Studs Lonigan (33 page)

The train stopped at the Indiana Avenue station, started, switched onto the express track, took the curve to go north again, and quickly gained momentum. The passengers were thrown every which way, Studs saw that fox-in-the-bush had grandma leaned forwards on him, and he was jabbing to her a mile-a-minute. They meant business, but how could any dame, even grandma, kiss a guy like that. Her tongue would get lost in all the thickets on his map. He edged down towards the janes by Red.

The train whistle wah-wahed. It roared downtown, over the slums and filth of the black belt.

A drunk yelled that America had won the war. A long-faced bozo shrieked that the world was safe for democracy. A cabbage-faced woman with a brogue a yard long hollered:

“Bully for Wilson and Ireland!”

“Six cheers for the Scandinavians,” whooped a jag.

“Aw, quit your kiddin',” Kenny innocently shouted back at the jag, and people nearly busted their guts laughing.

They passed the Thirty-third Street station. It was crowded with happy, singing dinges.

A monkey-faced mick blubbered tears, whining that Padraic Pearse was dead, whoever that guy was.

The trainwheels clattered with the friction of steel, rolling over steel rails. The whistle wah-wahed. The car grew more and more rancid with alcohol and tobacco breaths, stale perfume, perspiring human odors.

Studs noted fox-in-the-bush, still barbering like an express train. He was envious, knowing she'd give the guy what he was after. He slowly squeezed nearer to the janes by Red, casually eyeing the train advertisement above the window. Chew Wrigley's Gum! American Family Soap made it cheaper to wash than buy new clothes. The latest war news was to be found in the
Chicago Daily Tribune.
Red, the lucky bastard!

The train rocketed onward. Studs became suddenly oblivious to its strains and jerkings. He thought of France . . . Doughboys marching, fighting, loving the mademoiselles. The Yanks were there rum-tum-tumming up everything. And if he was only one of the Yanks who'd come. He was seventeen, and just ready to try again, after that time he'd eaten the bananas, and everything at home was just grief. If he'd gone, he might be dead now. . . . But no, the Blessed Virgin would have protected him because he would have worn her scapular. And the next war we had, with Japan, or Mexico, or the Bolsheviks, he'd go and be a hero. If he was only a Sammy now, in Paris, celebrating the Armistice!

A fat, gray-haired woman in tears said that her son Allen had been killed, but that she was happy the war was over, because no more mothers would be brokenhearted over their dead boys. A gray-haired man tried to soothe her, saying her son had died saving the world, and everybody had to bear their crosses. Studs edged further towards the janes by Red.

“It hurts me . . . here!” the mother sobbed, pointing to her heart. The train whistle wah-wahed. The jag on the back platform steadily clanged his cowbell. Studs was halted getting near the janes. The crying mother made him think of Death that was terrible, and cold, and all maggots and putridness, and rotting, and awful on the battlefields or anywhere, even when you died after receiving Extreme Unction. And even if he wasn't Over There, he was alive, and might get in the next war. But he'd give any damn thing to be a soldier, laying up with a French broad right now in Paris. But he might have got killed, just before the Armistice whistles blew, and Death was an old man of ice, smelling lousier than the stockyards, or than a stiff pair of socks that have been worn a year, if anybody wore socks that long. And he had a swell time, shadowing soldiers in France, until they were cold and gray and stiffer than branches stuck to the ground in January. Anyway, he wasn't getting Studs Lonigan for a long time now.

The crowd took up singing, and Studs, swaying in the grinding car, edged nearer the janes. He saw that one was giving Red the works. The other smiled at him, and yelled:

“TO HELL WITH THE KAISER!”

Smiling, Studs accidentally on purpose bumped against her and the quick brush against her body went through him like electricity. She said it was all kinds of fun celebrating the war, and he could feel her bad breath on his face, and smell it too. He didn't care. She had everything she owned pressed right up to him, yumyum, and she made him want it like he almost never wanted it before, and he knew he'd be able to pick her up and make the grade.

The train passed Twelfth Street.

“It won't be long now,” said Red.

And Studs didn't want it to be long until they hit Congress Street, and she was pressed right into him, and he could feel the whole outline of her body, too, and she seemed to be breathing hot in his face, panting. It made him proud, a manly feeling. He asked where she was going.

