The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [79]
After he left Danny, Davey sniped another butt. He thought of Elaine and Ellen. He became proud that he was a Jew. He recalled Chedar, not the beatings, the ugly smells and the dirty rabbi, but the beautiful sing-songed Hebrew, the beautiful-sad history of the Jews. He was proud. The Irish, goddamn them, didn’t have anything like that. He hated the Irish. He vowed he’d blow the place, and go on the bum, see the world, make his own way, come back somebody, and leave them all lump it. He thought of Iris. He remembered how white she had been. The dirty…
He went home to supper, and the old man started chewing the rag.
After supper, he slunk in a corner and read The Lady of the Lake. He read and reread the line:
And Snowdoun’s Knight is Scotland’s King
It set his imagination ablaze, and Davey Cohen, huddled in a corner of a dirty room in back of the disordered tailor-shop, became Snowdoun’s Knight and Scotland’s King.
II
After being at Iris’, the guys hung around the corner. They started getting hungry, so they split up and went home for supper. Studs, Weary and Paulie walked together.
“Jesus, it woulda been funny if the old lady’d found us,” said Studs.
“It would have been a big joke, all right,” said Weary.
“It would have been funny, all right,” Studs said. “And our old men and old ladies would have found out. It would have been a big joke, all right.”
“Well, my old man and old lady can’t do nothin’ to me. I left home on ‘em once, and they’re scared I’ll do it again. But my old lady would sure get one on. Whew! She’d pray, and sprinkle holy water all over the house, and I’d get drenched with it, and she’d pray and have masses said for my soul, and she might even try to have me exorcised,” Weary said.
“Well, there’d have been a stink that I wouldn’t have wanted to get mixed in,” Studs said.
“But, hell, what’s a guy gonna do? If he doesn’t get a girl now and then, well, he’s liable to put himself in the nut house,” said Paulie.
“Yes, I guess a guy does. I guess it’s a sin, but .. .” said Studs, shrugging his shoulders.
“But, gee, I don’t see why it’s a sin if a fellow has to do it. I think the priests and sisters tell us this because they think we’re a little too young. Maybe they don’t mean it is a sin if you’re a little older,” said Paulie.
“Maybe,” said Studs, who was having a time with his conscience.
“Well, anyway, they don’t make machines any better than Iris,” said Paulie.
Lucy Scanlan passed them. She smiled sweetly, and they tipped their hats.
“You know, Lucy’s nice-looking and she’s got pretty good legs,” said Weary.
“You know, guys like us are too rotten to go around with girls like her, or your sister, Studs, or Frank’s sister, Fran,” said Paulie.
“They’re goddamn different from Iris, the dirty .. .” said Weary.
They talked about the thing that made some girls, generally Catholic ones, different. Weary and Studs bragged what they’d do if they ever caught guys monkeying around their sisters. That was only half of what Studs told himself he’d do if he caught a fellow getting fresh with Lucy.
“Bet you when Lucy grows up and marries, she’s going to be one swell order of pork chops,” Paulie said.
Studs felt like socking both of them.
They stood gabbing at the corner of Fifty-eighth and Michigan. Paulie and Studs said it would be hell if Iris ever snitched. Weary said if she did, she knew that he’d smack her teeth down her throat. Then Paulie talked about how Iris had looked, and they compared her with other girls. Weary said Helen Borax had a better figure, but he’d never seen it. Nobody except Weary could touch Helen with a ten-foot pole; and he had gotten what he wanted from her.
“But it would he hell. Mothers get pretty wild about their daughters. I know the punks once had a party at young O’Neill’s, and they played kiss-the-pillow, and that young O’Rorty girl told her old lady, and there was hell to pay. The old lady made her wash her mouth out, and then went up to the sisters and raised hell, and Sister Cyrilla gave O