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By Root 10375 0

much, and they had stopped every little while to look at things. They had stopped at the corner of Sixtieth, and he had shown her the basement windows they had broken, just to get even with old Boushwah, the Hunkie janitor, because he always ran them off the grass when they goofed on their way home from school. And she had pretended that it was awful for guys to break windows; when he could see by the look in her eyes that she didn’t at all think it so terrible. And they had walked on slow, pigeon-toed slow, slower, so that it would take them a long time to go home. He had carried her books, too, and they had talked about this and that, about the skating season that was just finished, and about the spelling match between the fifth- and sixth-grade boys and girls, where both of them had been spelled down at the first crack of the bat, and they had talked about just talk. When they came to the elevated structure near Fifty-ninth, he had shown her where they played shinny with tin cans, and she said it was a dangerous game, and you were liable to get your shins hurt. Then he had shown her where he had climbed up the girder to the top, just below the elevated tracks, and she had shivered because it was such a dangerous brave thing to do, and he had felt all proud, like a hero, or like Bronco Billy or Eddie Polo in the movies. They had walked home lazy, and he had carried her books, and he wished he had the price to buy her candy or a soda, even if it was Lent, and they had stood before the gray brisk twos building where she lived, and he had wanted, as the devil wants souls, to kiss her, and he hadn’t wanted to leave her because when he did he knew the day would get here, and he would feel like he did when he had been just out of his diapers and he used to be afraid of the night. There had been something about that day. He had gone on in school, wishing and wishing for another one like it to come along. And now he felt it all over again, the goofy, dizzy, flowing feelings it had given him.

He puffed, and told himself:

Well, it’s so long to the old dump tonight!

He wanted to stand there, and think about Lucy, wondering if he would ever have days with her like that one, wondering how much he’d see of her after she went to high school. And he goddamned himself, because he was getting soft. He was Studs Lonigan, a guy who didn’t have mushy feelings! He was a hard-boiled egg that they had left in the pot a couple of hours too long.

He took another drag of his cigarette.

He wanted that day back again.

He faced the mirror, and stuck- the fag in the right-hand corner of his mouth. He looked tough and sneered. Then he let the cigarette hang from the left side. He studied himself with satisfaction. He placed the cigarette in the center of his puss, and put on a weak-kneed expression. He took the cigarette out of his mouth, daintily, barely holding it between his thumb and first finger, and he pretended that be was a grownup mama’s boy, smoking for the first time. He said to himself:

Jesus Christ!

He didn’t know that he bowed his head when he muttered the Lord’s name, just as Sister Cyrilla had always taught them to do. He took a vicious poke at the air, as if he were letting one fly at a mama’s boy.

He stuck the fag back in his mouth and looked like Studs Lonigan was supposed to look. He lowered the lid on the toilet seat, and sat down to think. He puffed at his cigarette, and flicked the ashes in the sink.

He heard Frances talking: -

“Get out of my way, Fritz: . Get out of my way. Please ... And Mother ... Mother! MOTHER! ... Will you come here, please... I told you the hem was not right on this dress . Now, Mother, come here and look at the way my skirt hangs... If I ever appear on the stage with my skirt like this, I’ll be disgraced... disgraced ... Mother!”

He heard the old lady hurrying to Francis’s room, saying:

“Yes, Frances darling; only you know I asked you not to call Loretta Fritzie... I’m coming, but I tell you, your dress is perfectly even all around. I told you so this afternoon when you tried it on with Mrs.