The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [75]
They sat. Kenny said that if Andy was to be their mascot, he’d have to be initiated.
“No! No, I won’t have no initiation,” Andy protested.
They persuaded him, saying it was an easy initiation. All he had to do was to play letter fly. He said he didn’t know nothing about no letter fly, and didn’t want to play it. They called him yellow, so he said he’d play.
They all stood around in a circle. The object was for every-one to say some word with fly at the end of it. When you couldn’t think of another word, without hesitating, you had to say letter fly. Andy asked what happened then, and Kenny said nothing. The one who said letter fly lost, that was all. But if you didn’t play letter fly, you couldn’t belong to the Fifty-eighth Street bunch.
“Spanish fly!” Kenny started off.
They laughed because Kenny would always think of some-thing like that to say.
“Shoo fly,” said Studs.
“Horse fly,” said Johnny.
“Foul fly,” said Red.
Andy was slow. They said hurry up.
“You gotta be honest. If you’re not and you cheat you can’t come around with us,” Red said.
“Big fly,” said Andy.
The game went around again. By the time it was Andy’s turn, the flies were pretty well exhausted. He stood there, his efforts to think plain on his face. They ragged him, and told him to play fair. They gave him thirty to think of some fly. He couldn’t. He said:
“Letter fly.”
“Come on, guys. Let ur fly!” said Kenny.
The others said let ur fly.
They all let ur fly, and Andy got so many pastes in the mush he was dizzy.
He started to protest.
“You told us to do it, didn’cha?” said Red.
“I didn’t neither.”
“Didn’cha say let ur fly?”
They had him there. He walked away bawling, and turned to say:
I’ll get my brother after you.”
“Go on home, punk, while you’re all together,” said Weary. After Andy had gone, Studs pondered and said:
“He’s the biggest dumbsock I ever saw.”
Red explained why he was so dumb, and Studs glanced aside to blush, because he remembered what his old man had said about going crazy.
They sat. Paulie talked of Iris, and it made Studs restless. They all got that way. Finally they couldn’t stand it any longer, so they told Paulie to talk about something else. They said all he ever did was talk that way.
“Some day you’ll be ruined right by the molls,” Red said to Paulie.
Studs sat, wishing, hoping.
It was almost twilight when they started home, and goofy Danny O’Neill was still shagging flies. They spread out, arms on each other’s shoulders, and moved along singing:
Hail, hail, the gang’s all here!
What the hell do we care,
What the hell do we care
now.
They walked on along the tennis courts on South Park Avenue, talking away. Studs didn’t listen to them. He thought of Iris. He prayed that he would get her soon. He had to, be-cause he couldn’t think of anything else these days; and even that shutter trick wouldn’t work to get the thought out of his mind.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I
After leaving Iris’, Davey Cohen walked around the neighborhood, brooding, justifying himself. It hurt, and made a guy pretty goddamn sore, being cut cold by Iris when she didn’t bar none of the punks or the dumb Irish in the neighborhood. And she had told him no soap. Jew! All the guys were there now, and punks like Andy with them. She had let him stay there while she showed herself off to the guys. She had let him get all anxious, like the rest. Then, Jew! She wouldn’t let a kike touch her. If he didn’t leave she had threatened to get Studs and Weary to sock him, and they would have, because she had something to give them. Well, he was glad he hadn’t touched her. She’d make him sick. He didn’t want the left-overs of the Irish and of degenerates like Three-Star Hennessey. Not him. He didn’t want the sweetheart of the pig-Irish.
He walked around and pretended. He pretended that he was Studs Lonigan. Then he pretended that he had long pants on, that he wasn’t so bowlegged and that his nose wasn’t bent like a fishhook. He pretended that he had cleaned up all the tough guys on Fifty-eighth Street. He saw himself in an imaginary fight with Studs Lonigan, Studs rushing him the way he had rushed Red Kelly, waving his left fist up and down, swinging his right one, him sidestepping and sinking snappy rights to Studs