The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [217]
“Between us and that fireplug, I’ll bet, too, that when he was young, he was no sissy,” Stan said.
“Sure, he knows the ways of the world. He had his wild oats, I’ll bet. That’s why he knows so much about human nay ture,” Red said.
“Oh, hello, Hink,” Studs said.
“I just heard you guys talking about that priest. Sure he has his good times. All priests do.”
“Say, Hink, I was hoping you’d be around. I wanted to ask you to come along with us to the mission tonight. Father Shannon is different from any one you ever heard speak, a brilliant, educated man, and he’ll make you understand the Catholic philosophy,” Red said.
“What do I care about the Catholics’ side of it?”
“You wouldn’t be so radical, then, about our religion,” Red said.
“I’m not interested,” Hink said snottily.
“Honest, Hink, he’s the real stuff,” Tommy said.
Hink walked away from them.
“There’s something queer about Hink. He’s not like he used to be,” Studs said, and he offered one more of his many repetitions of the experience that he and Davey had had with Hink the previous autumn.
“And, Christ, nearly every night he’s rolling all over the street drunk,” Stan said.
“Hink is a white fellow. But there’s something wrong with him. I think it’s in the family. His brother Slew is in the sanitarium now. Remember how he always looked first for the suicides in the paper, and remember how he would chase sixteen-year-old girls, and hang around the Bug Club, talk like they did over there, sit around the park all day stripped to the waist taking sun-baths. I tell you I think a brain disease like paranoia runs in their family. It’s too bad,” Red said.
“What the hell’s that?” asked Barney.
“It’s a brain disease that unbalances you, so that you won’t associate with people, don’t care about them or even yourself, think you’re too good for the human race, and talk about people like Hink does about priests and the Catholic Church,” Red said, causing doleful shaking of heads.
“Say, Slug, come on to church with us tonight. You don’t want to miss it,” Studs said, as Slug shambled up to them.
“You guys must want the pillars of the church to crumble,” Barney said.
“Tonight, Slug, the sermon is going to be about guys who get nooky, said Doyle.
“I don’t want to hear about it. I just like to get it. And I know all about how to get it,” Slug said, with his Polack pronunciation.
“Come on, Slug!” Studs persuaded.
“Hell, I’d do everything the wrong way in church, and then when the priest was talking, I’d maybe fall asleep, and start snoring, and get thrun out of church on my tail,” Slug said.
“You won’t fall asleep when Father Shannon talks,” Red said.
“Not me. Say, I wish it was over. I ain t had anybody to get a bottle with me all week,” Slug said.
“Don’t tempt us this week, Slug,” said Doyle.
“Listen, you bastards, if you’re making the mission, it means you should get there on time for the rosary that’s said before the sermon. What are you trying to do, miss the rosary? Come on!” Barney said.
Slug nodded, watching them depart.
“Another black skunk,” Red said, pointing to a young Negro ahead of them.
“Boy, they’ve been coming into the neighborhood fast, and so soon after the new church was built,” Stan said.
“I see some at the mission every night,” Studs said.
“They’re ruining the neighborhood. That’s why Jim and I have been trying to convince the old lady to sell the building before it’s too late. Property values are going to pot here. You can tell it, when there’s a saloon on Fifty-eighth Street, and beer flats all around, and flats and buildings being made into rooming-houses. And down on Garfield Boulevard the other night, why a hustler even tried to pick me up,” Tommy lamented.
“If we had a pastor like Father Shannon, instead of Gilly, that mightn’t have happened. He wouldn’t be the kind to build a beautiful new church, and then let his parish go to the dogs. He’d have seen to it that the good parishioners stayed, and that the niggers were kept out. He’d have organized things like vigilance committees to prevent it,” Red said.
“That’s what my old man has been saying,