The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [44]
“Well, old Rube Waddell. Rube was a guy. He was a left-hander, and all left-handers are cracked.”
Old Man O’Brien paused. Then he said:
“Studs, you ain’t left-handed, are you?”
“No, sir!”
“Don’t call me sir... Well, my kid there ain’t either…but he ought to be.”
“YEAH!” kidded Johnny.
He told them all the familiar Rube Waddell stories. Then he said that poor Rube ruined his health, and practically killed himself because he was left-handed. It was Rube’s left-handedness that made him always want to run after a fire like a kid. Well, Rube was always leaving Connie Mack and joining up with some hick fire department, and Connie’d have to send his scouts out to find the southpaw. Once Rube got himself in with the hook and ladder crew in St. Louis or somewhere, and went to a fire. When Rube was in fighting the fire, a floor caved in on him and he got lost with some others under the wreckage, and they turned the hose on him. It was funny, but that was what put the kibosh on poor Rube’s lungs. Studs sat listening, enchanted, imagining himself a great guy like Rube Waddell.
Old Man O’Brien talked on:
“But I ain’t so much interested in sports as I used to be. Baseball’s the only clean game we got left. The Jews killed all the other games. The kikes dirty up everything. I say the kikes ain’t square. There never was a white Jew, or a Jew that wasn’t yellow. And there’ll never be one. Why, they even killed their own God... And now I’ll be damned if they ain’t comin’ in spoiling our neighborhood. It used to be a good Irish neighborhood, but pretty soon a man will be afraid to wear a shamrock on St. Patrick’s day, because there are so many noodle-soup drinkers around. We got them on our block. I even got one next door to me. I’d never have bought my property’ if I knew I’d have to live next door to that Jew, Glass’s his name. But I don’t speak to him anyway. And he’s tryin’ to make a gentleman of that four-eyed kid of his ... as if a Jew could be a gentleman.”
Johnny and Studs laughed, and told him that the Glass kid was nothing but a sissy. They had nothing to do with him. “Well, don’t... unless it’s maybe to paste him one.” A pause.
“And say, Studs, you got ‘em over your way, too. What does your old man think of ‘em?”
“Well, he’s always talking of selling. My father thinks they are ruining the neighborhood.”
“They are... only, say... listen . can that my father stuff. Both of you kids know damn well that when you’re alone you say... my old man... come on, act natural
Studs told himself that Johnny’s old man was like a regular pal to a kid.
They stopped in an alley at Fifty-second and Prairie. Old Man O’Brien bawled hell out of a sweating Negro who was putting in a load of coal. The Negro was grimed with coal dust, and perspiration came out of him in rivers. He worked slowly but steadily, shoveling the coal into a wheelbarrow, pushing it down a board and emptying it down a chute through a basement window.
They drove on, and Mr. O’Brien said:
“You got to put pepper on the tails of these eight-balls. They’re lazy as you make ‘em. A Jew and a nigger. Never trust ‘em farther than you can see ‘em. But some niggers are all right. These southern ones that know their place are only lazy. But these northern bucks are dangerous. They are getting too spry here in Chicago, and one of these days we’re gonna have a race riot, and then all the Irish from back of the yards will go into the black belt, and there’ll be a lot of niggers strung up on lampposts with their gizzards cut out... My kid here wanted to wrestle in that tournament over at Carter Playground last winter, and I’da let him, but he’d of had to wrestle with niggers. So I made him stay out. You got to keep these smokes in their place and not let ‘em get gay.”
They stopped for sodas, and Mr. O’Brien bought them each two. Studs could have caught his old man buying a kid two sodas like that. While they were sitting with their sodas, Old Man O’Brien