Studs Lonigan (39 page)

“You're a goddamn liar!” Paulie shouted.

“I'm going to the boathouse,” Studs said, embarrassed; he left without them noticing him.

None of the guys were around. He noticed, too, that no niggers were in sight. He spied a lonesome-looking chicken sitting up towards the front. Maybe she wanted to be picked up. He sat near her, and kept giving her the eye. She was pretty, a baby-faced blond. She sat impassive. He could just go up and talk to her, say let's take a walk, and get her over on the wooded island. And he'd go back to the poolroom, and tell the lads what a lay he had, describing how it all went off, and knock them cuckoo wishing they'd been that lucky. She met his eye, icy, not a hint on her face. Sometimes they were like that in pretense, making it a game where you worked for it. He lit a cigarette, nonchalant, as if he were just as unaware of her presence as she seemed to be of his. He looked out at the water, black, except where the boathouse lights and stretches of moonlight lay over it. He tried to think up something clever that he might say to make an opening. He could just see her smiling at his cleverness, if only he could hit upon some good crack. He watched two couples rowing away from the landing. One of the girls laughed loudly. He arose, and casually sauntered to her side, glanced at her while she looked uninterestedly ahead. He said hello. She didn't respond. He got nervous, and greeted her a second time. She looked up at him, as if he were so low that he crept on the ground.

“Like to go oaring, cutie?”

“I should say not,” she said, turning her back.

He felt like he might just go crawl into a barrel, and sink his head. Blushing, he left the boathouse. Just a goddamn bitch trying to be swell! He wandered back on the grass, wondering if he might take in the movie at the Prairie Theatre. Dirty it was, jumping the poor bastard, when you couldn't blame him for looking at something offered to him on a platter; she knew he was looking. If that jane, bitch, in the boathouse had a husband, he'd be the same way and want to start swinging. Just natural to look at a girl's legs. He was sorry, a bit ashamed of himself; but that uppercut he'd given him, it had been beautiful, timed just right. Remembering the thrill of landing it was even swell.

He crossed the bushes in back of the bench where they were. He saw them in each other's arms, and heard her say to Paulie:

“Honey, I love you!”

Made him want a girl! Put his arms around her, draw her tight so he could press into her, feel her hardening herself against him, feeling her quiver and shake with excitement because he touched her, wanted to know her. No girl had ever said she loved him like she'd just told Paulie. The Great Studs Lonigan, the battler . . . no girl ever seemed to think so. He wanted one, maybe he even wanted to marry one . . . maybe, perhaps, Lucy. . . .

He met Elizabeth Burns crossing the drive from the Fifty-eighth Street entrance.

“Say, aren't you afraid being over here alone in the dark?”

“Nobody would hurt little me,” she giggled.

“You need protection,” he said, taking her arm.

He walked her around the south bend of the lagoon, and over the stone bridge to the wooded island. They found a spot right near the tree where he and Lucy had been. She didn't offer him any resistance.

He was tired, drowsy, walking back with her, their clothes all rumpled. She was too much for him. Never would get enough. What a bitch! But before he had got so tired that it hurt him, nice, and he'd looked up at the sky, blue, big, so many stars like jewels, feeling perfectly at peace. Only she wanted an army. And what she didn't know at the age of fourteen wasn't worth knowing. They walked slowly towards Calumet, not saying much. At the corner of Calumet, her old man, a big bastard over six feet, jumped out with a horse-whip.

“Get home, you whore!” he said, roughly pushing her aside. He snapped the whip, bearing it down on Studs' shoulder. Studs was so surprised that he stood stock still. The old man lashed him three times, before he ran. Old man Burns followed him down the street, cursing him, lashing him with the horse-whip till it stung and burned. Strangers stopped to laugh. He felt that he couldn't run much farther, and he ran, gasping, his side paining sharply. He couldn't stop, and Christ, that whip. He dashed recklessly in front of automobiles and got across to the park side of South Park Avenue. He turned and saw the old man flaunting his whip on the other side of the street, yelling:

“I'll teach you whose daughter you're monkeying with!”

He flung a rock, and ran through the bushes on the left-hand side of the tennis court. Old man Burns didn't follow him.

HOLY MARY,
the Mother of God, the Virgin of Virgins, Mother most Powerful and Merciful, Morning Star and Health of the Weak, Comfortress of the Afflicted, Mother of God, Mary who had herself gone down into the valley of the shadow of death . . . she, Blessed Mary, she would understand the burden of distress and naked sorrow that lay on the heart of a poor mother whose precious baby son lay at death's door; she, whose only begotten Son had been crowned with thorns and crucified to save all mankind, she would understand, she would sympathize, she would intercede at the throne of God Almighty, the Creator of Heaven and Earth; she would beseech that if it be the will of God, to Whom all things were possible, that He spare the life of Mrs. Haggerty's son, Paul.

MIKE stared out of the poolroom window. His face was a gaze of primal obtuseness. An elevated train rumbled out of the Fifty-eighth Street elevated station. An automobile whizzed by.

“Hello, Mike!” said Slug Mason entering, his smeary-lipped mouth cracking in a smile.

Mike greeted Slug with an idiot grin. Slug lit a cigarette, shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned back on his heels.

“Smoke?” asked Mike, holding out his greasy, sweaty paw.

“Say, it looks like there's gonna be some sun out this morning,” Slug said, with faulty pronunciation, as he studied the street outside and the blue September sky that was slowly being shattered with sunlight.

Mike lit one of his own cigarettes.

“Jesus, was we all cockeyed las' night . . . but say, Mike, I fixes the lads with some flaming jazz-babies!”

