Studs Lonigan (45 page)

He realized how tired he was, and his shoulders drooped. But it had been a great game, and a great fight, and he could feel proud of his part in both. He'd showed them all. He remembered that first clean tackle he had made, leaving his feet, the way he smashed into the runner, that sudden rush of his body through the air for a split second, and bang, the guy was down. Hundreds of people, too, had seen it. He was nostalgic to be still playing, making tackles like that.

Dumb, too, not to have gone to high school. If punks like O'Neill could make the grade, what couldn't he have done? He cursed, though, realizing that they would lose their permit to play in Washington Park, and that they couldn't get up a good team to travel, particularly after a fight like this; because if they traveled and didn't have a big enough mob along, they'd get the clouts plenty somewhere. Damn Reilley! And just when the scrap had started, he had been getting into top form, he felt. But the fight, too, had been a wow. The way he had hit that big yellow bastard. Only, gee, he might have been a bigger star in the game than even Schwartz, if it hadn't started.

He stuck his shoulders back, and forced himself to walk briskly. Proud of himself and his body. In his prime right now.

He became aware that it was dark, and an autumn mist was settling over Fifty-eighth Street. Street lights were on at the alley between Indiana and Michigan. There were lights in windows. He heard the scrape of shoes in back of him, and the rumble of an elevated train. Down at State Street a street car was going, the bell donging. An automobile passed. The lonesome part of the day.

If Lucy had seen it, him! Well, what if he did admit to himself; he had played and acted like a hero!

That poor bastard Schwartz, game, had to grant that, lying dead in a hospital or morgue. It could have been him, perhaps. No, he knew he wouldn't die that way; he knew that he had some kind of a destiny to live for, and that he would live until that destiny was fulfilled. Maybe he would be a damn important guy later on, politician or something. That poor Jew bastard in a morgue. On the impulse, he mumbled a prayer for the guy!

The street around him seemed gloomy, and he was gloomy too. He couldn't get the thought of that dead Jew out of his mind. He didn't feel so cocky. He felt now like he wanted something in life, and didn't know what. That game and fight now, it had been swell. But there was something more he wanted than the glory of it, and he didn't even know what it was. Funny that he kept coming back to thoughts like this.

“
I
'll give you a check for a hundred bucks. But take it from me, what you ought to do is pound some sense into him with a horse whip.”

“Now William, please come to our December formal,” Fran said.

“Bill, I'd give anything to see you in soup-and-fish,” Lonigan said, boisterously spraying Martin with saliva as he laughed.

A blush spoiled Studs' effort to appear noncommittal.

“A lot of fellows you know, Dan Donoghue, Johnny O'Brien, scads of them will be there, even that awful brother of Geraldine Malloy's,” Fran said.

“Now, Frances, you needn't go bothering William. There's time enough for him to be getting a girl. Nowadays, all a girl wants is to get a fellow and have him spend all his money on her. William works hard for his money, and he'll have time enough for girls. He's young yet,” the mother said.

“Mother, please don't be so ridic,” Fran said.

“My goodness mercy, the language you use. I was saying to Mrs. Reilley only the other day, that the way our young ones are talking, we soon won't be able to understand a word they say,” the mother said.

“Bill, don't let 'em fool you. I'll bet you'll be a real sheik, and have a winning way with the ladies. Chip off the old block, you'll be. Now when I was young . . .”

“Father, please!” interrupted Fran in a tone nasty with boredom and disgust.

Lonigan looked hurt.

“Yes, to hear him talk! IF I hadn't married him, he'd still be a wallflower,” the mother said.

“Is that so?” said Lonigan.

“I'll bet Martin will be a sheik and not need any encouragement when he gets a little older,” Loretta said.

“Aw, go hop in the bowl,” Martin said.

The family paused from its supper to look aghast at Martin.

“Why, the idea!” said Fran in dudgeon.

“Martin, where do you hear language like that?” Lonigan sternly asked.

“He won't get a girl ever if he talks like that,” Loretta said, amused.

“Now, see here, young fellow! I never want to hear you talking like that inside this house, and above all at the family table, blessed be God,” Lonigan commanded.

“You children are the life of me! I don't know where you get your talk and your ideas,” the mother said.

“If you would send him to a refined private school, like the one Catherine Hovey's brother goes to, he wouldn't talk like he does,” Fran said.

“I won't go to that dopey school,” Martin protested.

“Listen! If you want to sit at this table with your mother and sisters, you're going to use civilized, refined language,” Lonigan said.

“All right, but gee, can't all of you let me alone?”

“He takes after him,” Fran said, pointing at Studs.

Studs was inwardly proud. He was always being told his kid brother was just like he'd been, and plenty tough.

“Nobody asked for your two cents' worth,” Studs said.

“Why, William Lonigan, you're not going to talk to me in that tone of voice!”

“Children, please!” interjected the mother.

“I give him up. I don't care what he does any more. I don't want him at our dance, disgracing me. If he chooses to be a bum, let him! I wash my hands,” Fran said like a martyr.

“You've been doing that for years. I hope it's final,” sneered Studs.

