Studs Lonigan (32 page)

“You cheated in that toss-up, and we won't be no Germans,” Andy yelled.

“If you guys was patriots you'd want to be the Germans anyway because you're getting licked. You wouldn't want the Americans to be licked,” yelled O'Neill in a loud, squeaking voice.

“Come on over and try and make us be the Germans,” yelled Andy.

They drove him under cover with tin cans. In the midst of the battle, he popped up and shouted:

“You guys would cheat your own mother. ”

Young Horn tried to rearrange the battered earthworks in front of his trench. O'Neill hit him in the shoulder.

“Hurrah for us Americans!” yelled Andy, again jumping up and down, and laughing like an idiot.

“Hey, Le Gare, watch out for the squirrels,” Studs shouted.

No one heard him. The punks didn't even seem to know that the great and tough Studs Lonigan was watching them.

Studs was keen to join in the battle. He couldn't play punk games any more. He wished that Red and Paulie Haggerty and some of the guys would come along. Then they could all get in, and that would be different. It wouldn't be just him, alone, playing. Or else the bunch of them could bust the game up, and that would be fun, all of them kicking in the trenches, and when the punks got loud-mouthed, booting their tails around the block.

O'Neill crawled out from the reserve trench, and yelled that he was wounded and couldn't be hit. He went over by the side fence of the prairie, walked past the baby-buggy where Young Horn had left his baby brother, and came out on the sidewalk, as the battle continued.

“Hey, goof!” yelled Studs.

O'Neill came over to Studs like one in his sleep.

“Where you going?”

“Hospital,” said O'Neill, showing a hand bleeding slightly from a scratch.

Studs shook his head quizzically, as he watched O'Neill enter Levin's drug store across the street. But he itched to get into it, or else break it up. He looked at his long pants. He stuck his hands in his pockets, and stood sneering.

Well, before the war was over, he'd be in it, and get the real stuff. And suppose he did get killed. All right, it would make him one of his country's heroes, along with those who'd died in the other wars to make America the great land that it was. And it would only serve his old man right.

Screwy McGlynn, the laundry driver, hopped from his wagon and joined Studs.

“That's why this country's great. These kids exemplify the unconquerable American spirit. They show in their way why this country can lick the world, and why our boys aren't going to stop, once they get started, until they march straight into Berlin,” philosophized Screwy.

Studs assumed a mature man-to-man attitude, and nodded.

“Pretty crazy, but it's great to be a kid,” a needle-faced stranger said, ranging himself alongside of them.

Studs tried hard to convince himself in his thoughts that he was not envying the punks out there fighting, and, hell, he'd grown past all that kid stuff. But he knew that he couldn't fool himself and tell himself lies, and that when he wanted something, he wanted it, and all the telling himself in the world that he didn't want it couldn't make him get rid of that wanting. The same way he tried to tell himself that he didn't really love Lucy, and that loving a girl the way he loved Lucy was goofy, because a big tough guy should only want to jump a girl, and think that all the rest and the love was crap.

“Kids will be kids,” said Screwy.

“Yep, they will,” a bakery driver said.

“Yeah,” the needle-faced guy said.

“No time in life like when you're a kid,” the bakery man meditated aloud.

“You should have seen them bellyaching before it started. They both wanted to be the Americans. I thought they'd end up in a free-for-all fist fight,” said Studs, a man in a man's world.

They haw-hawed, Studs the most loudly. Not one punk noticed Studs Lonigan laughing, a man in a man's world.

And smiling-eyed, curly-haired Lucy Scanlan, plump, pretty, flowering beautifully into young womanhood, came along. Studs saw her. She saw him. Studs took out a cigarette and lit it like an expert. He talked and laughed with the other men, as if Lucy might have been in Africa. She paused on the sidewalk, only a few yards away from Studs, watching the battle. She didn't look at him. He tried not to look at her. He watched her out of the corner of his eye. She might be going to the store. He could go along, help her carry the groceries home, go to the park with her, like last summer on the day when they'd sat in the tree, and he'd kissed her, and seen her blue wash bloomers, and she'd sung
In the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia,
swinging her legs in the tree, as if they two had been all alone together in the world. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, at her shapely legs, and her growing girlbreasts, Lucy. Gee, she was even prettier than she was last summer, and growing, too. And she wouldn't bat an eye at him even.

