Studs Lonigan (26 page)

Two hooknoses, about Studs' size, did come along. Andy and Johnny O'Brien, the two youngest in the gang, stopped the shonickers.

“Sock one of 'em, Andy,” Studs said.

“Sa-ay, Christ Killer!” Johnny said to his man.

“We ain't done nothin',” the guy pleaded.

“Where you from?” asked Red Kelly.

“Fifty-first and Prairie.”

“That's a Jew neighborhood,” said Red.

“No!”

Red called him a liar, and said that all Jew neighborhoods were a disgrace, and that was enough.

Andy and Johnny each shoved one of the Jews.

They started to mosey on.

“No you don't, big-nose!” said Red, catching Johnny's man.

Weary grabbed the other.

“You're the guy that got tough with me, ain't you?” said Andy.

“I ain't never seen you before.”

“Don't let 'im get out of it, Andy. Take 'im back in the alley,” said Davey.

The two Jews were dragged back in the alley.

“Now, if you two sons of Abraham ain't yellow like the rest of your race, fight,” said Red Kelly.

They said they didn't want to fight.

Red said they had to.

“Go ahead. These kids are smaller than you and you'll get a fair fight as long as you don't do no dirty work.”

They begged to be let off.

“Oh, you don't want to fight. You're yellow. Well, you dirty yellow ... There, take that,” said Andy.

They heard the smack. It was a beaut.

“And this for you, Jewboy,” said Johnny.

Johnny's man fell to his knees.

Benny Taite was behind him.

“Take that for killin' Christ,” said Benny.

Johnny dragged him to his feet.

“That a boy. One eye's closed, Johnny kid,” Davey said, encouraging Johnny.

Johnny's victim was down and wouldn't get up. Kenny got a few yards off, made noises, whistled, and sang:

He came up whizzing, snorting, yelling that he was the hose cart.

“House on fire! House on fire! House on fire!”

They laughed.

“Now it's out!” he said.

They laughed.

Johnny's victim tried to wipe his face with his handkerchief. Davey booted him. He rolled back, got up, and ran. Red tore after him, and aimed a good swift kick, but missed and fell on his ear. He cursed the Jew.

Andy's victim had been fighting back all the while. It was a good fight, even, with them trading sock for sock. Then the fellow's weight began to tell. Andy was breathing heavy, and his punches were lumbering ones. Studs laughed, and gave the guy a kick in the pants. The fellow turned, and as he did, Andy got him smack in the eye.

“Jesus, Andy, you got his eye swellin' like a balloon,” Benny Taite yelled.

“Hit 'im again, he's only a shonicker,” said Davey.

They gave the guy the clouts, and left him moaning in the alley. Kenny ran back, frisked the guy, and took a pearl-handled pocket knife.

They walked on over to the park, and Andy and Johnny gloried in congratulations. Red said they would make Andy their mascot and let him start fights with hebes, because he was small, and then they all could pitch in and finish the job.

“Now it will be a perfect day, if we can only catch a couple of shines,” said Weary.

They all wished that.

They passed the duck-pond at Fifty-third, but didn't try any rough stuff there because two cops watched them. Over in the ball field they parked under a massive oak. They played pull-the-peg, and told dirty jokes while the knife passed from left to right.

