The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [419]
Verily, verily, I say unto you if you want a soft bed, honor thy father and thy mother.
And the thin distorted figure of his mother rose against a purple background, and the flapping lips of her witch’s face opened in a moan.
You’ll never have another mother.
I’m damn glad of that, he said, knowing that his words would only sink his soul more deeply in Hell.
Bloated to about a half ton, and wearing the uniform of a clown, his father dropped off a moving band of color that was like golden sunlight, stood beside his mother, and cried out.
The son who put one gray hair on the head of a mother or a father will rue the day, rue the day, rue the day. What you say, Charlie? Studs asked.
A fat priest in a black robe with a red hat stepped from behind a wide band of wine red, like an actor making an entrance on the stage, and spoke in a solemn pulpit voice.
Remember, O Lonigan, that thou art dirty dust, and like a dirty dog thou shalt return to dirtier dust.
Hey, don’t talk so much, Studs said.
Sister Bertha, with the twisted face of a maniac in a motion picture close-up, danced a drunken jig around him, flung her nun’s black robe high, exposing the legs of a skeleton, and wailed in a toothless idiocy.
Now you die like a thief because you shot spit-balls in the class.
And his mother knocked Sister Bertha over, to get in front of her, and said:
No one loves you like your mother.
And George Washington appeared in moth-eaten rags with a purple cloak flung around his chest and a bartender’s towel wrapped around his gray wig, and he shouted, striking a Napoleonic attitude:
Your country right or wrong, but your country, my boy, jazz her.
And the Pope of Rome, with a thin face, was carried by six dark-skinned altar boys and dropped unceremoniously on his buttocks. In a stern authoritarian voice, he asked:
Do you receive the Sacraments regularly?
And like drunken Indians they did a war dance, whooping and bending, while bands of gold and yellow and orange and green and red like a fiery rainbow shot and whirled behind them. And out of the dancers, his sister Loretta, with a pregnant belly, called:
Cleanliness is next to Godliness.
And Sister Bertha halted and shrieked like a drunken hag.
Don’t throw erasers in my classroom.
And President Wilson tripped before him like a fairy, with rings on his fingers, green earrings, and said, pursing his lips:
Join the colors now.
And his mother stepped in front of President Wilson and said, in tears:
The home is the most sacred thing on earth.
And Father Gilhooley in gold vestments thumbed his nose at Studs and said:
Contribute to the support of your pastor.
And Red Kelly and his father, Sergeant Kelly, staggered drunkenly before him with gin bottles held aloft like torches and shouted:
Obey the law.
And his father stepped up, took off a clown’s mask, and said:
Drink is the curse of mankind.
And Dr. O’Donnell, carrying a syringe and a hypodermic needle, came to him, and said:
If you jazz, you’ll get the clap.
And Mrs. George Jackson wriggled her tattooed belly, and sneered:
You can’t jazz.
And the wife of Mr. Dennis P. Gorman in the red robes of the master of ceremonies of the Order of Christopher came forward and said:
Join the boy scouts.
And Father Shannon, on the arm of Lucy Scanlan who was naked and bleeding from her young breasts, stopped before him and said:
Be a man.
And his father reappeared and said:
Come home early tonight.
And his sister Frances in a transparent nightgown said: Wash your face.. .
And again they danced around and around him like drunken Indians in a