Screwy spoke of playing pirate in Missouri, when he was a shaver living only about a hundred miles from Hannibal, that Mark Twain had written about. The bakery man spoke of barefoot-boy days in Indiana. Studs listened and laughed as they detailed their boyhood pranks. He looked at Lucy cold. She looked back. Their eyes met. She turned away, as if he were a total stranger.

The tin-can battle raged on, and after an attack was repulsed, Andy again went batty, jumping and yelling that the Americans were winning.

And Studs wanted to be a soldier now, marching away in uniform, and become a hero, and then if he died, well, it would serve her right. Because he loved her with the best and deepest part of himself, and what did she care! And if he came back with medals all over his chest, then she might change her tune. He'd walk along Indiana in his major's uniform, sword at his side, and she'd maybe come up and say, very penitent and meek:

“Studs, I'm sorry.”

And Major Lonigan would walk past her as if she was a flea.

The battle raged.

Lucy walked on. Maybe on her way back, with her arms full of groceries, she'd talk, and he'd help her carry them. Or maybe he wouldn't. She'd say hello Studs, and he'd say, hello, or maybe not, and then let her go on with all her groceries. And if she dropped them, he'd just laugh. She'd laughed at him, not caring how he felt. He wouldn't care about her feelings. He who laughs last, laughs best, and Studs Lonigan was the kind of a guy who got the last laugh on everybody, and he'd get it on her. He watched her go. She didn't look back. The hell with her. Only the image of her girlbreasts, underneath her dress, stuck in his mind. Lucy!

“Yeah, great sport,” Screwy said for the sixth time, with nostalgia aching in his voice.

“Say, I see trenches like this all over,” the bakery man said.

“You do?” the needle-faced guy said.

Studs wished the bunch had thought of doing this a couple of years ago. Would have been fun. It still would, if they'd all come around. Nope, punk stuff.

“Yeah, great sport,” Screwy said for the seventh time.

In his mind, Private Lonigan, with a steel helmet, and in khaki, dodged star shells, crawled through the shell holes of Flanders Field, and flung a hand grenade into a dangerous German machine-gun nest. And with fixed bayonet, he leaped into the nest, and frightened all the Germans that were still alive into yelling:

“Kamerad!”

He led them back across the shell-torn midnight of No Man's Land, and turned them over to that same sergeant, who'd said:

“G'wan home, children, and get your diapers pinned on!”

The men from Studs' man's-world departed. He watched the punks, alone. He glanced towards Fifty-eighth Street to see if she was coming back yet. Mrs. Dennis P. Gorman, the lawyer's wife, stopped by him, and Studs perfunctorily tipped his hat. She remarked that it was very dangerous and rowdyish and disgraceful for those boys to play that way. She passed indignantly on.

War reigned in the vacant lot. And in the mind of Studs Lonigan. Suddenly, a randomly-flung tin can hit the young Buckford baby. It squawled, with irritating loudness. Young Horn rushed over and wheeled the buggy out on to the sidewalk. The punks gathered impotently around it, accusing each other of having thrown the can, while the baby continued to yell. Studs singled out Young Horn, who was a snotty kid with a head that seemed three sizes too big for his body, and told him he ought to be socked for leaving the baby where it could be hit like that. Young Horn shouted that it wasn't his fault. Women surrounded the baby, and slobbered baby-talk over it. Young Horn turned his back on Studs, and, poking one lady in the thighs, said:

“Hey, what the hell, that guy ain't hurt.”

The woman continued to slobber baby-talk.

“Hell, lady, last week I had him down the block and you know what he did, he fell out of the buggy on his bean, right on the stone, and it didn't hurt him none. Hell, lady, you can't hurt that guy's bean.”

Dick Buckford dragged his kid brother aside, and told him to shut up and take the baby home. He kicked Young Horn in the tail. Horn shrieked. He got his face slapped, and the cooing women were appalled. Horn wheeled the baby buggy off. He turned, a hundred yards away, and yelled at Dick:

“Wait'till I tell mother on you!”

The punks continued the battle, but the spirit of fun was gone.