The park spread away from them in a wide field of grass, shrunken and slowly withering through August, with many spots where the grass was worn down and dirt showed. The baseball diamonds started catercorner from them and rimmed the park, around to the field house that was off toward their left. A scabby line of bushes extended almost completely around the park, and behind the shrubbery the dazzling, shimmering sky fell. Fellows and kids were scattered about playing, some so far away that they seemed like white-shirted dots, and their voices like muffled echoes. About a block to their left, and near the field house, a gang of older fellows lazed under a tree, watching a guy in a sweat shirt lam out flies to four or five guys and a kid. The kid was young Danny O'Neill. For a kid he was a sweet ball player, and it was swell to watch him making cupped catches, spearing drives over his shoulder as if it didn't take any effort, making one-handed running catches, snapping up line drives at his shoestrings. He was a perfect judge of fly balls, and he never overran the pill. They talked, deciding that Danny was cracked, but he was a damn good player. Andy said he wasn't so good. They ragged Andy, because O'Neill was one of the few punks in the neighborhood who had beaten Andy up. Kenny halted the knife game while he mimicked Danny walking along Fifty-eighth Street, unconscious, with his goggles stuck in the box scores. They laughed, because Kenny was a scream when he took someone off like that. The knife game ended, with Andy the loser. He squawked when they hammered the burnt match deeply into the ground, and refused to pull the peg. They told him he had to, or get his pants taken off and then dropped in the lagoon at the other end of the park. Andy bent down and dug his teeth in the ground. He gnawed around, paused to squawk, and finally came up with the match and his face smeared with dirt. They kidded Andy because he was of French extraction, and Kenny punned the word French. Andy missed the pun and defended the French, and that was funny. Red Kelly said that Andy wasn't a frog; he was a kike, and his old man ate kosher, gefilte fish and noodles. Kenny said Andy was playing a joke on them, because his old man was that sheeny fox-in-the-bush they always saw on Fifty-eighth Street. Studs asked Andy when his old man was going to wash his whiskers. Andy said his old man was the best old man in the world. Red said he couldn't be, because he belonged to a labor union. Red said his old man was a police sergeant, and he was always saying labor unions were a disturbance of the peace, because they destroyed property. “That's what my old man, and what High Collars always says,” Studs interrupted. Andy repeated that he had the best old man in the world. Davey said Andy meant the best noodle-soup drinker. Andy said he'd get his big brother after them, and his big brother was tough because he had been in the ring, and fought a draw with Charlie White.

Shadows slowly spread and softened over the park, and the scene was like a grass idyll. They sat there talking. Studs watched Danny turn, run with his back to the ball, face around, and catch a fly simply and easily; it was pretty. Studs said Danny was good and that every Sunday he played with men. O'Brien said yeh, but he had a lot of splinters in his roof.

They sat. Kenny said that if Andy was to be their mascot, he'd have to be initiated.

“No! No, I won't have no initiation,” Andy protested.

They persuaded him, saying it was an easy initiation. All he had to do was to play letter fly. He said he didn't know nothing about no letter fly, and didn't want to play it. They called him yellow, so he said he'd play.

They all stood around in a circle. The object was for everyone to say some word with fly at the end of it. When you couldn't think of another word, without hesitating, you had to say letter fly. Andy asked what happened then, and Kenny said nothing. The one who said letter fly lost, that was all. But if you didn't play letter fly, you couldn't belong to the Fifty-eighth Street bunch.

“Spanish fly!” Kenny started off.

They laughed because Kenny would always think of something like that to say.

“Shoo fly,” said Studs.

“Horse fly,” said Johnny.

“Foul fly,” said Red.

Andy was slow. They said hurry up.

“You gotta be honest. If you're not and you cheat you can't come around with us,” Red said.

“Big fly,” said Andy.

The game went around again. By the time it was Andy's turn, the flies were pretty well exhausted. He stood there, his efforts to think plain on his face. They ragged him, and told him to play fair. They gave him thirty to think of some fly. He couldn't. He said:

“Letter fly.”

“Come on, guys. Let ur fly!” said Kenny.

The others said let ur fly.

They all let ur fly, and Andy got so many pastes in the mush he was dizzy.

He started to protest.

“You told us to do it, didn'cha?” said Red.

“I didn't neither.”

“Didn'cha say let ur fly?”

They had him there. He walked away bawling, and turned to say:

“I'll get my brother after you.”

“Go on home, punk, while you're all together,” said Weary.

After Andy had gone, Studs pondered and said:

“He's the biggest dumbsock I ever saw.”

Red explained why he was so dumb, and Studs glanced aside to blush, because he remembered what his old man had said about going crazy.

