The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [326]
“You said nothing. You were just a sweet angel, the beautiful rose of no-man’s-land, full of charity.”
“I was in the right, and I’ve got a right to expect some consideration from you, and when you take me out you should show some interest in me, and some politeness.”
“Well, I do,” he whined defensively.
“Where? When do you give your demonstrations? I’d like to be present at one.”
“Hell, you just don’t understand,” he said with melodramatic dejection.
“I guess I don’t,” she replied with dragging weariness. “I just don’t understand why you act so mean and hateful. To understand that a person must have as much meanness and hate in them as you have in you. And I haven’t, thank goodness, so I just can’t understand. I know now. I learned something tonight. I learned your real value. And William Lonigan, I can never forgive you for the things you have said to me tonight.”
Jesus Christ, when she sprang such goddamn silly chatter, he just ached to haul off and smack her down.
“I know you’re a martyr, a poor stepped-on little girl, and I’m a big brute, a hairy ape of a low-brow. I know,” he said sardonically.
“William Lonigan, I hate you,” she sobbed, facing him with a compressed face.
“Well, if you do, and I’m everything you say I am, why do you go with me?”
I shan’t. I’ve learned my lesson. I learned my lesson,” she said like a movie actress in a dramatic scene.
She looked at him, her facial muscles contracted, the lips firm and locked as if glued together, the eyes cloudy and wet with the tears which dribbled down her cheeks. Her look told him that she had said her last word, that her dislike and anger had become unspeakable. With a forced calmness and deliberation, while her tears choked her, she removed his engagement ring from her finger and handed it to him. Accepting it, he felt that he perceived a sign of weakening in her, and he thought that maybe she was hoping he would say something to break up the quarrel. But he wasn’t sure, and he was afraid to seem weak to her. And Jesus Christ, he didn’t want this.
“All right, baby,” he said with a mask of exaggerated coldness for the tumbling feelings within him, taking the ring in his closed hand.
“I never want to see you or hear your voice again. Don’t call me up. Don’t ask me to forgive you, or to make up and forget this!” she said throbbingly.
“Jesus, ain’t you acting a bit previous, as if I was going to come crawling around? Who do you think you’re talking to?”
“A beast.”
He left her in tears, thinking that at least he had carried out his bluff and not backed down. He walked slowly, evenly, his shoulders flung back theatrically. And he knew he wished it had never happened and he was glad she couldn’t see his face, because he was moody, and it would give him away. He counted his steps. He was tempted to look back, turn, follow her home. He couldn’t, and he heard her heels racketing as she walked. If she’d come back after him. If girls were different so that he could go to her and say come on, let’s drop this, and still not be afraid of seeming weak in her eyes for doing it. Hearing footsteps behind him, he slowed down against his will. But they grew fainter. Going home alone. Crossing the street, he again heard feminine footsteps behind him. But it couldn’t be her. A strange girl, tall and slender and neatly dressed, swiftly passed him. He looked after her. He thought of Catherine brooding, regretful.
He had won the quarrel by leaving her alone at night, sobbing in the street, and it was a victory which now impressed him as not having been worth the winning. He could tell anyone about it, and stand before them as one who hadn’t backed down, or taken any crap. And he liked the idea of people seeing him as that kind of a guy. And yet, he had to pay the cost of it now, he had to think of her crying, walking home alone, never seeing her again. That was an idea he didn’t like so well.
He lit a fresh cigarette from the butt of the one he’d been smoking. He felt a sudden sense of freedom, and realized now that after becoming engaged to Catherine, he had thought of her in almost everything he had done or planned to do. He