Studs turned and walked down Indiana towards Fifty-seventh. He wished he'd see Dan Donoghue or some of the old Indiana bunch he'd gone with from St. Patrick's. He felt like going over to Fifty-eighth and Prairie to see if any of the Fifty-eighth Street guys were around. But he waited for Lucy to come back, walking slowly down towards Fifty-seventh. He passed and re-passed, and re-passed her house, looking fourtively at the gray stone building. And last year, she'd stood on the porch and blown him a kiss. And he'd been a damn fool, and proud, and when someone had scrawled those things about him loving her, he'd been just dumb. She'd stood there as it was getting dark and thrown him a kiss. He belched. His stomach still felt like lead from those bananas. He came back to the prairie, but the punks had gone home for lunch. The twelve o'clock whistles blew, piercing the scene. They made Studs very lonesome. When would she speak to him again? He wanted to kiss her again too. He shook his head, thinking that he sure did have his troubles. He didn't see her coming back either, and there was no one else around, and he couldn't go home and eat. And if he'd only get into the war, he'd be a hero. And he'd sat in the tree with her, and the way she'd swung those legs that were now so pretty and had such shape, and her lips that were now redder, and then, she hadn't hardly any breasts to notice, and now she was like ... like a growing flower . . . and he wanted to kiss her again. He glanced at the deserted trenches. He went over and looked down into them. He jumped into the nearer trench, and flung a can. He inspected the other trench. His troubles still weighted his thoughts. He was sore, goddamn sore at the world. He'd pay it back too. He got sorer. He kicked in the trench, and tore down the earthworks.

He heard a laugh. He looked towards the sidewalk. Lucy Scanlan stood there laughing at him, holding her head high.

His face a blazing red, he walked out of the vacant lot, past her, and on over towards Fifty-eighth and Prairie Avenue. He tried to think of himself as a hero. He was a hero in his own mind. He was utterly miserable.

A DRUNK in the jammed elevated car sang
The Star Spangled Banner.
Studs tried to join in. The train rocketed along, and the song died feebly in the noise. A souse on the rear platform donged a cowbell. The train whistle emitted a piercing wah-wah. A powerful roar came from the front of the car:

“TO HELL WITH THE KAISER!”

Studs was swayed with the crowd as the train pulled into the Fifty-first Street station. The platform was crushed with people, and when the conductor refused to open the gates and admit additional passengers, they blared protests and loud-voiced jokes. There was another drunken bellow when the train pulled out:

“TO HELL WITH KAISER BILL!”

A female body pressed against Studs. From the corner of his eye, he lamped the woman; her face was wrinkling, and she must be forty or over, almost old enough to be his grandmother. But she excited him as much as if she was a young jane. Perspiration beaded his broad, planed face.

He again tried to sing and was toppled sidewise in a wave of goodnatured shoving. A fox-in-the-bush got his place beside grandma. Studs looked at the beard, lace curtains that must be dirty as a doormat. Hatred of fox-in-the-bush flared in him. He remembered his excited sensation as she wiggled against him. She'd been giving him the works all right, and he didn't care about her age, and he'd liked it. And that goddamn fox-in-the-bush had gotten his place. He wished he was alone with her; he'd bet she knew her onions, and could teach him plenty that he ought to know. Catching a quick glimpse of her ruined face, he was disgusted with himself. But he looked around, to see if he could get shoved against any other woman on the car.

The train passed Forty-seventh Street. He was all nerves to be downtown and off the train. The whistle wah-wahed. Kenny let out a long and funny wahooo that took down the car. Studs glanced around for a woman, wondering how he'd never before thought of the possibilities of getting against one in crowded el trains. Suddenly everybody was laughing. He looked to his right, and saw that Kenny Kilarney had fallen into the lap of a young chicken and didn't want to get up.

He heard the fox-in-the-bush squeaking that the war was over. He imagined himself socking the guy. He was shoved near him, and as fox-in-the-bush said something else to hot grandma, Studs felt like asking why he didn't give towels with his shower baths. A drunk in front of Studs ponderously muttered uh huh the war was over. Two girls near Red Kelly sang
Over There
, making Studs lonesome to be in France. He looked at the young janes, and thought that Red was a lucky guy, and there was gold in them there hills. To attract their attention, he started singing,
We'll Make the Hindenburg Line Look Like a Dime,
very loudly.