The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [323]
His feet began to ache and he flopped again on a bench. One o’clock factory whistles blew from somewhere. A long afternoon still ahead of him. Did many fellows sitting around the park feel the same as he did, wanting something exciting to happen? A fleshy, light-brown Negress came along the path, her dress splitting against her thighs, her breast nipples clear against her black-and-white dress. A tight feeling gripped him. Wheel And he whiffed strongly an odor of cheap scent. Plenty of guys would like what she had. Plenty of white broads would like to have as much as she had. It was a goddamn shame, too, that a broad with all that stuff should be black and not white, he told himself, wishing someone was around so he could have sprung such a witty crack on them. Should he follow her even if she was a nigger? He looked after her at her slender brown silken legs, and he was tempted to whistle, to get up and follow her. Hell, she might just be a whore because he guessed most black gals were hustlers anyway. And even if she wasn’t, a dark-skinned baby ought to fall all over herself with joy if a white guy propositioned her. But kissing one of them. Ugh . He eagerly watched her disappear from sight, and he saw her naked in his mind. Jesus, he was pretty lousy getting so het up over a dark-skinned wench. And still, brother, white or black, she had it. But here he was engaged to a decent girl like Catherine, and wanting a nigger. Lousy... If the nice girls men married knew the dirty places they went playing around and... that was another witty one he wanted to spring sometime.
He yawned and watched a baby toddle bow-legged ahead of its mother. What would he do? An old man with an ear phone. He drowsed, fell asleep, awakened stiff and dirty. Two-thirty. He started strolling toward home. He felt like a wreck. The day was more than half over anyway. And maybe his stock had gone up too.
CHAPTER NINE
I
After the movies, Studs and Catherine went to a small restaurant on Seventy-first Street. Studs hung his coat on a hook beside the table and absent-mindedly sat down while she was removing her coat. He missed her frown, lit a cigarette, and settled comfortably in his chair. He thought of how his stock was now down to ten, and he had to make up his mind whether to hold it or sell. A drop from two thousand to eight hundred dollars, and Ike Dugan had said fluctuations. That bastard was going to have fluctuations the next time he met Studs Lonigan.
“You seem awfully interested in me,” Catherine said, sitting down with a great fuss.
“What? What’s the matter?” he asked absently.
“Nothing. Oh, nothing’s the matter, I was just so pleased at the interest you show in me,” she said with increased irony.
He looked at her, puzzled, hoping that she wasn’t set on kicking up a row with him.
“You act like a perfect gentleman who is keeping within the proper bounds before a girl he doesn’t even know, or something like that.”
“Why, what’s wrong, Catherine?” he asked, a vague whine in his voice.
“Nothing... Nothing,” she snapped with mounting exasperation.
A bony waitress hovered over them, and Studs blushed, wondering if she had heard Catherine quarrelling.
“What’ll you have, Catherine?” he asked solicitously, while she made faces at him.
“Coffee and lemon cream pie,” she said haughtily at the waitress.
“One coffee and lemon cream pie, one milk and apple pie,” he said, wondering what the devil was wrong.
He watched the waitress retreat to the counter, and to avoid Catherine’s eye until she cooled off he glanced around the restaurant, at the neat pale green walls and the black-topped counter running almost the length of the opposite side. There were two fellows slouched at it over coffee, and two couples at tables near the window toward the front.
The proprietor emerged from the counter and dialed on the radio.
Singin’ in the rain, just singin,’ in the rain,
What a glorious feelin’, I’m happy again.
One of the fellows in the basket-backed chairs by the counter swung around, and Studs glanced back at Catherine, her expression revealing persisting displeasure.