The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [11]
He puffed his stogy and sat there. The sun was imperceptibly burning low. Old man Lonigan looked about. He puffed on his stogy, and his innards made their customary noises as they diligently furthered the digestive process.
III
Frances rushed upon him, and with excited little-girl madness she asked him to make William get out of the bathroom.
The old man rapped on the bathroom door and told Bill to hurry up.
“Father, he’s just a mean old brute. He’s been in there an hour. He’s reading or smoking cigarettes.”
“Why, Frances!” the mother said.
“No, I ain’t.”
“Bill, tell me... are you smoking?”
“Aw, she’s all vacant upstairs.”
“Why, that is no language for an educated Catholic boy to use,” the mother said.
“Father, he’s mean and selfish. He’s a brute, a beast. He isn’t fair, and he doesn’t give anyone else the least bit of consideration. I’ll be late. I can’t go. You’ll have to get my diplomas, and they’ll have to let someone else act. I can’t go. I can’t go. He’s made me all nervous and unstrung. I’m unstrung, and I can’t act now. I can’t. And I’m worried because I’m not sure if my dress is even or not and I have to go in there. Father, please make the brute come out,” Frances said melodramatically.
“All right. I’ll be right out. I can’t help it,” Studs said.
“Make him, Father!”
“Goddamn it, Bill, hurry!”
“I will.”
“He’s always like this,” Frances said.
“I ain’t.”
“Every time I’m in a hurry, he’s getting in the way. He’s selfish, and don’t think of anyone but his dirty old self, and he always monopolizes the bathroom... he’s an ole ... goat,” said Frances.
“Aw, shut up and go to hell,” said Studs as he fanned the air.
“Why, William Lonigan! Father, did you hear him insult me, swear at me, like I was one of those roughnecks from Fifty-eighth Street I sometimes see him with?”
“Bill, come right out. I’ll not have you cursing in this house. I’m boss here, and so long as I am, you will use gentlemanly language when you address your sister. Where do you learn to speak like that, you, with the education I’ve given you? You don’t hear anyone around here speaking like that,” said the old man.
“Aw, heck, she’s always blowing off her kazoo,” said Studs.
“William, I wish that you wouldn’t use such language. After receiving such a fine education... I’m shocked,” said the mother.
“He doesn’t know any better. He couldn’t be a gentleman if he tried to,” Frances said.
“Now, Frances, don’t add fuel to the fire,” the mother said.
“All right. I’m coming right out. I couldn’t help it. Only it gets me sore to hear her yelling her ears off like that, over nothin’.”
“Well, it’s a good thing I do. Someone ought to expose him, and tell him how mean and selfish and inconsiderate he is, and how he only thinks of himself.”
“Now, children, this is your graduation night, and you know your graduation night ought to be one of the happiest of your lives,” the mother said.
The smoke had cleared now, so Studs could take a chance. He marched out, leaving the bathroom in perfect order. Frances indignantly brushed by him, her head held proud.
Frances was a very pretty girl of thirteen. Her body had commenced to lose its awkwardness, and she had a trim little girlish figure. Her plain white graduation dress set her off well, with her dark hair and her blackish eyes. She looked older than Studs.
“William, you should be more considerate,” the mother said, unheard.
“Bill, you’re gettin’ at the age where you should be more . more chivalrous toward the ladies,” the old man said as he chewed away at the remains of his stogy.
“Yeah, but heck, the way she yells over nothing, and starts raisin’ all kinds of Cain when there ain’t no reason,” he said.
Father and mother cautioned him on the use of the word ain’t. It was not polite, or good diction.
“Bill, you have to put up with the ladies, and make allowances for their... defugalties,” the old man said pompously.
He nudged Studs, intimately,