The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [37]
Studs cracked Weary with a dirty right. They clinched. Weary socked in the clinch.
“HEY! FIGHT FAIR!” young Danny O’Neill yelled.
“DON’T LET ‘IM GET AWAY WITH IT, STUDS,” yelled Helen.
Lucy Scanlan deserted the carpet sweeper and stood on her front steps watching, rooting for Studs. Helen Borax, on her way to the store, stopped to watch from Lucy’s porch. Helen said it was disgusting, and hinted that it would be a roughneck like Studs Lonigan to start such a fight. Lucy was too busy rooting for Studs to hear. She kept yelling:
“BUST HIM, STUDS!”
Helen watched with an aloof expression on her precociously disdainful face.
Weary again socked in a clinch.
“Fight fair,” said Studs, a little breathlessly.
“Up your brown!” sneered Weary.
They clinched. Studs swung low, and experienced animal pleasure when the foul punch connected. Weary tried to knee Studs, but it was only a glancing blow off Lonigan’s thigh. They clinched again, tumbled onto the grass, rough and tumbled, with first one and then the other on top, socking away. Dan Donoghue and lanky Red O’Connell dragged them apart, and they squared off. O’Connell yelled for Weary. Everybody else cheered Studs. They rushed each other, swinging, fighting dirty, cursing, scratching. Studs connected with Weary’s beak, and Reilley got a bloody nose. He asked Weary if he was licked yet; and Weary thumbed his nose at Studs. Weary socked Studs, giving him a shiner. Studs smashed Weary with rights on three successive rushes. Studs seemed to be winning, although he lumbered tiredly. Weary was bleeding, breathing almost in pants, and his shirt was torn; his shoulder was scratched; and there were scratches on Studs’ arm. They fought, and Studs kept connecting with Weary’s mush, hitting twice for every one he took.
Diamond-Tooth, tough, red-faced, big-mouthed, hairy-handed, looking as much ape as man, came around; he separated them with his crane-like paws.
“Now, you fools, shake hands,” he commanded.
Weary refused. He told Diamond-Tooth to mind his own Goddamn business and go to hell.
“Oh, you’re tough! I see! Thanks for the tip! You’re a tough punk, not afraid of nothin’. Huh! You want your snotty puss bashed in a little more. Huh? Didn’t this little squirt here give you enough?”
Most of the kids laughed.
Weary retreated a few paces and picked up a boulder. “PUT THAT BRICK DOWN!”
Weary didn’t reply.
“I see! I GOTTA SLAP YOUR PUSS, and run the gang of you in, give you a nice little ride in the wagon and let your old ladies come down to the station bawlin’ to get you out.”
The kids drew back nervously. Screwy McGlynn, who had moved forward to remonstrate with the stranger, retreated, hopped onto his wagon, and was gone. Diamond-Tooth cowed the gang with his detective’s star.
“Gee, he’s a real bull,” Danny O’Neill whispered too loudly. Profound silence!
“Yeh, he’s a real bull, punk; and you better clamp that trap of yours tight!”
“Come on, you guys. Maybe you’ll change your minds.”
He dragged them along. Studs was meek and afraid; Weary was sullen, glowering. The others started to follow them toward Fifty-seventh, and he turned and snottily told them to blow, before they were hauled in.
He asked, after the three of them had turned the corner: “What were you punks scrappin’ over? Huh?”
“He called my mother a name,” Studs said.
“He called me one, too,” Weary said.
“Maybe you were both right,” Diamond-Tooth said. They stood there.
“Now, shut up and shake hands; if you don’t, I’ll fight the two of you,” said the dick.
They shook hands, insincerely. Weary walked east along Fifty-seventh, toward Prairie Avenue. His pride was even more bruised than his face. He walked determining revenge, entertaining extravagant schemes of cold-blooded murder, of framing Studs on some stunt or other, of getting him from the back sometimes with a rock or a beebe gun