“To hell, want to come along?”

“It'll be Heaven if you're there.”

“You're a kidder.”

She twisted against him and he felt that it was all set.

At Congress, the whole car seemed to jam towards the door simultaneously. He and Red lost the janes in the crush; just their goddamn luck.

He hoped he'd pick her up again, as he ganged along with the guys over to State and Van Buren. He looked frantically into faces, hurried the going, wanting to get her again, suddenly wanting Lucy Scanlan, but wanting her the more because she had everything a guy could wish for, and she'd go the limit, and what the hell if her breath was bad.

The Chicago loop was like a nuthouse on fire. The sidewalks were swollen with people, the streets were clogged, and autoists honked their horns, and motor men donged bells in vain. Tons of paper and confetti blizzarded from the upper stories of buildings and sundry noise-makers echoed an insistent racket. People sang, shouted until it seemed that their lungs would burst from their mouths.

Studs followed a guy playing a clarinet. A bag of water dropped on the guy's bean. He played on, and a fellow clamped him on the dome with a banana stalk. He played on. He was caught in a laughing crowd which followed a fat black mammy who paraded down the sidewalk, dressed in a washtub full of clothes, joyously singing:

He watched a sailor and a marine scrapping. A pretty girl stopped the fight by kissing each of them. He clapped and catcalled with the crowd. If he was only in uniform. Everybody snickered as another sailor rushed forwards and threatened to fight if he wasn't kissed. She kissed him, and the other two demanded second kisses. Everybody laughed.

He was plumped on the head with a banana stalk, and went sick with a sudden thud of a headache. He shook his head, turned, and tripped the guy with the stalk, just as he had lifted it to club someone else. He grabbed the stalk, and circumspectly clubbed a little fellow. Ahead, he saw a guy parting a way by brandishing a blackjack. Somebody spit in his ear, yelling that the war was over. A drunk came up to him, seriously and methodically shook hands, and then seriously and methodically walked on. Another drunk rolled in dt's on the sidewalk, and a girl stuck her high heel in his guts.

Jesus, it was great! he thought.

He suddenly looked up through the noise and falling paper, and there was Old Glory on a flag pole, furled in the breeze, glinting the November sunlight—Old Glory that had never kissed the dust in defeat, and he could see it floating, flying over the trenches, ruins, corpses of the fields of France, again Victorious! Old Glory! His Flag! Proudly he told himself:

I'm an American.

He heard raucous feminine shouting. Turning, he saw a hysterical woman, her gray hair falling over her ageing face. She yelled:

“My son didn't die in vain. Thank God, my Willie is not dead in vain!”

He joined a snake dance which sang
There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight.
The snake dance dissolved, when a man on crutches, with two wooden legs, solemnly marched holding a small American flag between his teeth. He was cheered uproariously.

He bumped into the gang while they were gathered around a drunk who insisted that they all would hang the Kaiser to a sour apple tree. They tried to scrouge a drink but he said that now the Kaiser must be hung to a sour apple tree and Wilson must be crowned King of Germany and the League of Nations. They tried to scrouge a drink, and he said they'd get a barrel if they'd bring the Kaiser to him. A soldier dragged him off.

An insane-looking woman passed, holding a sign aloft:

FOLLOW ME TO THE KAISER'S FUNERAL HANS AND FRITZ HAVE THE FITS.

“WAHOOOOOOOOOOO!” they yelled under the leadership of Kenny Kilarney.

Studs lost the gang again. He didn't care. There'd never been a day like this in history. And he'd find her or another girl, and would he get it today!

He went on, head lowering as if he was a fullback hitting the line, feeling like he was a bursting boiler that was liable to blow the whole Loop to smithereens.

“WAHOOOOOOOOOOO!”

He fought his way into a store in a jam, copped a horn, crushed out, and blew the horn for all he was worth. A funny-looking egg pushed a wheel-barrow along, lashing an effigy of the Kaiser in it with a horse whip. Studs got behind the guy, blowing his horn, feeling swell that everybody was seeing him in the midst of things, hoping she'd see him, and rush out and grab his arm, hoping that Lucy Scanlan would see him and think that he was pretty much the real stuff.

