Studs Lonigan (77 page)

“Hell, she can find some guy to look after her, and if she can't, that is just tough.”

“But. . . .”

“Listen, Irene. You know you want to come, and you're just playing around before you say yes. I don't like that stuff.”

“You're a frank fellow, I see,” she said.

“Come on,” he said, grabbing her arm. They walked down the stairs to the cloak rooms.

The party was held in a suite of three rooms at a disreputable hotel on Grand Boulevard in the black belt.

“Here, Pat, have a drink of my stuff,” Red Kelly said to Carrigan, as they stood in a corner of the crowded room.

After drinking, Pat Carrigan coughed and grimaced. He smiled that broad, happy, good-natured, chubby-faced smile of his.

“Ah, good stuff,” he said, rubbing his belly.

“Damn tootin'.”

“Where'd you get it?”

“Never mind. It's good stuff.”

A jazz record was put on the portable victrola.

“Here now, Red. Have some of mine,” young Carrigan said.

“Don't care if I do.”

Pat handed Red the bottle, and Red took a big drink. Pat tried to take as big a drink, but couldn't. He put the bottle aside, coughing and sneezing.

“You'll learn how to take it in time,” Red said.

“Say, I had too much already. Jesus, I'm drunk as a loon. I'm drunk, Kelly. Drunk,” Carrigan said.

“Sure, I know how it is.”

“But why shouldn't I be drunk? Ain't it New Year's Eve,” argued Carrigan.

“Don't crap me now.”

“Hey, Leach, commere.”

“What the hell you want, you drunken Irishman?” Shorty Leach sourly asked.

“What day is it?”

“What's this, a joke?”

“I'm trying to tell Kelly here what day it is, and he won't believe that it's New Year's Eve.”

“Jesus, that's tough tiddy. Give me a drink,” said Shorty.

“Sure. Happy New Year,” said Carrigan, handing him the bottle.

“Don't say that I'm not a lady, you bastard,” the exotic dark girl said.

“But say, kid. The ladies do it, and so do the birds. Don't you know that song, I love the birds, and the bees, and the trees, because they all do it too,” Wils Gillen said.

“Well, don't say that I ain't a lady,” she said.

“You know what I think you are?” said Wils.

“What?” she muttered, slobbering over the small glass of gin she had in her hand.

“I think you're a man.”

“Look at me, then!” she said, laughing raucously.

“I'm from Missouri, kid. Show me!”

“Goddamn you, I will!” she said.

She ripped off her clothes.

“Now, you sonofabitch, do you believe me?” she shouted.

“Yeah, I guess you are.”

“Now, you goddamn dirty skunk, show me that you're a man.”

“I always aim to please.”

“Come on over here, and show me. I had plenty, and I'm particular. Particular, I said. You got to prove it to me,” she said, looking him over with a sneer.

“You got the right telephone number this time, girlie.”

“Hey, Swede, don't. Lay off that bitch. She's got a dose.”

“Listen, you ain't a man till you got it,” Swede said.

“Well, don't say I didn't warn you.”

Swede took the pig into one of the bedrooms.

“Say, Dan,” said Vinc Curley.

“Yeah,” said O'Doul, as he stood in a corner, sheiked out, and unrumpled.

“Want to go to the Tivoli tomorrow afternoon?”

“For Christ sake, hop in the bowl.”

Dapper Dan turned his back. Vinc looked puzzled.

“Say, kiddo, listen! Give Doyle here a break!” Slug commanded.

“You know. I can't,” Slug's blond jane protested.

“It ain't nothin'.”

“I don't mind you, dearie, when I'm this way because I love you, but nobody else. That goes!”

“Come on, kid. I won't hurt you,” Tommy Doyle said, his drunken face full of lust.

“No!”

“Go ahead, and do it, or it's the gate!” Slug said, shoving her.

She looked at him with eyes of meek protest.

“Hear me!” snapped Slug.

