Studs Lonigan (82 page)

“Plenty of seats inside. No waiting.
Follies of 1931
with all-star movie cast. No waiting, folks.”

Studs stopped to look at the six-foot, red-headed doorman of the Greater Artists Theater, who wore a long, purple, gold-braided coat and bluish-gray trousers with a wide purple stripe running down their sides. He saw a baby-faced girl, giving the fellow a come-on glance, and he thought that the lad was the kind to knock a girl's heart six ways from Sunday, even if he had a flunkey's job and was all dressed up in a monkey suit. He felt small, all right, looking at the fellow. And as he walked by him, he looked at the slender silken legs of a passing girl. He almost collided with a tall and haughty blonde, and, mumbling an apology, he noticed that she had a long, grayish coat which made her look like the works. He turned to watch her disappear with her fellow, and to note the way she wriggled from behind. What did fellows have to do to make keen and classy broads like that one go nuts over them? Some guys did, too, and such broads would eat dirt for them. He had never had one gone like that on him, though, and he wished that he had. Catherine, he kind of felt that she would go nuts over him if he gave her the chance, only she wasn't the type, and he felt kind of sorry for her. She just lacked the kind of class that such girls had.

He stared quickly from face to face as he walked, liking the sight of so many people, of so many girls. He realized how he had come to feel so differently just by turning off of Dearborn and coming onto Randolph, where there were lights and people, and where there were so many girls to look at, many of them walking as if they were movie actresses, hot babies, as he could see by just glancing at them as they passed by. On Dearborn, he had felt out of the picture and all alone, and now he didn't. And there was something, mmm! He looked after the girl, a cold but desirable blonde. He recalled Slug Mason's philosophy, that all broads could be made by the right fellow, but that the right fellow always treated them rough. He spotted a pock-faced girl, very stout, who hung on the arm of a thin, weasel-faced lad, and he figured that maybe Catherine was not so bad. She was a little bit plump, but so had Lucy been, so were lots of girls, and she had some stuff, and had a nice handful to her. Sometimes when she was dressed up, she looked plenty worth the getting. Gazing around, seeing so many couples, he was anxious to meet her, to walk back this street with her, and be in this same picture so that other fellows could see him, see him as part of this picture of fellows going out with their girls.

He walked the last block between Wabash and Michigan impatiently, but again the doubt about proposing came to his mind. He determined that he would pop it. He decided that he would wait a little longer, get the lay of the land better, and then if he was absolutely sure that she would say yes, buy the ring, and have it to slip on her finger then and there. And if he did pop it, would he or wouldn't he be putting his foot in for something that he wasn't bargaining for? Often when he was with her, he didn't have anything to talk about, and he had a queer tense feeling. It made him uncertain whether or not he was a sucker, wasting his time taking her around. And then, with business rotten for the old man, even though he had dough saved in the bank, mightn't he wait until the hard times were over and he was more sure of being able to support her? Christ sake, he didn't know what the hell to do, and there she was standing on the steps of the public library, and now she saw him and was smiling, and he was goddamn glad to see her.

Returning Catherine's pleasing white-toothed smile, Studs realized, as if it were a discovery, that she wasn't hard to look at. She was short and fleshy, but not so fat. Not seeing her these last few days, he had gotten to thinking that she was fatter than she really was. She had thin lips, a stubby nose, black eyes, a round, full-cheeked face, and she was wearing a new black coat with fur-trimmed collar and cuffs. He knew that he was damn glad to see her, and he was sure, from the way she had pursed her lips up at him and her smile, that she was glad to be seeing him.

“Well, stranger, how are you after your long trip?”

“Pretty good.”

“You must be tired after the train ride.”

“Not so tired,” he said lightly, adding, “What have you been doing while I was away?”

“Same as usual. And oh, yes, I've gone on a milk diet. I'm going to lose ten pounds,” she said, causing Studs to think, pleased, that she could shed that weight without hurting her figure a lot. “I started on it yesterday, and do you know, Bill, all I've had was orange juice yesterday, milk for lunch, and milk and two pieces of dry toast for supper. . . .”

