Studs Lonigan (52 page)

Studs entered, smiling sheepishly; he was cleaned up and had on a fresh suit and shirt. Lonigan's planned talk faded from his mind, and he was only aware that there was a deep common bond between him and his son; after all, he and Bill were the men of the family, and when he dropped the reins of responsibility, Bill would have to take them up. And Bill was the one who took after him the most. A real Lonigan. The others took more after their mother.

Melancholy misted his thoughts. Ah, he was growing old and life was moving along, he thought; he glanced towards Bill. Father and son faced each other with averted eyes.

“Bill, it was too bad, too bad this unfortunate thing had to happen,” Lonigan mourned, shaking his head in sadness, and then emitting a drawn-out and soft sigh of regret.

He stuttered and hesitated as he tried to say that he didn't mind a young fellow drinking a little and having a good time, but that there was a limit, and he hoped that it wouldn't happen again. He told Bill what great confidence he was placing in him. He hoped Bill would not destroy that confidence completely; last night he had shaken it severely, yes, severely.

He stopped talking. Father and son sat in silent misery. If only they could get a grip on the right words. They couldn't, and were keenly aware of their smokes.

“Yes, Bill, it's a great disappointment and it's nearly broken your mother's heart,” Lonigan said, arising.

He asked Studs to be more careful in the future and said that they would forgive this mistake, but that it shouldn't happen again.

A street car grated by. The swinging doors of the church were shoved to admit influxes of worshippers. The new arrivals clustered about the two tables near the holy water founts at the end of the center aisles, paying their ten cents pew rent, causing coins to be weakly clinked together. The ushers led a few lucky persons to the last vacant seats towards the rear of the aisles, while many others joined those who stood in the back and down the side aisles. Those parishioners who had rented pews by the season or annually marched proudly to their reserved places towards the front. Feet were scraped on the rubber floor covering. A man coughed.

Father Doneggan, clad in gold vestments of joyousness, bowed profoundly before the gilded golden altar with joined hands, and sing-songed :

Studs Lonigan knelt crushed in a pew towards the rear on the Blessed Virgin's side of the church. He was aware of the perfume scent and presence of a girl beside him, and her squirrel coat was brushed tantalizingly against his knee. He bowed his head to pray, and thought that the Mass was sacred, the unbloody sacrifice of the body and blood of Jesus Christ, Our Lord, the symbolic repetition of His Holy and inspiring life, and he would have to hear Mass in the right and proper spirit. He shook his head to ward off the threat of sleep. He mumbled the words of the Our Father by rote, and looked forwards as Father Doneggan bowed down over the altar, and prayed rapidly:

Unwittingly, he wished that the mass were over. He had let himself in for it, coming to high mass. Anyway, Father Doneggan always hurried through his masses, and it wouldn't be as long as if Father Gilhooley or Father Roney were celebrating it.

He heard the swinging doors, and the scrape of feet, and then, another street car. He glanced around to his right, and saw Young Rocky yawning. He watched Mr. and Mrs. Dennis P. Gorman proceed down the center aisle to their rented pews, past Austin McAuliffe, the usher who stood in the aisle and smiled as they approached. Over to his right and a couple of pews down, he saw Arnold Sheehan's twin sisters, and he thought of how Arnold had bragged of them last night. They weren't as good-looking, or as well-dressed as his sisters He smiled, seeing the Nolan family marching down the center aisle to their pews; they were built like steps, first the old man, then the mother, then the three boys in the order of their sizes. He smiled again, remembering that joke he always sprung on Jim Nolan; “Every time your old man saves a couple of hundred bucks, he brings another Nolan over from the old country, and gets him a job on the railroad.”

He heard the choir singing:

He had to keep his mind on the mass particularly because he had acted like such a bastard last night on Christmas Eve. He prayed. He watched Jim Clayburn go by him, tall, erect, dignified in a conservative black suit. Jim turned and pointed to a pew seat a couple of yards in front of Studs, and Studs stared at Jim's thin, white face, set above a high stiff collar. A man genuflected and took the pew seat pointed out to him. Jim strode back, smiling a weak recognition at Studs.

