Studs Lonigan (28 page)

“You know, guys like us are too rotten to go around with girls like her, or your sister, Studs, or Frank's sister, Fran,” said Paulie.

“They're goddamn different from Iris, the dirty . . .” said Weary.

They talked about the thing that made some girls, generally Catholic ones, different. Weary and Studs bragged what they'd do if they ever caught guys monkeying around their sisters. That was only half of what Studs told himself he'd do if he caught a fellow getting fresh with Lucy.

“Bet you when Lucy grows up and marries, she's going to be one swell order of pork chops,” Paulie said.

Studs felt like socking both of them.

They stood gabbing at the corner of Fifty-eighth and Michigan. Paulie and Studs said it would be hell if Iris ever snitched. Weary said if she did, she knew that he'd smack her teeth down her throat. Then Paulie talked about how Iris had looked, and they compared her with other girls. Weary said Helen Borax had a better figure, but he'd never seen it. Nobody except Weary could touch Helen with a ten-foot pole; and he had gotten what he wanted from her.

“But it would be hell. Mothers get pretty wild about their daughters. I know the punks once had a party at young O'Neill's, and they played kiss-the-pillow, and that young O'Rorty girl told her old lady, and there was hell to pay. The old lady made her wash her mouth out, and then went up to the sisters and raised hell, and Sister Cyrilla gave O'Neill a report card full of zeroes,” said Studs.

“I know. I was there. That's when I made a play for Cabby Devlin, and she got so sore at me she hasn't spoken to me since. She's decent, too,” Paulie said.

“Well, here's one gee that's not worried,” said Weary.

Studs and Paulie both admired Weary.

At home, Studs' conscience bothered him, and he still worried lest Iris would snitch. But there was nothing to do, unless he wanted to be a damn fool and spill the beans. He tried to pray, promising the Blessed Virgin that he wouldn't never fall into sin like that again, and he'd go to confession, and after this he'd go once a month and make the nine first Fridays. But he couldn't concentrate on his prayers. He had had to do it. All summer he'd been bothered by it, and then, when the guys said they were going to Iris', he couldn't have run out. He'd had to do it. At school, he'd been taught it was the terriblest sin you could commit. In Easter week of his eighth-grade year, he remembered Sister Bertha saying that God tested you with temptations of sins of the flesh, and if you were able to withstand them you needn't worry about not getting into Heaven. Ninety-nine per cent of all the souls in Hell were there because of sins of the flesh.

Hell suddenly hissed in Studs' mind like a Chicago fire. It was a sea of dirty, mean, purple flames; a sea so big you couldn't see nothing but it; and the moans from the sea were terrible, more awful and terrible than anything on earth, than the moans of those people who drowned on the Eastland, or than the wind at night when it's zero out and there's snow on the ground. And all the heads of the damned kept bobbing up, bobbing up. And everybody there was damned for eternity, damned to moan and burn, with only their heads now and then bobbing up out of the flames. And if Studs died now, with his soul black from mortal sin, like it was, well, that was where he would go, and he would never see God, and he would never see Lucy, because she was good and would go to heaven, and he would never see Lucy . . . forever.

And Studs was afraid of Old Man Death.

It was a tough break, all right, because you couldn't seem to resist temptations. It was supposed to be your weakness that made you do it. But everybody's father and mother did it. If they didn't nobody but Christ would have ever been born. The newspapers were full of stories about people who did it. Millionaires did it with chorus girls, and got sued. The older guys did it every Saturday night at a can house. Fellows who weren't Catholics said that priests and nuns did it, but that was a lousy lie. Father Shannon, the missionary, had said that he'd seen hospitals full of people who were rotting away in blindness and insanity because of it. It made Barlowe limp. Everybody was always doing it. There were movies about it, and guys in short pants couldn't go, unless they snuck in. ADULTS ONLY. Everybody doing it, doing what . . . not the turkey trot. But you weren't supposed to. It made God sorry, and put a thorn in the side of Jesus. But God was in Heaven where it oughtn't to really bother him. If maybe Adam and Eve hadn't sinned! Studs had once heard his mother say that they were put out of the Garden of Eden because of it, and that the apple story was only a fairy tale told to kids too young to know any better. But it was supposed to be wrong for a guy to do it. It was right for the sisters to warn you, because temptation always got you. But when you didn't do it, well, you couldn't think of anything else, and it made you hot all over, and you couldn't sleep at night. All you did then was to think you were doing it, and to pretend that every woman you saw didn't have nothing on . . . and it wasn't so much, either. It didn't help guys to understand girls any better, and after it Iris didn't understand him any better, and it didn't scarcely last a minute, and it wasn't as much fun as making a clean, hard-flying tackle in a football game, or going swimming like that day he and Kenny had gone; a double chocolate soda had it skinned all hollow.

