The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [299]
Loretta went to the kitchen to make coffee, Phil smiled affably. Studs returned the smile. Piker, wouldn’t take a chance. No one would ever say that about Studs Lonigan.
II
“Well, old timer, I’m one boy who’s going to be full of sweet contentment when the day’s work is over,” Studs said to old Mort over the restaurant table: his back ached and his arms were sore.
“Your dad wants us to finish up today and get cleaned up tomorrow with only a half a day’s work. We got to step because that last bedroom is pretty big,” Mort said, chewing on a hunk of pork chop, his face weakened, wrinkled, worn.
The thought of the afternoon’s work made Studs gloomy. How in Christ’s name would he get through it! He thought that he might lay off and go home. But no, that would be letting the old man down.
“Lad, I’m gettin’ old, and it’s gettin’ pretty damn hard. There’s not a lot left in me. And I was the fellow who used to think that when I reached my present age I’d take it easy, have a little saved up, and would have my kids to take care of me and my old woman. Well, a man doesn’t get what he hopes for, not by a damn sight. Only one of my boys workin’ and him doing part-time work.”
“The old man’s worrying his pants off these days,” Studs said.
“Don’t I know it, lad! Just now when business should be best, there’s not a thing stirrin’.”
Studs motioned to the waitress and, catching her eye, pointed to an empty coffee cup. Needed it to wake up for the afternoon grind.
“Well, things better get better!” Studs said, thinking how yesterday his stock had dropped to nineteen. Goddamn it, they had to.
He looked at Mort, struck by the signs of age in the old man. His face like a map with wrinkles: hair, all gray: thinner, too, than he’d used to be. Studs wondered how there could be any strength left in him. Studs relaxed in his chair, still tired from the morning’s work. And hell, five, six, eight years ago, he’d been able to go out on a drunk and work the next day without feeling the effects as much as he did now.
“Did you read about that bank on the west side failing? I know what that means. Poor people, workingmen like myself, lose everything they got, saved from years of work. It’s goddamn tough when a poor man saves a little money and thinks that he’s got something put aside for his old age, and then the bank goes bust. It’s goddamn rotten. And I suppose the crooked bankers who stole all the money will go free.”
“Tough tiddy, all right. Think many of them will fail?”
“Lad, I hope not. If they do, the people won’t stand for it. There’ll be a revolution or something.”
“Mort, the whole shooting match puzzles me,” Studs said, sipping coffee. “I don’t understand it. I guess there was a depression right after the war, but I didn’t pay much attention to it.”
“It wasn’t anywheres near as frightful as this one.”
“I was younger and the old man was doing better. But I never saw anything like this,” Studs said.
“I remember the panics of 1907, and 1893, and they were bad. But not as bad as now. I don’t know how many millions of men there’s on the streets.”
“How did the depression in those years end?”
“Well, they got to end. There’s action, and then reaction, and then action again. When a thing goes up, it has to come down, and then when it comes down, it has to go up again.”
“Mort, what do you think of the stock market?”
As Mort shrugged his shoulders, Studs saw by the restaurant clock that it was a quarter to one. Fifteen minutes more, and work. Fifteen minutes was damn short. And then . Christ, if the day was only over and he was home, just sitting doing nothing or reading the newspaper, resting. If he was as tired when he got home as he was now, he’d have to call off his date with Catherine.
“I never had much money to fool around with stocks. And I’m no good at figuring, and stocks involve a lot of figuring.”
“Maybe it isn’t the thing to fool around with.”
“If you got the money, it might be all right, and then again it might be crooked. Nearly everything in the country seems to be crooked these days, and banks aren’t safe, a