Studs Lonigan (55 page)

GOODBYE, Arnold! Studs silently thought.

Amidst exuding flower odors, Studs and Tommy Doyle blessed themselves, and knelt down. Their eyes suddenly met and their heads bowed in a mutual expression of surprised regret. They muttered prayers to themselves for the repose of the soul of their dead pal, while behind them, they could hear a choked feminine sob, and the loudly whispered remarks of Mrs. O'Neill that it was God's will, and that Arnold was in Heaven, and that we must all resign ourselves to the Will of the Almighty.

They arose, and looked lugubriously down at the unbelievably dead body; the prominent ashen face with the beard marks apparent despite a close shave and talcum powder, the black hair, thick and wavy, the stiff arms folded in front with a white pair of rosary beads draped between them, the well-built torso sedately clothed in its black death-suit, black tie, white shirt, black socks, and black patent leather pumps. And, pressed against the white satin lining of the coffin lid, they saw their card, statement of the spiritual bouquet they had all chipped in to send. And as he gazed abstractedly, Studs found himself expecting Arnold to smile, hear him tell a funny story, ask if anyone wanted to get a bottle, laugh and say that it was only a joke he was playing on everyone because he wasn't really dead after all. But Arnold would never again speak, never again tip a bottle to his lips, never again make a broad he had picked up at the Midway Gardens dance hall. The finality of Arnold's life made a sudden gash upon Studs' thoughts. He wanted to talk to Arnold, get to know him better than he had, take in a show with him; and, knowing that he never could do these things, he had the vaguest kind of a feeling that whenever anyone you knew and liked died, a part of yourself died with him. It made him think of church on Good Friday, with the statues draped in sorrowing purple, with the odor and feel of ashes everywhere like a pall, and of Ash Wednesday, and the priest's words when he thumbed your forehead with ashes:

 

 

They heard another muffled sob, and turned to face Mrs. Sheehan, who sat on a camp chair near the gray casket, dressed in black with her robust face paled and compressed.

“I'm very sorry,” Studs muttered, feeling helplessly inarticulate.

“Mrs. Sheehan, I am very sorry for your great misfortune,” Tommy Doyle said, as if learned by rote.

“I know, boys, I know,” she gasped, dropping her head and permitting them to stand awkwardly before her. They edged, self-consciously, past a double aisle of crepe-hanging women who sat on camp chairs. Mrs. Dennis P. Gorman grabbed Studs' sleeve near the edge of the parlor, and whispered that he should remember her to his dear mother.

They saw Mr. Sheehan standing, lost, by the front door. He was a ruddy, full man, with stooped shoulders, a clipped mustache, and a half-bald gray head. They expressed condolences. He seemed not even to see them, and they smelled his rancid whiskey-breath.

“God, it's sad,” Studs said, as he and Tommy walked through the hall to the rear.

“Poor fellow, it's knocked him groggy,” Tommy sorrowed.

They passed through the dining-room where a small group was gathered around one of Arnold's twin sisters, a pretty black-haired girl who was distraught.

They heard the guys talking in the kitchen. Horace, Arnold's grown brother, stood in the doorway.

“Jesus, I'm sorry, Horace,” Tommy said.

“I know! It's tough, Tommy. You know I think it's broken dad. He acts just like a broken man, interested in nothing, hardly ever seeing anybody. I doubt if he'll ever get over it,” Horace replied, emphasizing his feeling with slow shakes of the head.

“And Arnold was getting on so well,” Studs said.

“Well, all we can do is make the best of it and call it life,” Horace said reflectively.

A thick veil of tobacco smoke hung over the kitchen. Jim Doyle stood by the kitchen sink, a cigar pasted in his round, jolly face, and he greeted them, calling them hoods. They saluted in return, and sat down near Red Kelly. Studs noticed a girl in a corner, shabby, faded, blowsy, looked like a two-bit whore; her face seemed familiar. He frowned, and wrinkled up his forehead trying to think; he realized that she was Paulie Haggerty's widow, Eileen. What a bitch she had turned out to be!

“Well, Studs, what's new?” Red Kelly asked.

“Not much.”

Horace passed around cigars. Biting off the end of one, and lighting it, Studs remarked with a certain air of importance and maturity:

“Well, Red, I never expected to be here on an occasion like this.”

