The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [113]
Young Horn Buckford suddenly appeared and breathlessly said that there was a gang of niggers over on Wabash Avenue. Studs, Red, Tommy, Weary, Kenny, and Benny Taite led the gang along Fifty-eighth Street, over to Wabash. For two hours, they prowled Wabash Avenue and State Street, between Garfield Boulevard and Fifty-ninth Street, searching for niggers. They sang, shouted, yelled defiance at the houses, and threw bricks into the windows of houses where they thought niggers lived. They were joined by other groups, men and kids. The streets were like avenues of the dead. They only caught a ten-year-old Negro boy. They took his clothes off, and burned them. They burned his tail with lighted matches, made him step on lighted matches, urinated on him, and sent him running off naked with a couple of slaps in the face.
Back around the corner at six o’clock, Studs and Red talked of how they would get a bigger gang together after supper, and go north of Garfield Boulevard until they found niggers. They described what they would do to them. They walked down to the el station and bought a paper. The headlines said that with the militia out, peace and order were being restored in the riot-stricken black belt. They cursed, and said they would get the niggers in spite of even the whole United States Army. They would avenge Clackey Merton, the kid from Sixty-first Street, who had been killed down in the black belt.
CHAPTER FIVE
Studs walked with Paulie and his Eileen towards the park, and he and Paulie gassed about the good old days. But it seemed stiff with her there, smiling politely at everything they said, even the things they kept exaggerating and making more than they actually had been, in order to make her think that they’d been great guys.
They talked about what the boys from Fifty-eighth Street had done in the race riots last month, and she acted horrified, but Studs guessed it was only put on. They told each other that the niggers needed a couple more riots.
Crossing South Park Avenue, Paulie took her elbow. Studs envied him, because she was his girl, his woman, and she slept with him, undressed in front of him, and he could do whatever he wanted with her body. It was something, having a woman all the time. When you walked down the street, with her on your arm, everybody could see she was yours and gave it to you whenever you wanted it. And you could bring her around to meet your friends, and let them see you got it, and they’d look her over, and envy you, seeing she had nice legs, a swell figure, enough meat on her in the right places. Maybe he did kind of wish he had a woman of his own, as nice and as hot as Paulie’s with a good figure, and good-looking clothes like the blue suit she had on. Studs fell behind, pretending to pick up something, so he could get a look at her. She was hot-looking all right, with plenty of meat on her, nice tocus, slim ankle, and the fragment of leg between dress and ankle was the stuff too, fleshy and shapely. She was gorgeous to look at, to touch, to...
It was swell out, just cool enough, with the park air smelling sort of cool; and the trees were green and leafy, their shadows falling in solid black now as it got dark. He looked at her again, then up at a tree, and in back of him; she must be catching on that he had to keep looking at her. What a sweet piece she must be!
She told Paulie about the new set of dishes she wanted; he didn’t seem to be interested; Studs thought that part of things should be taken care of by the wife, and she shouldn’t bother the guy about it. Same way at home, the old lady always had to tell the old man what she’d buy, and he didn’t want to hear it.
“Going to have a football team in the fall, Studs?” Paulie asked, ignoring her as she harped about dishes.
“I think so. Looks like it will be pretty good.”
Maybe Paulie would say something to let her know he’d be captain and quarterback, and that he was one damn sweet football player. Next fall, she might even come out to one of the games and see for herself how good he was.
“You’re not going to play, Paul?”