The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [365]
“But she won’t be out of your sight,” the announcer persuaded.
Ted Delaney sulked aside. Squirmy again stationed the girls about the floor. He stepped to the microphone.
“Ladies, gentlemen and others, this is going to be the performance of a play of which I am the one and only author, and also the hero. You didn’t know that I could write a play, did you? Well, I fooled you that time.” He waited while the crowd laughed. “This play by Squirmy Stevens is called The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere. I am Paul Revere, and these girls are in houses.”
He walked to one of the benches along the side of the dance floor and fetched a cap and broom from under it. He put the cap on with the peak backward, and stood holding the broom between his legs in the fashion of a small boy playing that the broom was a horse.
“Giddyap. Clop! Clop! Clop! Giddyap!”
He stamped to Katy Jones.
“Rap, Rap, Rap. This is Paul Revere. The British are coming. Is your husband home?”
“Yes, he is.”
“Well, tell him to shake his tomato out of bed and get out and fight the British.”
The audience laughed.
“I saw this pulled in a vaudeville show once,” Studs said to Catherine, while Squirmy repeated this scene. He lit a cigarette, and was beginning to feel stiff. “Shall we blow?”
“Yes, but wait until this is over.”
“No, my husband isn’t home,” Doris Davis answered in response to Squirmy’s question.
“Well, hurry up and open the door. I want to get in.”
“Funny, even if I did hear it sprung before,” Studs said, laughing.
“I don’t think it’s so funny,” Catherine said.
The crowd laughed and applauded, and a shower of coins poured down onto the dance floor.
V
“This looks funny. He’s asleep on his feet,” Studs laughed.
“Play ball,” Harold Morgan bawled from the center of the floor while the other contestants trudged slowly around and around.
Harold wound up to pitch, swaying as his arm circled over his head, half turned his left foot, rising, and performed the motions for an overhand pitch. Losing his balance, he fell on his face, and Studs roared.
“Don’t laugh, he might be hurt.”
“He ought to be.”
“You’re cruel.”
“No. It’s just funny.”
Harold arose with a dazed expression on his face and a streak of dirt splotching his right cheek. He shook his head, opened his eyes like a man awakening, grinned sheepishly, joined the line which wound around and around and around the floor with a deadening slowness and a steady dragging of feet.
“Gee, it’s late,” Catherine said.
“Twelve-twenty,” Studs said, yawning.
“The time certainly does pass here, doesn’t it?”
He shook his head and looked sidewise at her. She leaned forward, watching, her dimpled chin resting in her left hand. She looked cute, pretty, and he wished he could keep her in that pose, just that way. And she looked no different either, from what she had before she’d been made. He guessed he liked her.
“They make me feel kind of sorry for them, some of them look so tired. And that poor partner of Squirmy Stevens, poor girl, having to hold him up when he’s in such a dead sleep.”
“Well, that’s their racket and they get dough for it. Look at all the dough that was thrown into them. And then after that little play, they came through the stands here selling their pictures. It’s tough, but they’re getting something.”
“You’re heartless. I bet you would feel a lot different if you were going through what they are down there.”
“I know that.”
“But I wouldn’t let you, Bill, not if it was for a ten-thousand dollar prize. The things they go through! Look at that poor Greek boy falling all over that girl.”
“It’s a dumb stunt in one way, because they got to go so much, but they must be making a lot of dough. Still, your health is worth more to you than all the dough in the world.”
“You bet it is.”
“And say, they get a crowd. People are still coming in.”
“Shall we leave, Bill?”
“All right.”
“The air gets so bad and there’s so much cigarette smoke. I bet this dance does no good for their lungs.”
“Me, too.”
The contestants silently circled the floor, marched around and around almost in slow motion.