The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [72]
He left her, and walked down toward Fifty-eighth. He thought of Lucy, and Iris, and Helen, and... then Lucy. He pretended that he was with Lucy over in the park in their tree, with the wind in his hair, and her sitting, swinging her legs, himself watching her, kissing her, her telling him he was a great guy, and she liked him, and was sorry for what had happened, themselves sitting there all afternoon with no one near them, and the air so cool in their hair. And maybe she’d see it was all right for them to... well, it might make them understand each other better.
He thought he heard her calling him, and he started his limping again. He turned sharply. There was no one behind him. He dropped his head and walked along. He tried to make himself feel good by telling himself how tough he was.
Lucy, I love you.
VI
“What’ll we do?” asked Tommy Doyle.
“I don’t know,” answered Benny Taite.
“Uh!” muttered Davey Cohen.
“I’m pretty tired of sockin’ Jew babies, or we might scout a few,” said Red Kelly.
“Me, too,” said Davey.
“Well, what I’d like is a glass of beer,” said Tommy.
“You always do,” said Davey, as he sniped a butt from the curb-edge.
The gang of them were in front of the Fifty-eighth Street elevated station.
“Ope!” laughed Studs Lonigan, pointing to Vinc Curley and Phil Rolfe, who came along Fifty-eighth Street from Calumet.
As they approached, Weary Reilley commanded:
“Commere!”
“Say, goofy, you got any dough?” Studs asked.
“Yeh,” said Vinc Curley like an absent-minded dunce.
“Let me see it,” said Kenny Kilarney.
Vinc said he had made a mistake. He didn’t have any money. They ragged him. Weary sneered, grabbed Vinc’s arm, and told the guys to frisk him. Studs grabbed Phil, and the gang got six bits out of the two of them. They ran, the victims ran after them, bawling, but they were ditched in an alley.
The group ganged into Joseph’s Ice Cream Parlor at Fifty-fifth and Prairie and had sodas. The bill was more than their six bits, and they didn’t see why they should pay anyway. They figured out how they would make a dash for the door, and Kenny told them to leave and say he had the bill. He told Weary to hold the door for him. To stall time, Kenny fooled around the candy case, took a couple of Hershey bars, and ordered some mixed chocolates. While Joseph was weighing the chocolates Kenny dashed. He and Weary caught up with the guys, who were crossing the north drive of Garfield Boulevard. They all tore down Prairie, and got away easily. They returned toward Fifty-eighth Street, laughing over it. After a lot of squabbling, they divided the dough evenly. They wondered what to do. Kenny and Davey goofed over a cigarette butt. Studs and Benny Taite sparred. Weary told some new dirty jokes. Paulie Haggerty then asked Weary about school, but Weary said the hell with it. He pointed to the objects in the street that symbolized school for him. He said the family had taken him back home, and wouldn’t make him do what he didn’t want to, because they were scared to hell that he’d bust out and become a holdup man. Studs thought it would be a good thing to run away from home, but he felt that he never would. They wondered what they would do. Two kids came along, and they were stopped and asked where they came from. The kids said Fifty-ninth and Wentworth. Red Kelly said it was an Irish neighborhood and all right, so they let the kids go. They wondered what to do, and Kenny thought he’d like to play his cat trick. The last time he had played it, he had caught a couple of cats and dropped them from a roof, and one cat had almost landed square on a cop. The cat trick was best, though, when he could get a dog, and cart the cats to a third floor or a roof and then sick the dog on them so they’d have to jump. There were no cats to be found, so Kenny said he’d like to rob ice boxes. They trailed over to a building at Fifty-eighth and Michigan, and on the way picked up Johnny O’Brien. Three buildings stood in a row facing Fifty-eighth and extending to the Michigan Avenue corner. There was a narrow walk, and a few feet of dirt in the back, and the porches extended all the way along, with no banisters dividing one from another. It was easy for the guys to split up, and for each group to take a floor, while Davey stood downstairs and Johnny O