Studs Lonigan (79 page)

His mind drifting from their talk, he thought of how this trip to Terre Haute had broken up the monotony of living in one place all the time. The world was full of places and things he had never seen and would probably never see. If only, when he'd been younger, he'd bummed around and seen something of the world, gone through many towns and cities, and even villages, like the one they had just passed, seeing the stores and movie shows, and houses, listening to the people talk, meeting the girls. He might have made girls all over the country, and like a sailor leaving a girl in every port, he could have left a sweet little lay behind him in every town of the good old U. S. A. And one of them might have been prettier and keener than Catherine, and he might have liked her more than he did Catherine. She might have been an heiress for whom he would have cared more than he had once cared for Lucy. And if he had, the fellows would often say to each other, I see where Studs Lonigan copped off a bim whose old man is lousy with dough and is he up in the world now!

The train shot up an embankment and rattled along parallel to a cement road. Below, he saw a large and shiny automobile, probably a Cadillac, racing even with the smoking car, shooting ahead, slowing down and falling back at a right turn to a road that cut through the dreary fields, regaining its lost speed, darting forward until he could see only the back bumper and rear end. They whisked past a deserted and probably unused station platform, and he looked vacantly out at fields that were being covered with the lengthening shadows. It was funny that he should be riding home now from the funeral of Shrimp Haggerty, and so many things should have been changed from what they used to be, and from what he had expected them to become. But since his kid days, there had been many years, all piled on top of one another, and now, each year, each month, each week, each day, every hour, every minute and every second even, carried him further and further away from them, just as if he was on a moving express train which was shooting him forever away from some place where he very much wanted to be, and all the while carrying him nearer and nearer . . . to his own death. He was going on thirty now, almost a third of a century. If he was going to die when he reached sixty, it meant that half of his life was already gone. If he would be called before sixty, it meant more than half of it was already spent.

Outside, he watched the fields, bare, wet, slipping into the gathering darkness as if they were dropping off into emptiness. Night growing over them was like a coat of gloom being buttoned on, and it was like a coat of even heavier gloom being spread over, buttoned tightly down on, his own thoughts. And the sky seemed to be heavier, to be pressing down close to the earth as if from the force of tremendous tons of lead. Stan was right. Seeing Shrimp Haggerty so wasted, like a bag of old bones, would make anybody feel a little snaky.

The dim light of a solitary farm house whisked before him, and again he heard the long, piercing engine whistle. Winter had never seemed so dreary to him as it did now, not even on some of those sunless days, when, as a kid, he had walked alone through Washington Park with the ground hard and chunky, the snow dirty and crusty, the trees and bushes stark and bare. From the train, the land here looked harder, the patches of snow dirtier, an ugly sight. He wondered how the people in these parts, cut off from the rest of the world, could stand looking at the earth on such days as this one, hearing nothing but silence or the wind, except for the passing trains and automobiles. He thought of how his father and mother would so often sit home in the evening, and not have a word to say, and asked himself how the farmers and their wives ever had anything to say to each other. Living like they did out here, their minds must, he felt, always be on such things as death.

He chuckled to himself thinking how glad he was that he lived in a big city like Chicago.

“What's on your mind, Studs?” Joe Thomas, riding backwards across the aisle, called over.

“Nothing much. I was just looking out at this Godforsaken country and wondering how the hick farmers around here can even manage to stay awake,” Studs replied, an apologetic strain in his voice.

Joe's thin and sharply-featured face broke into a buck-toothed smile which annoyed Studs. But when he closed his mouth again, Joe seemed like a guy who had been kicked all over the lot and was, in everything he did, excusing himself for being alive. Poor bastard! Studs recalled how sore he had once gotten because Joe had cleaned him in a game of straight pool, and he was sorry now for that forgotten feeling of a long time ago.

“Taking in the scenery, huh, Studs?” Stan Simonsky said listlessly.

“I hope you don't call that dreary stuff outside scenery. Now, if you want to talk about some real scenery, take Niagara Falls, where I went on my honeymoon. The way the water pitches down over the cliff! And you know, the spray comes up over a hundred feet where you stand by the railing, and you think it's raining. Buckingham Fountain they got down in Grant Park looks like a piker alongside of it. That's scenery and the glories of nature, and not these hoosier mole hills they got around here,” Muggsy said with mounting enthusiasm.

