Studs Lonigan (37 page)

He whistled as he walked towards the front door.

“Have a good time, Bill, old boy, and don't take any wooden nickels,” the old man called from the parlor.

His mother rushed to the door, made the sign of the cross before him, kissed him, and told him to be a good boy.

He walked along, whistling. He stopped at the corner of Fifty-eighth and Indiana. If he walked down to Fifty-seventh, he might just bump into Dan or Helen Shires, talk about old times, let them see how he was all dolled up, bowl 'em over by flashing his roll. And he could maybe see Lucy, and speak, and she'd say how swell he looked, and he'd say what are you doing, and he'd say come on, let's take in a show, and he'd have a blowout with her, and not go around the poolroom, and he'd kiss her good night on the steps. Now, he'd have the dough to take her out regularly. Girls liked a fellow to take them out and show them a good time. Swell to be earning your own living.

Hell, he was out of their class now. He took a few steps across Indiana Avenue. He paused, looked down to see the street in a fading spring twilight. Buildings he knew, a few automobiles parked along the curbs, some kids playing across from O'Brien's house. The tumble-down wooden buildings near Fifty-eighth on his right, where Mush Joss lived. The row of two-story gray bricks where Lucy lived. Where they used to play tin-tin on nights like this, and sometimes with everybody giggling, he'd kiss her. He wanted to put his arms around her and kiss her again. Aw, hell, he had the dough to get all the girls he wanted. He turned, and walked slowly down Indiana Avenue on the west side of the street. Maybe he'd see Dan. The last time he'd stopped in, Dan had been studying. Let him!

No curtains in Lucy's house. The lights out. . . . Moved. He looked in. Funny, he hadn't heard from Fran or anybody that she was moving. Where? There was the house empty, and he could remember seeing her around it so often, on the steps at this time of day when they'd come home from the park, and she'd blown him a last kiss, on the steps yelling for him when he fought Weary, looking out the window one day smiling in that way of hers when he had passed by. She had even perhaps moved to another city. Perhaps never, never again would he see her! All his hopes were gone, like they'd dropped into a sewer, and what if he had dough in his kick, and looked swell, and was wearing his first straw katy! Through that window there was growing darkness, no furniture. There were plenty of girls to be gotten, and perhaps he might never see her, or would see her only far far ahead, when it was all too late.

He walked down to the corner, absorbed. Without realizing it, he stood by the mail box, opening and closing it. If anybody saw him, he'd look crazy as a loon.

“Hello, Studs!” said Andy Le Gare, entering the corner building.

“Shut up!”

Studs walked west on Fifty-seventh to the alley, and then turned around. It wouldn't look fluky now, if he just turned back and walked by her house again. Look like it was just on his way somewheres. He didn't want to go anywhere. He glanced at the empty house, desolate. Across the street kids played hide-and-go-seek, their voices and shouts seeming far away. He and Lucy had passed the crossroads of life now, their paths had cut away from each other. In that movie the other night the same thing had happened to the fellow and the girl, only they'd found each other again, in time.

Aw, what the hell! Let it go! He was sitting pretty!

He was aware of it being very quiet, lonesome, the sad part of the day. A dog barked. A horse and wagon clattered by on the rough, unpaved street. There was the noise of automobile brakes. The kids. The dog barked again. Quiet.

He went over Fifty-eighth Street. There was the tailor shop run by Cohen's old man. A dry goods store in place of the old Palm Theatre. A shoe repair shop where Schroeder had had that ice cream parlor they'd raided. The alley. The chain store, and the five and dime. The neighborhood was still much the same, and yet it was different without her. Every block, every store was somehow connected in his mind with her. It was as if she was like God, and her spirit was in everything in the neighborhood, only it wasn't any more. Suppose he had gone to war, and been killed. They would always remember him as a hero, and now maybe. . . .

He stopped to get a drink of water at the fountain in front of Sternberg's cigar store straight across from the drug store at Fifty-eighth and Prairie.

Some punks he didn't know stood at the fountain, and as that snotty, loud-mouth little hebe, Phillip Rolfe, drew near, they squirted water square in his puss. Studs laughed. Phillip shouted irritatingly. They squirted again, and, dodging, Phillip bumped into him.