He blew the horn out and joined in a mob that was making a center rush. A girl's dress and coat got torn off, and Studs fought to get a look at her. But she flung herself into the arms of a sailor and yelled for him to hurry up and take her with him where she wouldn't need the damn rags. Jesus, it made him hot.

He was jammed to the curb to watch a parade of hearses. The first hearse was black, and carried a sign:

THE KAISER'S COFFIN! KILLED BY THE U. S. A.! A white hearse following it:

THE KAISER'S FUNERAL! A third, black:

THE KULTUR INVENTOR DIED AT 2 A.M. HIS NEXT EMPIRE IS HELL!

Damn good stunt! thought Studs, trying to out-bellow everyone else, wishing like hell he had mightier lungs and stronger mitts.

A bunch of sailors came by, and he joined them. They cursed fiercely because they wouldn't get their shot at the Huns. One of them gave Studs his first slug of whiskey. It burned all the way down, made him sneeze and cough, with watering eyes, and they laughed at him. He slunk off, and even when out of their sight, seemed to hear their laughter. Shamed feelings blistered into oaths. He put his cap on at a crooked tough-guy angle, slung back his shoulders, scowled with intent ferocity, and clenched his fists. He saw a little girl with a flag, and, fed up, he snatched it, letting her bawl her eyes out.

He laughed, forgetting, as he spotted a funny drunk leaning against a department store window. Studs gave him a disdainful hello. The fellow mummed his fingers to his lips, drew Studs close, almost suffocated him with an alcohol breath, and whispered that he couldn't move because German spies had undermined the foundation of the building, and he alone was holding it up, and if he moved, it would come down on everybody. He, like Wilson, was a savior of Humanity. Red came along. Studs gave Red the wink. Red nodded. They each cut one of the drunk's feet from under him and he went down, his head snapping and cracking on the sidewalk. Blood oozed from it. A singing bunch of marines stepped on the drunk as he lay there, and Studs and Red hurried away, afraid that maybe they'd killed the fellow.

They followed in the trail of five janes who were singing dirty songs and carrying a sailor on their shoulders. Studs wanted a uniform. Jesus! All the janes would be kissing him, and telling him to come on. He tried to think of himself in uniform, being kissed and grabbed by all the janes, carried about, taken to hotels, loved up by ten of them in succession. Goddamn it! He was nearly knocked down, and that brought him to his senses. Red grabbed him and said look at the funny bloke with the pig.

They went behind a fellow who dragged a pig along by a rope. There was a sign tied on the pig:

THE KAISER.

The fellow kept twisting the pig's tail to make it squeal, and it was funny.

They followed him over to Michigan Avenue, hoping to get near enough to twist the pig's tail. They spotted Kenny Kilarney on top of one of the lions in front of the Art Institute, flinging tomatoes into the crowd, and rushed over. Studs grabbed Kilarney's last tomato, and let it go. He was glad when it hit a soldier in the ear. They dashed down the steps, and bumped square into a girl as she went for a sailor with open arms, shrieking:

“Here I am, sailor boy!”

Studs stood next to them, watching them kiss, the girl's body straining, her lips pressing, her face going taut, tense, her arms and his arms tightening vise-like, their mouths opening, french-kissing in public.

“OOOHHHHHHHH!” muttered Studs.

Kenny grabbed his arm.

“Where to?” muttered Studs.

“We'll brown the Kaiser,” shouted Kenny.

“And the Clown Quince too,” said Studs, his mind painful with the thought of girls.

They stopped at a fight. It was Tommy Doyle. He knocked a souse out. Red Kelly kicked him in the ribs.

“That's the Fifty-eighth Street spirit,” yelled Studs, as they rushed on.

They ate in a restaurant and ran out without paying.

They saw a guy fall through a plate-glass window. He was pulled out, and laid on the sidewalk. They fought in a whole mob, that milled like cattle to look at the guy, as he lay bleeding and moaning.

It got dark. Studs saw the girl from the elevated train again. He rushed to her and said, “Hello,” but she didn't hear him, and dove for a passing marine. Another jane copped the marine, Studs grabbed her and kissed her. She slapped his face, and stopped a soldier to kiss him. She simulated moans as the soldier kissed her.