Studs Lonigan (60 page)

But he could see himself at the dance, togged out in new raiment, knocking them all dead, with a broad as keen as that blond. Everybody would wonder who he was, and everybody who knew him would be cockeyed with surprise, realizing that they had been totally wrong when they thought that Studs Lonigan was just one of the hoods in the Fifty-eighth Street Alky Squad. He could see himself at the dance, getting blind and tough, asking all the goddamn boy scouts and sweet boys in the place if they thought they were tough, and then laying one on them. Walking up to some bastard who had a Joe College handshake, messing the dope's manly vaseline locks, twisting his nose, and if he batted wise, giving him the works. Himself cleaning out the goddamn dance, with the blond seeing it. Lucy seeing it, and the blond and Lucy walking up to him, protesting.

And he would look at both of them with his lips curling into a sneer, and say:

“That for you, sister!”

Fran would be sore, and go up, Jesus, like a balloon. But it would be funny. He saw Phil coming along, singing.

“Where the hell you singing?”

“Sunday school.”

“You look it.”

“No kiddin', Studs, is Fritzie ready yet?”

“I don't know. She was dolling up. Why, you going out with her?”

“I'm taking her to the Tivoli.”

“Oh!” said Studs.

“Fritzie is a fine girl. She's the nicest girl in the neighborhood. And don't think I don't appreciate it.”

“Should I pay you for that?” Studs asked.

“I'm serious. I mean it, Studs.”

“She must be stewed going out with you. You must have sold her the whole line.”

“Studs, I'm serious in saying I respect her, and I'd fight anybody who doesn't.”

“Who the hell could you fight?” Studs asked, bursting into laughter.

“Say, Studs, what you got against me?” asked Phillip.

“No kiddin', aren't you going to sing in some Sunday school?”

“Honest, Studs, I want to be friends with you.”

“Sure, shake!” said Studs, a veiled note of sarcasm in his voice. They shook.

“Well, I better hurry. I don't want to be late.”

“So long, Dopey Dan,” Studs called.

Loretta could find better pickings than that kike. Well . . . he shrugged his shoulders.

He supposed Phil would be taking her to the dance. He didn't want to go to the goddamn thing. But he could see himself there, and surprising the whole damn bunch of them. Hell, he could do anything they could do.

He wondered how Lucy had turned out, and was she pretty and keen. She was a hell of a lot nicer than that blond. Christ, maybe that blond was only a bitch after all. Maybe she put out even to the punks. Come to think of it, she looked a little hard-boiled. The kind of a broad who knew a hell of a lot. She could probably be plenty hot all right. He thought of how funny it might be, say, in a couple of years, if he and the boys all went to a can house, and who should he see and pick, but her, the blond.

Lucy. He repeated the name, Lucy Scanlan. Lucy Lonigan. Mrs. Lucy Lonigan. Mrs. William Lonigan. He ought to call her up and see her, take her to the dance. He would telephone and act as if he thought, hell, he might as well see her again for old time's sake, and if she wanted to, why they'd go to Fran's sorority dance. Make it just natural.

He'd take her in a cab, and they'd walk through the hotel lobby, he in a new suit, she dressed up like the nuts, and people would spot him, and think there's a guy who's got a hot woman, and the punks with their seventeen- and eighteen-year-old broads, they'd all look at the woman Studs Lonigan rated. And he'd maybe see Dan Donoghue. Hadn't seen Dan since Hector was a pup. And then let the guys around the poolroom give him the horse laugh for going to a swell dance. Slug would look queerly at him, and feel his head, wondering if it ought to be examined. He'd say they better get Studs a bottle and bring him to see a new whore to change his luck. Let them. He liked them, but they would never be anything but hoods. They were all right, but he was cut out for better stuff than being a hood. Damn tootin' he was.

He bought a slug from the cashier in the chain drug store at Prairie and walked back to the telephone booths. He found her number in the directory. He dallied, turning the directory pages to figure out what he'd say. He felt as if everyone in the store were watching him, and knew what was going on in his mind.

