The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [155]
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I
“Papee! Box score!”
Studs Lonigan laughed at Sammy Schmaltz like a drunken apparition.
“Which one?”
“There ain’t no box scores on Christmas Eve,” Studs said, continuing to laugh.
“Papee! Latest papee!”
“Merry Fourth of July!” Studs bellowed, with an uncontrolled wave of his hand; he staggered over to plaster himself against the bellied front of the Fifty-eighth Street elevated station. He saw Phillip Rolfe and bellowed a command for him to come over.
“Say, are you a fag?” Studs sneered.
“You’re drunk, kid,” Phillip replied, taking Studs’ arm. “The boys said you’ve been home laid up with the flu for several weeks. Do you feel all right now?”
“I’ll bet you are a pansy,” Studs said, brushing Phillip’s arm aside, and eyeing him with curiosity, as Rolfe inched backwards.
“Why do you punks wear those goddamn monkey suits? You can’t keep them pressed when you get on your knees,” Studs said, studying Phil’s hell bottoms.
“They’re the rage, kid,” Phillip said, walking away.
Studs fell back against the building. He coughed. He saw people passing as in a dream, and imagined himself just walking up to them one by one, and laying them cold.
“Hey, Jew, commere!” he commanded.
Smirking, Jawbones Levinsky halted a respectable distance from Studs.
“So you’re the goddamn Jew who’s prejudiced against the N. D. football team.”
“Yeah,” said Levinsky, quickly dodging a right haymaker.
Studs chased him half way across the sidewalk. Strangers watched with amusement. Levinsky stopped on the other side of the alley, which ran parallel to the station, and laughed. Studs floundered like a listing ship. and again plastered himself against the station bricks. Mr. and Mrs. Dennis P. Gorman, passing, saw Studs and clucked.
“Everybody’s a bastard!” Studs mumbled to himself.
“William!”
“Thought Studs Lonigan die influenza. Plenty left in Studs Lonigan, get that, you bastards! Whoops!”
“William!”
The sharp, aggravated feminine pronunciation of his name slowly wormed itself into his drunken consciousness. He looked in the direction of the voice. He saw Fran leaning from the front of a closed car that was parked at the curb. He lip-farted.
“William!... Come here!”
He threw his shoulders back, and almost toppled sidewise in his effort to walk straight. He stood before her, swaying, his leering face smudged, his clothes spotted with dust.
“The idea! You’re a perfect sight; you ought to be ashamed of yourself, disgracing the whole family by your drunken boorishness. And you just out of a sick bed!”
“Whatjahsay?”
“It’s shocking, disgraceful!”
A slick-looking tuxedoed young man, with a talcum-powdered shaven face, leaned sidewise from the wheel.
“Fran, we’ll have time to drive him around for a spin in the park and let him get some air.”
“Huh!” Studs nastily exclaimed.
“Then, a cup of black coffee might help sober him up.”
“Who in the name of all holy hell wants to get sobered up... Sobered up, huh there, Droopy Drawers? Christ is born, and I’m celebrating,” he whooped.
“William Lonigan, you’ll stop that uncouth, blasphemous talk this minute and get in here!”
“Whoops!”
“Fran, he’s drunk. Let me handle him!”
“What’s that, Charley?”
“William, don’t be so disgusting! You’re not funny.”
“Sure thing, Charley!” he said with an insulting laugh; he almost fell on his face.
“William...”
“I’m just about ready to haul off on a skunk that I see!”
“William!”
“You’re the bastard I’m talking to!” he said, stepping forwards.
Fran slammed the car door, and it shot off. Studs stumbled after it, cursing. He fell in the street. A traffic jam was caused, while he struggled to his feet, and staggered back onto the sidewalk. Slug Mason grabbed his arm, and said, with his familiar mispronunciations:
“Studs, you crazy bastard! Here we all hears that you was in bed with the flu, and what does I do but find you trying to take a nose dive in the gutter.”
“Like tuxedoes?