“Push-push,” mumbled Mike, lust, like thick, ugly sweat, oozing from his eyes.

Slug beamed patronizingly.

“Push-push!”

“Yeah, Mike, I'll bet you know your stuff.”

“Wheeeee!” shouted Young Rocky Kansas as he crashed through the narrow entrance door, removing his jacket coat.

“Wheeeeeeeee!” echoed skinny, toothpick Harry Pochon, following upon Young Rocky's heels past the shoe-shining stand, which stood where Charlie Bathcellar had had his barber chairs.

“Time on table number one, Greek!” Young Rocky shouted.

“Come on, time on, you dumb Greek bastard!” parroted Pochon.

Mike's face clenched with hate. Slowly, he turned and went to the counter. He punched a card on the time clock.

“These eighteen-year-old punks needs their snouts punched in to teach 'em a lesson,” Slug said.

A slow gleam of assent was born on Mike's face. He shrugged, and placed a hat on the cleaning block. He commenced to brush the hat.

Slug watched the youngest Sullivan girl trip stiff-leggedly by.

“Nice,” Mike babbled, with clumsy, pawing, emphatic gestures. They laughed in mutual understanding.

Bob Connell entered, wearing a loud gray summer suit with bell bottoms. Big Rocky Kansas followed him, walking muscle bound and like a tame bear. He was a bushy-browed lad of about twenty-one, with broad shoulders. He smiled with intoxicating good-nature, and, sticking a cigar in his bucolic face, ranged himself alongside Slug. Slug ignored Bob's cloying salutation; he said Rocky looked like a politician, smoking that cigar. They heard the click of the pool balls. Big Rocky yelled hello to his kid brother.

“Say, last night, Gleen Reaves and me had some red hot mamas dated up. Cost us five bucks at Kling Hing Lo's Chop House. But, boy, did those broads know how to sock. Say, fellahs, I tell you, I never danced with the broad who socked like mine did. Why she dry . . .” Bob said with enthusiasm, cutting off his words, and answering the call from Young Rocky.

“Say, that punk has only got fifty cards in his deck,” Slug said, pronouncing his ths as ds.

“Hell, he is only young, sixteen. He hasn't lost his cherry,” Big Rocky said.

“Look! Look!” Mike said, pointing at a passing broad.

“Well, Studs, you're a man now,” grinned Slug.

“That doesn't mean nothing,” replied bleary-eyed Studs.

“Say, you're right there. It's true,” Slug said.

“Most things are just plain crap to me,” Studs said.

“Ain't they though?” said Slug, saying “though” as if it were “dough.”

“My head!” said Studs, feeling his right temple.

“Well, you was polluted last night,” Slug said.

Studs nodded agreement.

“Say, Paulie's in bad shape. He was prayed for in Church this morning.”

“He's a good lad.”

“Gee, I hope he pulls through. But he's in a tough spot now,” said Studs.

“He's down for the count, huh,” said Slug.

“Let's get a coke and take a little walk,” Studs said, as they walked out.

“And was I blind last night!” reiterated eighteen-year-old Ellsworth Lyman.

“You were soused to the gills,” Wils Gillen said, causing Lyman to smile with the pride of achievement.

“Ellsworth was so drunk he went around with tears in his eyes, sobbing the blues, because he couldn't stop breathing,” said Darby Dan Drennan; they guffawed.

“I don't remember that, but I do remember a guy getting tough with me around Sixty-third, and I was all set to knock his teeth down his throat. But he was so yellow, I didn't have the heart to lay one on him.”

“When Lyman called him, he folded up like an umbrella,” Gillen said.

“I can't stand a guy with a yellow streak down his back,” Lyman said.

“Well, by God, Ellsworth, you were snaky last night,” said Wils.

“I guess I was,” Ellsworth proudly said.

“Jeff, you're falling away to a ton!” Red Kelly said.

“Yeah, don't fool yourself! I just dropped seventy-five pounds,” Jeff replied, handfuls of fat on his cheek, chin, and neck wiggling into a smile.

He rolled along the poolroom, a lumbrous, slightly limping, waddling barracks of flesh.

“Hi, boys!” he said with excessive good-nature.

“Boys, here's Jeff, the baby elephant!” yelled Pochon.

“Say, Jeff, I thought you'd already joined a freak show,” Young Rocky said.

“Say, Hippo, Man Bleu is gunning for you, and promises that he won't do anything at all but lose his fists in your goddamn fat puss,” Lyman yelled.

“I ain't done nothing to him,” Jeff protested.

“What, another chump you took in?” asked Kelly.

“Man gave him five bucks to get him some punch boards. He ain't seen the elephant since,” Lyman said.

“He's not gettin' gypped. He'll get them. They were just delayed at the factory. Just got 'em yesterday. In fact, I came around to see if he was here now.”

“B. S.,” Young Rocky said, lip-farting.

“Jeff, you ain't got the heart of a snake, have you?” said Kelly.

“Commere, Red. I got a funny story to tell you,” Jeff said.

“Jeff, the first ton is the hardest, ain't it?” said Gillen.

“Arnold, where'd you get the shiner?” Stan Simonsky, nephew of a baseball magnate, asked.

“Oh, a fight last night,” Arnold replied.

Stan, plump and medium-sized, stretched on his toes to examine Arnold Sheehan's black eye. Arnold was taller, and well built; his face was crude in features, with heavy dark brows, and a long nose. He wore a loosely-cut black suit with flashy pin-stripes, a checkered gray topcoat, an almost pearly gray fedora, and black tie.