He'd sure let himself in for something. He took a booth and was relieved when he got the busy signal and his slug came back.

“Wasn't she home?” asked the pretty cashier, when he set his slug down.

She handed him a nickel and smiled.

“Better luck next time.”

He felt a sudden pride, because it was as if he did have a girl all his own, his. It gave him a feeling he'd never had before. She thought he had his girl, a girl who cared only for him, turned down other guys, waited for him to telephone her, went out only with him, his girl. Lucy would be his too. She'd always liked him. She still must. She knew what he really was, and she'd told him she did, and Helen Shires had said, after they'd quit speaking long ago, that Lucy still did care. He laughed at himself, defensively. Studs Lonigan of the Fifty-eighth Street Alky Squad, talking like that.

He joined Slug and the boys in the poolroom.

“We was just gettin' some Jamaica ginger,” Slug said.

“Count me out.”

“Say, after that night las' week, I thought you was still the same old Studs,” Slug said.

“Yeah, listen, that goddamn paregoric made me sick and jumpy for three days.”

“You just got to get used to it.”

“Say, Studs, I'll bet some flossie's got you,” kidded Tommy Doyle.

“No, I just got to work tomorrow.”

“I admire Studs. He's got more will power than I got,” Les said.

“You singin' the blues again?” asked Slug.

“Well, he has. Jesus, there's nothin' in drinkin' all the time,” said Les.

“Les, hire a hall,” Shrimp Haggerty said wearily.

“We'll have to be shippin' you over to that Bug Club in Washington Park,” Slug said.

Studs was tempted to get drunk, but finally determined that he wouldn't succumb to temptation again. Not after that paregoric hangover he'd had.

“Come on, let's take in a movie,” he suggested.

“Hell, I saw three this week. Come on, we'll get Jamaica ginger and we'll be a movie,” said Slug.

“You'll have to count me out, boys,” said Studs.

“Desertin' us?” said Doyle.

“I don't feel like it tonight.”

They gave Studs up and left.

He kind of wished that he'd gone along. Stan Simonsky came in, and they played rotation pool. Studs won. He and Stan went to a movie. He was determined he'd call up Lucy, too, tomorrow, and take her.

He went home around twelve, feeling confident.

He was going to show the boys something! He counted the days until the dance.

“Hello, Bill.”

“Hello, dad.”

“Say, I hear you're going to your sister's dance. I'll bet you cut a swath there. Now when I was your age, I never missed any of the big shindigs. That's why your mother fell for me. I was a dandy, even if I do admit it.”

“Maybe I won't go. I thought I'd buy the ticket to help her along.”

“You don't want to be a stick-in-the-mud. And there you might meet some fellows who can be valuable to you. You know, meeting the right kind of friends, useful ones, is what counts in this world. And the fellows who will be there, now they're the kind that will count later on. They'll be having their homes, their businesses, their buildings. You'll know them and when they'll want a decorating job, right away they'll think, I'll let Bill Lonigan do this for me.”

Studs picked up a newspaper and casually glanced at it without knowing what he read.

“I hope you'll be taking that Lucy Scanlan girl. I remember her. She was a fine girl, a fine decent girl, just like your own sisters.”

Studs left the room. The old man looked hurt.

Studs had a feeling of uncertainty as he got off the elevated, and walked towards Louisa Nolan's, a dancing school over a store near Sixty-third Street. He resigned himself. Only twenty days to the dance, and if he did a little dancing before then, he'd make a better impression on Lucy and everybody. And the punks always seemed to get something here; he could too, and broads were always broads. He spied a group of fellows before the place, and as he passed them to go through the wide-doored entry, he felt that they were giving him the once-over. He started up the broad stairs with slow casualness. The way the gang of guys had looked at him, made him wonder would he get into a fight. It was a windy March Sunday, and the gang would be around the poolroom, because they had nothing else to do. If he got in a real jam, a punk would call them up and it wouldn't take long for them to get here. And Studs Lonigan could take care of himself. Only whenever a guy went to a place where he wasn't known, he had to be ready for anything.

