The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [245]
He shoved his hat on the back of his head.
He stared across the street, and it went up, whoops, and it went down, whoops, and the building came towards him, whoops, like a railroad engine coming forwards on a screen, growing nearer and nearer. Whoops! The building stopped. That was funny.
You’re drunk, you clown, drunk as a lord.
He walked, like a paralytic, head down, his body loose, his nervous control deadened. He raised his feet high, as if in a caricature of Germans in a movie comedy doing the goosestep. He halted, threw out his chest, tossed back his head, and almost fell over backwards. His hat slipped to the sidewalk. He turned around in a circle, wondering where, oh, where was his wandering hat tonight.
He saw the hat lying as big as a balloon on the sidewalk. He pulled out a stick that had somehow and somewhere been stuck in his overcoat pocket, and held it over the hat as if it were a fishing pole. He jerked with both hands, like a man dragging in a huge fish, and he tottered backwards for about three yards before he gained a precarious balance. He looked at the end of the stick. No fishee, no hattee! Whoops!
He laughed, and tossed the stick away. He snuck up on his hat, tiptoe, shshing his right index finger to his lips. He circled, continuing to shssh his finger to his lips. He quietly snuck three feet from the hat. He dove for it, clumsily, like a green football player falling on the ball. He lay on the sidewalk. It was cold. Struggling, and by degrees, he achieved his feet again.
Slob Lonigan! Slob Lonigan! You’re no goddamn good any more. Got an alderman. Alderman on your gut, and couldn’t even get yourself a decent girl. Slob! Slob! Double slob!
“Who’s a slob?” he shouted.
You’re a slob, the voice said.
He hauled off on the air, and went for a head-first dive in the hard, cold dirt by the walk. He lay there and looked at the world go around. The buildings spun about as if on a swiftly propelled merry-go-round. An automobile coming along went uphill and then downhill. Whoops! He arose, and ran around in circles in the middle of the street, trying to catch the buildings.
A taxi came skidding along. It stopped.
“You goddamn fool, get off the road!”
Studs uttered some inarticulate sound which seemed like uuuuhhhh.
The driver jumped out, and asked what did he say. Studs cursed him. The taxi driver pushed Studs back over the curb, and drove away. Studs fought to his feet, and rushed in the middle of the street, yelling after the vanished taxi.
Studs staggered, and draped his arms tightly around a lamppost. He vomited.
“I’m sick. I want Lucy. I love Lucy. I want Lucy. I want Lucy,” he cried aloud, a large tear splattered on his cheek. The vomiting caused a violent contraction and pressure, as if a hammer were in his head.
“I’m sick! Lucy, please love Studs!” he cried.
A light flurry of snow commenced. Studs tenderly kissed the cold lamppost, which suddenly seemed to be Lucy. “I always loved you, Lucy!”
Tears rolled down his drunken, dirty face.
II
Weary Reilley went to the Bourbon Palace to get a pickup to take to the party the old boys from Fifty-eighth Street were throwing. There was a huge crowd at the dance hall. He moved about, and danced with several girls. One of them wouldn’t sock it in. Another couldn’t dance well enough to please him. A third laughed as if she were an idiot. The fourth girl was pretty in a chubby way with brown eyes and a quiet manner. He guessed, though, that here was a case of still waters running deep. She was his meat. She weighed about a hundred and twenty-five pounds, nice figure, got a guy hot just looking at her, straight, small hard breasts, nice legs, meat on them and on the thighs. Just his speed! He danced three successive times with her, and she seemed to like him. At first she drew back when he got her in the corners, but then she laid it right up to him, and they socked it in plenty. That made him sure that she was what he wanted. She had everything. He was going to give it to her like she’d never gotten it before. Dancing with