She went into a bedroom with Tommy.

“I'll tell you why I'm drunk,” Shorty Leach said, letting the tears stream down his cheek.

“Sing 'em! Sing 'em!” Joe Moonan said.

“You didn't know my girl, Pearl. Well, I love Pearl. I love her.”

Joe vanished. Shorty buttonholed Les, who looked thin and pale.

“Here, kid, have a drink and brace up,” said Les.

Shorty took the bottle and drank.

“I love Pearl. And she's out with Jack Morgan tonight. Now Morgan stole my girl. He's a nice guy, and I always liked him, but he's out with Pearl, and I'm crazy about her.”

“Sing 'em, kid!”

“Have you ever been in love? Well, I have. You know I was out riding with Pearl. And she took and held my head in her hands and she looked into my eyes, and she said: ‘There's something about you that makes me crazy.' That's what she said. And I tell you, if you've never been in love, you don't know how I felt. And then I looked out at the moon, and she did, and Jesus, I've never had a feeling like that before. And I thought she was straight, and now she went out with Morgan.”

“Here, kid, have a drink, and brace up. The first hundred years is the hardest.”

Shorty drank.

“But I tell you I wouldn't be drunk if I was with Pearl because I love and respect her too much. I love that girl,” sobbed Shorty, putting his head on Les' shoulder.

“Whoops!” yelled Studs, standing in the doorway.

They wished him Happy New Year. Slug handed him a bottle, and said bottoms up. Studs drank. The New Year bells rang. Everybody drank, and shouted, and a naked girl rushed from one of the bedrooms to kiss everyone. They had to hold Vinc while she kissed him.

“Whooopsi It's 1929!” yelled Studs, raising an empty gin bottle with an unsteady arm.

“Where you going, Joe?” asked Red.

“I can't telephone here with this noise, and I want to call my mother. I do every New Year's.”

“Wish her a Happy New Year for me,” said Red.

Moonan went out.

Vinc heard a moan. Then, he heard a girl sobbing. He rushed through the opened door of a bedroom, and turned on the light. He saw Benny Taite and a girl.

“Is there anything wrong?” he said, breathless and embarrassed.

“For Christ sake, who let you in, monkey face?” the girl asked.

“You goddamn idiot!” said Taite.

Taite went at Vinc. He socked Vine. Vinc lost his temper and rushed Taite like a bull, socked him, knocked him down, and stood over him, yelling:

“Come on! Come on!”

A crowd gathered. Some of them laughed. Red dragged Vinc off, and told him to get the hell out of the place.

“But he hit me!” said Vinc.

“I told you to blow!”

“He hit me. And I paid my money. I won't.”

“Will you shut up, you bastard?”

“Gimme my money back, or I'll call the police,” whined Vinc.

“Let me handle the mutt,” said Slug.

“Listen, seal your trap and there's the door,” Slug said.

“I'm gonna tell my mother!” he said, surlily from the door.

Taite sat in a corner nursing a shiner.

Mickey Flannagan slept in the corner with a stupid expression on his face. He snored. Barney Keefe folded his hands, and placed a soggy Merry Widow in them.

“Daddy, you're a man. What a man! Daddy!” the exotic dark girl said to Wils Gillen.

“As Napoleon said, don't give up the ship,” Wils said.

The blond girl rushed from a bedroom yelling that she'd been raped. She opened a window, screamed that she'd been raped, and threatened to jump.

Red pulled her back. She stood looking about the shocked group, her face distorted and insane. Tommy appeared, asking what the hell was eating her.

“He! He! He!” she shouted, missing Tommy's head with a gin bottle; it ricocheted off the wall, and hit Mickey in the bean. He continued to sleep.

Slug walked over to the girl amidst a tense silence. He slapped her face. She cowered.

“One more bat out of you and you won't have to jump!”

