Studs Lonigan (94 page)

Studs was distressed with fear that his old man was going to get confidential. His old man would, when he got that way, lay parts of himself open, bare, and he would seem so weak that Studs didn't like it. And suddenly he was tempted to speak about his stock.

“What did you say, Bill?”

“Nothing, I was just going to say it's pretty damn swell Phil and Carroll are clicking so well.”

“Yes, oh yes,” Lonigan said.

“Well, I guess I'll clean up for supper,” Studs said, leaving his father sitting immobile.

“I'm still tempted to go along and watch you tomorrow,” Lonigan said, arising from the supper table.

“Patrick, why don't you?”

“Maybe I will, Mary.”

“I wonder if it is going to be like a fraternity initiation?” Martin said, dropping a crumpled napkin beside his plate and pushing his chair back.

“Martin!” Lonigan said in an injured tone. “You know that the Order of Christopher is more serious than a bunch of high-school kids.”

“William, I'm so glad you're joining,” the mother said, while Martin smirked superciliously.

“I've seen a few initiations in my time and they were beauts,” Lonigan chuckled.

“And won't I laugh if Studs comes home with his face full of lumps.”

“Martin, get that out of your head. It's the wrong slant,” Lonigan said ponderously. “The Order of Christopher isn't a gang of barbarians. Nearly every leading Catholic of importance in this country is a Christy.”

“I was just kidding.”

“But, Martin, the Order of Christopher is no more the kind of a thing that you should kid about than your religion is the kind of a thing you would mock.”

“Anyway, I hope that I'm not letting myself in for something,” Studs said.

“Bill, that's not exactly the best way to express it. It's not something you just let yourself in for.” A chuckle seemed to roll out of him, and he beamed. “But, golly, I've seen some initiations that were beauts. I've half a mind to see them put you through tomorrow.”

“Father, do go. It'll take your mind off other worries,” Mrs. Lonigan said.

“But if I did, I'd miss Father Moylan on the radio,” Lonigan said, turning into the hallway and adding, without glancing back, “I'll think about it.”

“Got a date with the sweetie tonight?” Martin asked, yawning.

“Yeh,” Studs gutturally replied.

“William, do come home early, because you're going to communion in the morning and you must be up early.”

“I know it. Catherine and I are going to confession, and then after we have a little bite of something I'll come home.”

“That's fine, son. Do come home, because you need your eight hours' rest,” she said, disappearing with an armful of dishes.

“William, you're a good boy,” Martin mocked, turning his back on Studs to leave the room.

“Can that wise stuff before you get your puss slapped!” Studs barked before he realized what he was saying.

“Oh, you will, will you!” Martin retorted with a voice of challenging sarcasm.

“Yes!” Studs said, hoping it would go no further, and instantly so tense that he was short of breath. Martin was getting too wise for his own health anyway, and sooner or later, for his own good, some of that sass would have to be slapped out of him.

Martin lip-farted.

“Think you're tough and wise!” Studs said, moving around the table toward Martin, who stood by the hallway entry, sneering, nonchalant with his hands in his pockets.

“Tougher than you any day in the week.”

“Listen, can that crap while you're all together!” Studs said, tempering his voice to give Martin an opening for dropping the quarrel.

“I'm all together and I'll stay that way,” Martin loudly rasped.

“Boys! Boys!” Mrs. Lonigan called nervously from the kitchen.

“I'm telling you to cut it out.”

“Cut what out? Make me!”

Studs shoved Martin slightly, and he was rocked backward by a hard clip on the jaw. Martin went into him with two swinging fists, and Studs, surprised off-balance, slammed against a chair, which catapulted to the floor. Groping and grabbing under a rain of blows, he worked himself into the protection of a clinch.

“Come on, you has-been,” Martin sneered, freeing himself from Studs' arms.

“Patrick!” Mrs. Lonigan screamed, rushing in from the kitchen.

“Yes,” he called from the parlor.