Studs' mind drifted, as it so often did when she began to talk like this. He thought, with pride and growing self-confidence, that he had a girl of his own, and he was taking her out, just as so many other fellows were out on dates with their girls. There had been many nights back in the old days when he'd wanted a girl, and didn't have one. The punks would come into the poolroom, all togged out in their drug-store cowboy uniforms, talking and bragging about their broads and their dates. Listening to them, he'd feel superior, crack wise. And now he knew that behind his sneers he had wanted the same thing, that many of them had had, a steady girl. He wouldn't have admitted it to the bunch, or hardly, even, to himself. But still it was so. And now he had the girl, Catherine, beside him, and he was getting to feel pretty sure that she was the right one for him.

“This morning, mother said to me, ‘You won't persevere on that diet of yours. You'll do just as you did all the other times that you went on it. I know you, my girl. I know how you have a sweet tooth, and you like to eat too much.' And I said, ‘Mother, oh, won't I! Won't I!' And she laughed at me. But I just smiled back at her, because I knew that this time I was going to carry it through, and I said, ‘Mother, you better do all your laughing now, because when I finish this diet and lose ten pounds, it's going to be my turn to laugh back, and will I laugh!' And when it is over, I'm going to take her out and make her watch while I stand on the scales. And then, will I laugh!”

He was beginning to feel much the same as he had sometimes felt with Lucy Scanlan. He took Catherine's arm, and he almost imagined that times had not changed, and that those fifteen years or so since he had been Lucy's fellow had not gone by, and Lucy Scanlan and Catherine, they were one and the same girl, and he was the same old Studs Lonigan, only knowing more what he wanted than in those days when he had only been a dumb punk. And he had as much ahead of him to hope for now as he had then, because now he knew more, and was a man, and he had done with his days of fooling around and ruining himself sowing wild oats.

He wished they could meet Lucy now. Last he had heard of her, she was married to an accountant, and they were not getting along so well. They had three kids, and Lucy was fat, getting fat as a pig. Just to think of her now so badly off, and to look at this girl, Catherine, who was younger and prettier and not washed out, that was revenge on her for the way she had hurt him and made a fool out of him. Now she was paid back, and if she could only see him this minute so that she would know it, and it would cut deeply into her, as it had into him, and she would see that she had made a mistake, and get to thinking that maybe she would be a hell of a lot better off if she hadn't given him the run-around.

And still he would always love Lucy who had sat with him in a tree in Washington Park, kissing him, shy, swinging her legs, talking about little things that meant more than the mere meaning of the words, swinging her legs with her blue-wash-bloomers showing a little, a girl at the stage when she is starting to get breasts and a figure, and she is gay and laughs, and has imps in her eyes, swinging her legs, singing,
In The Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.

All the street and Catherine and all the scene about him had a meaning that it had never had before, a meaning just the same as Lucy in Washington Park had had a meaning, and the meanings were the same. He felt . . . like a lot of songs like
My Wild Irish Rose
, and
In The Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia,
and
Valencia
and
Rose of Picardy
and
Chérie
and music and a lot of songs.

“When I came home tonight, I said to mother, ‘See, you thought that I had no will power? For lunch, I only drank a glass of milk. Now what do you think of that?' And she smiled as if she had to force herself to believe me, and she said that she was surprised that I was able to go this far. She doesn't think I can keep it up much longer. And dad at the supper table, he just laughed at me and tried to tease me. Dad, he's such a sweet old darling, but he is a great teaser, and ever since I can remember he has always teased me. But I resisted his effort to tempt me, and I only had a half a bowl of tomato soup with a few bread crumbs in it, and a glass of milk.”

Studs shook his head.

“Well, aren't you going to say anything?” she said, staring at him.

“Why, yes . . . That's swell.”

“My, my, what enthusiasm,” she laughed.

“I meant . . .” he said, trying to be convincing.

She freed herself from his grasp, and moved to a shop window. Tagging after her, Studs thought that, gee, they had taken a long time to walk a block.

