The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [109]
“Have a good time, Bill, old boy, and don’t take any wooden nickels,” the old man called from the parlor.
His mother rushed to the door, made the sign of the cross before him, kissed him, and told him to be a good boy.
He walked along, whistling. He stopped at the corner of Fifty-eighth and Indiana. If he walked down to Fifty-seventh, he might just bump into Dan or Helen Shires, talk about old times, let them see how he was all dolled up, bowl ‘em over by flashing his roll. And he could maybe see Lucy, and speak, and she’d say how swell he looked, and he’d say what are you doing, and he’d say come on, let’s take in a show, and he’d have a blowout with her, and not go around the poolroom, and he’d kiss her good night on the steps. Now, he’d have the dough to take her out regularly. Girls liked a fellow to take them out and show them a good time. Swell to be earning your own living.
Hell, he was out of their class now. He took a few steps across Indiana Avenue. He paused, looked down to see the street in a fading spring twilight. Buildings he knew, a few automobiles parked along the curbs, some kids playing across from O’Brien’s house. The tumble-down wooden buildings near Fifty-eighth on his right, where Mush Joss lived. The row of two-story gray bricks where Lucy lived. Where they used to play tin-tin on nights like this, and sometimes with everybody giggling, he’d kiss her. He wanted to put his arms around her and kiss her again. Aw, hell, he had the dough to get all the girls he wanted. He turned, and walked slowly down Indiana Avenue on the west side of the street. Maybe he’d see Dan. The last time he’d stopped in, Dan had been studying. Let him!
No curtains in Lucy’s house. The lights out... Moved. He looked in. Funny, he hadn’t heard from Fran or anybody that she was moving. Where? There was the house empty, and he could remember seeing her around it so often, on the steps at this time of day when they’d come home from the park, and she’d blown him a last kiss, on the steps yelling for him when he fought Weary, looking out the window one day smiling in that way of hers when he had passed by. She had even perhaps moved to another city. Perhaps never, never again would he see her! All his hopes were gone, like they’d dropped into a sewer, and what if he had dough in his kick, and looked swell, and was wearing his first straw katy! Through the window there was growing darkness, no furniture. There were plenty of girls to be gotten, and perhaps he might never see her, or would see her only far far ahead, when it was all too late.
He walked down to the corner, absorbed. Without realizing it, he stood by the mail box, opening and closing it. If anybody saw him, he’d look crazy as a loon.
“Hello, Studs!” said Andy Le Gare, entering the corner building.
“Shut up!”
Studs walked west on Fifty-seventh to the alley, and then turned around. It wouldn’t look fluky now, if he just turned back and walked by her house again. Look like he was just on his way somewhere. He didn’t want to go anywhere. He glanced at the empty house, desolate. Across the street kids played hide-and-go-seek, their voices and shouts seeming far away. He and Lucy had passed the crossroads of life now, their paths had cut away from each other. In that movie the other night the same thing had happened to the fellow and the girl, only they’d found each other again, in time.
Aw, what the hell! Let it go! He was sitting pretty!
He was aware of it being very quiet, lonesome, the sad part of the day. A dog barked. A horse and wagon clattered by on the rough, unpaved street. There was the noise of automobile brakes. The kids. The dog barked again. Quiet.
He went over Fifty-eighth Street. There was the tailor shop run by Cohen’s old man. A dry goods store in place of the old Palm Theatre. A shoe repair shop where Schroeder had had that ice cream parlor they’d raided. The alley. The chain store, and the five and dime. The neighborhood was still much the same, and yet it was different without her. Every block, every store was somehow connected in his mind with her. It was as if she was like God, and her spirit was in every-thing in the neighborhood, only it wasn