Studs Lonigan (89 page)

He remembered this one from his own days as a kid. If he had been able to go to war! He looked at his father, listening, remembering, at his mother, listening, remembering, and he was listening, and remembering, too, and he was remembering Lucy as a girl.

“I'll walk down with you, Martin. I want to get the paper,” Studs said as Martin stood in the parlor doorway with his coat and hat on.

“You won't be staying out late, boys?” his mother said, her expression one of concern.

“I'll be home early,” Martin said, checking the disgust that almost broke into his voice, while Studs put on his hat and coat.

“Boys, don't be staying out late,” she said.

“Try and get back by ten when Amos and Andy come on,” the father said.

“I'd like to get barrelled tonight,” Martin said as they stepped out of the building.

“I'm off of that stuff for a while,” Studs said seriously.

“You ought to be.”

“Well, I did drink my share of the world's bum gin in my day,” Studs said proudly.

“You're beginning to talk and act like my grandfather. Back in them there days before Abe Lincoln was shot, we sure was hot stuff, huh, kid?”

“With my heart, I can't afford to be taking risks.”

Martin extended a package of cigarettes, and both of them lit up.

“I remember that Christmas morning when you came home with a sprained ankle, smelling a few degrees worse than a sewer. Remember? Fran was so hot and bothered because you'd been sassy and threatened to poke her boy friend's teeth down his throat. Boy, the old homestead sure was no place for peace and meditation that day.”

“Yeah,” Studs smiled, “that was the night we kidnapped Vinc Curley to get his car, and told him we were taking him to church, and went out to Burnham. And the police raided the place when I had my pants down and I jumped out of a second story window to get away. . . .”

“I know the story,” Martin said, bored.

Getting too snotty for a kid brother, Studs thought, his face suddenly grim.

“You know, when I first found out about how you'd get shellacked, I thought it was pretty terrible. When I was a punk in grammar school, I thought that drinking and laying a cutey ticketed you straight for hell. But I learned a few things since.”

“And so did I. I learned you can knock hell out of yourself with too much booze.”

“Thus speaketh the veteran of a thousand gin brawls.”

“No, kid, I'm serious. A guy's got to watch his step a little. I know I had my fun, but you can't play that kind of a game forever if you want to live to tell the story.”

“You had your fun, didn't you? You're only young once, and you got a right to have a good time. What else do you get out of life? Look at the gaffer! What's he got now? Goddam near nothing. Well, I'm not going to sweat my can off working and saving just to end up like that. When the game's called on me, all right, boys, I was no sap, I had my fun, here's my hand, goodbye, and it's your turn to carry on. That's my idea.”

Looking covertly at Martin, Studs suddenly felt slated for the ashcan. And he wanted to tell Martin a few things, how he ought to tone down a little. Cocky punk, too! Well, in his day Studs Lonigan had shown them plenty. The kid would have to do plenty of travelling if he even wanted to catch up to where he could see the dust Studs Lonigan had left behind him. But that was behind him, and it was ahead of Martin. Martin didn't realize what a break he had gotten by being born later, having so much more ahead of him.

“You bet, Studs, this idea of sweating your tail off with work and carefulness is the undiluted crap. With me, a bird in the hand and a cutey in a bed is worth dozens of them in a bush you can't reach,” Martin said, while ahead of them, at Seventy-first and Jeffery, they heard warning bells from the Illinois Central, and saw the train gates lower, red lanterns dangling from them. An electric train shot across the street and the gates were raised.

“I was pretty cockeyed last Saturday night,” Martin boasted.

“Seems to me that's the same story nearly every Saturday night.”

“Umm, now and then.”

“Mostly now, instead of then, huh?” Studs said, and they laughed.

“By the time Saturday rolls around, a guy's seen all the shows he wants to see for a week, and he hangs around with the boys, feeling dumb, wanting something to happen, tired of everybody's bum jokes that he's heard before. So he figures, well, the way to make things happen is to get a bottle, and he does. So he gets snozzled and has some fun. And last Saturday, the cutey I had! Umm! I made her, too, only I was so cockeyed it wasn't no fun. But I'm figuring to fix that baby again . . .”

