The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [147]
“Say, Chauncey, we’re going backwards, and I got to be at work.”
“All the cars in Alaska go this way.”
In a shock of surprise, Studs saw from the window of the moving car that they were passing through expansive, flat fields of snow.
He returned to his seat, and his disappointment dissipated when he realized that he was an adventurer, journeying to fight for love and gold. And the army officer was Lieutenant Ames Dubois. With the pride of ingenuity, he outlined a plan of action. Ames would be returning to Gloria. After seeing her, he would lead his soldiers out on an expedition to shovel snow. And Gloria would be awaiting her lover, Studs Lonigan, in a little Alaska love-nest. She would be prepared for him, without a strip on, and she would give herself unto him, body and soul, until it hurt. Then she would show him where the gold was in them there Alaska hills, and he would become a billionaire. He would return to Fifty-eighth Street with his fortune, and he would go round to the poolroom of George the Greek, escorting glorious Gloria, who would wear pearls in her ears, diamonds on her fingers, and rings on her toes. And every night for a century, glorious Gloria, stripped, would give herself unto him, body and soul, until it hurt. He glanced across the aisle at Lieutenant Ames Dubois, thinking what a chump that boy was.
The car jolted as it was jammed into an unexpected halt. Studs looked up into the face of Ames Dubois, and the countenance of the conductor; he knew that he knew the conductor and hated him like poison.
“Lonigan, take your goddamn tree off the tracks!” they jointly demanded.
“My tree?” Studs asked in surprised apology.
To the amusement of all the passengers, he was ejected from the car, and landed in unwet snow. He found no tree on the tracks, and when he looked up, the car was in motion, and Weary Reilley, the conductor, stood on the rear platform thumbing his nose.
Studs ran, flagging after the car, and pleading in shouts for them to wait. He was outdistanced and he stopped to catch his breath. A sense of loss swept him with oceans of sadness, and he was more sad than any man had ever been. He peered around him, and saw the same monotonous desolation of snow on every side, with neither sight nor sign of a human being. He had lost glorious Gloria forevermore, and he was poor, and miles upon miles from his home in Chicago that he should never have left. And when he did return, after walking the whole distance without shoes, he would have neither love nor gold.
You’re no good! You’re not a man. You never will be, you yellow Lonigan louse, a voice within him, as if it were the voice of conscience, sneered.
He dropped a dejected head, and set out upon that thousand-mile journey back to his home, without any shoes on his feet. He already could hear the crackling, sarcastic laughter with which he would be greeted. Suddenly, he was amongst buildings which resembled the houses and apartments in the 5700 block on Indiana Avenue. And in the sky, like a rising sun of the spring time, he saw the beaming face of Lucy Scanlan. In a voice as sweet as candy, she sang to him that she still loved him in a cosy Morris chair, and that if he wanted her, he must go and touch the tree. He confidently strode through a recognizable gangway, and came out upon a street which was fronted with a park of huge oak-trees. He crossed the street, but the trees receded and disappeared with his approach. He chased the vanishing trees across fields of grass, encouraged and hopeful, only because the face of Lucy Scanlan still shone in the sky like a rising sun of the spring time. He came upon a bent, gnarled oak-tree, and knew that it was the one, because the face of Lucy Scanlan blew