Studs looked at the lighted altar. Standing in the middle of it, extending his hands, then joining them, Father Doneggan intoned:

 

Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax
hominibus
. . .

 

Studs knew that he was singing the praise of Almighty God, but couldn't remember just what this part of the mass was called and what it symbolized. Hell of a Catholic he was. He mumbled Hail Marys. Again he listened:

 

 

After his prayer, the priest bowed down to kiss the altar, and again turned to face the people and chant:

 

 

The choir replied:

 

 

Studs closed his eyes, opened them. Covertly, he rubbed spittle on them in order to remain awake. He shuddered with a sudden shock, as if of electricity, when the squirrel coat of the voluptuous blond next to him rubbed against his leg, just above the knee. He started saying another Hail Mary, but his thoughts were distracted before he concluded, and he wondered what had happened last night. There had been that raid. Jesus Christ, he'd been afraid. He had been so goddamn shaky that he'd jumped from the second-story window, spraining his ankle. It hurt now. But he was proud of his stunt, escaping from the Law, perhaps being the only one who had. It was something they'd remember around the poolroom and the corner for a long while.

He gazed around the church to see if any of the boys were present. Seeing none of them, he guessed that they must all have been picked up, and were enjoying Christmas Day in the can. He knelt forwards and slumped his shoulders, because kneeling erect was tiring. He grimaced with a sudden pain in his ankle, and had to maneuver his right leg. He felt that she was looking at him, thinking he was a clown. His expression became serious and circumspect. He felt her eyes upon him. He would impress her. From the corner of his eye, he saw a finger on her rosary beads, a soft finger, soaped in whiteness, the long nail polished and shinily pink. He side-glanced and saw her thin face, powdered, neatly rouged, a long straight nose, wide lips, an expression of calm sophistication. The squirrel coat touched his leg. Imperceptibly, he let his body edge a fraction of an inch towards her. He heard the mumbling sounds vaguely as Father Doneggan bowed over the altar and silently uttered the prayers in preparation for the reading of the holy gospel. He yawned. His mind returned to last night. He almost fell asleep, and as if he were coming to his senses, he heard Father Doneggan swiftly chanting:

 

 

He felt a sudden elation as if he had realized one of his dreams, because he was, he knew it, on the verge of doing just that. He always, each day when he got up, and every time he went to church, had the feeling that maybe he might meet a girl, the girl he knew he would some day meet. And now this girl next to him, maybe she was the one. He quickly palmed his hands together, and tried to pray, and to look like he was praying, with proper seriousness. More aware of her than of the ceremonies, he pattered out the unthought words of the Our Father. He arose with the people, and stood like one in a dream. He sat down, hoping now, maybe, he and she would sit with their thighs against one another. He saw, in surprise, that Father Doneggan stood by the altar rail with a black book in his hand. He arose for the reading of the gospel, determined to listen:

 

 

He leaned his weight on the back of the pew in front of him. He tried to keep her face in his mind, but he forgot what she looked like, and had to side-glance to recall the features on her thin handsome face. He stared straight ahead at the priest, whose reading made disturbing indistinguishable sounds to him, and the image of her face thinned out, and then, it suddenly bloated with fat, as if he was seeing her in one of the crazy mirrors at the Fun House in White City. He looked at her again. There was an icy quality about her, too. It made him afraid she was too proud for him to make her love him, but no, it would be different and she would go for him as he did for her. Me for you, baby, he told himself. He determined once again to put exterior thoughts from him and hear mass in the right way. He forced himself to listen:

 

 

