The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [259]
“Les has no idea of sliding down the middle aisle while he hardly works two days a week,” Les said.
“Studs, there, is going to be the next,” said Red.
“I ain’t saying nothing,” Studs said, blushing, enjoying the crack, and thinking that they were all swell fellows, all right, and that their gang had, after all, been the best gang of regular fellows a guy could want to pal with.
“But say, boys, I meant to tell you the story about George the Greek who used to own the poolroom. He saved up all his dough and went back to the old country to act like a big shot, and the first thing they did was shove him in the army,” Red said, everybody laughing.
“I never did like Greeks,” Studs said.
“Me neither. Like that waiter Christy in the restaurant who was a Red. They ought to take bastards like him who don’t appreciate this country and send them all back on the first boat. We got too many foreigners here anyway, and that’s why there are so many Americans like Stan and Joe here out of work,” Red said oracularly.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right, Red,” Studs said.
“You know, fellows, I was just thinking of how life is a funny thing,” Les said absently.
“Is that what you call Bug Club Philosophy?” Red remarked with a mild jeer.
“Well, I was just thinking about poor Shrimp, and the boys who passed away before him,” Les said.
Studs again turned to the window. He asked himself, and he asked the foreign darkness outside the window, would he be the next to go? Would he be stretched out in a coffin next, with the boys around saying poor Studs, as they said poor Shrimp? Christ, no! He didn’t want people feeling sorry for him like they did for Stan and Joe and for all their dead buddies. He wasn’t going to be poor Studs. He was going to be healthy and outlive them all, and be more successful, too, than Red Kelly ever would be. And he would marry Catherine. He wasn’t going to crack up for a long time, mister, and when he came to his last day, he would leave behind him a long life, good times, and the name Studs Lonigan in bigger letters of success, mister, than many imagined. He vowed this to himself, but vow or no vow, he still saw himself stretched out in a coffin, with the boys coming, looking down at his cold and waxen face, kneeling, praying, going out to the kitchen to talk about the old days, and about poor Studs.
The train swept overhead through a town, and below him Studs saw, as if they were part of some warm life that he did not know, people moving in rainy streets, automobiles, lighted signs, and windows and stores and lamp-posts. And if he was dead, maybe Lucy would be there. But the hell with her and all that.
He didn’t care, and he was alive, and he was going to marry Catherine. She was a damn swell kid, who would really do anything for him, go to Hell for him, and he really cared for her, and she would make him a good wife. Red was married and coming along. So would he. And tonight, goddamn it, he was going to pop the question. He was coming back, Studs Lonigan was.
The fellows were still talking. Let them chin, he told himself, still emptily staring out the window as the train passed through the industrial belt surrounding Chicago, a passing scene of factory chimneys, squalid and dimly lit streets, houses in rows like barracks, and then stretches again of country lost in blackness. He felt dirty and nervous, and he made up his mind right then and there that he was going to pull together. He wanted to get back to Chicago quickly to start on it, too, make a fresh start, regain his health, fight an uphill battle and show the world that Studs Lonigan could be somebody. He was conscious, acutely, of the gratings and strainings and clatter of the train, the squeaking windows, and again he heard the piercing, siren-like train whistle. He did not hear Red Kelly gently remark:
“Studs must be in love. He’s moping so that he doesn’t even hear