The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [343]
And instead of anything like that, here he was, nearly thirty, and just in a hell of a pickle, getting just about nothing but the sour grapes of living. He had lost nearly all of the money he owned, on the market. He had lost his girl. His health was on the fritz. The way things were going, pretty soon he probably wouldn’t even have a pot to take a leak in. And just a couple of months ago when he and Catherine had become engaged, he had hoped for and planned on so many things. Already that night by the lake seemed long ago, and he was lonesome for it. He was still where he had always been. Just hoping. And where was his dough that was going to be backed by the public utilities of the Middle West and the brain of Solomon Imbray? The stock at seven. Wait till he saw snaky Ike Dugan again... Now, too, didn’t he realize how having a little dough of your own gave you confidence!
He leaned forward and turned on the radio, hearing an oily masculine voice.
One of the blotches on the name and civic reputation of Chicago is that during all these years of astounding growth in this great Athens of the Middle West no consistent and scientific method of solving the traffic problem has yet been devised.
Tough luck, Teddy, he thought, dialing on a new station.
Just a gigolo ...
He returned to the window and forgot his worried thoughts by watching the rain hit the street, turn silver, almost bounce. The drops hung like crystals to the leaves of the small tree in front of the apartment hotel, slid off. An automobile passed with a clatter, and the rain splattered on its tarpaulin top. The sky, dull, heavy black clouds ranked above the tall apartment hotel. Bells, warning of a train at Seventy-first Street.
People seem to know ...
A girl with tan raincoat and galoshes, a few inches of silk-stockinged leg showing. Neat. Who was she? Had she ever been made? How did being made change a girl? And before they were made were they as curious about what it was and how did it feel as he’d been as a punk kid? Good girls from good homes, once they got started, became the hottest. Or did they? She was out of sight. Neat little girl anyway.
Jesus Christ.
He had to do something, think about something, say something. And all he could do was curse and mope and look out the window at the rain and at a passing girl. He realized how so many times in his life he had just kept on living on wishes, and the days had dragged along, and the wishes hadn’t come true. He returned to the chair.
Just a gigolo .. .
He told himself that he was a clown clean through. Every time a fly ball had been hit to him with men on the bases, he’d muffed it. Hoping for one thing, then another, and when he did get his chances—foul ball.
Girls, too. He’d never held one. Twice Lucy had given him the cold shoulder. That girl he’d knelt next to at Christmas mass in Saint Patrick’s once—cold shoulder. Never got beyond wishing about her. Now Catherine.
Football. He’d wanted to be a star high-school quarterback and he’d not had the guts to stay in school. Fighting. His kid brother had even cleaned him up. In the war when he’d tried to enlist, a leather-necked sergeant had laughed at him.
He was just an all-around no-soap guy.