Another chair crashed. Martin freed himself from the clinch, and Studs drove up an uppercut. Martin grimaced and flailed into Studs. Breathing heavily, with no real heart for the fight, Studs took a stiff right on the jaw, a numbing sensation spread to his head, and he had a sickening headache.

“Pat, there's a lot of snotty young punks these days whose talk is louder than their actions,” Martin said, curling his lips, pushing Studs back against the radiator, slamming him on the ear.

Mrs. Lonigan screamed shrilly, dropped to the floor like a sack.

His ear stung, hot with a buzzing sensation, and, impotently infuriated, Studs edged away from the radiator, knowing that he had used himself up. He tried to stall off by waving his left fist before him. Martin pounced down on him. A wild left punch grazed his jaw, and he clinched. Martin shoved him back, as if he were powerless. He knew that he was whipped, humiliatingly, and that he could not quit. Hatred flared in him, and against the nausea in his head, his pounding heart, jerking breath, tired arms and shoulders, stung ear, hurt jaw, his hatred and his will were vain. Martin was on him again. Studs strove to set himself in the in-fighting, grunted, maneuvered to work his shoulder up against Martin's chin, and almost crumbled from a sharp pain as Martin smashed down with a kidney punch.

“Cut it out!” Lonigan bellowed.

He saw Mrs. Lonigan, pallid and unconscious on the floor, and pointed. The sons, surprised by his command, followed his finger, staring helpless, guilty. The three of them converged over the prostrate Mrs. Lonigan.

“A fine thing to do to your mother.”

They set Mrs. Lonigan on a chair and awkwardly revived her.

“Oh, God! Why do I deserve this? My own boys, my own flesh and blood, fighting under my sacred roof! Oh!”

Lonigan's lips compressed: shaking his mortified head slowly from side to side, depressed more than angry.

“I'm ashamed of you boys,” he said, and neither of them dared look him in the eye.

“He was too wise,” Studs mumbled unconvincingly.

“I'm not being pushed around. He can't even take a joke,” Martin stuttered.

“Hell of a way to take a joke, if you ask me, knocking each other all over the dining room.”

“He started it,” Martin said.

“I did like hell,” Studs flung back, his side stiff and hurt from the kidney punch, his breathing still too rapid.

“Come on, now, shake hands and call it quits!” Lonigan said as Studs turned aside and winced with the stabbing pain still remaining from that kidney punch.

The two sons looked at each other, their faces drawn.

“I haven't anything against him, but nobody's shoving me around,” Martin said, he and Studs looking at each other, their faces drawn.

“No hard feelings,” Studs said lifelessly, their limp hands clasping.

Lonigan glanced apologetically down at his wife, who sat with head lowered, hair dishevelled, quivering as she sobbed.

In the bathroom, Studs studied his face in the mirror, momentarily pleased that there were no marks on his face, except for the redness of his ear. But that sock in the ear had told. His ear burned yet. And he was sore from that kidney punch. His heart pounded on him and he was sick with a headache from jolting punches. He felt all in, just like a has-been.

Still observing himself in the mirror, he tried to convince himself that it was not important. His pride rose, mangled, torn, stepped on, hurting him even more than Martin's fists had. Treated as a has-been, completely dismissed by his kid brother, the same way Jack Sharkey would dismiss some broken-down palooka who didn't count.

He cursed Martin, and, unhappy, lit a cigarette. Again he told himself that it wasn't important. No matter how tough you were, there was always somebody tougher. It wasn't important. And it hadn't been a fair fight because he wasn't in condition to battle. He'd like to have seen Martin get wise before he'd gotten that attack of pneumonia and his heart had gone flooey on him! It was no shame to be beaten when you were in bad health. And even so, he might still have slapped Martin down if he hadn't been taken by surprise.

But he knew he was kidding himself. He knew that he had had fear and humiliation punched into him by his kid brother, and he knew that Martin knew it.

You're the real stuff! he told his image in the mirror with self-pitying sarcasm.

