The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [44]
Studs got Goddamn sore. He knew what was coming. The old man always worked the same damn gag.
“You see, Bill, you’re stayin’ out pretty late, and you know, well, it’s as your mother says, the neighbors will be thinkin’ things, wonderin’ if we, the landlords here, set a good example for our children, and live decently, an’ if we are takin’ the right sort of care of our children. I’m the owner of this here building, you see, and I got to have a family that sets the right kind of an example. Now what do you think they’ll think if they see you comin’ in so late every evenin’, comin’ in night after night after most respectable people have gone to bed?”
“But what is it their business?” asked Studs.
“And, William, you know you have to look out for your health. Now what will you do if you go on getting little sleep like you do? You know you should get to bed early. Why, this very day in the newspapers, there was an article saying that sleep gotten before twelve o’clock was better and healthier sleep than sleep gotten after midnight. You’re wearing yourself out, and you’re wearin’ out me, your mother, because I worry over you, because I can’t let my baby get tuberculosis,” the mother said.
“I’m all right; I’m healthy,” Studs said.
“Well, I think, Bill, I think a fellow could get enough play all day and until ten o’clock at night. You always want to remember that there’ll be another day,” the old man said oracularly.
Studs said that all kids stayed out, sitting on someone’s porch, or in the grass in front of someone’s house, talking and there wasn’t anything wrong with it, because it was so nice in the evening. And the other kids’ fathers didn’t care. Mr. O’Brien never kicked about Johnny being out, and Johnny O’Brien was younger than he was.
“If Johnny O’Brien jumps in the river, do you have to?” That was the way his old man always was!
Studs just stood there. The old man told him to save something for another day. Studs sulked, and told himself there wasn’t any use arguing with his old man and old lady. They just didn’t understand.
The old man brought out a Lefty Locke baseball book, which he had bought for Studs and forgotten to give him.
He said it would be a good thing if Studs stayed in and read it. Studs ought to do more reading anyway, because reading always improved a person’s mind. Studs sat down, pouted and read the book for about ten minutes. But Lefty Locke wasn’t anything at all like Rube Waddell; it was a goofy book. He fidgeted. Then he said hesitantly that he’d like to take a little walk, and the old man, disappointed, said all right.
When Studs met the guys, he told them that he’d won a scrap with the old man. That evening they played tin-tin with the girls, and Studs kissed Lucy. It made him forget that his old man and his old lady and home weren’t what sisters and priests made them out to be at school and at Mass on Sundays.
IV
It was a hot early July afternoon, and life, along Indiana Avenue, was crawlingly lazy. A brilliant sun scorched the impoverished trees and sucked energy from the frail breezes that simpered off a distant Lake Michigan.
The gang had all gone swimming, and Studs had not felt like going home for his suit. Danny O’Neill was at the corner of Fifty-eighth, playing a baseball game by himself with a golf ball. He threw the ball at the ledge on the side of Levin’s tiled wall. Every time it struck the ledge, and the rebound was caught, a run was counted. Every throw was a time at bat. Danny played away, happy and contented by himself. Studs stood across the street, hands on hips, watching, shaking his head because he couldn’t make out goofy O’Neill. He could have such a swell time by himself, playing some goofy baseball game or other or just sitting down playing knife. Danny was such a crack knife player that no one would play pull the peg with him. He was goofy, though. Studs crossed the street and said:
“Hello, Goof!”
They played the baseball game, and Danny beat Studs four times. Studs didn’t like to get beat at anything, so he quit playing. He pulled Danny