“McCarthy, you'd go over big on a rubber-neck bus,” Stan said.

“Monk McCarthy is a poet and he don't know it,” Studs said.

“Studs may be kidding you, boys, but not me. He's been mooning over that jane of his,” Red said.

“I was just looking out the window,” Studs said, flushing guiltily.

“Well, fellows, say what you will, here's something that's got cards and spades on the joys of nature, and the joys of love also,” red-faced Les exclaimed, looking at Joe Thomas opposite him, and fishing out a partially filled bottle of moonshine.

“All right, tank, give us a break,” Red said as Les drank.

Smacking his lips, Les handed the bottle to Joe.

“With mud in your eye, Irish!” Joe said, drinking.

Joe passed the bottle over to Red, and wiped his lips with a shiny blue coat sleeve. Watching Red drink, Muggsy exaggerated his impatience. Studs lit a cigarette while the bottle moved to McCarthy.

“Still smoking a lot, huh, Studs?” Red said, as if delivering a mild reprimand.

“I've cut down a lot,” Studs said, Muggsy distracting his attention by taking a drink as if he were putting on a vaudeville act.

Muggsy handed the bottle to Studs.

“I'm on the wagon these days,” Studs said with a note of piety in his voice.

“Not a lot here,” Stan said, eyeing the bottle he had taken from McCarthy.

“Kill it, Stan. That's always an act of merit,” Les said.

While Stan drained the bottle, Kelly glanced self-assuredly at Studs.

“Studs, you know, ever since you got that attack of pneumonia after our New Year's Eve reunion, you haven't looked like your old self. I'm saying this as a friend and warning you that you better watch yourself, and watch the smoking, too. A number of our pals have passed away in their prime because they didn't take care of themselves. Shrimp and his brother Paulie, and Tommy Doyle. Tommy Doyle was as healthy as any one of us here, and he just ruined his heart carousing. I think it ought to be a lesson to us.”

“I do watch myself, Red,” Studs replied defensively.

He guessed that Red was showing off and if he didn't watch himself with the way his head was swelling up, it would break open. His face, too, was all puffed out like a balloon, his alderman stuck way out in front of him and he didn't look at all like the old Red. He was getting to look and act like a politician, all right. But he was getting along. The camel's hair coat he had folded over the seat hadn't been picked up at no fire sale.

He noticed Stan, medium-sized, chubby, dark, his face no longer pimply as it used to be. His clothes were old, the coat sleeves frayed, and Studs knew that he had come to the funeral at Red's expense. Poor bastard, he looked down in the mouth and he sure hadn't gotten the breaks. Married. No job. His baby born a cripple. It was funny the way some of the old boys had died, while others like Red had gotten on, and Stan had run into stiff luck. And here he was, not so much to write home about. He puffed at his cigarette, enjoying the memory of how as a kid he had once cleaned up Red in a fight over in the Carter school playground.

“Gee, fellows, I sure was sorry to see our old buddy Shrimp Haggerty go like he did. He must have suffered, too, sick for well over a year with the con,” Muggsy said, nodding a saddened head.

“Poor Shrimp. He drunk himself under the sod. He was an alcohol fiend,” Les said.

“Well, Les, nobody can accuse you of not having done your damnedest to pull off the same stunt. You drunk enough in your time to put yourself picking daisies alongside of your cousin, Tommy Doyle. And that time you went to the sanitarium, we all thought you had sure gotten yourself the works. And here you are, as hale as ever, and still doing your share to keep Al Capone in business,” Joe Thomas said, causing Les to beam.

“You know, boys, speaking straight from the shoulder, it does kind of get you the way so many of our old gang passed away. Arnold Sheehan, the Haggertys and Tommy, Hink Weber who killed himself in the nut house, Slug Mason beating the Federal Government Prohibition rap by dying of pneumonia, all our old pals. Lord have mercy on their souls. Here today and gone tomorrow, nobody ever spoke truer words,” Red said.

