Studs lonigan, p.78
Studs Lonigan, page 78
He got up and stretched his arms. Looking down at the small, grassless, fenced-in square of a back-yard, watching an ice wagon pass, he thought of how good he felt this morning. And the sun slanting down the flat sides of the building across the alley! It was going to be a good day.
He took his time washing, and thought of how he would maybe go out in the park and sit in the sun. He dressed lazily and walked to the kitchen for breakfast.
“Your father looked very worried this morning,” Mrs. Lonigan said.
“Well, there won’t be much business now maybe until fall, and he’s worried. By then business will be going again.”
“I do hope that something does happen for your poor father’s sake. He’s like a changed and unhappy man these days.”
“It will.”
“You’re not working today, are you?”
Studs stared at her, wondering. What was the idea of such a dumb question, because she knew he wasn’t or he’d have been gone long before a quarter to nine.
“No.”
“Rest, then, and take it easy.”
“I am. I’m going to the park and get some sun.”
“You better not sit in the grass. It will be damp at this time of the year and you might catch cold. You must take care of yourself.”
“I will.”
After breakfast, he lounged in the parlor, reading the newspaper.
GRAPEFRUIT KING PREDICTS GOOD TIMES
Business Has Improved forty per cent Says Hiram Cole
That sounded good.
MUSSOLINI PLANS CORPORATIVE STATE
He guessed Mussolini was a smart man, but flipped the pages to the funnies.
Throwing the newspaper aside, he left, thinking of how Moon Mullins was a real character. Slug Mason had been a little like Moon, poor Slug.
He drifted toward Seventy-first Street, looking upon himself as a man with business interests who was puzzled by the problem of selling out or holding onto his investments. Maybe if he held, he’d lose more. Maybe not. Best to think it over so as not to make a mistake.
And he hoped something interesting or exciting would happen in the park. He crossed over Sixty-seventh Street, cut through a path in the bushes and emerged at the extremity of the large golf course. A feeling of being lost and empty, with nothing to do, came upon him, and he stood with his eyes fixed on the sprouting green before him. He’d been anxious to get here, and now that he was in the park, what?
He hoped that he would meet some girl and that they’d get on together. He set off strolling along the edge of the course, with the image of a girl in his head as if she were walking beside him, tall and dark, and sexy, and if he took her rowing she would sit facing him, showing off her thighs, and if they sat on a lonely bench she would wait to be kissed and felt. Jesus Christ, he exclaimed, his desire reaching a painful point.
He looked around, the trees in front of him having grown larger as he approached, the sounds of automobiles as they skimmed through the park like an overtone. He had the feeling that something was going to happen, and he was nervous for it to hurry up, whatever it was. He picked up a branch, swished it, flung it aside. He thought, Christ, he did want a girl, hot, and pretty, and willing, who knew tricks that would set him nearly nuts, the kind that would go shiveringly crazy for him the moment he laid his hand on her. And they would lie around together in the park, or else at her apartment, where they would be stripped, and even maybe taking a bath together.
He saw a patch of grass with surprise, and realized that he had lost his sense of where he was. He felt as if he had just come from a hot time with a girl, and then realized that it had only been wishes, and he wished it had been the real article in the flesh. Across the golf course, so small that they were like images in a picture, he watched a man and woman pursuing golf balls they had just driven. He wondered who they were, what they were, were they in love, and did they sleep together, and were they well off and not bothered by worries over money? Envy of them grew in him, because they had something to do, and he hadn’t. He grew dreamy, forgot them, lost consciousness of the fact that he was even walking, and imagined himself a golfer like Chick Evans or Bobby Jones, only greater, smashing records in a tournament, with a large gallery following to cheer him as he made impossible drives and shots with ease, and even made a hole in one.
A frown suddenly settled on his face, and like a gloomy cloud the thought of his stocks came back to him. He walked in an aimless course, grabbed a handful of budding leaves off the bushes, scattered them, picked up a piece of broken branch, peeled the bark off with his finger nails, dropped it.
