The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [123]
“Well, McCarthy, there’s lots of horse manure in the alley,” said Slug. All the other guys in the bunch guffawed.
XI
“Thanks, kid, and I’ll have the liquor back to you at three-thirty this afternoon. And I guarantee that it’s bonded,” Jeff said, taking three and a half dollars from funnyface Young Duffy.
“Sure now that it’s good stuff?” asked Duffy.
“I wouldn’t sell it to you if it wasn’t,” Jeff convincingly replied.
Jeff struggled and puffed towards the door. Everybody got in his way and he had a hell of a time squeezing past them.
XII
“All I hope is that that dope starts her like nobody’s business,” Wils Gillen said.
“It did for me when I had the scare about Elizabeth,” Ellsworth said.
“Well, if it don’t... Holy Jesus!”
“You’ll either have to join the navy or else ... marry the pig.”
“Marry her, a Midway Garden bum?”
“If it don’t, I know a doctor. I fixed up Sadie Prevost with him when she was knocked up by all you guys. She’s all right, only to raise the dough she had to go out and hustle. She did so well hustling that she’s in the business for good now,” Darby Dan Drennan said.
“She sacrificed her amateur standing, huh?” said Ellsworth.
“If it don’t, it’s the marines and see the world, boys,” Wils said.
“Anyway, Wils, no matter how tough a hole you’re in, remember that you’ll always be better off than poor Paulie Haggerty,” philosophized Darby Dan Drennan.
“Now ain’t that something,” said Wils.
XIII
“Sure, I’m good,” Young Rocky said, hanging up his cue.
“You made some good shots,” Bob Connell said professionally.
“Hang around with me, brother, and you’ll learn how to shoot pool,” Young Rocky said. His eyes opened in wide interest. “Let there be light and there was light. Let there be Louisa Nolan’s Dance Hall, and there was Three Star Hennessey.”
Three Star Hennessey, a pimply-faced runt, wearing a cheap blue suit with flapping bell bottoms, ambled towards them.
“Spats and all,” said glassy-eyed Swede Larsen, looking at Hennessey’s pearl gray spats.
“Gain’ to the jig this afternoon?” asked Connell.
“If he didn’t, Nolan’s would close up.”
“Say, Hennessey, is it true that you go down to Castle Gardens and dance so that you can pinch pocketbooks?” Swede asked.
“I combine business with pleasure... but, say, who’ll loan me a buck until tonight?”
“Scrounging dough again, huh, Hennessey?” said Young Rocky.
XIV
“What?” Fat Malloy bellowed.
Long-faced Jawbones Levinsky adjusted his horn-rimmed glasses, stuck his hands in his topcoat pockets, and sneered. “Gypp was overrated.”
“For Christ sake!” exclaimed Malloy, belligerent and nonplussed.
“Well, what did he ever do?”
“What did he do? Didn’t he make a seventy-yard drop kick?” Jawbones’ right hand pushed outwards in a gesture of disdainful unbelief.
“Listen, Jew! I SAY THAT GYPP MADE A SEVENTYFIVE-YARD DROP KICK AND YOU CAN FIND IT IN THE RECORD BOOK.”
“What record book?”
“Why, you damn fool kike, the record book. What the hell record book you suppose, the one on volley ball? What the hell do you go to an A.P.A. college like the U for if you don’t understand English?”
“Think I fall for that stuff?”
“Why, you lowdown Jew! Say, get this straight and don’t forget it! George Gypp of Notre Dame made a seventy-five-yard drop kick,” Malloy said, clenching his fists, and shoving a bull-dog mug forward.
“Hell, you’re just another one of these synthetic Notre Dame alumni... And you can’t even pronounce the name correctly.”
“YOU LOUSY KIKE! I OUGHT TO PUNCH THAT FACE OF YOURS FULL OF HOLES...”
Departure became the better part of Levinsky’s valor.
XV
“You’re exonerated, then?” said big Gannon, a park cop.
“Yeah,” Joe Moonan answered; he was a classily dressed, angelic-faced dick.
“How did it happen, Joe? I never got the story straight.”
Joe told how he had caught the kids shooting craps down near Twelfth Street, and had yelled at them. They had run after he called to them to halt, and he pulled out his gun, intending to scare them. He had been aiming to shoot over their heads, but somehow, he didn’t know how, and was sorry