The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [31]
“Well, ta, ta! Now, don’t forget the lessons... and don’t do anything naughty-nasty... like tickling the girlies. Ta! Ta!”
He waved his arm womanishly, and went on. Studs watched him. He laughed. He felt a little queer. He wondered why Leon was always placing his hands on a guy.
II
Studs kept futzing around until Helen Shires came out with her soccer ball. Then they dribbled back and forth on the paving in front of her place. She lived next door to the Scanlans. It was a drearily lazy June morning now, and they played. Helen was a lean, muscular girl, tall and rangy, with angular Swedish features, blue eyes and yellowish white hair. She was tanned, and wore a blue wash dress, which was constantly ruffling up, so that her purplish-blue wash bloomers showed. She looked very healthy.
They played. Helen took the ball to dribble. She strode down about six yards, turned around, and dribbled forward, straight and fast, with the form and force of a star basketball player. All the guys used to say she was a natural athlete. Studs stood squat, his hands spread fan-wise, his body awkwardly tensed for sudden effort. As she approached him, she feinted toward her right, changed her stroke from left to right hand, and passed him on his right, making him look quite sick.
Studs side-glanced up at the Scanlan parlor window. He’d never before been jealous of Helen’s athletic skill, but now he was. Maybe Lucy had been peeping behind the curtain. He had hoped she was. Now he changed his wish.
“I don’t like basketball so well,” he said, grinning weakly.
“You will after you learn the game,” she answered, dribbling back.
She dribbled again, and Studs, with a chance swing of the right arm, batted the ball out into the street. He changed his wish, and covertly side-glanced at the Scanlan window. Helen complimented him on his good guarding.
It was his turn. He came forward, awkward, clumsier than usual because he tried to show form. He bounced the ball too hard and too high, and he was slowed down. He lost control of the ball before he reached her, and it bounded onto the grass.
It was good he was only pretending that Lucy watched him. They kept dribbling, and she kept making him look sick. She was having a better time than he, because she could do the thing, and she could get the satisfaction one gets out of doing a thing right. But he stuck on.
Once when they paused, she said:
“You ought to make the football team at Loyola.”
“I’d like to,” he said.
“You will,” she said.
They talked for a while, and resumed dribbling. She dribbled and he guarded. He took a turn, and she snatched the ball from him, pivoted gracefully, and dribbled down the other way. They alternated, and he kept side-glancing at the Scanlan window.
After a half-hour, they were both a little fagged, and they sat on Helen’s front steps.
“Say, Studs, there’s a can house around on Fifty-seventh Street,” she said.
“There is?”
“Yeh.”
“You sure?”
“Sure! Paulie Haggerty was around the other day, and he told me about it, and I went and looked the other night, and saw a lot of cars parked there and a lot of men enterin’ and leavin’. One guy even wore a silk hat.”
“Whereabouts was it?”
“The flat building on the other side of the alley on Fifty-seventh. It’s on the first floor,” said she.
“The red one where we climbed on the front porch that afternoon when it was rainin’ and shot craps?” he asked.
“No. Next door to it,” she said.
“We’ll all go round there some night and look in,” said Studs.
“All right,” said Helen.
“Say, Weary hasn’t been around. I wonder if he’s workin’?” said Studs.
“I don’t like him,” she said.
“I don’t care so much for him,” Studs said.
“He’s too fresh,” she said.
“Yeh?”
“Yeh, he’s too darn fresh.”
“Why?”
“Well, he tries to take liberties with girls. You know what he tried to do to me, don’t you?”
“No?”
“Well, one day he asked me to let him see my kid sister’s playhouse in the back, and I did. Then he went and tried... well, you know what he wanted to do to me, and I wouldn’t let him. I don’t care to do that sort of thing. I like to play with fellahs because, generally, they