“Studs, when I heard it, you could have slapped me down with a feather. It's very sad, too. It's hit the poor mother hard, very hard. Arnold was her favorite, and he was always a little reckless, you know, a nice guy but a crazy bastard too when he was drunk, and that always caused her worry. And think of it, here he was sloughed off in the very prime of life.”

“Poor Arnold, the guy did run in bad luck,” Studs said.

“Like that time he was pie-eyed, and got stabbed by a shine; then he no sooner got his wounds healed up than he gets a dose.”

“Say, was he oiled when the accident happened?”

“No, he was on the wagon again. He had gone back to work for the city. Remember how he got canned from the job for being oiled and then went back?”

“Yep, that's right.”

“He was riding home from work last Saturday, on a city truck, standing on the tail gate, and hanging on to a rope. The rope broke, and Arnold fell off. He cracked his skull. They took him to the County Hospital. He never came to, but in a coma he kept muttering for his mother. By luck a priest was gotten and he received Extreme Unction before he passed away. But when his mother got there he was dead. You know, Studs, it just goes to show that some people are born lucky, and others always live under an unlucky star,” Red said to Studs, who hadn't been listening to him, but had rather been looking about from face to face, and smoking his cigar as if it were a ceremony.

“Jesus!” Studs suddenly exclaimed in expression of his reaction to the whole situation.

“Yep, that's the way it is; you're here today, and gone tomorrow,” Tommy Doyle said.

“And just think, I saw him at Church last Sunday, feeling so swell, and dressed up like a lighthouse,” Red Kelly said.

“Life is sure funny,” Tommy remarked.

“And it always seems to get the guys who are white, and not the sons of bitches. Take a bastard like Weary Reilley. He's a rat clean through, and he couldn't do a decent trick if he tried. He goes around smashing guys he can lick in the mug, smacking girls to make them come across, and he's even hit his helpless father. Well, now, nothing ever happens to him. I tell you, it's one of the oddities of life and one of the mysteries of the Will of God that a guy who's white almost never gets the grapes,” Red said.

“Reilley's a skunk,” Studs said, kind of hoping that Red would mention how he had cleaned Weary as a kid.

“Too bad!” said Tommy.

“Where was the fire sale, Muggsy?” asked Studs as Muggsy McCarthy entered the room. He was more slumped and hollow than ever; but he wore a new dark gray suit.

“Muggsy, you look prosperous,” Doyle remarked.

“Boys, I'm working for the city now,” Muggsy said almost unnaturally exuberant.

“So you got in the political game, huh, Muggsy?” Tommy Doyle asked.

“Yeah, my old man took me back home and got me the job. I'm off that damn crap. There's nothing to it, hanging around all the time with not even a sou in your jeans. How you like the suit, boys?” Muggsy asked.

“I think I'll get me into the political game,” Tommy said, while the boys examined Muggsy's suit, and kidded him.

Like an apparition, Barney Keefe stood in the center of the room, and pointed at drunken Irish Mickey Flannagan; everybody laughed.

“And you, bitch! The last time I saw you, you passed out in a saloon over at Twelfth and Halsted, and the boys all took you on while you were dreaming of the birdies of the spring-time,” Barney said, pointing at Mrs. Haggerty; she smiled feebly and apologetically.

“Yeah, Tommy, you never know when you're called,” Studs said, profoundly feeling the uncertainty of life, sensing a sudden fear lest he be the next of the boys called, buoying himself up with the feeling that he was strong and well and taking care of himself and wouldn't need to worry about death for a long, long time.

“Hey, Barney, where you think you're at,” Red said, sore because Barney was keeping up the horseplay.

“I thought I came to a wake, but seeing all you flannel-mouth Irish here, I guess it's a saloon or a poolroom,” Barney said. They laughed.

“Hello, Studs,” Phil Rolfe ingratiated, while the boys still laughed at Barney's wit. Phillip rolled the cigar in his mouth. Studs acted as if he hadn't heard the greeting.

“Yeah, too bad, but we all got to go sometime,” Phillip said, finding a chair in back of Studs.

