Studs Lonigan (90 page)

“If you do that, Steve, do me a favor? Let me know where you get the job, and how you turned the trick. Because, brother, I sure pounded the pavements in the Loop looking for a job, until my fanny was drooping like a wilting lily of the fields and the soles of my feet just ached for a nice comfortable pair of carpet slippers and a soft rug. And all I got was the go-by. Me, now, I'm a guy who doesn't feel good if I ain't working. I'm no lazy bastard like O'Grady. . . .”

“That's why you've always been so dumb,” O'Grady said, interrupting Allison.

“Dumb, hell! It's just that I got to have something to do, and dough in my pocket, and the feeling that I don't have to take nobody's crap. Then I can just go along and pay my own way, and I feel right. And Christ, this goddamn hanging around without a sou in your pocket, it just rips me up the back.”

“Me, now, I might just as well be not working, with my salary cut to fifteen bucks a week, and my old man sobbing the blues every night about how broke he is. Holy Christ!” Bryan said.

“Sing'em brother,sing 'em!” Pat said, smiling. He turned to Studs as they seemed to split into two groups, and said, “Doing anything interesting these days, Studs?”

“Not a lot,” Studs answered, as if his conduct were of interest to Pat, his feeling for Pat warmed more and more.

“I guess nobody's raising as much hell as they used to. Fellows like yourself are getting more settled, and anyway, there's not so much loose dough floating around for hell-raising like there used to be.”

“Come to think of it, Pat, I did spend a hell of a lot of dough on booze and such things in the old days.”

“Don't I remember! It used to be a sight to hang around the corner on a Saturday night until one or two when you boys of the Fifty-eighth Street Alky Squad came around pie-eyed,” Pat said, he and Studs laughing, Studs having the feeling suddenly that it was still the old days.

Warning bells and the lowering train gates of the I.C. distracted his thoughts, and he watched a westbound electric suburban train clatter down the middle of the street, drawing into the Bryn Mawr station that reached westward from Jeffery. He watched three young fellows racing up the station steps to catch the train, asking himself idly who they were, and what they were?

“Say, Lonigan, since your old man's a painting contractor, I was wondering about something. A lad I know, good friend of mine, was chump enough to get himself spliced when he was out of a job. He's damn nifty with the brushes, too, and now he needs work because his wife is having a kid. I'll vouch for him as a damn good worker, not at all like me, he just knows me. Would there be any chance of your old man giving him something to do?” O'Grady asked.

“Jesus, the kid brother here and I don't even work regularly,” Studs said, Martin frowning at Studs.

“Well, no harm in asking,” O'Grady said.

Studs regretted that he couldn't help out O'Grady's friend. He'd like to be a guy who could do favors that way, like a politician. If guys wanted something, they'd say, know Studs Lonigan, well, see him, he ought to be able to fix you up.

“Now that everybody has done his gassing, how about a bottle, boys?” Martin said.

“Studs, hear that?” said Pat, nodding his head at Martin.

“Yeah, Pat, these kids nowadays getting pretty reckless,” Studs said, winking at Pat.

“Sure we are, Grandpa Lonigan. Tell about that time, though, during the Spanish American War, when you jumped out of the window of a can house with your pants down. I haven't heard that story for an hour. Now, come on, tell us,” said Martin, his voice a cutting sneer.

“Yes, and I'll bet you just go rolling down the gutter every time you whiff a cork,” Studs said, pleased when they laughed, because it showed that he was impressing them all as a guy with a real sense of humor.

“Listen, I'll eat mine if I can't drink you under the table,” Martin countered.

“Pat, there's a lot of cocky young punks these days whose talk is louder than their actions,” Studs said with strained casualness.

“And there's plenty of old boys, you know, in training to become bald-headed dryballs,” Martin said.

“I'd call this nice brotherly friendship,” Bryan said, Studs glad for the crack because he was stumped for a retort.

“Frankly, if you asked my opinion, I'd lay my dough on the line to say that your old man could spot both of you a good-sized pint and still watch you pass out,” Pat said.

“The gaffer had his in his day,” Martin said.

“And Steve O'Grady's old man whetted his gullet with plenty, too, in his time,” O'Grady said.

“You know, it's funny. Now, you take my old man. I'm pretty sure he was wild and sowed his wild oats in his day. But he must have changed a lot since then. He acted toward Martin there and me as if he didn't want us to have what he had, and as if he didn't even understand why a guy could want to go out, tip the bottle, raise some hell. Funny, isn't it, the way people change,” Studs said.

“Wait till you are married and you make me the uncle of some squawking little Studs Lonigans,” Martin laughed.

“Going to march down the middle aisle with a flower in your buttonhole, huh, Studs? Well, congratulations,” O'Doul said.

“That reminds me. Pete Webb just took a run-out powder on his wife. She's having a kid, and Pete, who never liked work anyway, didn't have a job, so he just took the run-out powder,” Pat said.

“He was the skinny, dark-haired punk around the corner who was so chicken, wasn't he,” Studs said.

“That's Webb, Lonigan,” Bryan said.

“What's his frau doing besides having a baby?” asked Schuber.

“Webb was crummy to pull a stunt like that,” O'Grady said.