“Look at that dress. It has a high waist line, and high waist lines are coming in and oh, dear, I'm much too short for them. Isn't that awful now? Men never have such troubles over their clothes as girls do. And that's such a pretty dress. Oh, it makes me almost sick. And you can see that they are all going to be longer too. Look, Bill, at that gorgeous black crepe. It's only twelve dollars. Clothes are dirt cheap now.”

She pointed, Studs mumbled agreement, a sound which seemed to remain stuck in his throat and to be cast out only as a reverberation of breath that failed to become a word.

Just how was he going to pop the question? Because, he knew now, without any doubt at all, that Catherine was the right girl. And he could see the two of them, after they were married, walking along Seventy-first Street on a hot summer evening, old friends of his seeing Catherine on his arm, Studs Lonigan's woman.

The traffic lights delayed them at Wabash Avenue. Studs, with a feeling of manly responsibility, firmly clasped her elbow.

“But, Bill, you haven't told me a word about your trip or the funeral?” she said as they again stepped onto the sidewalk.

“Oh, it was all right,” he said laconically.

“All right! I wouldn't say that that's a good way to describe a funeral,” she smiled.

“It was a good funeral,” he said, embarrassed.

“Were many people there?”

“Well, there wasn't too many, and still it was not so awfully small, either. And, you know, I felt sorry about poor Shrimp.”

“I didn't know him, did I?”

“No, he used to live around Fifty-eighth Street,” Studs said.

“From what I've heard of Fifty-eighth Street, I would say it must have been some neighborhood,” she remarked.

“It was,” Studs said proudly.

“I wouldn't need to be told that, not after the way I have heard you and Red Kelly rave about it. And say, isn't his wife rather sweet?”

Studs wanted to tell Catherine that Red's wife was not as sweet nor as pretty as she was, but the words choked up on him, and Catherine continued, “And Red, he just thinks the world of her, doesn't he? He thinks there's not another girl that can even be compared with her. Of course, though,” her voice seemed to become wistful, and Studs wondered if she was fishing for him to say something, “that is the only way he should feel about her, since he married her, because marriage is a serious business, and people, when they start thinking of getting married, have to feel that way about each other.” She looked up at him, and he wondered was she hinting and giving him his chance. He noticed that she suddenly turned her eyes aside to stare at a passing girl who wore a long black coat. And hadn't she pronounced the word marriage a little queerly?

“Well, she's his wife,” he said.

Lacking words, still not sure just what she meant and whether she meant anything more than her words, he looked at her, and she still glanced away. He held his eyes on her, hoping that she would turn and see in his eyes all the things that he did not seem able to put into words. And she looked back, and for a quick moment their eyes met, and she seemed to understand him, and she smiled, very sweetly, he thought. For about five more steps they looked at each other that way, her eyes seeming to be misty, and they seemed to want him to understand things, tell him things, they seemed to tell him that he might go ahead and dare to speak. They walked on, looking ahead, and crossing State Street she took his arm and nudged him.

“Well, for once we have the lights with us,” she said.

“Let's get some candy,” he said, out of sudden impulse to talk, and nodding his head to a chain candy-store window piled with tempting chocolates.

“Now don't tempt me. I'm dieting.”

“That's right, and you've sworn off candy for Lent, haven't you?”

“And mister, do you realize that this is going to be my first show in Lent, and the only reason I'm breaking my resolution on shows is because when you telephoned me, you seemed so anxious to see one!”

If a girl like Catherine didn't like a fellow, she wouldn't break a Lenten resolution to be with him, he prided himself.

“Of course, we could do something else, if you really don't want to go,” he casually said, feeling that he should say something like that.

“Booby, of course I want to go. You men!” she said, treating him with an air of gratifying condescension. “And anyway, I'm doing other things, not eating sweets, I go to mass every morning, to services at church three nights a week, and I'm receiving Holy Communion every Sunday during Lent, so that a little celebration for your return won't hurt a lot . . . Will it?”