He lit a cigarette and looked around him, seeing with suddenness, and as if for the first time, the earth, grass in sunlight, with a few sparkles of dew, and in the distance, over trees, a light sky. A desire as if to catch these things he saw came on him, and then again the worry about money and stocks returned to fill his mind. He stopped to stare at an oak, its limbs rattling a trifle in the wind, hoping that by concentrating on it he would drive the worry away.
Christ, he was getting goofy as a loon! Studs Lonigan was a poet and didn’t know it.
“Fore. Fore.”
He turned to see golfers shouting and waving at him, and briskly returned to the bushes by the edge of the course. He saw a golf ball land, scud along the ground, stop. He saw grass and earth stretching away, people moving over the course, and, as he glanced upward, a bank of clouds smothering the sun and draping shadows over the park.
He had a sense he had often felt as a kid walking around in Washington Park, looking and wishing for something to do. But then he had had no real responsibilities, and he’d expected any damn thing to happen any minute. And now.
He saw in his mind, but not so clearly as he wanted to, the old Studs in short pants, playing indoors, on the small gravel diamond of the Washington Park playground, swinging, smacking the ball over the iron picket fence. And he remembered a rainy day when he was alone in the playground, and Miss Tyson, the playground director, had brought him into her office which was between the boys’ and girls’ cans in a rough-edged stone building. She had talked to him about what he wanted to be in life, and he’d felt that she was looking at him in a funny way. And when the rain had come down harder, she had closed the door, and she had sat with her legs crossed, letting him get a good eyeful, and she’d run her hand through his hair. Why had he been so dumb and innocent? He dropped onto a bench along the walk that he and Catherine had passed last Sunday, and meditatively puffed at a cigarette. He felt as if he was the old Studs Lonigan, and he would see Dan Donoghue or Helen Shires before the day was out and. . . .
“Got a light, lad?”
Studs looked up and saw a sandy-haired fellow with a seedy suit and blue shirt.
“What?”
“Got a match?”
“Sure. I was just sort of sitting here and forgot where I was, and didn’t hear you. Here.”
“Thanks,” the stranger said, accepting the book of matches and lighting a cigarette.
“I suppose you’re out of work like the rest of us.”
“Well, in a way.”
“I know I’ve been carrying the banner during these days of Hoover prosperity.”
“Yes, it seems pretty tough, but things ought to get better, and Hoover probably won’t be elected next year.”
“Things won’t get better for me, not under this system.”
“How come? There’s no use throwing up the sponge,” Studs said, thinking that, hell, the guy looked on the level, and like a white man and just down on his luck, and he might just as well try to cheer the guy up a little.
“I’m not throwing up the sponge. I’m just learning things, and I’ve learned, this last winter, that a guy like me isn’t worth any more than a rusty piece of machinery.”
Studs lit a cigarette and tried to think of something to say. The guy seemed sore at the world, the way he had just made that last crack.
“If you’re a workingman, buddy, none of those Democrats or Republicans mean anything for you.”
“Well, what’s the matter with Al Smith?”
“The same thing that’s the matter with all of them. They don’t mean any good to me. I’ve carried the banner all winter. And by God, I’m not going to carry the banner forever, sleeping in that Hooverville under Wacker Drive.”
“Things can’t always go down.”
“I know it. They can come up in war.”
“Who do you think we’ll go to war with, Japan or Russia?”
“By God, if the U. S. goes to war with Russia, I don’t shoulder a gun.”
Jesus, a Red!
“But you wouldn’t be a traitor to your country?”
“My country, what do I own here?”
“Aren’t you an American?”
“I was born here, but if I had the fare I’d go to Russia tomorrow.”
“But aren’t they Reds and anarchists there? Don’t you read the papers?”
“Sure, I read the papers. Lies. Lad, they’re filling us full of lies so they can rob us all. We got to wake up.”