He was agitated. If Iris should snitch! If he should die now in a state of mortal sin! If God should get angry with him for sinning, and do something to him! He wasn't even worthy of Lucy now. He remembered that day in the park.

But what could a guy do? It wasn't so much, but it got you. It wasn't so much, and it made you feel dirty, and . . . He was called to supper. He walked into the dining room, acting and feeling like a man.

IT WAS a November afternoon. It made Studs happy-sad. He bummed from school and met Weary and Paulie. They went over to Washington Park. The park was bare. The wind rattled through the leaves that were colored with golden decay. The three kids strolled around, crunching leaves as they walked. Almost nobody was in the park, and their echoes traveled far. Just walking around and talking made them feel different.

They moved, lazily, over toward the wooded island with its trees gaunt and ugly. They talked a little.

As they walked along, Studs started to laugh to himself. They asked him what he was laughing about. He said:

“I was just thinking about the guy in the drug store out near school. Every time a gang of us guys come in, he laughs, and says to his clerk: ‘Ope lookat! Hey, Charlie, here comes the higher Catholic education! Lock up the candy cases.' ”

“That's a good one. Here comes the higher Catholic education. Lock up the candy cases,” said Paulie.

They stood gazing at the chilled-looking lagoon that was tremulous with low waves. Leaves drifted, feebly and willy-nilly, on its wrinkled surface, and there was no sun. They wandered on along the shore line, and Weary broke off a branch from the shrubbery. He whittled a point on it and stopped to poke some ooze out of a dead fish.

“Ugh!” muttered Paulie.

“Dead as a door nail,” said Studs.

“Death's a funny thing,” said Paulie.

“I ain't afraid of it,” said Weary.

“Well, it's a funny thing,” said Paulie.

“It's different with a fish. A fish don't count anyway. It ain't got any soul,” Studs said.

“Nothing counts enough to make me afraid of it,” Weary said.

“How about you, Studs?” asked Paulie.

“Well, I ain't gonna die for a while,” Studs said, his voice a little strained.

“None of us know when we're gonna kick the bucket,” said Paulie.

“Come on, crepe hanger,” said Weary.

“Yeah, Paulie, you sound like your old man was in the undertaking business,” Studs said.

Nothing in particular happened, and the day seemed so different from other days. Nothing happened, and it wasn't dull. The three kids felt something in common, a communion of spirit, given to them by the swooning, cloudy, Indian summer day that was rich and good and belonged only to them.

They stopped at the squat stone bridge and looked down into the water, watching the movement of the current, noticing the leaves and branches swimming on its surface.

“How's it going today, Paulie?” asked Studs.

“Oh, the athlete is still running,” Paulie said.

“Still running?” said Studs.

“Yeh, he's a good track man,” said Paulie.

“If I was you, I'd get the jane that did it to you, and paste the living hell out of her,” said Weary.

“So would I, if I could find her. She was a pickup,” said Paulie.

“What did she look like?” asked Weary.

“I don't know much. It was at night. I know she was young; she couldn't have been more than sixteen. I guess she had dark hair. She had a voice that was kinda shrill and sharp. I might remember it, but it would be hard to pick her out of a crowd in full daylight,” said Paulie.

“Janes like that are no good, and they ought to be smacked,” said Weary.

“You better go to a doctor,” said Studs.

“I ain't got the jack,” said Paulie.