Shorty Leach sat fully clothed in a bathtub of water, droning:

 

“I shouldn't be drinking. I'm sick. I just came out of the hospital, and the doc he says to me, ‘Les, cut it out, or you'll be picking daisies!' ”

“Shut up, fool!” Barney mocked.

“But I don't care. There ain't nothin' in life for me. I'm just a goddamn expressman for the Express Company. I ain't got no future.”

Tears rolled down his thin, red face; he drank.

“Listen, heel, what's the idea of holding out?” said Keefe.

“Here, pal!”

“Barney, I had a vocation to be a priest. I should be a priest. And look at me! Look at me! Look at me!” Les said, while Barney guzzled.

“I am looking!”

“Ain't I a wreck?”

“Sure, you're the Wreck of the Hesperus.”

“Barney, I might be dead next New Year's. The doc said so. He said: ‘Kid, lay off the liquor.' But why should I? I'm nothin'. A goddamn teameo for John Continental. Here, gimme a drink,” he said, snatching back his bottle and drinking.

Les sneered, looking at a lamp.

“That goddamn thing, I don't like it!” he said.

He kicked it over.

Barney pulled out a little bottle and raised it aloft, saying:

“To myself; good men are scarce.”

There was a sharp rap on the door and a command to open up. Two burly, monkey-faced cops entered.

“What the hell do you call this?” one said.

The other drew a gat. A girl fainted.

“Call the wagon,” said the cop, holding the gat on them.

“Who's running this party?” asked the other cop.

“We all are,” said Carrigan.

“All who? Speak up, you birds!”

“What the hell, Officer. It's New Year's. We're just havin' a little party,” Slug said.

“Yeah, so I see,” said the cop ironically.

“Pipe down, you!” said the cop with the drawn gun.

“Me?”

“Yeah, you!”

“Say, what's the idea?” Slug asked.

“Stand back, or I'll shoot.”

“Drop that gun, and talk!” Slug commanded.

“Just a minute, Officer,” Joe Moonan said, appearing, and flashing his star. Red followed, showing his bailiff's star.

He and Red talked to the officers, and Red told them his old man had been a sergeant.

“Sure, this is just a party. You know, all the boys having a good time,” Joe said.

“Well, we got a complaint, and we had to come.”

“Want a drink, Officer?” Red asked.

“Sure.”

Red gave them a couple of drinks.

“And say, listen, you know Moonan, kind of ask the lads to pipe down on the noise. We don't like to be gettin' calls like this.”

“Sure.”

“Here, take this along,” Red said, handing one of them a bottle of gin.

“Say, Slug, that goddamn broad in there has made a wreck out of me. Jesus, I'm a wreck. Christ sake, please help me out,” Wils said.

“Sure thing, kid,” said Slug disappearing.

“I just wanna lay down and die,” Wils said, dropping on the floor.

“Come on, let's play football,” said Nate Klein, squatting.

Red yelled to cut it out.

“Sixteen, nineteen, twenty-four, Fifty-eighth Street. Cardinals hike!” he yelled, springing against the wall.

Red and Weary grabbed him from behind, and told him to cut it out. He struggled free, squatted, flung himself at the wall again. He bounced back, moaning, holding his hand. Red took him into the bathroom to soak it in hot water.

“Come on, it won't hurt you,” Weary coaxed.

“I better go,” she said.

“Irene, come on. Don't pull that stuff,” he said sharply.

“No. I've never drank. I'm not that kind of a girl.”

“Listen! Don't kid me!”

“Please, I'm afraid of you,” she said, drawing back.

He took her in a corner, kissed her, pushed her head back, and poured the gin down her throat. She coughed.

“Please, take me home!”

“Come on, we'll dance.”

He dragged her, half-willing, to the victrola. He put on a record and yelled for them to pipe down. They danced, and Weary shimmied. She stood in the center of the floor, an abandoned look on her face, her abdomen pressed forwards, her arms loose, her head flung backwards, shimmying.