Studs Lonigan (68 page)

Studs looked at the clock: eight-thirty-four. He watched the second-hand sweep around once. Another minute gone. Carrigan hurt the feelings of Dapper Dan O'Doul by telling him he could never succeed in outsheiking Phil Rolfe. Phil was the one and original.

“Jesus, let's do something. I can't stand the sight of these goofy young p——s and their goddamn gab,” Studs said.

“Wait a couple of minutes, and if the rain stops, we'll walk down to the Michigan,” Red said.

Malloy spoke loudly about the way Phil rooked in all the boys, telling them to come down, pay their first deposit, get the suit on the budget plan, and then not pay any more. He said that he got his commission anyway and didn't care. He had rooked Rooney in that way and Rooney could tell them how he had been dunned and forced to pay.

The store manager interrupted Fat, and asked the crew to leave because they were blocking the door and injuring business. They sulked. Everybody wondered what to do. It was still raining heavily. Vinc got in Studs' way, and Studs booted his tail. Studs looked at the clock in the window: eight-thirty-nine. Studs hated the manager, wished he'd clouted him. Getting kicked out of the store because of the punks!

Finally they went to the show. Coming back with the boys for coffee an', Studs noticed that Dapper Dan was still mushing around Sally. He laughed. He wondered out loud if she could be made. He consumed his coffee an' quickly and said good-night to the boys. He stopped for cigarettes, and asked Sally what she was doing after work. She said her boy friend came and got her every night. He left. Another goddamn night wasted, and the movie had been punk too.

After supper, Studs walked out of the dining-room with Loretta. He side-glanced at her, this girl, his sister. She was smaller than he, hardly more than up to his shoulder. Everyone said she looked like him. Well, she did. All four of them looked alike; they had the same broad brows, the same complexion, the same eyes. Only the girls had dark hair, and he and the kid brother had lighter hair, brown.

“Say, I saw Phil last night,” Studs said, not knowing how to commence, feeling what the hell business was it of his anyway, but still believing that he ought to say something.

“Yes, I was to College Inn with him.”

“Have a good time?”

“I had a perfectly grand time.”

He couldn't but wonder how far Phil, how far any guy, could go with her. They said any girl could be made by the right guy, and maybe so, but, Jesus, he hoped that that kike was not the right guy. All those punks were always talking about making girls. He wondered how much of it was just crap talk.

Hell, for years now, he'd hardly spoken to her about anything much. He'd lived in the same house, seen her at breakfast and supper, talked a little bit now and then, but almost never about anything that was important. She was his sister, and she was a stranger. But goddamn it, she could find someone better than a cheap kike.

“It seems to me that you could find better fellows to go with than Phil Rolfe,” he said, making his tone of voice doubly nasty because he felt that he was butting his nose where it didn't belong, and also because he didn't know his sister or know how she would feel or act about anything important to her.

Her mouth popped open; she was too surprised to speak.

“You're a good-looking girl and you could go with a lot of nice fellows, without having dates with a Jew.”

“He's not a Jew. He's preparing to become a Catholic. He told me so last night,” she said.

“They wouldn't let him in the Church, not a Jew like him,” Studs said, losing his temper because of his lack of conviction.

“You have nothing to say about what I do or whom I go with,” she said, her voice almost cracking into a sob.

“Well, if any guys like him start fooling around with my sister, I might show what I got to say,” said he.

“You're a perfect beast. I hate you!” she said.

Her face relaxed; she cried. She turned and walked away. He was sorry.

“You leave her alone!” Fran yelled at him.

She talked with Loretta. Studs, passing back through the hall to the bathroom, heard Fran saying the same things as he had said, only in a different manner.

The father called Studs into the parlor.

“Bill, I know how you feel. I'm proud of you, proud that you would stand by your sisters. Only Bill, you know women are like a delicate instrument. You have to handle them with care. You got to be diplomatic,” Lonigan said in preparation for an outburst of platitudinous parenthood.

