The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [37]
He listened to the sycophantic comments; they poured sweetly on his ears. Helen gave a vigorous redescription of how the fight started. Red O’Connell, who hated Studs, and was kowtowing to him only because he had cleaned up Reilley, kept saying, it had been a bear of a fight. Dan Donoghue said there hadn’t been a fight like it in the whole history of the neighborhood. Dick Buckford told Studs he could fight like blazes until they all told the punk to keep quiet. And Lucy said it showed Studs was brave.
Studs told himself he had been waiting for things like this to happen a long time; now they were happening, and life was going to be a whole lot more... more fun, and it was going to make everything just jake; and he was going to be an important guy, and all the punks would look up to him and brag to other punks that they knew him; and he would be... well, in the limelight. Maybe it would set things happening as he always knew they would; and he would keep on getting more and more important.
It was all swell; and it made him feel good, even if he was tired and aching. After they had all talked themselves almost blue in the face, they decided that it would be cooler in the Shires’ playhouse. They went back there, and Helen chased away her kid sister’s gang. The guys all chipped in to buy lunch, with Johnny O’Brien putting up most of the money. Red, Dan and Johnny went to the delicatessen store for grub; coming back, they copped a couple of bottles of milk from iceboxes. It was a fine lunch, and afterward they played post office, and Lucy gave her hero plenty of kisses. Life was fine and dandy for Studs, all right, and the only thing bothering him, besides his headache, was that he would have a heck of a time explaining his shiner to the old lady.
CHAPTER FOUR
I
Studs couldn’t stay in one place, and he kept walking up and down Indiana Avenue, wishing that the guys would come around. As he passed Young Horn Buckford and some punk he didn’t know, Young Horn said hello to him. He gruffed a reply. He heard Young Horn say, as he walked on:
“You know who that is? That’s STUDS LONIGAN. He’s the champ fighter of the block.”
Studs laughed to himself, proud.
He came back to Fifty-seventh, and sat on the curb watching two kids race each other up and down the street with barrel hoops. They pretended they were auto-racers. A little kid in a blue shirt kept saying he was Dario Resta; and the other called himself Ralph De Palma. Resta and De Palma raced back and forth, and at the conclusion of every race there was an argument between the two winners. He would have liked to play in such a game, but it was too young for him. He smoked a butt.
“H’lo, Studs!”
“Hello, Half-Wit,” said Studs to snotty-nosed, Jew-faced, thick-bodied, thirteen-year-old Andy Le Gare.
“Studs, can I feel your muscle?”
“I will if you will show me how you can bat your head against a brick wall.”
“G’wan,” said Andy.
“Say, Wilson’s gonna get skunked,” Studs said.
“He won’t. My father said so; and he knows,” said Andy.
“Listen! Wilson’s a morphidite,” Studs said.
“What’s that?”
“A guy that’s both a man and a woman at the same time, like fat Leon,” said Studs.
Andy looked at Studs, hurt, puzzled, betrayed.
“I don’t believe it. I’ll bet you ten bucks,” said Andy.
“Where’d you get the ten bucks?” sneered Studs.
“Never mind, I’ll get ten bucks,” said Andy.
“Boushwah!”
A pause. Andy again asked Studs if he could feel his muscle. Studs consented if Andy would show his stuff. Andy said it was a bargain. Andy felt Studs’ muscle, and said: Gee! He again gripped Studs’ hard-fibered right arm, and repeated his exclamation of admiration. Studs then made Andy carry out his part of the bargain; so Andy went over to the corner building, and, laughing idiotically, he snapped his head against the brick wall six times. Studs watched him open-mouthed, and said:
“Your bean must be made of iron. Watch out they don’t take it some day to use on the elevated structures.”
Andy went off. Studs watched him, laughing and muttering exclamations of surprise.
Studs hung around until the gang dribbled along. They sat on the grass in front of the apartment bui1dine on Indiana, where Danny lived. They whiled away the time with kid trivialities.