The room snapped into rigid quiet with the appearance of Mr. Sheehan. He ignored the remarks politely directed at him. Red arose and offered him a chair. He looked around and walked out.

“Just like a ghost,” Red dolefully said.

“Hey, Barney, you rat, when you going to sober up?” Mickey asked from the fogs of inebriation.

“Can it, Flannagan, before we toss you on your ear,” Red said.

“I'll sober up when I put a lily on the grave of every pigs—t Irishman here,” Barney said.

“Come on, you guys,” Red repeated.

“Say, Studs, you know, isn't it a shame. You know, Arnold, he was my friend,” Vinc Curley said.

“Say, Goof, dry up,” Studs said. Vinc looked at Studs, hurt.

“I remember the time that Arnold and I got pie-eyed in a black-andtan joint. You know he went for a high brown, Georgia Brown, and, boy, I thought we'd get our throats slashed from ear to ear,” Benny Taite said.

“Hey, Benny, is that the only thing you can think of now that Arnold is dead? You can't think of anything else, can you—the time you might have seen him coming home with a present to his mother or something?”

“Gee, Red, I didn't mean anything,” Benny said.

“Well, those aren't the kind of breaks you want to be making at a time like this,” Kelly snapped.

Everybody laughed as Kenny Kilamey came in with that goofy, boyish smile on his thin face, just as it always was.

“Boys, this is Timothy O'Shea,” he said, pointing his finger at the character with him.

“Hi, boys!” Timothy O'Shea said like a prizefighter accepting wellearned applause. He swam in a huge, flowing overcoat, and had a rough, wide, surly face. He pushed his dirty fedora on the back of his head, and smiled.

“Say, boys, excuse me a minute!” Timothy O'Shea said, going to the sink; he relieved himself.

They were too surprised to speak. He took a seat. Horace came with the box of cigars. Timothy O'Shea and Kenny each took two.

“Hell, you guys are all hoods. I'm going,” Jim Doyle said.

“Sit down, Jim, and tell us about the political outlook for next fall,” said Studs.

“Democratic landslide.”

“What do you think of the mayor, Jim?” asked Red.

“He's a Sunday school mayor,” Jim said.

“Bill Dever, oh, he's all right, Bill is, if you know how to take him,” Timothy O'Shea said.

“You know him?” Jim asked hostilely.

“Sure, him and my old man is like that,” Timothy O'Shea said, crossing the second and third fingers on his right hand and holding them up in indication of closeness.

“Say, Jim, say?” Curley called.

“You in the political game?” asked Doyle.

“Sure! Me, I'm in everything. Christ, yes,” Timothy O'Shea said.

“Listen, Jim, I wanted to ask you if you wanted to go to the Tivoli with me some night this week?” Curley said.

“Hey, Curley, did anybody ever tell you that you were a pest?” said Jim; they laughed.

Fat Malloy arrived and glad-handed all the boys. Studs said he acted like he was a pupil of Jim Doyle's.

“You know, fellows, I hate it, having to think that Arnold's gone from us like this,” Les said.

“Yeah, Les, you'll have to drink more to make up for what he won't, huh?” said Tommy.

“Say, Kenny, where in hell you been keeping yourself?” asked Studs.

“Out of the pen,” Kenny said.

“Same old Kilarney. But tell me, are you working?” Red said.

“Sure, everybody.”

“Say, any drinks in the joint?” asked Timothy O'Shea. No one answered him.

“Hell, come on, Kilarney. I thought you said there'd be some sparkling waters here. Come on, this joint is a hell of a wake,” Timothy said.

“Brother, we got respect for the dead,” said Red.

“Sure, you run a wake like you were all Jews. If I hung around I'd have to drink noodle soup. Come on, Kilarney,” Timothy O'Shea said, leaving, his huge coat swinging after him.

Kenny followed him and left a room full of soreheads.

“If it wouldn't have been disrespectful, I'd have socked that ignorant ape of an Irishman,” Kelly said.

“Kenny was always cockeyed, and didn't have sense about serious things,” Tommy said.

“Leave it to Kenny to find a guy like that for a wake where tragedy has occurred,” Kelly said.

“Same old Kilarney,” Studs said.

They talked. More came, and some went out. Finally, Studs and Red left, re-expressing their condolences before departing.