The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [109]
“Take your lousy hands off me!”
His parents called him from the window. He didn’t look at them. At the corner, he turned, and saw his old man coming out of the building. He ran, ditching the old man by running through alleys and gangways.
III
With dew-soaked feet, Lonewolf Lonigan tramped across the ball field at Washington Park. He suddenly wheeled around, thinking that he had heard approaching footsteps. He looked in back of him; darkness. He gazed all around at the surrounding blackness, the extended shadows of bushes on the edge of the park suddenly losing themselves in an awfulness of night. To his right, and several blocks away, was the illumination of the park refectory. The lights of a passing automobile showed like fleeting electric pinpoints and vanished.
To get rid of the thoughts he was having about himself and the darkness, he whipped out his gat, and pulled the trigger, the hammer clicking.
How could he get bullets? Where did burglars go for their ammunition? He could see himself walking into a joint, looking tough, saying in a hard-boiled way:
Three rounds of cartridges for a forty-four!
Well, soon he would have a forty-four, instead of a twenty-two!
From Cottage Grove Avenue, he heard the muffled echoes of a street car. The air was cut with the unhuman shriek of ungreased automobile brakes that had been suddenly applied.
The sounds faded deeply into all the surrounding silence. He heard many crickets.
Lonewolf Lonigan stopped, stricken with indecision. He could see himself captured, shot... killed.
If he hadn’t gone off the handle! He could have gone to work for the old man and it mightn’t have been half bad. Right after graduation, he’d wanted to. And the old man had been right in what he’d said. He had been wasting his time. But it was the way he’d said it, the bossy way, disregarding all of Studs’ feelings, treating him the same way as if he was only thirteen or fourteen, that caused it all. If he was working though, the old man couldn’t pull a stunt like that, because he’d be independent.
He couldn’t remember ever having felt like he did now, with only his feeling of being alone, as if all the loneliness of the night and the sky were inside of him, crushing out everything else. It was a snaky feeling like maybe some one would have, or Robinson Crusoe might have had, being alone on a desert island. He had burned all his bridges, and gone from everything, and he was a man alone forced to fight by himself, an enemy of society, a burglar and robber—well he would be one after he pulled off his first stickup. And he would. He’d pull it off, and make his getaway. His old man might have called the police by now, after going around Fifty-eighth and not finding him there. He guessed he’d been wise not going around. But it had been slow as hell, with nothing to do all night. He’d been so nervous and excited that he didn’t even know what picture he’d seen in the movie. It was tough too, that he wouldn’t be able to go around Fifty-eighth with his gat, and show ‘em what he did and could do. But it would be dangerous. He’d have to blow town tonight, because his old man might even have his picture in the paper, and dicks might even be looking for him at the railroad stations. He might never come back either, and they’d be searching for him all over the country. Or he might come back sometime, and rob his father and leave a note signed:
THE LONEWOLF!
Fun, thinking of all the things like this that might happen. But it was getting late, and he’d have to get busy. He clenched his fist, emphasizing firmness to himself. He stopped and drew out his handkerchief, and wrapped it around his face. He bent down on one knee, waited with drawn gun. He jumped up with a levelled gat, threatening the darkness.
“Stick ‘em up fast... Come on! Hand over your jack quick or I’ll drill yah!” he said in a cool, collected voice.
He snatched, as if taking money, and ran, turning repeatedly to pull the trigger. He dropped behind a water fountain, and shot. Suddenly, he dropped his gun, and clutched