The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [172]
Phil placed his right hand with effective masculine firmness in the small of her back, and crooked his left arm with his palm flat against hers. He held his head high, his thin shoulders straight and erect, and danced in calculated and precise rhythms.
“Say, Loretta, you’re a swell dancer. Where have you been all my life?”
“And, Phil, you are too. And you have a nice line.”
They talked about the music, dances, the people present, places to go. As they glided into a corner it seemed that Loretta let herself go tensely against him. He thought maybe she would sock it in. But he had to be careful. She was a nice girl. She might get sore. Had to handle nice girls with kid gloves that way, until you broke down their resistance. And her brother was tough. They turned gracefully in and out of the moving crowd, and Phil whistled the tune of Frivolous Sal as the orchestra played it. She smiled up at him with white, even teeth. He commented again on some of the people present and she laughed. He strategically manipulated his body until he had it against her. Her curly bobbed hair brushed his cheek. She wondered would he think her awful, and try to get too fresh if she shimmied. Fellows often did. But he was so cute. And a girl had to do something about that, and if she didn’t shimmy, she might do something worse. In a corner, she took a chance. Phillip figured she was a nice sweet girl, and he’d have to date her up some time.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Goodbye, Arnold! Studs silently thought.
Amidst exuding flower odors, Studs and Tommy Doyle blessed themselves, and knelt down. Their eyes suddenly met and their heads bowed in a mutual expression of surprised regret. They muttered prayers to themselves for the repose of the soul of their dead pal, while behind them, they could hear a choked feminine sob, and the loudly whispered remarks of Mrs. O’Neill that it was God’s will, and that Arnold was in Heaven, and that we must all resign ourselves to the Will of the Almighty.
They rose, and looked lugubriously down at the unbelievably dead body; the prominent ashen face with the beard marks apparent despite a close shave and talcum powder, the black hair, thick and wavy, the stiff arms folded in front with a white pair of rosary beads draped between them, the well-built torso sedately clothed in its black death-suit, black tie, white shirt, black socks, and black patent leather pumps. And, pressed against the white satin lining of the coffin lid, they saw their card, statement of the spiritual bouquet they had all chipped in to send. And as he gazed abstractedly, Studs found himself expecting Arnold to smile, hear him tell a funny story, ask if anyone wanted to get a bottle, laugh and say that it was only a joke he was playing on everyone because he wasn’t really dead after all. But Arnold would never again speak, never again tip a bottle to his lips, never again make a broad he had picked up at the Midway Gardens dance hall. The finality of Arnold’s life made a sudden gash upon Studs’ thoughts. He wanted to talk to Arnold, get to know him better than he had, take in a show with him; and knowing that he never could do these things, he had the vaguest kind of a feeling that whenever anyone you knew and liked died, a part of yourself died with him. It made him think of church on Good Friday, with the statues draped in sorrowing purple, with the odor and feel of ashes everywhere like a pall, and of Ash Wednesday, and the priest’s words when he thumbed your forehead with ashes:
Remember, Oh, man, that thou art dust and to dust thou shalt return!
They heard another muffled sob, and turned to face Mrs. Sheehan, who sat on a camp chair near the gray casket, dressed in black with her robust face paled and compressed.
“I’m very sorry,” Studs muttered, feeling helplessly in-articulate.
“Mrs. Sheehan, I am very sorry for your great misfortune,” Tommy Doyle said, as if learned by rote.
“I know, boys, I know,” she gasped, dropping her head and permitting them to stand awkwardly before her. They edged, self-consciously, past a double aisle of