“All right,” said Studs.

“Bill, I had something else to tell you. Wait a minute. Don't go yet,” Lonigan said apologetically.

“Yeah,” Studs answered with annoyance as he half turned towards his father.

“I was thinking that maybe next summer I'll be taking myself and your mother back to the old country, and letting you manage things.”

“All right.”

“I got the business going fine. I just got that new hotel contract, and the way it looks, I'm gonna get that school contract. Of course, it's costing me a little. You know when you want a school contract, well, you have to see the boys you're getting it from. But I think I'll have that sewn up just as neat as you'd like in a week or two. Well, when those two are finished, I think I'll take a rest and let the mantle of responsibility fall on your shoulders.”

“That's good. When will we start on that hotel?”

“In about a month. It's a hundred-thousand-dollar job. And that school one, there's going to be real gravy.”

“How you getting it?”

“Barney McCormack and I came to a verbal understanding today. He can fix it with the right fellows who are letting out the bids. Of course, it'll only be fair to repay Barney for his favor, but I tell you, it's real gravy for us, Bill.”

Studs left. His sister Loretta followed him out. He was conscious of her walking behind him, her heels clicking on the paving. She walked fast, flung her head proudly to one side, passed him. She kept a few yards in front of Studs. He was sorry he'd had the damn squabble with her. He was right, though, in trying to tell her but he hadn't gone about it the way he might have.

He watched her. She was a pretty kid, and decent. He felt as if always, even though they'd said little to each other, they'd had sort of a bond between them. Now that was broken, and he liked her and she was a pretty kid.

She walked in front of him as far as Fifty-eighth and Indiana Avenue. He wanted to talk to her, and tell her to forget it, but he could just see himself doing that.

She turned down Indiana. He walked on over to the corner. The contracts the old man had gotten would mean dough, but lots of work. He hated everything about the goddamn work. Sometimes he felt like taking all the damn paint he could get his hands on and dumping it in the river. But it meant dough and when the old man kicked the bucket, it would be his.

“Jesus Christ!” he said, expressing an unclean and sudden disgust.

From force of habit, he walked past the drug store on down to where the poolroom used to be. Looking at the empty, lightless place, he suddenly came to and realized that the poolroom was gone. He wished it wasn't. He went back to the corner of Fifty-eighth and Prairie.

Studs and Tommy Doyle leaned against the side of the drug store building, watching the punks. They were in old clothes and football outfits.

“Jesus, I'll bet they make a fine bunch of players,” sneered Studs, wishing that he were in football togs.

“I'll bet they'll play that touch football so they don't get their hair mussed,” said Tommy.

“If they get up against a good tough team, they'll be sweet,” said Studs.

“Hello, Studs,” said Phil who was in football regalia.

“What the hell do you play?” asked Tommy.

“I'm one of the halfbacks,” said Phil.

“Sure, he's the All-American-Half-Ass,” said Studs. Phil turned to say something to one of his teammates, acting as if he hadn't heard Studs' crack.

“OOPH!” Studs exclaimed, seeing Dapper Dan O'Doul in a football outfit.

“Jesus Christ, him too,” said Tommy.

“You know they got their suits from Gorman. He's running for judge, and they're Gorman Boosters,” said Studs.

“Well, he sure ought to make them lose the election,” said Tommy.

“Here comes that kike pest,” said Studs.

“Got a nickel or a butt, Studs?” Tommy mimicked.

“You got Father Abraham there down to a ‛t' that time,” said Studs.

“Hello, boys,” Davey Cohen said with ineffectual cheerfulness.

“Got a cigarette, Tommy?” said Studs. Tommy held out a pack and winked.

“Say, got another there, Tommy?” Davey asked.

Studs winked back. Davey took a cigarette.

“Boys, I saw Helen Shires,” said Davey.

“How is she?” asked Tommy.

“Is she married?” asked Studs.

