The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [30]
He snapped out of it, and went to the bathroom. He washed in clear, cold water, snorting with his face lowered in the filled bowl. It felt good, and it also felt good to douse water on his chest. After drying himself with a rough bath towel, he stood up close to the mirror and looked to see if there were any hairs on his upper lip. If he wasn’t so light, maybe he’d have to shave now. He imagined himself with the guys, walking, and him saying well, he wouldn’t be able to get around so early that night because he had to shave, and shaving was one lousy pain. And maybe girls would be there, and he’d say the same thing, only he wouldn’t curse. Himself letting Lucy know he shaved by complaining of it, or by talking about how he cut himself with the razor, or about how it had been hard because the razor was dull. Well, anyway, he could trim a lot of guys who did shave. He was nobody’s slouch. And some day he’d be shaving, and have hair on the chest, too. It was like that Uncle Josh piece on the Victrola, I’m old but I’m awfully tough. Well, for him it was: I’m small but I’m awfully tough.
Studs left home immediately after breakfast so he could get away from the old lady. She was always pestering him, telling him to pray and ask God if he had a vocation. And maybe she’d have wanted him to go to the store, beat rugs, or clean the basement out. He didn’t feel like being a janitor. He would work, but he wouldn’t be a janitor. Janitor’s jobs were for jiggs, and Hunkies, and Polacks, anyway. He’d asked the old man again to take him to work, but the old man was the world’s champion putter-off. Every year since Studs could remember, he’d been promising that he was going to take the old lady to Riverview Park, and he was still promising. That was just like the old boy. Studs walked along, glancing about him, feeling what a good morning it was, walking in the sun that was spinning all over the street like a crazy top. He could feel the warmness of the sun; it entered him, became part of himself, part of his walk, part of his arms swinging along at his side, part of his smile, his good feelings, his thoughts. It was good. He walked along, and he thought about the family; families were goddamn funny things; everybody’s old man and old woman were the same; they didn’t want a guy or a girl to grow up. His mother was always blowing off her bazoo about him being her blue-eyed baby, and his old man was always giving advice, bossing, instructing him as if he was a ten-year-old. Well, he was growing up in spite of them; and it wouldn’t be long now before he had long britches on every day. Let ‘em do their damnedest; Studs Lonigan would tell the world that he was growing up.
He goofed around for a while in the vacant lot just off the corner of Fifty-eighth and Indiana. He batted stones. He walked around kicking a tin can, imagining it was something very important, some sort of thing like an election or a sporting contest that got on the front page. Then he thought about Indiana Avenue. It was a better street than Wabash. It was a good block, too, between Fifty-seventh and Fifty-eighth. Maybe when his old man sold the building, he’d buy one in this block. It was nearer the stores, and there were more Catholics on the street, and in the evening the old man could sit on the front porch talking with Old Man O’Brien, and his old lady could gossip with Mrs. O’Brien