Studs lonigan, p.79
Studs Lonigan, page 79
“No, it’s only a scrub game, Lonigan.”
“Well, I’m kind of tired anyway.”
“Come around again and tell the kid brother I was askin’ about him.”
He crossed the driveway and walked along the gravel path flanking the lagoon, which lay below in shimmering sunlight. He should have gone on playing. He would have gotten into his stride, hit some solid ones, and nabbed fly balls, too. It would have been nice passing the time, and they seemed like a decent bunch. He imagined himself driving a home-run over the center-fielder’s head and then making onehanded and shoe-string catches in the outfield. He shrugged his shoulders, laughed at his sudden interest in baseball.
III
His watch pointed at eleven-thirty. What would he do? He could walk home to dinner and that would cut a hole in the long day ahead of him. He ambled on in a careless, unenergetic stride. Was the stock market going up, he asked himself, dropping down on a bench and lighting a cigarette.
His vague awareness of chirping birds and of automobiles rushing behind him was distracted by a strolling couple. Lucky lad with such a cute and neat trick, and maybe he was taking her to a secluded spot on the wooded island, and he would sink his head in her lap, and she would stroke his face and hair, and maybe she was nuts about him and wanted it from the guy so much that she’d even risk being caught in daylight. Wished he had a girl nuts about him like that. Of course, there was Catherine, but she was decent, and this was a different matter. It made a guy proud, let him sort of feel his oats, gave him something to brag about. After he and Catherine got married and she got used to it, would she feel that way about him? If she didn’t, what would be the use of marriage? He watched the couple disappear around a bend in the park. Lucky bastard.
An elderly woman with a neat black suit and a haughty societywoman manner about her looked at him with disdain as if he were something like a piece of garbage. She thought he was a bum. He sat up erect, straightened his tie, dusted off his shoes with his handkerchief. He wasn’t a bum. But what the hell, these people would probably never see him again, and what difference did it make? But still, he wasn’t a bum.
Yawning, he examined his watch; a quarter to twelve. What to do? He wished someone he knew would happen along.
But even if it was dull, it was good having sun on him. And if he did this regularly, he would get a good, healthy coat of tan. He removed his coat, carefully folded it and laid it over the bench beside him. He rolled up his sleeves and looked at his thin white arms. Good, too, getting them tanned. He sat realizing that it had suddenly become quiet with just a faint stirring of leaves and sounds of birds. Then, from Stony Island, came the rumbling of a street car. Automobiles passed, an engine dying, chugging, starting again, its hum dying away. Human voices echoing from a distance made him want people to talk to. Maybe he could take a walk to the old neighborhood later in the day, see the old streets, the old buildings.
It was just nice, though, to sit here, and through the bushes to see the water, the sunlight dancing on it, like it was alive. The same way the sunlight had danced on the lagoon in Washington Park when he and Lucy had sat in the tree. Oars splashed and a boat rode by. Might be a good idea to go rowing, but he changed his mind, because that was too strenuous a form of exercise.
He let a burning cigarette hang from his mouth until he coughed from a throatful of smoke. He leaned back and with shaded eyes looked up at a sky whose shimmering and pervasive brightness brought water to his eyes. He blinked at a squirrel moving swiftly across the walk and into the bushes. He was humble and soft, and felt that there was something behind all this that he saw, sun, and sky, and new grass, and trees, and birds, and the bushes, and the squirrel, and the lagoon, and people moving by him, and street cars and automobiles, and it was God. God made all this, moved it, made it live, himself, that Red he’d met who was against Him, the fellows playing ball. And God was the spirit behind it all and behind everything. Gee, if Catherine was only here now! He shook his head, as if to drive all these thoughts away because if he told them to anybody, it would just sound goofy. He wasn’t a poet.
But Christ, this was the life!
From far off he heard twelve-o’clock whistles. They made him want to do something, and they made him feel the same as train whistles did.