After the gospel, Studs sat down with the other people and perfunctorily blessed himself as the sermon began. The sermon seemed like a drone to him. He recalled the phrase from the gospel, “glorifying God,” and a mood of repentance struck him with a sorrow that was almost abject. He said an act of contrition, trying to make it rise from a penitent heart. This was the first Christmas morning since he had made his first Holy Communion upon which he had not received. Glorifying God. Doing what he had done on Christmas Eve. Drunk, in a whore house, watching a filthy performance by two of the lowest women there could be, going up with a whore. . . . Oh, my God, I am heartily, heartily sorry for having offended Thee, I am not worthy. . . . He had come home stinking from drink, looking like a sow, worse than the prodigal son, spoiling everybody's Christmas day at home. Oh, my God, I am heartily sorry. . . . and he had been in bed with the whore. The noise of the raid, the disappointment in that moment of discovery, came back, and recalling how it had just been before the moment, hot desires flushed his thoughts, and he wanted a woman, and her presence next to him made it worse, and if only the raid had been pulled off two minutes later.... Oh, my God . . .

He listened to Father Doneggan's description of the manger, where the Christ Child had been born, that conception which was the most important single event in all the crowded history of mankind.

His mind floated and he thought of her next to him in a way that decent girls shouldn't be thought of, and he wished that there was one more person in the pew so that he and she would be squeezed together, and Jesus Christ, he felt like a plain low-down ordinary sonofabitch.

 

“And there was the Christ Child in that humble manger, a child of poverty. Christ, our Lord, could have come unto man, a king in proud kingly robes, a monarch greater than all other earthly monarchs. But no, he came as the foster-child of a poor and humble carpenter. He came unto man in humility. And, my friends, that humility of Christ, our Lord and Savior, is one of the many lessons that we should learn on this great and joyous feast day that is celebrated throughout Christendom.
”

She was sitting straight up. Was she listening? Did her mind wander ? Did she think of him, want to meet him, know him? Had she ever heard of him? Perhaps she had been maybe to a dance and had met Dan Donoghue there, and had heard Dan say something about Studs Lonigan, and she had asked who Studs Lonigan was. And after Dan had told her, maybe she had said, or at least thought, that she would like to meet Studs Lonigan. And now she was kneeling next to him, and afterwards, going out of church, maybe they would talk, and then he would walk home with her, and arrange to take her to a show this evening. He quickly covered a yawn with his right hand. He put his hand down because he didn't want her to notice the nicotine on his fingers. He glanced about him with an air of put-on seriousness, and saw Tommy Doyle's mother in a pew across the aisle to his left. He looked to the rear, and saw the people standing, and by Father Doneggan's confessional, the beaming red face of Father Gilhooley. Father Gilhooley was probably happy, thinking of what a collection he would get, and of how so many parishioners had received Holy Communion. So many, but not Studs Lonigan.

Father Doneggan blessed himself at the completion of the sermon, and turned back towards the altar.

Studs determined that he would be more attentive. He would have to be, or it would be just the same as not having heard mass, and that, after last night, would be flying too flagrantly in the face of God Almighty. His belly was upset. His head throbbed. He was almost overpowered with thirst. His back was heavy. His ankle pained. He had just about ruined himself . . . like a goddamn fool. He had to smile, remembering Vinc Curley, and that snake-room full of drunks.

 

 

Somehow, somehow inexplicably, her thigh seemed to brush against him, and it seemed to remain pressed an instant longer than it would have if she had done it without intention, and maybe, maybe it meant she wanted to break the ice. A nervous tremor signalled through him, an exultation flowed from nerve to nerve, and that pressure, like a deft finger, made him feel as if he were on the verge of great happiness and excitement. The pressure relaxed, and a sense of sin came into his thoughts like vomit. He silently muttered an Our Father. The future seemed opening up to him like a new land, and he could see himself and her going together, making each other happy, surprising everybody who knew them, making the guys all jealous, and he could hear them saying, she must have been stewed when she picked him, she's the keenest girl in the parish, she's hot, boy, Studs got himself a woman and I don't mean maybe.