The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [141]
“Like the broad I fixed you up with last Sunday night after the football game?”
“Yeah.”
“Nice, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Say, wouldn’t I like that broad in the pictures,” Slug said with all his mispronunciations.
Hell, what right had he to think of a broad like her? She wouldn’t even spit on him.
They passed the white-tiled Methodist Church at Fifty-sixth and Indiana. At Fifty-seventh, Studs kind of wished that Slug would not turn but that they’d walk down to Fifty-eighth past her old house. But he didn’t have any special reason to give for wanting to go that way, and walked with Slug when he turned east on Fifty-seventh. They turned by the Crerar Presbyterian Church on the corner of Fifty-seventh and Prairie, and Studs remembered one Sunday night when they’d been kids; how they’d gone to services there, put slugs in the collection box, and laughed until a sappy-faced usher kicked them out. They saw a group on the corner. Studs determined he wouldn’t hang around long. He wondered too, if he didn’t marry, would he be an old soak like Barney Keefe. He wanted to be something big in life. But look at what his fat, loud-mouthed old man was! Or Dinny Gorman, the high-hat wind-bag of a politician! It got him all right.
“Lonigan!” Barney Keefe exclaimed with drunken exuberance.
“Keefe!” Lonigan replied with pumped boisterousness.
“Lonigan, you pig-in-the-parlor-mick!”
“Keefe, you drunken flannel-mouth.”
Slug complimented the boys for being polluted. Baby-faced Mickey Flannagan faced them, stupefied, swaying like a reed in the wind.
Studs told them that Schwartz from last Sunday’s game would be all right. They said good.
“Flannagan has his guts pickled in gin,” Keefe said.
Mickey mumbled. Slug caught him as he fell forwards, and set him against the fire plug.
Barney pulled out a bottle, and held it aloft;
Past the teeth,
Down the tongue,
Look out, stomach,
Here I come!
They laughed. Kelly grabbed the bottle. Barney beefed like hell. Taite and Les tried to get a sip from Kelly, but it was all gone.
Mickey mumbled for them to watch his match trick. He fumbled through his pockets and came out with a box of safety matches. He hiccoughed. He lit a match. It went out. He lit another. The flame quickly died. He repeated until they asked him what the trick was. He pawed out a match and lit it. It went out. That was the trick.
“Look out there, Flannagan, your guts are rising!” Keefe said.
Mickey belched.
“Here’s the Bad News Twins,” Studs said, seeing Mush Joss and TB McCarthy approaching.
Muggsy, looking like the con, round-shouldered, a cigarette drooping from the corner of his mouth, tried to scrounge two bits off Keefe.
“So long, boys. I’m going home and sleep,” Studs said, yawning.
“Hang around. The Alky Squad is here, and something might happen,” Slug said.
TB tried to hit Studs for a quarter. Studs told him to get away.
“Flannagan, you lousy paper salesman, give these mooching bastards a quarter. I can’t stand their sight,” Keefe said. Flannagan fell on his face, mumbling incoherently.
Kelly suggested a poker game at his house. Studs said he had to go home. He went with the boys. Flannagan was left draped around the fire plug. Muggsy and Mush rolled him, and had a meal. Stepping out of the Greek Restaurant, Muggsy wished now that they could pick up a bum broad and take her back with them to the basement where they slept. Muggsy said it was the best meal he’d had all week.
Studs left Kelly’s at three o’clock. He walked along with his eyes heavy. He bumped into a building, and realized that he was asleep on his feet. What a chump he’d been! He’d be pooped tomorrow, and only have a couple of hours sleep. And he’d lost eight bucks.
X
Davey Cohen pulled up the collar of his thin overcoat. He climbed a hilly street of Jamestown, New York, in the rain. He spewed up a racking cough, and spat. He entered the public library for shelter. A girl looked askance at him, and he felt as if he were an interloper. A blue-covered book lay before him. He read the title. The Collected Poems of Heinrich Heine, translated by Louis Untermeyer. He opened the book, just to pass the time, and read the preface. He read the facts of the poet