The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [83]
Hell suddenly hissed in Studs’ mind like a Chicago fire. It was a sea of dirty, mean, purple flames; a sea so big you couldn’t see nothing but it; and the moans from the sea were terrible, more awful and terrible than anything on earth, than the moans of those people who drowned on the Eastland, or than the wind at night when it’s zero out and there’s snow on the ground. And all the heads of the damned kept bobbing up, bobbing up. And everybody there was damned for eternity, damned to moan and burn, with only their heads now and then bobbing up out of the flames. And if Studs died now, with his soul black from mortal sin, like it was, well, that was where he would go, and he would never see God, and he would never see Lucy, because she was good and would go to heaven, and he would never see Lucy... forever.
And Studs was afraid of Old Man Death.
It was a tough break, all right, because you couldn’t seem to resist temptations. It was supposed to be your weakness that made you do it. But everybody’s father and mother did it. If they didn’t nobody but Christ would have ever been born. The newspapers were full of stories about people who did it. Millionaires did it with chorus girls, and got sued. The older guys did it every Saturday night at a can house. Fellows who weren’t Catholics said that priests and nuns did it, but that was a lousy lie. Father Shannon, the missionary, had said that he’d seen hospitals full of people who were rotting away in blindness and insanity because of it. It made Barlowe limp. Everybody was always doing it. There were movies about it, and guys in short pants couldn’t go, unless they snuck in. ADULTS ONLY. Everybody doing it, doing what… not the turkey trot. But you weren’t supposed to. It made God sorry, and put a thorn in the side of Jesus. But God was in Heaven where it oughtn’t to really bother Him. If maybe Adam and Eve hadn’t sinned! Studs had once heard his mother say that they were put out of the Garden of Eden because of it, and that the apple story was only a fairy tale told to kids too young to know any better. But it was supposed to be wrong for a guy to do it. It was right for the sisters to warn you, be-cause temptation always got you. But when you didn’t do it, well, you couldn’t think of anything else, and it made you hot all over, and you couldn’t sleep at night. All you did then was to think you were doing it, and to pretend that every woman you saw didn’t have nothing on . and it wasn’t so much, either. It didn’t help guys to understand girls any better, and after it Iris didn’t understand him any better, and it didn’t scarcely last a minute, and it wasn’t as much fun as making a clean, hard-flying tackle in a football game, or going swimming like that day he and Kenny had gone; a double chocolate soda had it skinned all hollow.
He was agitated. If Iris should snitch! If he should die now in a state of mortal sin! If God should get angry with him for sinning, and do something to him! He wasn’t even worthy of Lucy now. He remembered that day in the park.
But what could a guy do? It wasn’t so much, but it got you. It wasn’t so much, and it made you feel dirty, and... He was called to supper. He walked into the dining room, acting and feeling like a man.
SECTION FOUR
CHAPTER EIGHT
It was a November afternoon. It made Studs happy-sad. He bummed from school and met Weary and Paulie. They went over to Washington Park. The park was bare. The wind rattled through the leaves that were colored with golden decay. The three kids strolled around, crunching leaves as they walked. Almost nobody was in the park, and their echoes traveled far. Just walking around and talking