A woman of about thirty, neat, good figure, hopped along holding to the leash of a straining airedale. The dog forced her onto the grass, switched directions, tugged and pulled across to the grass on the other side of the walk. She did not return his glance. Maybe she, too, thought he was a park bum. He wished a neat trick, like his sister Fran, would come by, speak to him, he’d show her he wasn’t a bum. He watched the dog drag her forward, and didn’t give a damn what she thought of him, and silently exclaimed, Up your brown Lizzie.
He sat back, feeling that warm sun on his arms and face, contented again. Nice.
IV
The Greek restaurant at Sixty-third and Stony Island Avenue with the imitation marble counter and the modernistic gray and dull red furnishings was crowded with high-school kids, and as Studs entered he heard an uproar of talk, giggling girls at the booths and tables, a clatter of dishes, and, above it, a male chorus on a radio singing snappily:My wife is on a diet,
And since she’s on a diet,
Home isn’t home any more.
No gravy and potatoes,
Just lettuce and tomatoes,
Where are the pies I adore?
Oh, oh, oh, oh. What a disgrace,
I’m ashamed to look a grapefruit straight in the face.
The stout Greek behind the counter, hearing the song, wobbled to the radio and twisted the dial, bringing forth a saccharine torch-singing love-song.
Studs, smiling at the incident and thinking that it was a good song for Catherine to hear, took a seat at the counter. On his left, he noticed a young khaki-shirted workingman, soaking up the gravy on his plate with a slice of bread, and on his other side, a tall marcelled blonde lad, with a long face, who wore a blue sweater with a large white P on the front. Park High athlete, he thought. He watched a dumpy waitress pass and hoped his order would be taken soon because he didn’t like it with all these crazy high-school kids around.
“Have you ever dated Irene Knisley, Jack?” the athlete asked the black-haired, baby-faced lad beside him.
“No, but she can be my big moment any time she wants.”
“She’s a big moment who will heat you plenty. I dropped up to the Park Community Center dance last Friday, and she was there. You ought to dance with her.”
“Tompkins took her out and he says she’s plenty strong on the lovin’. He’s certain he can make her.”
Studs thought that they were just drying the milk behind their ears. He toyed with his knife and fork, and thought about how hungry he was.
“Hey, Katie,” the baby-faced high-school student called out at the clumpy waitress.
“What?”
“How’d you like to be my big moment?”
“Come around on Sunday. I have kindergarten then,” she flung back.
Studs smiled. He followed her with his eyes as she moved to the slot opening back to the kitchen and shoved a pile of used dishes into it. He gulped down the glass of water and saw, as she turned, that she was no chicken, and her breasts almost fell down to her belly. Not worth the making. How did broads like her feel, because they had so little to offer a guy? They must know they look like hell and that a guy would have to be pretty hard up before he tried to play around with them. In fact, they must, in dolling themselves up to be made, have a hell of a lot of nerve and think a lot of what they had. And from the looks of her tough face, crusted with powder, she didn’t look decent, but the type that would go with anything in pants.
You’ve got me pickin’ petals off o’ daisies,
Some say yes, some say no . . .
Still, some guys went for dumb broads like her, and would be glad to get her. At times, he might himself, because a guy got that way.
“What’ll you have?” she asked in a strident voice.
“Roast beef and mashed potatoes.”
“My pater’s sobbing the blues, too, about dough. He’s cut down on my allowance, but the mater slips me something and doesn’t snitch to him,” the athlete said.
“My dad’s swell, a real pal. He always says to me, ‘Jack, I had my fun when I was your age and I don’t want my kid to be an angel.’ He doesn’t want me to kill myself studying, either.”
“My pater’s a babbitt.”
The plate of food, soaked with greasy gravy, was set before Studs. He dumped catsup beside the meat, and commenced eating rapidly. His mouth jammed, he thought that these kids didn’t know how lucky they were, having a good time and a chance to get an education in high school, and they ought to make the best of their chance. An education didn’t hurt you.