“Oh, hello, Austin,” Studs said.

“Why, hello Studs. And how are you, Martin?” Austin McAuliffe replied, his voice jolly.

“How things going?” Studs asked, noticing that Austin seemed much the same as ever, thin, narrow-faced, well-dressed. Austin looked like he was making the grade. But then, why should he feel ashamed, with his Imbray investment?

“I'm a lawyer now, Studs. Graduated from St. Vincent's. I went nights and passed my bar exams last summer. I'm lined up in a promising job with a good law firm, and even if I do say so, things look pretty rosy.”

“Married, Austin?” Studs asked.

“Not yet. I guess I better knock on wood, huh, Studs?”

“Studs is beating you to the gun,” Martin said.

“Studs, don't tell me you're married?”

“No, but he gave her the ring,” Martin said.

“Well, well! Congratulations, Studs. Who's the lucky girl?” Austin said, enthusiastically pumping Studs' hand.

“I don't think you know her. Her name is Catherine Banahan.”

“Well, that gives her the proper credentials. Nothing like an Irish girl.”

“Yes McAuliffe, the lad's in love,” Martin smirked, making Studs show his embarrassment with nervousness.

“How's the folks?” Austin asked like a fellow trying to make conversation.

“Pretty good.”

“Oh, say, by the way, did you hear that Father Gilhooley has been changed to a parish back of the yards, and Saint Patrick's has been turned over to some order of priests, but I can't remember which one it is.”

“Is the school still running?” Studs asked.

“Yes, but the pupils are all jiggabooes, and the parish is very poor now, I guess,” Austin lamented.

“Gilly was always a puzzle to us altar boys. When he said mass, he always drank so much more wine than the other priests did. We always expected him to go staggering off the altar,” Martin laughed.

“You know, it was a shame the way that parish went down,” Austin said, turning toward Studs after frowning at Martin. “Father Gilhooley must have taken it hard, because of the parish and the beautiful new church he built, for it was his life's work, and then it was no sooner up than his people moved away on him. My mother met him downtown not so long ago, and she said he had aged a great deal. And say, I saw Jim Clayburn the other day. He's put on a lot of weight, and he's taken over his father's law practice. Seems to be prospering.”

“He was a nice fellow. Tell him I asked for him if you see him again. See anybody else? How's Art Hahn?”

“I haven't seen Art for about a year. He'd just lost his job then and was selling vacuum cleaners. And I saw Father McCarthy a few weeks ago. He's an assistant at some parish out West.”

“His brother, Monk McCarthy, is getting along, too.”

“Every time I see anybody from Fifty-eighth Street, Studs, I always say to myself how times change, how they change”

“Yeah, that's so, Austin,” Studs said weightily.

“And Martin, the way you've sprung up, you look like Studs' big brother now. I suppose one of these days we'll be hearing the wedding bells ring out for you,” Austin said, laughing.

“Not this lad.”

“I don't doubt that Studs once said the same thing.”

“One in the family at a time,” said Martin.

They stood in an awkward silence, talked out.

“Well, boys, I'll be seeing you around again. Got to run along and turn in. It's been a hard day in court, and tomorrow I got to go out to Carmody, Indiana, and collect a bill.”

“So long, Austin.”

“Sappy, I'd say,” Martin said.

“Oh, Austin's all right. He's a smart fellow. He always studied a lot, and got himself a good education, and now he's reaping the benefits of it.”

“Education or not, he's a dope to me,” Martin said.

Walking along with him, Studs began to see in his kid brother a lot of what he'd once been.

“I see we have the Lonigans in person with us tonight,” Pat Carrigan said, smiling as Studs and Martin approached the group of fellows who idled and talked in front of the chain drug store at the northeast corner of the busy, well-lit intersection of Seventy-first and Jeffery.