“But Bolshevism means revolution.”
“How else are we going to win the means of production for ourselves?”
“But that’s anarchy.”
“What is it when guys like me all over the country carry the banner, sleep in Hoovervilles? What is it when they shoot down coal miners?”
“I’m not a Bolshevik. It’s against the country and the church.” Studs wished the fellow would go away. If he was his size and in better health, he might sock him. He got up.
“I got to be traveling. But you’ll never get anywhere with those ideas, fellow.”
“Yes, I’ll never carry a musket.”
“So long.”
Studs laughed at the crazy bastard. A Bolshevik. He supposed the guy was a nigger lover, too. Well, let the Bolsheviks get tough. They’d be taken care of, just the same as the shines were during the race riots of ’19.
He felt tired, and the hell with that nutty guy. He had been thinking about old times, too, when the fellow had interrupted him to give that phony Bolshevik spiel.
II
Studs stood on the grass edge of the large, rectangular skin-dirt athletic field, hearing the crack of a baseball bat while a group of fellows snapped through infield practice, and a lad in a khaki shirt fungoed flies to five others in the outfield. About five yards from him a group of four sat watching.
The third baseman, a lank lad in a faded blue shirt, fozzled a ground ball, and, seeking hurriedly to pick it up, kicked it around in the dirt.
“The bush leagues for you, Spunk.”
“Get off your can and come out here and do better.”
“The bushes, boy. You’re getting old.”
“All right, Cal, get the lead out of your tail,” one of the fungo hitters called, lifting a long high fly which was easily caught by a swarthy left-handed fellow in a white shirt.
Studs watched the infield practice, the grounders slapped hard, cutting over the dirt, the ball snapped around from player to player. They were pretty good, and they worked fast. Even though he had never cared a hell of a lot for baseball, it was something to watch, neat, quick work. The shortstop ran low to his left, smeared a fast grounder with one hand, bobbed the ball, off balance, to the second base who caught it, wheeled around in the same motion and whipped the ball to first base.
“Spunk, how do you like that?” one of those on the grass called while the ball was pegged around.
“This is the million-dollar infield.”
“Yes, if it had a third baseman.”
Studs edged a bit closer to the group on the grass. Looked like a nice bunch of lads, and they had enough for a game. He’d like to play.
“That boy Spunk is good.”
“He ought to get a try-out in the big shows.”
“He’s good around here, but he wouldn’t make the grade. Can’t hit a sharp-breaking curve ball. A pitcher like Jack Casey who was with me at the Braves training camp last year could make him eat out of his hand. And Jack never made the grade.”
“How about you, Artie?”
“Couldn’t get myself lined up, so I’m playing semi-pro. Hell, this country is full of guys trying to get into the game, and plenty of them are good. With minor leagues folding up like tents, and with old-timers coming down from the big leagues and the Class A. A. outfits, and then with chain-store systems like the one the Cardinals run, it’s damn hard getting lined up even in a dinky little X. Y. Z. league.”
“Maybe you’re right.”
“Look at Jack. He thought he’d make a go of it in pro athletics, and he did have one good season in the Three I League but then he threw his arm out. He’s up the creek, and he doesn’t make any too much peddling insurance. If I could get a decent job, I’d throw the idea up, too, and stick to my job, maybe just picking up a few pennies on Sunday playing semi-pro and having some fun playing basketball in the Christopher League in winter.”
A Christy. Studs looked at him, a light-haired, husky, square-faced fellow in his early twenties, the kind of a mugg and build a ball player would have.
“Let’s get going with the game,” Spunk called, walking in.
Studs watched them choosing up, hoping, because there were only seventeen.
“Hey, lad, want to play?”
“Sure, all right,” he said, slowly taking off his coat.
“You’re on my side,” the fellow named Artie said.
“Say, I just heard you talking. You’re a Christy, aren’t you? I just went through Kempis Council. My name’s Lonigan.”