“I tried to date Daisy Dell for the Alpha dance, and she was oh, so sorry. So I said to her, ‘Say, don’t cry, baby, you’re not Clara Bow.’ She hung up on me,” the baby-faced lad said, and the athlete laughed.
“Apple pie and coffee,” Studs called at the dumpy waitress as she scuttled by him with an armful of orders.
I lift up my finger and I say
“Tweet tweet, shush, shush, now, now,
Come come.”
He wished he’d gone to high school and college and belonged to fraternities and had a good time. But then, wasn’t he a Christy? Wait, too, until the next initiation in his council. It would be a knockout. And he ought to start going to meetings.
“Apple pie and coffee.”
She didn’t even notice him. He wanted to get out, too, away from all these high-school boys. Goddamn bitch! She ought to be glad she had a job these days instead of gassing like she was now with a punk down the counter during a rush period like this.
“Apple pie and coffee.”
“I got it the first time, mister,” she called back.
Nervy bitch, who did she think she was, getting so tough? But then, what else could you expect from such a dumb-looking waitress? She set a slab of pie and a cup of coffee, with the coffee slopping over onto the saucer, before him. Coffee dripped onto his trousers as he took his first sip of it.
I’m just daffy ’bout daffodils
And especially you
He slid off the stool, and walked by a table of giggling girls.
“And her new dress was simply stunning.”
He took toothpicks at the counter, and stood outside, with a toothpick in the comer of his mouth, hearing the noise of the elevated trains, of street cars and automobiles, seeing high-school students drift by him. His stomach turned sour from the meal.
What next?
V
Maybe he might pick up a girl, a neat, sweet little Park High girl in the park, he thought hopefully, strolling along a shady gravel path which circled around the northern extremity of the lagoon. Other guys did, why not he? But did he really love Catherine when he wanted to do this? Love was one thing, and a good time with a stray pickup was another. He was only human and that was just natural, and when a guy went with a clean, decent girl like Catherine what else could he do?
Ahead of him was a burly girl hanging on the arm of a fellow who wore a checkered cap and needed a haircut. He walked close behind them, trying to hear what they were saying, wondering whether or not she was the fellow’s lay. Looked like she knew her onions and liked them, too. Tough, hard kind of broad, he decided, hearing her loud and rather cracked voice.
“But, Charlie, I didn’t. I didn’t. Jesus Christ, I couldn’t.”
“Don’t crap me, sister, because I’m not the kind of a guy who lets himself get crapped. See?”
He couldn’t imagine a fellow talking that way to a girl if she was decent. They selected an unoccupied bench, and Studs, walking by, noted the concerned, pleading expression on the girl’s cheaply decorated face, and the fellow’s curt and unbelieving look.
“Charlie, you just got to believe me,” she said in a throbbing voice.
He would like to have stayed near and heard more, but he couldn’t just stand gaping while a guy scrapped with his girl. He guessed that the lad thought she was two-timing him. He wouldn’t put it past that kind of a broad, either. He smiled, thinking that Catherine was different, and wouldn’t ever pull such tricks behind his back.
He walked on, his feet dragging, in no hurry. Lots of people in the park, fellows with nothing else to do, he supposed. Like the one ahead of him on the bench, sitting like a mope, half asleep, looking ahead of him at nothing. Maybe he was a poor bastard more down in his luck than Studs Lonigan.
“I knew Dopey Ahern when he drove for the Continental Express Company. But he went in the beer-running racket, and they put him on the spot,” a fellow said to two companions as they strolled by Studs.
He thought of how when you went out and listened to what people said, you heard all kinds of things, people washing their dirty linen in public, talking about friends and business and gash, and it made him think how the world must be, at every minute, so full of people fighting, and jazzing, and dying, and working, and losing jobs, and it was a funny world, all right, full of funny people, millions of them. And he was only one out of all these millions of people, and they were all trying to get along, and many of them had gotten farther than he. Hell, what right did he have to expect to get anywhere with all these millions and millions in the same game, with fellows starting out with dough and an education, and better health than he had? He felt small and a little goofy. He looked around, seeing old men on a bench, a woman with a baby buggy, three fellows who looked like college boys on the grass, a skinny park policeman. How many of all the people around him, how many of all the people in the park, were ahead of him so far?
