The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [436]
He hadn’t remembered his childhood in years as he was remembering it today. Poverty, the cold house in winter with the wind breaking through the cracks. Days without food. His father, a big strong man, worrying, coming home drunk. He remembered his father once staggering in with not a cent of pay left. His mother had cried and cursed him. The old man had punched his mother and she had fallen, and Catherine, like a little tigress, had ripped into the old man until she’d gotten a whaling. And then for two weeks his parents hadn’t spoken. He could remember his mother, day after day, working and slaving, washing, scrubbing, cooking in their crowded little home. Ah, life was a funny thing.
Thrilling with pride, he told himself that he had taken his family away from such a life. Even now, if he was a ruined man, he had lifted them up, and they would have something better. His girls would. Martin? He was worried about Martin, and Bill. Oh, if only... But where was he? He tried to convince himself that he was worrying too much, and he stood watching a black-shirted blond boy hit the ball over third base and run the bases while the others shouted. Oh, to be a shaver again, playing like these kids, stealing coal from the railroad yards. And then the days when he was a young buck, sowing his wild oats, the nights at dances and in saloons, and Mary. Mary such a sweet young girl, winning all the races at picnics. Mary whose dark eyes went only for him, Mary who had really made a man out of Paddy Lonigan.
When I first met Mary .
When I first met Mary .. .
He turned, staring ahead of him, slowly pacing this familiar, and yet not familiar, street. An old woman came toward him. Her skin was rough and wrinkled, her gray hair stuck out from a black shawl pulled tight around her shrewd, peasant face. Bent, walking slowly, she made him sadly remember his old mother in her last years. She had ended up like this poor old woman was, before any of the children had been in a position to help her. She must, though, be getting her reward in Heaven. A wave of sympathy, such as he had not experienced in years, overpowered him, almost dragged tears out of his eyes. He wanted to say something kind to this old woman, who was thrusting a suspicious glance at him, something jolly, he wanted to smile at her and call her mother, drop a little word of cheer into her life. She passed on, and he watched her, scurrying on toward Thirty-fifth Street.
He lit a fresh cigar and tried to fancy himself as the prosperous Paddy Lonigan he had been just a couple of short years ago, walking back through these changed scenes of his boyhood, trying to keep his mind on the distance he had travelled since those days. He suddenly caught the odor of decay and stink from the nearby stockyards that were just south of this section. He smiled. Just like old times. That was something he hadn’t thought of in years, golly, .the stockyards smell. In those days he had always lived in that smell and gotten not to mind it. He tried again to keep his mind on the distance he had travelled since those days. But what did it mean now? He cursed. They were robbing him. Goddamn it, they couldn’t take his building. They couldn’t. He’d get a shot-gun and defy them.
A crowd was gathered at the end of the block, and he walked more rapidly toward it, noticing, as he approached, that there were policemen. Trouble. Coming up to the crowd, he saw a bailiff and two workingmen removing an assortment of ancient and scratched furniture from a three-story brick tenement while three broad-shouldered policemen stood about with surly, challenging expressions. A lean woman in a ragged