The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [103]
and
Studs awoke, and outside it was a gray November morning. He was lassitudinous in a mood of let-down, already lonesome for yesterday. He hummed Over There and nostalgia crushed him. The thought that the war was over struck him almost like an unexpected club on the head. All along, he’d thought he’d get into it and become a great hero, and back when it had started, he’d been excited. But after eating those bananas, it had got more natural, and he’d gone along doing all the things he’d been doing, just the same. But it had made life more exciting, and then, in a way, it had all been worth yesterday. Now, he’d have to figure out what he’d do with himself. He could go to work for the old man, or try and get a job, or go back to high school and become a famous football player. He knew he could, but he couldn’t stand school. He wondered what the hell he could do for himself. He lay in bed a long time.
Finally he got up, washed and went to breakfast. The old man asked him what he was going to do, and Studs said look for a job. Fran butted her nose into the picture and said she didn’t believe him, and thought he’d go and hang around those awful bums in the poolroom. His old man said he didn’t want him hanging around no poolroom. The old lady said he should go back to school and get educated and maybe study for the priesthood. They gave him a pain. He was glad when the old man gave him a buck and left. The old lady slipped him a half a buck. He went out at eight-thirty, determined to go downtown and look for a job. When he got to the el station, he couldn’t do it. He hung around, hardly able to wait for the guys, so they could talk about yesterday, and maybe find more excitement.
III
Mrs. Lonigan and Mrs. Reilley, each carrying a black prayer-book, walked home from Sunday mass. Mrs. Lonigan observed that there were two cavities in the front of Mrs. Reilley’s mouth. Mrs. Reilley perceived that Mrs. Lonigan was thinner and bonier than she had been when they had last met, and that a few of the strands of hair falling from under her hat were gray.
“And how is your Frank? I never see him about the neighborhood,” Mrs. Lonigan asked.
“My Frank has not been feeling up to snuff these days, and he doesn’t be runnin’ in the prairie with the lads. He does be a quiet boy, and he often comes to me and says `Mother, sure I don’t care to he keeping company with the likes of them that’s always at that poolroom on Fifty-eighth Street.’ Sure, he’s a sensible boy, and he knows full well that the curse of God has been put on the likes of them, the tinkers, that’s always to be seen in that poolroom,” Mrs. Reilley said, with a pronounced brogue.
`Is he working?” asked Mrs. Lonigan, as the two mothers glanced pointedly at each other.
“Sure, the lad and his father have had a great talk about that only this last week, and the lad’s father thinks that as soon as the boy is up to it, we’ll be sending him off to learn something technical, because there’s money to be got there.”
“Of course, you can’t place a boy of that age under too great a strain.”
“And aren’t them the very words I was telling me old man this last week.”
“My William went to Loyola for one year, and he made a fine record for himself. But we decided to keep him out this year and let him help his father with the business, because Patrick has so much to attend to. We’re leaving him rest awhile first, because he is only young and growing. But