“Tommy Doyle always used to say that when he went to a wake, little thinking that soon others would be saying it at his wake. Poor Tommy,” Les said, while Kelly sucked contentedly on a fat cigar.

“And the only one of the old gang who got his just deserts was that bastard Weary Reilley. When he got that re-trial he should have been re-sentenced for life, instead of ten years. That poor girl he raped at our New Year's Eve party is paralyzed for life. Reilley was one first hand skunk,” Red said vindictively.

“And you know at that party, he was a bastard, socking me when I was so plastered that I couldn't stand up. He knew I licked him when we were kids, and he wouldn't have had the guts to sock me if I was sober,” Studs said.

“That's right, he broke your nose, didn't he, Studs?” Red said innocently.

“Yeah. And it was the rottenest trick he ever pulled, getting me when I was maggoty drunk,” Studs protested.

“And Reilley came from such a decent family. He just about ruined them, too, I hear, with the expenses of his two trials,” McCarthy said.

“The family wasn't so nice in court during the first trial. His old lady cursed the poor paralyzed girl and spit in her face, and the sister, Fran, was so keen and such a teaser, she called her a whore,” Red said.

“Weary was a tough bastard, knocking the bailiff down in court after being sentenced on his last trial,” Stan said.

“I licked him when we were kids,” Studs growled.

“Well, I never was afraid of him and even to this day I'd like to tangle with the skunk,” Red said.

“You know, it was rotten of him, waiting for me until I was so cockeyed I couldn't see straight, and then swinging on me,” Studs said.

Noticing McCarthy from the corner of his eye, Studs could see that it wasn't the same old Muggsy. Fat in the face, looking well-fed, wearing decent clothes, but still as hunched as ever. And he was the guy they all had expected to be first to kick the bucket. Life was funny, all right.

“Say, Muggsy, how's your health these days?” he asked.

“Never felt better in my life, Studs.”

“I'm getting to feel better right along, too,” Studs said.

He yawned. The jarring of the car seemed to get on his nerves, and he felt cramped. He arose and squeezed by McCarthy.

“Don't fall in, Studs,” Joe said.

Studs shoved back his shoulders and tried to walk down the smoking-car aisle like a big shot. He swayed a trifle, and noticed a beefy man with bulging neck and jowls, his puffed face stupid in sleep. Red Kelly would be looking something like that in fifteen years, he thought, smiling. In the next seat two tough-looking but pretty girls sat, and one of them spoke in a loud voice.

“And I sez to him, say, chump . . .”

They did not return his hopeful glance, and he tried to think of an especially witty crack to make on his way back. His glance caught two men, one with a shiny face and stuffed appearance, who was earnestly speaking to the other, a gaunt and thin fellow.

“It is the duty of sales specialists like you and me, Joe, to sell confidence . . .”

Might be something in the idea. Moving on, he wondered if the people in the car noticed him, asking themselves who he was and what he was, and wondering if he might be more than they were. Toward the rear of the car he spied two middle-aged people, evidently a man and his wife, who faced each other blank and bored. Waiting for the undertaker, he thought to himself. In back of the woman, who was riding forward, there was a well-dressed young fellow, with a much better build and healthier appearance than Studs, who puffed on a briar pipe and read a thick, black-covered book. Studs sneered, thinking that this fellow was maybe like the guys who used to jaw at the Washington Park Bug Club, saving the world when they had to eat from the pickings of garbage cans, nuts who went crazy from reading too many books, the same as Danny O'Neill had become by going to the University of Chicago, and losing his religion. Guys like that, as Red always said, thought they were too good for the human race.

He entered a cubby-holed door marked MEN. In the lavatory mirror he saw the image of his pale and pasty face with hollow cheeks. He shook his head from side to side, thinking of how the New Year's Eve party in 1929 had been the ruin of him. Weary Reilley pasting him when he was drunk, and then someone ditching him, letting him lay in the gutter and catch pneumonia. The guy, whoever he was, who had left him like that, in the cold and snow, he was no pal. Hell, he wouldn't have done that even to a nigger or a dog, he whined to himself. He thought of how he used to worry over getting an alderman, and now, he'd be happy if he could regain some of the twenty pounds he had lost since that party. Funny, all right, he told himself, grinning dejectedly into the mirror.