“Fellows, you can't always tell what a guy's reasons are when he does a thing like that. He might be wanting to explore new fields for nooky, and you know, a john has got no conscience. And then, the broad a guy marries might not be just what he's bargained for. There's plenty of dames walking the streets, keen babies, too, and a fellow looks at them, gets hot in the pants, takes them out and throws a little necking party, and he begins to think, now, well, here's the gal who's got just what it takes, and is the answer to all my prayers, and she's got everything plus. Well, what he wants really is a piece of tail, and she won't put it out without the ring on her finger, so he puts the ring on her finger for a piece of tail, and after he gets tired of that, he finds out that she's got everything minus, and a tongue and things like that. So he finds out that he hasn't gotten any bargain after all. You can't always tell a guy's reasons when he takes a run-out powder,” Allison said.

“Still, it's pretty low to breeze on a girl after you've married and knocked her up,” Studs said.

“You never could rely on Pete for anything,” Pat said.

“That's the way I always doped him,” Studs said.

“Say, that's the twelfth train I watched go by tonight. I counted 'em,” O'Doul said, watching an eastbound train clatter out of the Bryn Mawr station.

“Jesus Christ!” O'Grady exclaimed in surprise. “That's my idea of nothing to do. Counting trains. Hey, O'Doul, how many automobiles has passed here going to South Shore in the last nineteen minutes?”

“Huh?”

“You're falling down on the job, boy,” said O'Grady, and they laughed.

“Well, now that the barbering has gone so far, let's get a bottle,” Bryan said.

Studs was tempted, and thought of how he could get 'em off on a rip-roaring drunk and show them what Studs Lonigan really was, and teach the kid brother a couple of tricks for good measure.

“Now, Bryan, you're showing me you got some stuff on the ball,” Martin said.

“I'm game, Don. But since this is your bright idea, how about you shelling out for the bottle? Steve O'Grady will help you drink it,” O'Grady said.

“Who was your chump last year?”

“You.”

“Well, try hunting a new one this year,” Bryan said while they laughed.

“Oh, by the way, Pat, you know that keen broad, Louise Mahler? She's getting to look more like hot stuff every day. Saw her at a dance at the Westgate last week,” Schuber said, O'Doul turning to look at them.

“Has she been introduced into the mysteries of life and love yet?” asked Bryan.

“Don, your mind is lousy. She's a decent girl,” Pat said.

“And sure, so was I a decent boy once,” Bryan said.

“Say, Studs, how's Phil Rolfe making out these days?” Pat asked.

“That boy just rakes in the dough,” Martin said.

“Phil Rolfe. Oh, that's right, he's your brother-in-law, isn't he, Lonigan? Sure, I would say he's cleaning up. I was over to his place a few weeks ago, played a buck on a nag, and she paid four to one, and was his joint crowded! Lots of women there old enough to be my mother, too, playing the ponies. With times kind of hard, everybody is trying to make a little extra, and a lot of 'em are playing the ponies and that's just up Phil's alley. I don't envy him his luck, though. He's a nice lad. I was talking to him a few minutes. Nice lad. I never associated it, Studs, that you and Husk were his brother-in-laws,” Allison said.

Studs Lonigan, Phil Rolfe's brother-in-law. That it would ever come to the time that he was known this way, instead of Phil being known as Studs' brother-in-law. He suddenly felt out of everything. A new corner. A new bunch. Out of it. Others pushing along, to be where he used to be. He looked from face to face: Martin, cocky and surly; Pat, jolly; that snotty puss of Bryan. O'Doul, simpering, showing off, standing there all dressed up and no place to go, trying to act like hot stuff, just as he used to back at the corner of Fifty-eighth and Prairie. The world could change, but not Kodak Kid O'Doul, Studs thought, sneering. And Allison, bigger, younger, more powerful-looking than himself. Out of it. These lads, knowing him as Phil Rolfe's brother-in-law. His old contempt for Phil rose. Before he got through. Well, he had to take nobody's. He had his investment, didn't he. . . .

“Well, are we or ain't we?” asked Bryan impatiently.

“Count me out. I'm tired, and I'm going home to hit the hay early,” Pat said.

“How about you, Lonigan?” Don asked.

“No, thanks. Not tonight,” Studs answered.

“Don, can't you see that this gang is as full of vim, vigor, vitality, and ambition as a sleeping alligator?” O'Grady said.

“Well, I'm ready,” Martin said.

“And try walking home on your own feet tonight to see how it feels,” Studs said to Martin, smiling.

“Don't worry about me there, foxy grandpa,” said Martin.

“Well, I'll see you again, fellows,” Studs said.

“Take care of yourself, Studs, and don't take any rubber dimes,” Pat said as Studs walked to the chain drug store entrance to go in for a malted milk.

“You missed Amos and Andy tonight. Golly, they were funny,” Lonigan said as Studs entered the parlor.

“I was talking to some fellows I know,” Studs said, unfolding his copy of the morning's
Chicago Questioner
and letting his eyes run over the headlines.

“Anything in the papers, Bill?”

“Not much. A couple of holdups. And a Red riot on the west side. A cop was beaten up and taken to the hospital with a broken leg,” said Studs casually.

“They ought to put a stop to those damn Reds, starting trouble when the country has its hands full as it is. The cops aren't even safe with them any more. I tell you, there ought to be a law against 'em, and they ought to be put at hard labor on an island like that Devil's Island the French got,” Lonigan said with a rising self-righteousness that drew blood to his face.

“Yes, and it says here that some university professor named Lovett has protested to the mayor against police brutality.”

“He must be an atheist. What does he want, the cops to stand there and let their legs get broken? They haven't got any respect for law, these atheistic university professors and Reds,” Lonigan said.

Studs read the account of an interview with Solomon Imbray.