The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [252]
He halted on the opposite side of Van Buren Street to look at the ordered rows of black and tan oxfords in the window of Hassel’s shoe store. Used to have more clothes than he had now, he thought, his eyes straying from shoe to shoe until he fastened upon a pair of black brogans with narrow, perforated toes. But he oughtn’t to spend five-fifty on shoes when he still had two pairs that would do him for a while.
At Jackson Boulevard he stood on the curb irresolutely, while several automobiles shot past him. A tall fellow stared at him. Telling himself that the lad was constructed like a power machine, Studs attempted to appear unobtrusively firm in returning the glance. The fellow’s stare was unrelenting. Studs crossed the street, and walked by the Great Northern Hotel, stopping to study a news photograph of Lindbergh and his wife in flying outfit with a plane behind them. He thought that Lindbergh was a fearless-looking brute, all right, and .tried to imagine what it would be like to be the hero of the nation and to have been the first man to fly alone across the Atlantic, winning twenty-five thousand dollars, a society wife, and undying fame. Lucky boy! Realizing what Lindbergh was, he began to feel measly and insignificant, and turned away from the picture.
Maybe if he had gotten into the war he might have been an aviator, and when the prize was offered he might have competed with Lindbergh, beat him across the Atlantic, and become more famous than the hero of the nation. He began to feel joyful, seeing himself, Studs Lonigan, as Lindbergh, instead of the Studs Lonigan that he was at the moment. Then the world would have known what he was, what kind of stuff he was made of! Damn tootin’, it would.
Two tall youths approached him. From force of habit, he clenched his fists, and his body tensed for action. He saw that they were wearing smart and expensive clothes, with gray stetsons, and their faces were bright and shiny. Doggy fellows, he murmured to himself. The fellow on the outside in the gray coat, was talking in a highbrow accent. Studs guessed they were collegiate or just out of college. He turned to stare after them, noticing the cut of their beltless overcoats. The one m the gray coat laughed in a refined low-pitched way. Boy scouts in long pants! His fists again automatically clenched.
Walking on, seeing the lights of Randolph Street before him, he wondered if they were college football players. That was what Studs Lonigan might have been. Even if he did admit it, he had been a damn good quarterback. If he only hadn’t been such a chump, bumming from school to hang around with skunky Weary Reilley and Paulie Haggerty until he was so far behind at high school that it was no use going. It wouldn’t have been so hard to have studied and done enough homework to get by, and then he could have set the high school gridiron afire, gone to Notre Dame and made himself a Notre Dame immortal, maybe, alongside of George Gypp, the Four Horse-men, Christy Flannagan and Carrideo. How many times in a guy’s life couldn’t he kick his can around the block for having played chump?
“Lad, I just hit town and I’m on my uppers. I’ve been carrying the banner all winter, an’ I’m hungry,” said a seedy man, taller and huskier than Studs, shivering without an overcoat.
“Sorry, but I haven’t got anything,” Studs replied in a voice of controlled and even cautious surliness.
“Christ, lad, only a nickel or a dime for a warm cup of coffee. I’m hungry!” the bum said, doggedly following on Studs’ heels.
Wheeling around, Studs snapped, “Listen, fellow, I haven’t got it.” He perceived a craven look come into the man’s face, and frowning, his own courage mounted. “For Christ sake, can’t you understand English?”
The bum turned and zigzagged along in the direction of Van Buren Street, while Studs watched, still flushed with his own bravery. The fellow had the advantage of weight and height, and was in at least as good physical trim as he was. He could have sloughed Studs. It must have been something of the old Studs Lonigan left in him that had led to his not taking sass, risking a fight. He imagined himself fighting with the bum on the darkened and almost deserted street, a long and gruelling battle, slugging back and forth, both of them staggering and bloody, until Studs would put every ounce of spirit and energy into a last haymaker, and the bum would tumble backward, fall over the curb into the street, and know that he had met a better man. Hands on hips, he sneered, and watched the bum diminish as he pursued a ziggedy course along the sidewalk. Studs turned and continued, himself fighting like Jack Dempsey used to. He began to feel that Christ, he could have spared a dime. But then, if the bum needed money, why didn