The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [78]
The others said let ur fly.
They all let ur fly, and Andy got so many pastes in the mush he was dizzy.
He started to protest.
“You told us to do it, didn’cha?” said Red.
“I didn’t neither.”
“Didn’cha say let ur fly?”
They had him there. He walked away bawling, and turned to say:
I’ll get my brother after you.”
“Go on home, punk, while you’re all together,” said Weary. After Andy had gone, Studs pondered and said:
“He’s the biggest dumbsock I ever saw.”
Red explained why he was so dumb, and Studs glanced aside to blush, because he remembered what his old man had said about going crazy.
They sat. Paulie talked of Iris, and it made Studs restless. They all got that way. Finally they couldn’t stand it any longer, so they told Paulie to talk about something else. They said all he ever did was talk that way.
“Some day you’ll be ruined right by the molls,” Red said to Paulie.
Studs sat, wishing, hoping.
It was almost twilight when they started home, and goofy Danny O’Neill was still shagging flies. They spread out, arms on each other’s shoulders, and moved along singing:
Hail, hail, the gang’s all here!
What the hell do we care,
What the hell do we care
now.
They walked on along the tennis courts on South Park Avenue, talking away. Studs didn’t listen to them. He thought of Iris. He prayed that he would get her soon. He had to, be-cause he couldn’t think of anything else these days; and even that shutter trick wouldn’t work to get the thought out of his mind.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I
After leaving Iris’, Davey Cohen walked around the neighborhood, brooding, justifying himself. It hurt, and made a guy pretty goddamn sore, being cut cold by Iris when she didn’t bar none of the punks or the dumb Irish in the neighborhood. And she had told him no soap. Jew! All the guys were there now, and punks like Andy with them. She had let him stay there while she showed herself off to the guys. She had let him get all anxious, like the rest. Then, Jew! She wouldn’t let a kike touch her. If he didn’t leave she had threatened to get Studs and Weary to sock him, and they would have, because she had something to give them. Well, he was glad he hadn’t touched her. She’d make him sick. He didn’t want the left-overs of the Irish and of degenerates like Three-Star Hennessey. Not him. He didn’t want the sweetheart of the pig-Irish.
He walked around and pretended. He pretended that he was Studs Lonigan. Then he pretended that he had long pants on, that he wasn’t so bowlegged and that his nose wasn’t bent like a fishhook. He pretended that he had cleaned up all the tough guys on Fifty-eighth Street. He saw himself in an imaginary fight with Studs Lonigan, Studs rushing him the way he had rushed Red Kelly, waving his left fist up and down, swinging his right one, him sidestepping and sinking snappy rights to Studs’ guts and his jaw, and then hooking lefts around and catching Studs in back of the neck. Himself making a monkey out of Studs.
He had been at Iris’ and they had shot craps for turns. Studs had been first; then it was his turn. When Studs came out, MMMM MMMMMMMM, he had jumped up, anxious, and gone in, and she had covered herself and called him a dirty Jew.
He walked around and didn’t notice where he was going. He enjoyed hating the micks, the lousy Irish. The Irish were dumb. That was why they always had to fight with their fists. They couldn’t use their noodle; they didn’t have any to use. All they had up there was bone, hambones and cabbage. He thought of himself, so much cleverer than the Irish. The micks were lousy, all right. A race of beer guzzlers, flat-feets, red mugs and boneheads. Why, they even had to take a Jew Christ, and then what did they do but make a dumb Irishman out of him.
He saw all the Irish race personified in the face of Studs Lonigan, and he imagined himself punching that face, cutting it, bloodying the nose, blackening the eyes, mashing it. He had walked out of Iris’, and Studs had yelled ope; he’s gotta go and peddle clothes for the old man. And the others had said things: Here’s