“I heard she's a Lesbian,” said Davey, laughing sardonically.

“What the hell's that?” Studs asked.

“She's like a fairy only in love with women. I don't know if that's true, but that's what I heard,” said Davey.

“Oh!” said Studs.

He remembered that show he'd seen at Burnham. He was disgusted. His disgust turned to a fierce but silent hatred of Davey. All his old liking and respect for Helen from the old days returned. It couldn't be true. It wasn't.

“Tell us the dope about her,” said Studs.

“Well, I just heard it, that's all, that she was living with another girl, and that, well, a guy I know who knows her girl chum, he says he was up to their apartment, and that he saw plenty.”

Davey bummed a cigarette off Studs and told Lesbian stories that he'd heard on the road. He was happy. And he hadn't been happy much since he'd returned. He had that cough. And the guys weren't the same. They didn't accept him as one of the boys. He knew it, and needn't kid himself. He was a little sick Jew now, a sick tormented Jew. He could see the way they looked at him, talked. And he was down, broke and sick. They weren't sick, and even the ones who hadn't any dough were able to raise more than he ever could. All he had was what he bummed. His kid brother had a good job, and once in a while gave him a half buck, but not often. Now, he was telling them stories that interested them, and he felt like it was the same as the old times when he was one of the boys, in with them, a battler who could go with the best of them; and goddamn it, he had been able to go with the best of them—once.

“That's queer, all right,” said Studs.

“It ain't natural. They ought to take and shoot girls like that, they ain't natural, and they're a disgrace to the human race,” Red Kelly said.

“I'll bet she must be awfully unhappy if that's true,” Les said naively.

“That thing is against the natural law,” said Red with unshakable self-conviction.

“Well, of course, I feel they can't help it. I think maybe they're born that way, or they are made that way because of something that happens in their life,” Davey said, apologetically.

“B. S.,” Red said.

“I suppose you'd like to kiss a girl like that,” Tommy sneered.

“That's worse than having a nigger. Think of it, a girl comes from a self-respecting family, with a decent old man and old lady. She had a decent home, a chance for an education, an opportunity to meet decent fellows, and to become a fine, decent girl. And what does she do, but become worse than the hustler of a nigger pimp? And you try to say she can't help it! Why girls like that ought to be made to live with pigs,” Red proclaimed.

“I wonder if much of that stuff goes on?” said Studs.

“Plenty, if you ask me. Only I said I just heard that,” said Davey.

“She was always a tomboy as a kid,” said Red.

“Yes, it wasn't natural for a girl to be like a boy,” said Tommy.

“She was a swell pal as a kid,” Studs said, nostalgically.

“Say what you want to, but the finest and most decent girls are Irish Catholic girls,” said Red.

“No jane is decent if she meets the right guy,” said Slug.

“Well, I don't know that I agree with you there, Slug,” said Red.

“Say, it ain't a matter of what you call decency. It's all a matter of the right guy coming along at the right time,” said Slug.

“No, sir, you get a good Catholic girl, who has a decent home, the right kind of parents, and fear of God in her, like Studs' sisters, and they're decent, they're fine, they're amongst the finest things you can find in life,” said Red.

Studs felt proud of his sisters.

“And when girls don't, there's only two things to do. The old man to give her his razor strap, and the old man or brother or somebody to give the clouts to the guys that try and fool around with her,” said Red.

“Well, boys, let's go to a show,” said Studs.

“All right.”

They walked off. Davey trailed after them, and asked if anyone had enough to lend him to come along. They didn't answer him.

“Studs, I can pay you back tomorrow,” said Davey, half pleading.

“Sorry, Dave, all I got is enough for the show and coffee an' afterwards,” Studs said.

Davey watched them straggle down towards Garfield Boulevard. He was sorry that he had returned. He had no pain in his chest, but he felt that he had. Only a poor sick Jew. He thought of Heine, whose poem he'd read in the Jamestown library.