The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [301]
“Nottin’! Nottin’! for a working man to lose his money. Yah, nottin’?”
Studs wondered was the foreigner in overalls a Red. He didn’t like him because he looked too much like the type who became bald-headed crabby janitors.
“You got anything in it?” Studs asked.
“Working men don’t have much money,” the fellow said, growling, and Studs thought that he had a lot of crust shooting his bazoo off when it wasn’t any skin off his teeth.
He noticed people squeezing out of the bank, and the line of people crushing forward. He and Mort edged toward the bank entrance, and they watched a gray-haired woman, with a creased, rough-skinned peasant face, a black shawl over her head, edge out with the blustering assistance of a policeman. Crisp money stuck from the edges of the bank book which she clutched fiercely in gnarled fingers.
“This way, Mother,” a burly, ruddy-faced policeman said, taking her arm and leading her across the street.
“Lucky old bitch!” Studs heard someone in the waiting line grumble.
“Hot roasted peanuts. Get something for your money while you can. Hot roasted peanuts!” a greasy man, wearing a white soda-jerker’s coat, shouted.
The crowd seemed constantly to be increasing, and the police shoved and pushed in their efforts to preserve order. Again and again Studs caught the glances of fright on people’s faces, the nervousness they revealed by biting their lips, furtively looking about, grimacing. Something was wrong somewhere, all right, and he guessed these people would have a goddamn legitimate squawk if they lost their dough.
A well-dressed man, with a sleek face and a white carnation in his buttonhole, emerged from the bank, smiling.
“Nothing wrong. Only a scare. Why, even a priest got up on a table in the bank and spoke, telling everybody to be calm and leave their money in there where it’s safe. He waved his bank book to show that he was leaving his parish funds in, and that’s where I left all my dough,” Studs heard the fellow say in a blustering, self-confident manner.
“You tink so?” a wiry little hook-nosed man asked.
“Sure thing, brother. Look,” the fellow with the carnation in his buttonhole said, waving his bank book.
A cheer went up. Studs was caught in the middle of a wave of pushing people. He squeezed himself slowly to a curb edge and saw an armored car and four armed guards escorting two men carrying money through a lane to the entrance made by the police. Studs smiled. The bank maybe wouldn’t fail, and these people wouldn’t lose their dough. The fewer banks that failed, the better off everything would be all around.
Mort touched his sleeve and they walked away, another cheer arising behind them.
“Fierce! Fierce! Money makes people into dogs,” Mort said.
“Hell on a lot of ‘em if the bank fails. But maybe it won’t. They were bringing in more money, and I just heard a fellow saying that a priest in a parish around here was in the bank speaking to the people, telling them to leave their dough in.”
“I hope so. I know what it means to people to be poor in their old age.”
“Well, it’s more than I can make out,” Studs said, shaking his head.
“And it’s a quarter after one. We got to hustle,” Mort said.
Studs felt sluggish and tired again. Jesus, if the day was only over.
III
“Did you get finished, Bill?”
“Yes, Dad,” Studs called from the hall, entering in his paint-splotched work clothes, tired.
“I’m glad of that. You know, by getting done today, you and Mort saved me some money, and these days I got to figure on every possible economy,” Lonigan said as Studs walked into the parlor and slumped in an easy chair.
“There was a run on a bank on Seventy-fifth. I forget the name.”
“Must be the Chemical Deposits. Did it fail?”
“No, because on my way home I asked a cop who was standing in front of it, and he said it hadn’t. I asked him what had caused the run, and he said he thought the Reds had spread a false rumor. The bank officials gave every depositor who didn’t take his dough out, a carnation to put in his buttonhole, the cop told me.”
“What the hell good would that do the people?”