The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [166]
Kelly came out of the poolroom as Studs slouched along. He asked Studs about doing something. Studs shook his head, and felt superior to Red. It was the first exercise of his new will power.
“Hell, Studs, if you go home now, your old man and old lady might have a fit of apoplexy or heart failure, they’ll be so surprised,” Tommy Doyle said.
“I’m turning in and getting some sleep.”
He went towards home. At the corner of Fifty-eighth and Michigan, he saw a nigger and his black girl ahead, walking arm in arm. He thought of how in this new spring time, the new man Studs Lonigan would be walking about in the evening with her on his arm. Suddenly, he sneered, thinking that the goddamn niggers had their guts, invading a white man’s neighborhood, and sooner or later they’d have to be run out.
Lonigan was glad with surprise. He and Studs talked about business for a half hour. He turned in with the mother. Studs and Fran talked, and he promised to go to the Wednesday evening Lenten services at St. Patrick’s next Wednesday. In bed, the father said to the mother that he was gratified because Bill was getting some sense now, and settling down. He took the credit for it.
XIV
Phil Rolfe was one of the best-dressed cake-eaters at an after-noon dance given on Washington’s Birthday at a hall near Englewood High School. A sizeable, lively crowd was in attendance. Amongst them were a number of fellows and girls who rated in the south side high school fraternity and sorority world.
Phillip spotted Loretta Lonigan. He thought that she was pretty, with her dark hair, and small but compact figure, and her gray serge dress, trimmed with collar and cuffs of hand-drawn handkerchief linen. Damn keen girl, even if she had a big nose like her brother, Studs. She smiled as he approached her between dances.
“I see you haven’t forgotten me?” he said, smiling with all his talcum-powdered, stacombed charm.
“Why, Phil Rolfe, how could I forget you, ever?”
“Shall we dance?”
“I’d be delighted to.”
Phil placed his right hand with effective masculine firmness in the small of her back, and crooked his left arm with his palm flat against hers. He held his head high, his thin shoulders straight and erect, and danced in calculated and precise rhythms.
“Say, Loretta, you’re a swell dancer. Where have you been all my life?”
“And, Phil, you are too. And you have a nice line.”
They talked about the music, dances, the people present, places to go. As they glided into a corner it seemed that Loretta let herself go tensely against him. He thought maybe she would sock it in. But he had to be careful. She was a nice girl. She might get sore. Had to handle nice girls with kid gloves that way, until you broke down their resistance. And her brother was tough. They turned gracefully in and out of the moving crowd, and Phil whistled the tune of Frivolous Sal as the orchestra played it. She smiled up at him with white, even teeth. He commented again on some of the people present and she laughed. He strategically manipulated his body until he had it against her. Her curly bobbed hair brushed his cheek. She wondered would he think her awful, and try to get too fresh if she shimmied. Fellows often did. But he was so cute. And a girl had to do something about that, and if she didn’t shimmy, she might do something worse. In a corner, she took a chance. Phillip figured she was a nice sweet girl, and he’d have to date her up some time.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Goodbye, Arnold! Studs silently thought.
Amidst exuding flower odors, Studs and Tommy Doyle blessed themselves, and knelt down. Their eyes suddenly met and their heads bowed in a mutual expression of surprised regret. They muttered prayers to themselves for the repose of the soul of their dead pal, while behind them, they could hear a choked feminine sob, and the loudly whispered remarks of Mrs. O