He wanted to get out of the house. He didn't know how he was going to face his kid brother. Reluctant to leave the bathroom, he paced nervously to and fro in the narrow space between the window and the bathtub, rapidly puffing on a cigarette, feeling cramped, almost as if he were in jail. Standing with his ear to the door, he heard murmuring sounds from his parents in the dining room.

If it had only not happened. Grimacing, he violently flung his cigarette butt into the toilet and pulled the chain, listening to the flushing sound, dreamy and wistful, glad that he had something to distract him.

He tried to frown at himself in the mirror, and jerked away from it. Sitting on the edge of the bathtub, he remembered his fights with Weary Reilley and Red, telling himself that Studs Lonigan in his prime would have massacred a regiment of punks like Martin. He laughed at himself. What did it prove? It wasn't important. He should walk out of the bathroom, face Martin, treat it for what it was, a thing of no account. And he continued sitting on the edge of the bathtub, leaning forward, that sick throb in his head and the stiffness in his side persisting, hearing the beat of his heart. Rolling his tongue around the inside of his mouth, he felt a sting when his tongue touched a cut on the inside of his jaw.

Christ, but he hated Martin. He saw himself punching the holy living Jesus out of him, battering him without mercy into swollen and bloody unconsciousness. He knew he shouldn't have such feelings, and he should try and put himself into a right mood for confession. And no matter what had just happened, Studs Lonigan would go on living. But his kid brother had beaten him, and he imagined him revenging that licking, wading into Martin, punching with right, left, right, left. . . . He noticed by his watch that it was seven-thirty. He jumped to his feet, quickly washed.

Breathing rapidly with the tension within him, he opened the bathroom door. In the bedroom, Martin stood carelessly in front of the mirror, knotting a black-and-white striped necktie. Whistling a jazz tune, he turned. Meeting one another's eyes, they glanced aside, shame-faced.

“What time is it, Studs?”

“Seven-thirty.”

“I'll have to be stepping on it, I guess.”

“Me, too.”

Martin put on his jacket coat and overcoat.

“So long,” Studs said gutturally, buttoning a clean white shirt.

Abashed, Studs stepped into the parlor. Shutting off the radio, Lonigan cast a pained glance at his son.

“Bill, I'm very sorry.”

“Well, dad, I'm sorry, too.”

“You got to be a father, I guess, to really understand what such things can do to a man.”

“Well . . . I didn't want it to happen.”

“Bill, a great many things happen in life that we don't want to.”

“We made up.”

“Fine. But, Bill, I'm sorry this happened between you and Martin. It's an evil sign when brothers fight and snarl at each other like dogs under their parents' own roof.”

Goddamn, Christ, if he'd only let Martin's cracks pass off and had just acted sensibly. Why such false pride about whether or not he was afraid of his kid brother? He'd shown the world Studs Lonigan wasn't yellow and hadn't needed to be having a false pride at this late date.

“Bill, I know you and Martin won't let such an unfortunate thing happen again. Your mother and me, we're kind of getting along now, and these things hit us pretty hard.”

Studs looked away. He knew that he ought to be hustling away, and he stood with his eyes fixed blankly on the wall. He wanted to say something more, and . . . what?

“Better go say goodbye to your mother and try to make her feel a little better.”

“I will, dad.”

He walked slowly out to the kitchen, troubling over what he would say to his mother.

“Mom!” he muttered, seeing her bent over a pan full of dishes.

“Yes, son,” she said, turning toward him, eyes still raw from crying.

“I'm sorry.”

“Two sons of mine,” she said, turning back to her dishes, “fighting like wild animals under a roof that God has blessed.” She dreamily picked up a plate and set it down to her left. “My own flesh and blood, fighting like Cain and Abel. It's a sin punishable by God.”

“It was an accident, mom, and we didn't mean it. We made up, and both of us are sorry.”

As she wiped away a tear with her soiled apron, she looked old to him. He guessed she must at least be around fifty-five. Christ! . . . . He felt lousy doing this to her and the old man. He guessed, too, that they wouldn't have such an awfully long time more to live. How did a person feel when he knew that in five or ten years he would probably be dead?