“How about telling your old man?” asked Studs.

“Hell, I can't. He'd get too sore. He's sore enough about school, and keeps yelping about me only being in seventh grade now when I shoulda been graduated,” said Paulie.

“Ain't you doin' nothin' for it?” said Studs.

“I got some stuff at the drug store, but they ain't done no good,” said Paulie.

“I'd look for that jane and bust her,” said Weary.

“Well, you ought to do something for it,” said Studs.

Studs wanted to ask Paulie questions about it, but he could see that Paulie didn't want to talk further.

They walked on and stopped at the denuded oak tree where Studs and Lucy had sat. It stirred memories in him that were sharp with poignancy and a sense of loss. Seeing the tree, all stripped like it was dying, made him doubly sad. And Lucy didn't even speak to him any more when she saw him on the street, and she had sat in the tree with him, swinging her legs. . . . He leaned against the trunk and said:

“Well, tomorrow is Saturday!”

“Yeh, and you guys won't have to take the trouble to bum from school,” laughed Weary.

“That's a tough break for us,” said Studs.

“Yeh, we ought to kick. Studs'll write a letter of complaint to old Father Mahin, ain't that his name, at Loyola, and I'll up and see Battling Bertha, and ask her why is Saturday,” said Paulie.

“How is Bertha?” asked Studs.

“Oh, she's as big a crab as ever,” said Paulie.

“You ain't seen her, have you?” asked Weary, ironically.

“Yeh, I was to school two weeks ago,” said Paulie.

They talked. Paulie wondered out loud about when he would return to school, and if he would get back in class. The sisters said they were giving him his last chance when his mother went up in September and begged that he be let in. Studs said that he ought to have George Kahler write him an excuse, because George was a bearcat at forging handwriting. If Paulie got a sample of his old lady's handwriting, the trick could be turned. Then he wouldn't get canned. Studs and Paulie talked of how they hated school. Weary stood there, whittling.

Suddenly, Studs said:

“Gee, I wonder where Davey Cohen is by now.”

“He hasn't written anybody, has he?” said Paulie.

“No, he blew out right after that first time we were at Iris', went on the bum like a damn fool. You wouldn't catch me doing that. I know where I get my pork chops,” said Studs.

“He was a kike, and kikes are no good,” said Weary.

“Well, with an old man like his, I don't blame the guy for taking to the road,” said Paulie.

“He was a kike, and kikes are yellow. If a gee is yellow, I ain't got no use for him, and I ain't never seen a hebe that didn't have yellow all over his back,” said Weary.

“Well, Davey's gone,” said Paulie.

They wished they had cigarettes.

“And Iris. They didn't make machines better than she was,” said Paulie.

“And she never snitched on you, did she, Weary?” said Studs.

“She knew better,” said Weary.

“The old lady caught you with her, didn't she,” said Paulie.

“And she acted like all old ladies. She went up in the air, threw a faint, cried and hollered. She went to sock me, and I told her hands off, and walked out,” said Weary.

“Well, she's in a boarding school, where she can't see any guys now,” said Studs.

“And she was good stuff, too, even if she was a little young,” said Paulie.

Studs sat down in the leaves by his tree.

Weary said his old man still wanted him to go to school, but he wouldn't go because it was all the bunk.

They hung around Studs' tree a while. Then they walked on in silence. Finally, Paulie said:

“Gee, it's nice here!”

They said yeh, and they walked around. Studs thought of Lucy and how far away last summer was. He wanted to talk about her to the guys, but felt he hadn't better, and anyway, he couldn't hit upon words that would say what he wanted to say. He wished he could go back to that afternoon.

Paulie asked Studs about football.

Studs didn't hear him, but after Paulie repeated the question, Studs said:

“Oh, I was out for the freshman team, and the coach liked my stuff, but he finally canned me. Said it was discipline, because I didn't show up every day. Hell, if I showed up every day, that meant I'd have to go to school. And they raise hell with you for not having homework and that stuff. You can't fake knowing Latin and algebra, and, Jesus, you have to write compositions for English. None of that for me,” said Studs.