“Mine’s Pfeiffer, Timothy Murphy Council. Say, a young kid named Lonigan went to Mary Our Mother when I was there.”
“Yeah, that was my kid brother.”
“What ever happened to him? I know he left M. O. M. to go to Tower Tech.”
“He’s working a little with my old man in the painting business.”
Studs put his left hand in the fielder’s glove offered him and walked nonchalantly out to right field. He stood with hands on hips, waiting. Easy pitching and he’d get by, even if he hadn’t played in years. And it would keep him in the sun. He bent forward with his hands on his knees, while the pitcher lobbed the ball up to the right-handed batter, a short fellow in a gray shirt. A high fly soared toward right center and Studs, seeing the ball come somewhere near him, ran forward to his right, confused, afraid of muffing the catch. Seeing that he was misjudging it, he ran backward, still to his right, with his eye on the lowering ball.
“I got it,” the center fielder called.
Studs stopped in his tracks, and watched the center fielder gracefully nab the ball on the run. Breathing quickly, but glad that his misjudgment hadn’t been serious, he returned to his position. He waited, overanxious. A line single was driven to left, the pitcher picked a pop out of the air, and a dumpy texas-leaguer over third base placed runners on first and second.
“You better go back and play in a grammar-school league,” Spunk said, stepping to bat after Pfeiffer had dropped an easy toss at first base.
Spunk waited, swinging left-handed, and Pfeiffer motioned Studs backward. Spunk connected, and the ball travelled high out to Studs, who wavered around in circles, the ball landing three feet away from him.
“Jesus Christ, what a Babe Hermann that was,” the center-fielder ex claimed more loudly than he had intended, while Studs clumsily retrieved the ball. A pain cut paralyzingly into his shoulder when he threw wildly to the infield.
“Take it easy, Lonigan. It’s only a scrub game,” Pfeiffer said when Studs came in abashed at the end of the inning.
“Hell, I haven’t played in years. I used to be pretty good but I’m out of the practice.”
“Everybody muffs a few.”
“Hey, Artie, bushel baskets are cheap these days,” Spunk called from third base.
“I’m going to knock your hands off when I get up,” Artie called.
Studs stood several feet away from the players on his side, who grouped themselves on the grass edge. When he came to bat he’d redeem himself.
Pfeiffer, a left-handed batter, stood at the plate after the first two batters had flied out and, swinging late, stung a line drive just beyond Spunk’s gloved hand.
“What’s that you say about bushel baskets?” he megaphoned through his hands, standing on second base.
“Save us a lick, Pete.”
“I’m getting fed up with nothing to do but lay around this damn park.”
“Write a letter to Hoover. Maybe he’ll put you on some commission and you’ll get a job to help keep other people out of jobs.”
“No, Jack, I’m serious. I ask myself how long is this thing going to keep on.”
“Well, do what I say. Write a letter to Hoover.”
“The bathing beach is going to open soon and maybe we can all get on as life guards.”
“I can’t swim well enough”
“Hang around until 1933 and you can get a job at the World’s Fair.”
“Swell hit, Pete. Come on, Al, lean on it.”
“All I can say is some damn thing has got to happen.”
“Hire a hall, you ain’t got no kick. Laying around in the sun, playing ball, looking at nursemaids, and hearing the birds sing.”
“Swell catch, Spunk, you lucky bastard.”
Studs waited anxiously in right field, but batter after batter came up without hitting to him. He walked in at the end of the inning more confident. He’d get a rap this time and sock one.
“Save us a bat, lad,” a fellow in a dirty gray sweatshirt called while Studs stepped up with two out. The bat seemed too heavy and, facing the pitcher, he lost confidence.
“Hey, which side am I on?”
“Wait till the inning’s up.”
He decided that this fellow could take his place. He swung late, fizzling a grounder to the pitcher, and didn’t even run.
“Hey, Pfeiffer, he can take my place.”