“Get out of my way!” he said, missing a kick.

“Aw, it wasn't my fault!”

“Shut up!”

An old man limped stiffly along, shouting swear words at the top of his cracked lungs. The laughing punks egged him on, and he cursed them. Studs laughed.

“Hey, grandpa! Button up. You're losing something,” Rolfe yelled, everybody laughing; the old man heaped foul curses on them. Funny! Studs watched him struggle along, followed by the punks.

A truck was coming, and on an impulse he dashed before it. Had to cut that out. Might be mashed someday, if he didn't.

He looked at his shoes, and leaned down to run a finger across the right toe. But it had been scuffed. Didn't like that. He noticed the sharp press in his trousers.

He walked on towards the poolroom, wishing he was going out with Lucy, a girl. Maybe they'd all go to a can house. He was afraid to do that; no, he wasn't.

He smiled at Sammy Schmaltz the newspaper man, hoping Sammy would comment on his new lid and clothes. Sammy was too busy selling papers.

Self-conscious, he joined a gang before the poolroom, and smiled deprecatingly when they kidded that he was all dolled up. Then they went back to kidding Paulie Haggerty, the married man, they said, who was too young to stand the gaff.

“Yeah, you guys just ask my wife if I ain't the goods!” said Paulie.

Studs envied him. He could stand up and say there was one girl who was all his, every inch of her. And every night with her, he could get it, as much as he wanted.

“Hey, Haggerty, does your wife wash your diapers?” asked balloonbellied Barney Keefe.

“Ooph, that's a hot one,” Fitz, the poolroom pest, said, as they laughed.

“You know, Barney, you look almost human these days, even with your false teeth,” Paulie replied.

“He just bought new knee pads today too,” Kilarney said.

“Lookat the can on that one!” Slew Weber said, pointing as Elizabeth Burns passed.

“Hey, Haggerty, shield your eyes. You're married,” Barney said.

“A married man has more experience.”

“Listen, she lays for every punk in the neighborhood. She's a fourteen-year-old bitch,” Kelly said.

“But she's all right. I speak from experience,” Doyle said.

“I wouldn't kick her out of bed,” Slew said.

“Weber, your age limit is from eight to eighty,” Barney said.

“Let's do something,” Paulie said.

“Let's!” Studs said, forgetting his moodiness.

“Hey, lads, look!” Pat Coady said, pointing.

They saw Barney tagging after Elizabeth Burns.

They laughed, and when Barney came back, unsuccessful, they kidded his pants off. Barney retorted by kidding Paulie, telling him a married man had to keep his feet from smelling and take regular baths.

“Let's do something,” Studs said.

Studs glanced around the saloon. He watched a big bloke at the rail spitting into a spittoon. Some of the birds at the bar, like that red-faced guy in khaki at the end, looked tough. Suppose there would be a free-for-all fight? Might get mashed. He imagined himself in a brawl, fighting like a demon.

“Dempsey's too damn small to take Willard,” Kelly said.

“My dough's on Dempsey,” Studs said.

“Say, Willard's sixty pounds heavier,” said Red.

“And that sixty pounds is crap,” said Barney.

“A good little man can often trim a big guy,” Studs said, hoping they'd think of himself.

He took a sip of beer and ate a pretzel, because the beer didn't taste as bitter with the pretzel.

“Barney, what you gonna do after Prohibition?” asked Coady.

“Become a nun!”

“No kiddin', Barney?”

“Get married like this punk,” Barney said, wiping his chin with his coat sleeve.

“Who'd have an old man like you?” asked Paulie.

“Listen, punk, there's plenty of stuff left in Barney Keefe!”

“Horse,” said Paulie as they loudly reminded him of Elizabeth Burns.

“Come on, Barney, tell us what you're going to do after Prohibition?”

“What am I gonna do after Prohibition. . . . What am I gonna do after Prohibition. . . . What am I gonna do after Prohibition? Ask me something brighter!”

“Isn't Prohibition a goddamn bright idea,” Red said.

“Like hell,” Fitz, the pest, answered seriously.

“I'll tell you what I'm going to do . . . I'm going to stay drunk,” Barney said; they laughed.