“Hello, Pat. How's it going tonight?” Studs said, pleased to be in a group of fellows and in the midst of a little noise and light after the dullness of home. He thought, too, that he liked Pat, had liked him in the old days when Pat was one of the second generation of punks coming around the comer.

“Know all the boys, Studs?” Pat asked, a note of solicitude in his voice. “Boys, this is Studs Lonigan. Studs, Don Bryan, Al Schuber, Jack Allison, Steve O‘Grady, and of course you know Kodak Kid O'Doul,” Pat said.

Studs shook hands around, and coming to O'Doul, he said laconically:

“Still smashing the broads' hearts?”

“Studs, what's been on your mind since we went to that movie together a couple of weeks ago?”

“Nothing much to write home about,” Studs said.

“What movie was that?” asked O'Doul.

“Doomed Victory
. It's an interesting gangster movie, only in real life, a gangster would grease a dick a little instead of letting himself be run out of town,” Pat said.

“Don't tell me about it. I want to see it,” Bryan said.

“Did Ike sell you his stock?” Pat asked Studs.

“Well . . . not quite,” Studs said, wondering if Ike would keep his promise not to mention to anyone that he'd bought the stock. Pat might think him a chump, and also tell Martin, and Martin might let it out of the bag at home without meaning to or something.

“It may be a good bargain. I don't know nothing about it, but I do know that Ike, while being a swell guy, is one first rate B.S. artist.”

“Say, Lonigan, what's your racket?” Bryan asked.

“Painting with my old man,” Studs said, glancing surprised at Bryan, not liking the fellow's thin, slightly-pocked, snotty face.

“Not much doing in it these days, huh?”

“Well, of course, everything could be better,” Studs said seriously, seeing himself as older than these kids, a fellow with investments now, business interests, and talking to them as an experienced guy.

“There's nothing doing anywhere now, I guess, except for a few bootleggers. They're just about the only ones who cash in these days. I'm working with my gaffer in the plumbing business these days, and there ain't much for us, and we can hardly collect on the work we do do. The old man is bleeding his eyes out with sobs,” Pat said.

“It's this guy Hoover with those Sunday-school collars he wears. First time I saw a picture of him with them collars, I said to myself, a guy who wears those collars must be chump somewhere. Now if we had a Democrat in office,” O'Grady said. Studs noticed that he was a short, stocky fellow, with a fedora slanted on the left side and a cigarette drooping between his lips.

“Yes, I suppose everybody would be better off if there was a different man in the saddle,” Studs said profoundly.

“What the hell, that's all politics, that's all,” Bryan said.

“What do you know about politics? Are you on an inside wire?” asked Schuber.

“I know this much. Politics is politics, and guys, even when they're big shots, don't go into it for fun. They all want to sink their claws into the grab bag. And so would I if I was in the political game,” Don said.

“The way I look at it, boys, is this. A Democrat like Al Smith, or Tony Cermak who's a cinch for mayor in the next elections, now if they were up to bat in Washington, they might not knock the ball out of the lot every time they stepped up to the plate, but they wouldn't just hit nothin' but foul balls, the way Hoover does,” Pat said.

“Well, this boy right here wouldn't complain, and he wouldn't be giving a damn about anything else if he could just line himself up to another job that paid a little dough,” Allison, a tall, raw-boned fellow, said.

“It used to be that all the lads I knew was workin', and I was beginning to get so lonesome that I almost went to work myself. But when I would almost do that, I'd think of you boys, sweating your tails off in offices and factories on hot days when I was lolling on the beach, with my head in the lap of a sweet pickup. But now, what the hell, I don't take any more pride in my idleness since so many of you boys have signed up as recruits in the Army of the Unemployed. If it keeps up like this with all you rookies crowding me out, Steve O'Grady will have to be shagging ass downtown one of these days and getting himself a job. Only if I did, the gaffer and the old woman might die from the shock,” O'Grady said, and they laughed, Studs' laugh a trifle self-conscious.