The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [128]
But there wouldn’t be any girls out there for him to be playing for. Other guys had girls. Wished he had a girl, Lucy, a girl coming out only to see him play... Goofy!... But he still loved Lucy even if he hadn’t seen her in about four years. And if she was coming out there to see him play, because she loved him, he would play much better, and instead of being in it just for the fun and the glory, and to show them all what he was made of, he’d be playing for her also. And he wanted to. Christ sake, he was getting like a clown, all mush inside. He tried to laugh at himself; it was forced.
Smells of the cooking Sunday dinner came tantalizingly from the kitchen. His mother came to the bedroom door, and said that she had a bite ready for him.
“I can’t! I’m going to play football,” he snapped in uncontrolled exasperation.
“I certainly don’t think much of a game that deprives you of your food,” she replied.
Jesus Christ! Couldn’t she understand anything!
She nagged and persuaded. He got up, and walked towards the door, with her following, still wanting him to eat. He said that he couldn’t play with a belly full of food, and as she dipped her hand in the holy water fount on the wall, and showered him, he slammed the door. The father, hearing him, called that he wouldn’t have such vulgar language used around the home; but Studs was gone.
He went down the steps two and three at a time, thinking why they always had to be like that, never open to reason and sense, wanting you to do whatever they wished in everything. Felt like leaving home, and living in a room by himself; some day he’d have to, if they didn’t keep from trying to run everything he did.
It was humid and sunless. He liked the click of his cleats on the sidewalk. He felt so good, and in such condition, that he had an impulse to run. He checked himself, and took his time. Studs Lonigan was going to use his noodle, and conserve his energy. He was a wise guy, and in everything in life he was going to be that way, always with a little stuff left in him for a pinch.
Jim Clayburn’s dude father came along, dressed in snappy gray, wearing a derby, and tapping a cane on the sidewalk. With his gray bush of hair, his face looked soft, almost like a woman’s. Must have been something of a sissy and teacher’s pet in his own day at school, just as Jim had been. He bowed stiffly to Studs, and Studs nodded, hoping he noticed the foot-ball outfit. Jim was studying law now, clerking for a measly ten or fifteen bucks a week. Well, by the time Clayburn, with all his studying and kill-joy stuff was in the dough, Studs Lonigan would be running his old man’s business, and be in the big dough too.
He saw Tubby Connell and Nate Klein flinging passes in the street in front of the poolroom. Nate muffed one, and Studs told him to get a bushel basket. He lit a cigarette and laughed at Nate’s scenery; an old-fashioned square black helmet that must have come down from Walter Eckersall’s day; tight green jersey with holes in the sleeves; pants so big that he swam in them; shoes turned up at the toes because of their size. He looked more closely at the shoes; they were spiked baseball ones. He told Nate they’d never let him play in those, because he might cut somebody to ribbons. Tubby said that Klein was wearing them to show that he had the Fifty-eighth Street fighting spirit.
“This ain’t tiddledy-winks; the guy I cut up will be a Monitor, and that’s his tough tiddy,” Nate said, hard-boiled.
He and Tubby disregarded Studs’ advice to save themselves, and went on fooling around with the ball. Studs turned his back to them, and let his hand fall on his hips; his helmet was over his right elbow, and his blond hair was a trifle curly. His broad face revealed absorption. A middle-aged guy with a paunch doped along; Studs hoped that the guy had noticed him, wished he was young like he was, and able to go out and play a game of football, still full of the vim and vitality of youth. A quick feeling of contrition came over him. Suppose he should get hurt? Suppose he should never come back alive? His mother would always remember how he had slammed the door in her face. But damn it, couldn