The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [417]
Broads and people in the train, and, oh, he was sick. He was sick, he silently repeated to himself. His eyes closed. His head and body sagged. Opening his eyes, he saw the broad, wet expanse of Stony Island from the moving train window. Almost home. The broads in back talking. Soon now, a bed, clean white sheets. He got up, tried to walk straight to the end of the car. Leaning against the side of the car platform, he saw a flashing picture of Seventy-first Street. Oh, Christ, what was going to become of him?
“Bryn Mawr.”
He stepped off the train, forced himself to walk west to the street, and he ran down Jeffrey for about a hundred yards. He halted from exhaustion, stood gasping with his heart pounding like a dynamo. His cheeks were hot. His tongue felt coated. His underwear was wet with sweat. He could just drop right down on the sidewalk, and sleep, sleep. He walked feverishly on, his shoes sopping oozy bubbles with every step, his side cut with a pain, his over-stimulated heart a bombardment with his diaphragm. A feeling of congestion and pressure grew in his lungs. He sniffed. His nose drooled. He coughed up slimy green mucus.
He stopped and like a drunken man watched an automobile splash by. Suddenly, a cold chill iced his body, and the rain slapped against his cheeks, dripped from his hat. Dizzy, he staggered off the sidewalk and supported himself against a building, looking dazed at an apartment hotel building, seeing, as if in a nightmare, two men come out of it and walk rapidly toward Seventy-first Street. The building began to waver and dance before his eyes. Funny. The building was doing the shimmy. He shook his head, as if that gesture would clear his mind and permit him to see clearly. He lurched to the sidewalk, zigzagged, telling himself, Christ, God, Jesus Christ, God Almighty, he had to get home. Against his will, he closed his eyes, walked with lowered head. His shoulder slipped against a lamp-post, and, feeling himself falling, he opened his eyes like one awakening from sleep, circled the post with his arms, hung to it. He straightened up and walked on, his face burning, his body wracked with a succession of hot spells and chills. He could feel his shirt wringing wet against his back, and there was an unpleasant tightness in his crotch. With the sleeve of his raincoat, he wiped his dripping nose, streaking his upper lip. The rain beat on him, and he lurched up the steps of his father’s building, set his shoulders against the door, strained, pushed, fell into the hallway, bruising the shin of his right leg. He crawled up the stairway on hands and knees, and lifted himself to his feet against the railing outside his door.
“William!” his mother exclaimed in shock as he stood before her at the door.
“Mom, I’m sick. Put me to bed,” he said feebly, throwing himself weakly into the house.
As she closed the door; he crumbled up and his mother screamed.
SECTION TWO
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I
The thin-faced, prim nurse read the thermometer and wrote on the chart.
2:00 P. M.—103.
Shaking her head prophetically, she studied the patient, observing that the forced and shallow respirations continued. The face was flushed and emaciated. Glazed eyes. Nostrils drawn out from the effort to breathe, each emission of breath accompanied by a forced, expiratory grunt. Lips that seemed blue with raised, grayish-red fever blisters, pin-head size, on the angle of the upper lip. An anxious expression on the suffering features.
A sudden cough wracked his body, and out of his mouth there came a feeble drooling of sounds. Bending closely and listening, she distinguished the words, Please God. He became more restless. Looking vacantly up, he saw a figure of whiteness, as if through a mist. He was on fire, his legs, and his arms, and his chest, and his face. There was a nauseous taste in his dry mouth, and he could feel the coating on his tongue.