The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [320]
His vague awareness of chirping birds and of automobiles rushing behind him was distracted by a strolling couple. Lucky lad with such a cute and neat trick, and maybe he was taking her to a secluded spot on the wooded island, and he would sink his head in her lap, and she would stroke his face and hair, and maybe she was nuts about him and wanted it from the guy so much that she’d even risk being caught in daylight. Wished he had a girl nuts about him like that. Of course, there was Catherine, but she was decent, and this was a different matter. It made a guy proud, let him sort of feel his oats, gave him something to brag about. After he and Catherine got married and she got used to it, would she feel that way about him? If she didn’t, what would be the use of marriage? He watched the couple disappear around a bend in the park. Lucky bastard.
An elderly woman with a neat black suit and a haughty society-woman manner about her looked at him with disdain as if he were something like a piece of garbage. She thought he was a bum. He sat up erect, straightened his tie, dusted off his shoes with his handkerchief. He wasn’t a bum. But what the hell, these people would probably never see him again, and what difference did it make? But still, he wasn’t a bum.
Yawning, he examined his watch; a quarter to twelve. What to do? He wished someone he knew would happen along.
But even if it was dull, it was good having the sun on him. And if he did this regularly, he would get a good, healthy coat of tan. He removed his coat, carefully folded it and laid it over the bench beside him. He rolled up his sleeves and looked at his thin white arms. Good, too, getting them tanned. He sat realizing that it had suddenly become quiet with just a faint stirring of leaves and sounds of birds. Then, from Stony Island, came the rumbling of a street car. Automobiles passed, an engine dying, chugging, starting again, its hum dying away. Human voices echoing from a distance made him want people to talk to. Maybe he could take a walk to the old neighborhood later in the day, see the old streets, the old buildings.
It was just nice, though, to sit here, and through the bushes to see the water, the sunlight dancing on it, like it was alive. The same way the sunlight had danced on the lagoon in Washington Park when he and Lucy had sat in the tree. Oars splashed and a boat rode by. Might be a good idea to go rowing, but he changed his mind, because that was too strenuous a form of exercise.
He let a burning cigarette hang from his mouth until he coughed from a throatful of smoke. He leaned back and with shaded eyes looked up at a sky whose shimmering and pervasive brightness brought water to his eyes. He blinked at a squirrel moving swiftly across the walk and into the bushes. He was humble and soft, and felt that there was something behind all this that he saw, sun, and sky, and new grass, and trees, and birds, and the bushes, and the squirrel, and the lagoon, and people moving by him, and street cars and automobiles, and it was God. God made all this, moved it, made it live, himself, that Red he’d met who was against Him, the fellows playing ball. And God was the spirit behind it all and behind everything. Gee, if Catherine was only here now! He shook his head, as if to drive all these thoughts away because if he told them to anybody, it would just sound goofy. He wasn’t a poet.
But Christ, this was the life!
From far off he heard twelve-o’clock whistles. They made him want to do something, and they made him feel the same as train whistles did.
A woman of about thirty, neat, good figure, hopped along holding to the leash of a straining Airedale. The dog forced her onto the grass, switched directions, tugged and pulled across to the grass on the other side of the walk. She did not return his glance. Maybe she, too, thought he was a park bum. He wished a neat trick, like his sister Fran, would come by, speak to him, he’d show her he wasn’t a bum. He watched the dog drag her forward, and didn’t give a damn what she thought of him, and silently exclaimed, Up your brown Lizzie.