“Don't worry. It is. You have a positive hatred of acting like a gentleman. Go your own way! You might wake up some day and be sorry,” she said.

“Swell,” Studs said sarcastically.

“That'll be about enough,” Lonigan boomed.

The table lapsed into a hostile silence. To break it, Lonigan asked Loretta how she was coming along at school.

“Fine, dad.”

Studs ate quickly. Hell, he didn't want to take his time, and listen to all the talk that went on.

“What are you studying?”

“Oh, Latin, and Advanced Algebra, and Christian Doctrine, and History, and . . .”

“You're going to be a smart lady, I see.”

“Martin! Haven't you been told before not to set your knife against your plate like that. Put it on your plate. You're not eating with African cannibals,” Fran said.

“Oh, all right!” Martin pouted, putting his knife across his plate.

“I thought I said there's to be no more of this!” Lonigan said.

“Well, there wouldn't be, if someone would teach him some manners,” Fran said.

“Aw, mind your own business,” Martin said.

“Fran, please!” said Loretta.

“Well, he could at least eat in a civilized fashion,” Fran said.

“Martin, who do you ever see eating like that?” Lonigan asked.

“Him!” Fran said, pointing at Studs.

“Say, keep your trap shut.”

“You're not going to snarl at me,” she said. She jumped up, and flushed out of the room. Lonigan impotently looked from one to the other.

“I do wish you'd treat one another like brother and sister,” Mrs. Lonigan said. She arose and followed Fran.

“Bill, you know your sister's a little nervous and you got to make allowances for her,” Lonigan fatuously said.

Fran returned with the mother, frowned, and sat down, preserving an air of armed truce.

“Well, I had an offer of ninety thousand for the building today,” Lonigan said.

“You took it?” asked Fran.

“I should say not.”

“But, father, this neighborhood is deteriorating all the time. The best people in it are moving over to Hyde Park or out in South Shore. Soon I'll be ashamed to admit I live around here.”

“Young lady, you're wrong. The niggers will be run raggedy if they ever try to get past Wabash Avenue. This is a good, decent neighborhood full of respectable people, and it will always be so. Didn't you hear Father Gilhooley talk about the new church he was building on this street. What did he say? Didn't he say Michigan was going to be a boulevard straight through. Then, this building will be worth twice as much. Why this neighborhood hasn't even commenced to grow yet, the way it will, and property values have hardly started to rise in it.”

“But, father. . .”

“Young lady, this is my business.”

They finished supper with little talk. Studs left the table and washed his teeth. He put on his hat and coat. He looked at himself in the mirror. He wasn't a bad-looking guy at all. He heard footsteps in the hall, and turned away. He remembered how Fran had once caught him at the mirror, and had razzed him about being conceited in a snotty, superior way that she had.

“Bill, come here a minute!” Lonigan called as Studs turned the knob of the front door.

He was smoking in his rocker. Studs noticed that his belly seemed to stick out more and more every day. He plunked down on the piano stool.

“Bill, you know, Father Time is beginning to catch up on your mother and me. You kids are all we got, and . . . we'd kind of like to see more of you, have you all stay in and spend a quiet, happy evening with us. That isn't asking a whole lot. You're young and want to go out and be a regular fellow, and we don't object. Only there's always another night. And you know, Bill, you'll never have another mother. She sits up night after night worrying about you. It would just tickle her heart pink if you would, now and then, go up, kiss her and say,'Mother, I'm going to stay in with you tonight'.”

“I'm just going to a show. I'll be in early.”

The phone rang. Studs was glad it was for him. He went out of the parlor and Lonigan picked up his newspaper to read about the Grand Jury quiz of some aldermen implicated in a school board graft. It was Dan Donoghue calling to say that he had found out for certain that Jew Schwartz would be all right, except that he had been ruptured and wouldn't ever be able to play football again. Studs asked Dan about a show, but Dan had a date. He noticed Martin sitting by the crystal radio-set with the ear phones on, keeping time on the floor. Loretta came out of the bathroom with a copy of
True Story
magazine in her hands. She stopped, shaking her shoulders and doing a little dance when she saw him. He left, shouting good-bye.

Off the drear and rock-bound coasts of Alaska, that frigid land where men gamble their lives and souls with the dice of death, and sin for love and gold, the good ship
Mary Ann
braved all the monstrous terrors of the deep. Rolling, tipping, tossing, swaying, swerving, straining through the black and mysterious night, it tacked against a pelting rain, a howling wind, and huge waves that washed over it like evil spirits from out of the bowels of the unconquerable seas.

Captain Arnold, of the good ship
Mary Ann
, was a bulky man with cruelty stamped on a vicious, unshaven face, and a heart more ruthless than the stormy seas. He commanded his seamen with the iron hand of a tyrant. With each order, he gave them a curse, a kick, a blow. One of his sailors was Morgan, a smaller man, with the milk of human kindness in his soul. He gave Morgan an order, and slapped his face, sneering like a fiend out of hell. Morgan received the slap unflinchingly, but defiance struck the kindliness from his eyes.