The beer began to make Studs a little dizzy. He didn't like it, didn't want any more. He saw Lucy in his head, and suddenly she spun around, and his head whirled like a merry-go-round. They ordered more, and Studs grunted he'd have another with them.

Slug Mason joined them. He was a bruiser over six feet, broad-shouldered, a leathery, stupid face, and hands like steel cranes. He looked like a brute to Studs.

“After the first of July, they're planning on deporting all you Irish along with the bullshevicky. The bullshevicky kill you with bombs, and the Irish with the whiskey breath,” Slug Mason said, changing all his ths to ds, dropping the h from his withs, and slurring the pronunciation of most of his other words.

They laughed.

“Say, Slug, didn't you have a tryout with the Sox?” asked Fitz.

“Long time ago when they had Ed. Walsh. Nineteen eleven or twelve. But I was supposed to be there at twelve, and for three days, goddamn it, I couldn't wake myself up that early,” Slug said.

“Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise,” Kenny said, apropos of nothing, and raising his mug aloft; they laughed.

“You punks ought to be home in bed,” said Fitz.

“A guy going to bed early never meets a regular guy like myself,” Barney said.

“Say, Barney, do me a favor. Lose your head back there in the can,” Pat Coady said.

“This Lothario, Haggerty, better be early to bed and early to rise, or that wife he's got will knock his tail off,” Barney said, ignoring the crack.

Slug talked about women. Everybody bragged how much he had had. Studs felt out of it, because he hadn't had so many girls like that, only Iris, and that Halloween in 1918, when they had gang-shagged some bum they had picked up on Wabash Avenue. Red Kelly bragged, and Studs, even though drunk, knew Red was throwing bull all over the place. He wanted a girl. But he felt so lousy, he couldn't keep thinking of it. His belly seemed bloated; he was dizzy in the head. He could only sit straight by exerting all his will-power.

Charlie Bathcellar joined them. He told them he'd just closed a deal, selling the poolroom to a Greek. The guys were sorry, and got sentimental. Suddenly Charlie remembered that Paulie's wife had been around, almost in tears, looking for him. They laughed, kidding Paulie. Slug told Paulie he was handling his woman right. They had to be trained, and when they were trained right, they were as meek as a lamb, and if they weren't, they were female tigers. Once you let them wear the britches, they'd never take them off, and you were a goner. Paulie drank on it with Slug.

“But, fellows, you know, my wife is a good kid,” Paulie suddenly said.

“She looked awfully blue,” Charlie said.

“She'll get over it,” Paulie said.

“My old woman did. Just treat her a little tough, and when she squawks, slap her down. They like that,” Slug said, in his way of pronunciation.

“You guys drop the skirts. Here's the only solace for mortal man,” Barney said, raising his mug aloft.

“Sure, but try and keep it from having the old sailor freeze on a windy night,” Slug said.

Paulie's head fell to the table. Barney laughed, and said it was one punk drunk under the table. Slug said Barney didn't have any belly; it was a barrel down there.

Slug suddenly saw that Studs was getting pale and glassy-eyed. He said they better get the kid some air, and, lifting him, supported him outside. The whole gang followed. He helped Studs along, the two of them looking like Mutt and Jeff.

Paulie staggered in the rear. In tears, he said that he loved his wife. He asked Kenny if he didn't think she was one damn swell woman. Kenny answered that she was homelier than Maggie in the Jiggs' cartoons.

“Come on!” challenged Paulie, putting up his fists; tears splattered down his face.

Paulie swung wildly, belaboring the air, while Kenny laughed and shadow-boxed out of his reach.

“Please fight me,” sobbed Paulie, dropping his hands to his sides.

“No, but I'll play you a little casino.”

“Well, come on then, you bastard!”

They sat down on the sidewalk, and Kenny started dividing rocks between them. Paulie said these were stones, not cards. Kenny seriously said they were cards. Paulie said he'd fight over it. Kenny leaped up, and ran ahead. He watched and kidded while Slug held Studs, who was vomiting over the curb.

“I love my wife,” Paulie shouted, as he staggered in the rear, his coat slung over his shoulder, his hat askew, his hair plastered down his forehead.