The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [36]
“Now, you fools, shake hands,” he commanded.
Weary refused. He told Diamond-Tooth to mind his own Goddamn business and go to hell.
“Oh, you’re tough! I see! Thanks for the tip! You’re a tough punk, not afraid of nothin’. Huh! You want your snotty puss bashed in a little more. Huh? Didn’t this little squirt here give you enough?”
Most of the kids laughed.
Weary retreated a few paces and picked up a boulder. “PUT THAT BRICK DOWN!”
Weary didn’t reply.
“I see! I GOTTA SLAP YOUR PUSS, and run the gang of you in, give you a nice little ride in the wagon and let your old ladies come down to the station bawlin’ to get you out.”
The kids drew back nervously. Screwy McGlynn, who had moved forward to remonstrate with the stranger, retreated, hopped onto his wagon, and was gone. Diamond-Tooth cowed the gang with his detective’s star.
“Gee, he’s a real bull,” Danny O’Neill whispered too loudly. Profound silence!
“Yeh, he’s a real bull, punk; and you better clamp that trap of yours tight!”
“Come on, you guys. Maybe you’ll change your minds.”
He dragged them along. Studs was meek and afraid; Weary was sullen, glowering. The others started to follow them toward Fifty-seventh, and he turned and snottily told them to blow, before they were hauled in.
He asked, after the three of them had turned the corner: “What were you punks scrappin’ over? Huh?”
“He called my mother a name,” Studs said.
“He called me one, too,” Weary said.
“Maybe you were both right,” Diamond-Tooth said. They stood there.
“Now, shut up and shake hands; if you don’t, I’ll fight the two of you,” said the dick.
They shook hands, insincerely. Weary walked east along Fifty-seventh, toward Prairie Avenue. His pride was even more bruised than his face. He walked determining revenge, entertaining extravagant schemes of cold-blooded murder, of framing Studs on some stunt or other, of getting him from the back sometimes with a rock or a beebe gun or a knife, or maybe a twenty-two, of some day walking up to him and renewing the fight, taking an advantage by busting him right square between the eyes before he knew what was coming, or maybe cracking him in the neck and choking his windpipe, or in the solar plexus. He was angry. He sensed his own weakness. He could get little satisfaction out of planning revenge. He hated Studs, hated him with the face Studs had punched, with the body he’d battered; and that face and body told Weary he was licked when his mind refused to believe it. He was interrupted by Helen Borax, who called him from behind. She said that she was sorry, and that Studs was a beast, and she knew that Studs must have hurt him, and she was awfully sorry. Her pity made him see white. He drained off his hatred by glaring at her, calling her a bitch, and telling her he had gotten all he wanted from her under her back porch on the night they had graduated.
Studs, the conquering hero, returned to the gang. As he walked back, he thought up a brave story, about how he had told the gum-shoe to lump it, which he would tell the gang. But when he was sitting in the center of the adulatory group, he couldn’t tell it. Damn it, he couldn’t spread the bull on thick; he didn’t know how to string people along and tell lies like some people did. He told them what had happened, and they had fun talking it over. They talked about the battle, showering Studs with praise, telling him how great he was and how he was the champ of the neighborhood. Johnny O’Brien had been going around telling everybody how thick he was with Red Kelly, and every time he got in dutch with anybody bigger than he was he would always threaten to get Red Kelly after him. Now he told Studs that he could clean up Kelly. Studs was tired, sick in his stomach, aching all over. And he kept feeling his swollen eye. Johnny O’Brien ran home and copped a piece of beefsteak from his old lady. Helen and Lucy applied it. Studs was happy, even though he felt rotten. He was now the cock of the walk, and the battering he had gotten from Weary was worth this; but he’d hate to have to fight him again; his jaw was all cut on the inside; well, Weary was probably worse off. Weary Reilley had been licked; he, Studs Lonigan, had pounded the stuffings out of him. Now, that was something to be proud of.