The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [115]
“See anything green?” asked Paulie.
The fellow didn’t answer.
“Hey!” snarled Paulie.
“Paul!” she begged, touching his sleeve.
“Hey, you, I said: ‘See anything green?’” Paulie said, rising and brushing his wife’s hand aside; Studs jumped up.
“The grass is green,” the fellow said, smiling good-naturedly, an expression of almost sick friendliness on his face.
“Buddy, there ain’t room for all of us around here!”
“Yeah, fellow, shove on while you’re all together!” Studs said.
“Paul, please... please, don’t go fighting; he hasn’t done a thing to you,” she pleaded, pulling at his coat.
“Shut up!” he snapped at her.
“It’s healthier in that direction,” Studs said, pointing with his right hand.
The fellow, taller than Paulie, started to slink away. Paulie swung, catching him unexpectedly in the jaw from the side. The fellow staggered, then made a start to run. Paulie caught him, and jerked him around, for Studs, who drove him a fierce uppercut. The fellow punched and kicked back.
“Oh, you will, will you!” Paulie said, his wife screaming as her husband’s fist drove into the bastard’s mouth. It bled. He went down, and they kicked him. He went off, holding a handkerchief to his face.
“Brutes!” she said.
“Listen, bitch!” Paulie said.
A fellow asked what was the matter. Studs said the guy had monkeyed around with his pal’s wife. The fellow said it was good for him. There was a lot of damn mashers like that, and they all needed a sock in the puss.
“And you listen to me. Any goddamn time you sit like you were then, showing off everything you own, there’ll be trouble. My wife ain’t acting like a whore in a public park when I’m around. Get that straight, and don’t forget it!”
She cried, denying his accusation.
“You’re a goddamn liar!” Paulie shouted.
“I’m going to the boathouse,” Studs said, embarrassed; he left without them noticing him.
None of the guys were around. He noticed, too, that no niggers were in sight. He spied a lonesome-looking chicken sitting up towards the front. Maybe she wanted to be picked up. He sat near her, and kept giving her the eye. She was pretty, a baby-faced blond. She sat impassive. He could just go up and talk to her, say let’s take a walk, and get her over on the wooded island. And he’d go back to the poolroom, and tell the lads what a lay he had, describing how it all went off, and knock them cuckoo wishing they’d been that lucky.
She met his eye, icy, not a hint on her face. Sometimes they were like that in pretense, make it a game where you worked for it. He lit a cigarette, nonchalant, as if he were just as unaware of her presence as she seemed to be of his. He looked out at the water, black, except where the boathouse lights and stretches of moonlight lay over it. He tried to think up something clever that he might say to make an opening. He could just see her smiling at his cleverness, if only he could hit upon some good crack. He watched two couples rowing away from the landing. One of the girls laughed loudly. He arose, and casually sauntered to her side, glanced at her while she looked uninterestedly ahead. He said hello. She didn’t respond. He got nervous, and greeted her a second time. She looked up at him, as if he were so low that he crept on the ground.
“Like to go oaring, cutie?”
“I should say not,” she said, turning her back.
He felt like he might just go crawl into a barrel, and sink his head. Blushing, he left the boathouse. Just a goddamn bitch trying to be swell! He wandered back on the grass, wondering if he might take in the movie at the Prairie Theatre. Dirty it was, jumping the poor bastard, when you couldn’t blame him for looking at something offered to him on a platter; she knew he was looking. If that jane, bitch, in the boathouse had a husband, he