He paid fifty cents and entered, handing his ticket to a bald-headed, narrow-faced man who looked as if he belonged ushering in a Protestant Church. A mixed, talkative crowd was spread over the shabbily-carpeted lounge. Studs was ill at ease because so many of them were strangers to him who were known here, while he wasn't. Strangers coming into the Greek's poolroom and seeing him and all the fellows perfectly at home, would have felt the same way. He saw a sign pointing up a stairway to the check-room. He went up and checked his hat and coat. Two kids with familiar faces looked at him with a glimmering recognition, but he was unable to place them and did not speak. He perceived that the upper floor was a bare balcony and returned to the lounge.

“Come up here to ankle around?” asked Wils Gillen, his face brightening with surprise.

“Oh, I thought I'd look the place over and watch you punks.”

“You want to watch the lads strut their stuff, huh, Studs?”

“Christ, most of them here look like kids,” Studs said, glancing around.

“Sure, we get the girls from Park High in first year, and train them. After we break them in, there's nobody can complain of their style and technique. Right now we're putting them through their spring training, so that when summer comes they can all do their stuff over on the Wooded Island in Jackson Park.”

“So that's what you guys do! Ruin nice girls,” Studs kidded.

“Leave it to us.”

“What, do all the girls up here put out?”

“If you don't succeed, try again. But there's Elizabeth and she's easy stuff.”

Studs smiled as Gillen hastened towards a mushy-lipped kid, with a ravishing figure. Music started and there was a crush towards the dance floor. He saw Hennessey with a luscious blond in wine-red, and after them, Young Rocky leading a baby-faced thing. He moved to the edge of the rectangular dance floor, and watched the couples pass. In the center, he saw a group of six couples doing the Polack Hop, holding partners by the shoulders, skipping contortedly from side to side, and then skidding on one foot sidewise. He shook his head. That wasn't dancing! He saw Three Star Hennessey, and the blond in red, wantonly socking it in, in a corner.

“Hello, Studs,” said Ellsworth Lyman, interrupting him from watching.

He watched Lyman move away and grab off the dance with a darkhaired Irish kid, who looked like a knockout. He approached a homely but husky Swede. They walked to the dance floor. From their first step, her big feet got in his and her own way.

“Do you come here all the time?” she asked with an accent.

“Me? No,” he said.

“Nice music,” she said.

He nodded. He felt as if everyone in the place knew him and were watching him, perhaps laughing behind his back, and thinking that all he could get for a dance was a dumb Swede pig. An expression of lust settled on her face, and she socked with him shamelessly.

“Hello, Studs, how come you're here,” yelled Three Star passing him.

Studs did not reply. The Swede had got him hot, and she had her uses, even if she was so damn clumsy.

“Like it?” she said.

After the dance, they walked off the floor.

“So long,” he said.

He felt like dancing with her again, but hell, she was easy meat. Maybe he'd get something better. If not, he could always try her again.

“Hello, Studs, Hydrox. How you Ben Turpin?” Noel Morton said.

“Oh, hello,” said Studs, looking up at Noel, who was about six foot one, and loose-jointed. His baboonish, loose lips broke into an unassuming and friendly smile. Studs looked his outfit over and kidded him because his suit coat hung so low that most fellows could have worn it for a top-coat.

“Gee, I never expected to see you here.”

“I thought I'd see what the place looks like.”

“Well, how you like us? Think we're swell people?”

“Half of the broads here look like jail bait.”

“They are. But sometimes, when they're young, they're sweet.”

“Yeah, and it's sweeter too, laying in a can after you make 'em,” said Studs.

“He who hesitates is lost, as I said to my old boy friend, Jess Dempsey,” said Noel, dashing off.

“Hello, Studs.”

“Hello, Weary. How goes it?”