The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [400]
“Gee, kid, that association in our store is all a racket. I know it. They take a quarter out of our pay every week, and we don’t ever get anything out of it,” a girl in back of him was saying.
“Well, if you die, they’ll bury you.”
He wondered what the girls looked like, but he did not turn around to see. And damn it, he had to line up work right now. Suddenly, almost over night, his whole life had changed, and all this had come on him. So here he was with no future, nothing ahead of him, unless he could go out and get it for himself. The best thing, if it only could be done, would be to get into politics. Red Kelly had, but he’d run in luck, and was in now. How was he going to get in and get lined up? Yes, how? Oh, Christ, wouldn’t his luck ever change?
“But, kid, there must be some good in the association. Mr. Goldensteiner says it’s for us, and you know how much he thinks of all us girls who work for him.”
“Well, before I believe it’s not a racket to get something out of us, you got to show me.”
He slouched in his seat, wondering what would come next, feeling that his life was going to be short, and that he’d thrown it away for nothing. He felt cramped, too, in the seat, damp. And the day was so damn gloomy. He had no spirit. He couldn’t put his heart into trying to get a job today. And he had to. Now there was no let-up. All day and always now he would have to keep himself going, and all the boozing and things he had done in his life, they had sure backfired on him. And he had never really been happy. Always in the midst of forgetting or getting over one trouble, he had always walked into another. The image of Catherine seemed to flash into his mind. It was for her now that he had to face things and keep going on. Anyway, she would stick things out.
“But, Hazel, even if Mr. Browne is hard to work for, still, isn’t he handsome?”
The girls in back of him sounded like dumb clucks. But hell, in the old days, he never would have pictured Studs Lonigan having to have someone like Catherine, or anyone, stick by him. And he remembered that night when he had a scrap with the old man, and he’d left home with a gat in his pocket to become Lonewolf Lonigan. Swell Lonewolf now, he was, hemmed in on every side. And how was he going to get out?
He saw that the train was pulling into Roosevelt Road. He jumped up and elbowed to the door. He didn’t understand why this sudden idea hadn’t occurred to him sooner. He could try getting a job in a gas station, and the Nation Oil Company offices were nearby on Michigan. Swell idea, he thought, stepping onto the wet platform.
II
His indecision grew as he stood sheltered in the entrance to the Nation Oil Building, watching the rain ink the boulevard, seeing people hurry by. Automobiles and motor busses passed, their tires swishing.
Across the street Grant Park was desolate, and over it was the heavy, downward sky.
He wanted to forget everything. If it was only a decent day, he knew he would feel better and maybe be able to look for a job with more confidence. He began to grow nervous, and wondered if the elevator starter was noticing him and would suddenly tell him that loitering in the building was not allowed. Now, what the hell would he say when he got upstairs? Maybe it would be useless to try here.
He compressed his lips, turned, approached the middle-aged uniformed elevator starter whose face was for-bidding.
“Where is the employment department for the service stations?” he asked.
“Personnel Department, eighth floor. Take the last elevator,” the starter said coldly, pointing as he spoke.
Entering the elevator he felt ashamed, because the starter knew his purpose. Three young fellows followed him and he wondered were they also looking for a job.
“Late today,” the runty elevator man said as a pretty girl, wearing a blue raincoat, stepped into the car.
“Who wouldn’t be in this weather?”
He closed the gates and the elevator shot upward. “It’s a bad day out, all right,” the elevator man told the