The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [360]
“Damn fools,” Studs muttered under his breath.
“What do you mean?”
“Those two wasting their energy dancing that way,” Studs said, motioning his head in the direction of team number sixteen, a sheiky fellow with sideburns and blue jersey and a tough-looking, thin, faded girl in scarlet beach pajamas who hot-stepped in a rapid, whirling dance.
Applause broke out from the half-filled bleachers, and coins were flung at them. Studs smiled knowingly. He glanced around at the crowd, fellows with regan haircuts, and the girls, hoods, fat Polack women, young broads who looked to be the kind that got crushes on movie stars, all kinds of people, a mixed audience no different from the kind that would be seen at a movie.
“When is something going to happen?” he asked, watching the contestants moving around and around.
“I don’t know. It’s funny, and I don’t think there’s anything interesting in it, either,” she said.
“Damn fools, wasting their health. Look at the blond trying to keep number eight on his feet.”
“I wouldn’t like to be her.”
“And I wouldn’t want to trade places with that guy, either. He can have his dance marathon.”
“Why do they do such foolish things?”
“I suppose because they can get people to come out and make damn fools of themselves, and then, too, there’s the dough.”
“Yes, the prize is something like a thousand dollars for the winners.”
“Well, they earn it,” Studs said, watching the blond girl of team number eight fight and strain to keep her partner from crashing to the floor.
“Look,” Catherine said excitedly.
The blond girl had tripped, and her partner smashed to the floor on his face. A buzz of conversation rose from the stands. Other dancers crowded around him. The judge emerged from his small box beside the orchestra dais, and two male attendants in soiled white clothing rushed forward.
“Oh, I hope poor Albert isn’t hurt,” the woman with the Slavic features in front of them sighed.
“Gee, he got a shiner,” Studs exclaimed, attentively watching the male attendants lift number eight.
Number eight shook his head in stupor and walked beside his partner. He received cheers, and coins were flung to him.
“What’s that?” Studs asked a fellow next to him when male and female attendants assisted number eight and three other couples from the floor, following the resounding of a siren.
“Rest period. They all get ten minutes every hour, and they go off the floor in batches.”
“What do they do, sleep?” Studs asked.
Three teams which had appeared unnoticed to Studs arose from benches along the side of the dance floor and joined the straggling procession, which wound around and around and around.
“How long will this go on?” Studs asked Catherine.
“They’ll still be here in another month. They all got guts and they can take it,” the fellow next to him said.
“It’s beyond me,” Studs said, puzzled.
“They do look like physical wrecks. And I can’t understand why all the girls are so swollen out,” he said.
“Uh huh,” Studs muttered, watching the girl of team number three holding up the dead weight of her sleep-doped partner, and then he glanced from girl to girl, noticing how their buttocks were like pumped-up balloons.
“Let ‘em hang, Jackie,” someone called out as the male of number nineteen kept pulling up his falling knickers; the marathoner grinned sillily, marched with his knickers draping below his knees.
Studs watched a contestant in a brown sweater reading a newspaper as he walked. He thought, too, that the guys, poor bastards, must be pretty hard up. There they were, for twenty-four hours a day, so close to girls, touching against them, hanging onto them, holding them up, and not being able to get anything. And the girls didn’t look so decent or hard, and probably wouldn’t mind a little. That made it all the tougher.
“I wonder when something is going to happen?