The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [119]
She met his eye, icy, not a hint on her face. Sometimes they were like that in pretense, make it a game where you worked for it. He lit a cigarette, nonchalant, as if he were just as unaware of her presence as she seemed to be of his. He looked out at the water, black, except where the boathouse lights and stretches of moonlight lay over it. He tried to think up something clever that he might say to make an opening. He could just see her smiling at his cleverness, if only he could hit upon some good crack. He watched two couples rowing away from the landing. One of the girls laughed loudly. He arose, and casually sauntered to her side, glanced at her while she looked uninterestedly ahead. He said hello. She didn’t respond. He got nervous, and greeted her a second time. She looked up at him, as if he were so low that he crept on the ground.
“Like to go oaring, cutie?”
“I should say not,” she said, turning her back.
He felt like he might just go crawl into a barrel, and sink his head. Blushing, he left the boathouse. Just a goddamn bitch trying to be swell! He wandered back on the grass, wondering if he might take in the movie at the Prairie Theatre. Dirty it was, jumping the poor bastard, when you couldn’t blame him for looking at something offered to him on a platter; she knew he was looking. If that jane, bitch, in the boathouse had a husband, he’d be the same way and want to start swinging. Just natural to look at a girl’s legs. He was sorry, a bit ashamed of himself: but that uppercut he’d given him, it had been beautiful, timed just right. Remembering the thrill of landing it was even swell.
He crossed the bushes in back of the bench where they were. He saw them in each other’s arms, and heard her say to Paulie:
“Honey, I love you!”
Made him want a girl! Put his arms around her, draw her tight so he could press into her, feel her hardening herself against him, feeling her quiver and shake with excitement because he touched her, wanted to know her. No girl had ever said she loved him like she’d just told Paulie. The Great Studs Lonigan, the battler... no girl ever seemed to think so. He wanted one, maybe he even wanted to marry one... maybe, perhaps, Lucy...
He met Elizabeth Burns crossing the drive from the Fifty-eighth Street entrance.
“Say, aren’t you afraid being over here alone in the dark?”
“Nobody would hurt little me.” she giggled.
“You need protection,” he said, taking her arm.
He walked her around the south bend of the lagoon, and over the stone bridge to the wooded island. They found a spot right near the tree where he and Lucy had been. She didn’t offer him any resistance.
He was tired, drowsy, walking back with her, their clothes all rumpled. She was too much for him. Never would get enough. What a bitch! But before he had got so tired that it hurt him, nice, and he’d looked up at the sky, blue, big, so many stars like jewels, feeling perfectly at peace. Only she wanted an army. And what she didn’t know at the age of fourteen wasn’t worth knowing. They walked slowly towards Calumet, not saying much. At the corner of Calumet, her old man, a big bastard over six feet, jumped out with a horse-whip.
“Get home, you whore!” he said, roughly pushing her aside. He snapped the whip, bearing it down on Studs’ shoulder. Studs was so surprised that he stood stock still. The old man lashed him three times, before he ran. Old Man Burns followed him down the street, cursing him, lashing him with the horse-whip till it stung and burned. Strangers stopped to laugh. He felt that he couldn’t run much farther, and he ran, gasping, his side paining sharply. He couldn’t stop, and Christ, that whip. He dashed recklessly in front of automobiles and got across to the park side of South Park Avenue. He turned and saw the old man flaunting his whip on the other side of the street, yelling:
“I’ll teach you whose daughter you’re monkeying with!”
He flung a rock, and ran through the bushes on the left-hand