The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [171]
He felt chilly, and started back to Fifty-eighth Street. He looked at the trees which spread before him, like corpses, with the wind saddening through them. Nice. He was glad, too, that he had taken this walk. And he was going to stick to his determinations, fight not to break them. By God, he wouldn’t! He shot his butt, realizing that he had determined to cut out smoking. Well, it hadn’t been breaking his intentions, because he hadn’t realized that he was smoking. He felt more different than he had ever felt before. He felt that he had will power, and will power was the main asset needed in every walk of life. Over near the drive, he was again aware of the wind sweeping through the shrubbery. It was a sad song, and it seemed to sing through him. It made him sad, but it was a pleasant sadness, because he knew he was different from all the mopes at the poolroom, he was going to do different things and be more than they. He could see himself, meeting them thirty years from now, himself thin, in the pink, not looking his age, them fat, red-nosed, failures, like Barney Keefe, envying him, and saying Studs you haven’t changed a bit, you look swell, say how in the name of Christ do you do it? He was glad he had seen Hink. It had been like having ice-water thrown in his face to wake him up. It had made him think. Pig Lonigan! Not any more. It had made him learn his lesson in time, before he ruined himself like poor Paulie Haggerty had done, and his brother Shrimp Haggerty was doing.
Kelly came out of the poolroom as Studs slouched along. He asked Studs about doing something. Studs shook his head, and felt superior to Red. It was the first exercise of his new will power.
“Hell, Studs, if you go home now, your old man and old lady might have a fit of apoplexy or heart failure, they’ll be so surprised,” Tommy Doyle said.
“I’m turning in and getting some sleep.”
He went towards home. At the corner of Fifty-eighth and Michigan, he saw a nigger and his black girl ahead, walking arm in arm. He thought of how in this new spring time, the new man Studs Lonigan would be walking about in the evening with her on his arm. Suddenly, he sneered, thinking that the goddamn niggers had their guts, invading a white man’s neighborhood, and sooner or later they’d have to be run out.
Lonigan was glad with surprise. He and Studs talked about business for a half hour. He turned in with the mother. Studs and Fran talked, and he promised to go to the Wednesday evening Lenten services at St. Patrick’s next Wednesday. In bed, the father said to the mother that he was gratified because Bill was getting some sense now, and settling down. He took the credit for it.
XIV
Phil Rolfe was one of the best-dressed cake-eaters at an after-noon dance given on Washington’s Birthday at a hall near Englewood High School. A sizeable, lively crowd was in attendance. Amongst them were a number of fellows and girls who rated in the south side high school fraternity and sorority world.
Phillip spotted Loretta Lonigan. He thought that she was pretty, with her dark hair, and small but compact figure, and her gray serge dress, trimmed with collar and cuffs of hand-drawn handkerchief linen. Damn keen girl, even if she had a big nose like her brother, Studs. She smiled as he approached her between dances.
“I see you haven’t forgotten me?” he said, smiling with all his talcum-powdered, stacombed charm.
“Why, Phil Rolfe, how could I forget you, ever?”
“Shall we dance?”
“I’d be delighted