The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [235]
V
On Sunday morning at the eight o’clock mass, St. Patrick’s Church was jammed with young people. Father Shannon, in his brief sermon, said it was an edifying sight indeed to see how successful this mission had been, to see so many young men and young women doing the honorable, courageous thing by marching up to the altar to receive their God. It was the kind of a demonstration that made himself and Father Kandinsky, and also Father Gilhooley and his assistants, take renewed heart and courage, because they realized that they did not labor in the Lord’s Vineyard in vain, did not sow seed on fallow ground.
Three priests and over twenty minutes were required to give out Holy Communion. Studs went to the altar rail with a free conscience. He had gone back to confession again on Saturday, even though everybody had kidded him. He was certain that way that he was in a state of grace, after the thoughts he’d had Friday night. All the hoods received and Phil Rolfe knelt amongst them receiving his first Holy Communion.
In the afternoon, the church was crowded for the formal closing of the mission. Father Kandinsky delivered a short sermon, lauding them for their good works and intentions of the past week, and telling them about the mission collection that would be taken up before they left the church. He followed it with a short exposition of the sins in violation of each commandment, but he said little exciting about the sixth commandment. They lit their candles, and followed him, word by word, in a renewal of their baptismal vows. They received the Papal Blessing and Plenary Indulgences, and Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament followed. After it, the mission was over.
On Sunday evening, the boys gathered around the corner. Slug suggested a drink. They refused. They hung around, gas-sing, and smoking, looking at the drug store clock, wondering what the hell to do. Again they refused to drink with Slug. They hung around. Slug kept insisting that one beer wouldn’t hurt them. They went down the street to Colisky’s saloon and had a beer. They had another. Before they realized it, they were drinking gin. They got drunk and raised hell around the corner. They hung around until Slug talked them into going to a new can house, a small place. They went and had the girlies, and gypped them out of their pay. It was a big night.
XXII
A disturbing sense of loneliness caused Danny O’Neill to close the copy of The Theory of Business Enterprise which he was studying for one of his courses at the University. The elation of intellectual discovery and stimulation, the keenness of feeling mental growth within himself, the satisfaction of having covered additional proofs to buttress his conviction that the world was all wrong, which he had derived from his reading, suddenly eased.
He looked out of the window of the Upton Service Station on a corner of Wabash Avenue in the black belt where he worked. He felt as if he were in a darkened corner of the world that had been trapped in a moment of static equilibrium. The light on the corner seemed only to emphasize the dreariness of the scene. Across from him was the box-like carburetor factory that stood now darkened like a menace of gloom.
He had gone to services one night during the mission last week, and afterward, he had waited for Father Shannon. He had asked the priest if he could talk with him about the faith, because he was a University student who had lost his religion. Father Shannon had curtly replied that he was, for the present, very busy. The incident had crystallized many things in Danny’s mind. It had made him feel that it was not merely ignorance and superstition. It was perhaps not merely a vested interest. It was a downright hatred of truth and honesty. He conceived the world, the environment he had known all his life, as lies. He realized that all his education in Catholic schools, all he had heard and absorbed, had been lies.
An exultant feeling of freedom swept him. God was a lie. God was dead. God was a mouldering