They sat. Paulie talked of Iris, and it made Studs restless. They all got that way. Finally they couldn't stand it any longer, so they told Paulie to talk about something else. They said all he ever did was talk that way.

“Some day you'll be ruined right by the molls,” Red said to Paulie.

Studs sat, wishing, hoping.

It was almost twilight when they started home, and goofy Danny O'Neill was still shagging flies. They spread out, arms on each other's shoulders, and moved along singing:

They walked on along the tennis courts on South Park Avenue, talking away. Studs didn't listen to them. He thought of Iris. He prayed that he would get her soon. He had to, because he couldn't think of anything else these days; and even that shutter trick wouldn't work to get the thought out of his mind.

AFTER leaving Iris', Davey Cohen walked around the neighborhood, brooding, justifying himself. It hurt, and made a guy pretty goddamn sore, being cut cold by Iris when she didn't bar none of the punks or the dumb Irish in the neighborhood. And she had told him no soap. Jew! All the guys were there now, and punks like Andy with them. She had let him stay there while she showed herself off to the guys. She had let him get all anxious, like the rest. Then, Jew! She wouldn't let a kike touch her. If he didn't leave she had threatened to get Studs and Weary to sock him, and they would have, because she had something to give them. Well, he was glad he hadn't touched her. She'd make him sick. He didn't want the left-overs of the Irish and of degenerates like Three-Star Hennessey. Not him. He didn't want the sweetheart of the pig-Irish.

He walked around and pretended. He pretended that he was Studs Lonigan. Then he pretended that he had long pants on, that he wasn't so bowlegged and that his nose wasn't bent like a fishhook. He pretended that he had cleaned up all the tough guys on Fifty-eighth Street. He saw himself in an imaginary fight with Studs Lonigan, Studs rushing him the way he had rushed Red Kelly, waving his left fist up and down, swinging his right one, him sidestepping and sinking snappy rights into Studs' guts and his jaw, and then hooking lefts around and catching Studs in back of the neck. Himself making a monkey out of Studs.

He had been at Iris', and they had shot craps for turns. Studs had been first; then it was his turn. When Studs came out, MMMM MMMMMMMM, he had jumped up, anxious, and gone in, and she had covered herself and called him a dirty Jew.

He walked around and didn't notice where he was going. He enjoyed hating the micks, the lousy Irish. The Irish were dumb. That was why they always had to fight with their fists. They couldn't use their noodle; they didn't have any to use. All they had up there was bone, hambones and cabbage. He thought of himself, so much cleverer than the Irish. The micks were lousy, all right. A race of beer guzzlers, flatfeets, red mugs and boneheads. Why, they even had to take a Jew Christ, and then what did they do but make a dumb Irishman out of him.

He saw all the Irish race personified in the face of Studs Lonigan, and he imagined himself punching that face, cutting it, bloodying the nose, blackening the eyes, mashing it. He had walked out of Iris', and Studs had yelled ope; he's gotta go and peddle clothes for the old man. And the others had said things: Here's your hat. What's your hurry? Where's the fire? Don't be gone long. He had walked out and hadn't said anything. But the Irish! They were all like Lonigan and that lousy Weary Reilley.

He wanted to outwit the whole goddamn gang. Well, he could do that, but he wanted to bust them one and all. First Lonigan. Bam! Then Reilley. Bam again. Then Doyle, Kelly, all of them one right after the other. He wanted to bust them and he was . . . Yellow.

But it was more than being yellow. It wasn't his yellowness, it was his feeling. The Irish didn't have any feeling. They had thick hides and fists like hams. Fighting made him sick. When he went with the guys smacking Jews, he sometimes got so sick he felt as if he'd puke. He didn't like it. He put himself off as a battler, and talked big and hard only because he had to. If you went around with the Irish and didn't make yourself out a scrapper, you had one hell of a time. He had to use his noodle even there, so he could get along with them. They didn't know how to do a damn thing but put up their dukes ... and look for Iris, the dirty . . .