigners, left-handed turkeys, even they seemed happier than he.

 

WE WANT BREAD NOT BULLETS

 

“Daily Worker? Daily Worker
? Comrades, buy your paper,” a stolid girl called out, holding up one copy from the bundle of papers under her arm, and Lonigan turned his head aside until she passed.

 

 

He turned to speak to Jim Doyle, but Jim had moved away. He saw a singing detachment of young fellows and girls stride forward, keeping step.

 

 

Decent-looking youngsters. These Reds must be vampires putting evil-eyed spells on young lads, Lonigan decided. He heard a loud noise behind him, and glanced around to see a pimply, thin, unpleasant young fellow in a flashy gray suit.

“Why don't them damn I-Won't-Work bastards shut up and get a job, or else go back to Russia?” the pimply fellow said, revealing yellowed teeth.

“Mister, they have no jobs. There are no jobs to be gotten, and there are millions of workers on the streets.”

“They wouldn't work if they could.”

 

 

“Why don't you work?”

“Now don't get personal,” the pimply fellow said, speaking out of the side of his mouth.

“Well, they want work, and the bosses throw them out on the street. The bosses don't throw their machinery out on the street and say to the Starvation Army, ‘Here, you take care of these.' No, the bosses throw the workers out on the street and say to the Starvation Army, ‘Here, they're only workers, give them mouldy doughnuts and black coffee, and when I need some more slaves, send them back.' But the day will come. The day will come and the workingmen will own the world.”

“Aw, nuts.”

“The day will come.”

“Bull . . .”

 

 

“Dirty-neck Reds,” the pimply fellow hissed, ranging himself alongside of Lonigan.

“What I don't understand is why they are allowed to make trouble and incite to anarchy like this. With times so bad, and people so poor, this stuff is dynamite, especially with them getting the niggers in it. If the police allow these people to carry on like this, there might even be a revolution,” Lonigan said, his voice intense with protest.

“If I was the cops I'd haul 'em in,” the pimply fellow smirked, raising his left hand in a gesture of assurance. “Then, bam. Banana stalks.”

 

NO WORK NO RENT

 

“I don't suppose most of them would work if they had the chance, and the instigators of it probably get their palms greased by Moscow gold,” Lonigan said as if he knew a lot.