His feet began to ache and he flopped again on a bench. One-o’clock factory whistles blew from somewhere. A long afternoon still ahead of him. Did many fellows sitting around the park feel the same as he did, wanting something exciting to happen? A fleshy, light-brown Negress came along the path, her dress splitting against her thighs, her breast nipples clear against her black-and-white dress. A tight feeling gripped him. Whee! And he whiffed strongly an odor of cheap scent. Plenty of guys would like what she had. Plenty of white broads would like to have as much as she had. It was a goddamn shame, too, that a broad with all that stuff should be black and not white, he told himself, wishing someone was around so he could have sprung such a witty crack on them. Should he follow her even if she was a nigger? He looked after her at her slender brown silken legs, and he was tempted to whistle, to get up and follow her. Hell, she might just be a whore, because he guessed most black gals were hustlers anyway. And even if she wasn’t, a dark-skinned baby ought to fall all over herself with joy if a white guy propositioned her. But kissing one of them. Ugh . . . He eagerly watched her disappear from sight, and he saw her naked in his mind. Jesus, he was pretty lousy getting so het up over a dark-skinned wench. And still, brother, white or black, she had it. But here he was engaged to a decent girl like Catherine, and wanting a nigger. Lousy . . . If the nice girls men married knew the dirty places they went playing around and . . . that was another witty one he wanted to spring sometime.
He yawned and watched a baby toddle bow-legged ahead of its mother. What would he do? An old man with an ear phone. He drowsed, fell asleep, awakened stiff and dirty. Two-thirty. He started strolling toward home. He felt like a wreck. The day was more than half over anyway. And maybe his stock had gone up too.
Chapter Nine
I
AFTER the movies, Studs and Catherine went to a small restaurant on Seventy-first Street. Studs hung his coat on a hook beside the table and absent-mindedly sat down while she was removing her coat. He missed her frown, lit a cigarette, and settled comfortably in his chair. He thought of how his stock was now down to ten, and he had to make up his mind whether to hold it or sell. A drop from two thousand to eight hundred dollars, and Ike Dugan had said fluctuations. That bastard was going to have fluctuations the next time he met Studs Lonigan.
“You seem awfully interested in me,” Catherine said, sitting down with a great fuss.
“What? What’s the matter?” he asked absently.
“Nothing. Oh, nothing’s the matter, I was just so pleased at the interest you show in me,” she said with increased irony.
He looked at her, puzzled, hoping that she wasn’t set on kicking up a row with him.
“You act like a perfect gentleman who is keeping within the proper bounds before a girl he doesn’t even know, or something like that.”
“Why, what’s wrong, Catherine?” he asked, a vague whine in his voice.
“Nothing . . . Nothing,” she snapped with mounting exasperation.
A bony waitress hovered over them, and Studs blushed, wondering if she had heard Catherine quarrelling.
“What’ll you have, Catherine?” he asked solicitously, while she made faces at him.
“Coffee and lemon cream pie,” she said haughtily at the waitress.
“One coffee and lemon cream pie, one milk and apple pie,” he said, wondering what the devil was wrong.
He watched the waitress retreat to the counter, and to avoid Catherine’s eye until she cooled off he glanced around the restaurant, at the neat pale green walls and the black-topped counter running almost the length of the opposite side. There were two fellows slouched at it over coffee, and two couples at tables near the window toward the front.
The proprietor emerged from the counter and dialed on the radio.
Singin’ in the rain, just singin’ in the rain,
What a glorious feelin’, I’m happy again.
One of the fellows in the basket-backed chairs by the counter swung around, and Studs glanced back at Catherine, her expression revealing persisting displeasure.
“What did I do now?” he asked in a restrained voice, jittery because of her mood, thinking that if all girls were like Catherine, they all liked to fight with a fellow more than he liked to fight with them.
