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By Root 10568 0

Studs saw a tin can. He commenced kicking it, and stopped. He was wearing his long pants every day now, and only kids, punks, kicked tin cans along. He started walking on. He turned. He looked at the tin can. He came back and kicked it. He walked on. No one saw him. He thought about the day. He wondered about other days, and wished he had a lot of them back. He wished that he was back at St. Patrick’s, instead of being in high school and in dutch for bumming. He wished that he and Lucy were together, instead of being like strangers. He guessed she knew about Iris.

At supper they had a quarrel, as usual. His mother asked him to pray so he could decide about his vocation. And the old man told him he ought to go to confession, because he hadn’t been there since June. Then they kicked at Martin not having his finger nails cleaned and Loretta and Frances squab-bled. After supper, he went to sit by the parlor window. Frances sat down to do her homework. The old man asked him didn’t he have homework. Studs said he had done it in a study period at school. The old man said it would be good to get ahead. Studs said he didn’t know what homework they’d have ahead. Frances called in to ask him if he knew what declension “socius” belonged to. He said he didn’t. The mother said she guessed the girls learned more rapidly than boys did, and they went ahead faster in their lessons. The old man put on his house slippers. He listened to Uncle Josh Joins the Grangers on the Vic. Then he opened his Chicago Evening Journal. Looking over his paper once, he said:

“Well, Mary, now that the kids are coming along, we’ll have to take more time to ourselves, and next summer we’ll have to do a little gallivantin’ of our own, and go out and make a night of it at Riverview Park.”

Studs sat looking out of the parlor window, listening to night sounds, to the wind in the empty tree outside. He told himself that he felt like he was a sad song. He sat there, and hummed over and over to himself... The Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.

1929-1931

The Young Manhood

of

Studs Lonigan

“Your woraciousness, fellow critters, I don’t blame ye so much for; dat is natur, and can’t be helped... No use goin’ on; de willians will keep a scrougin’ and slappin’ each oder, Massa Stubb; dey don’t hear one word; no use a-preaching to such dam g’uttons as you call ‘em, till dere bellies is full, and dere bellies is bottomless; and when dey do get ‘em full, dey won’t hear you den; for den dey sink in de sea, go fast to sleep on de coral, and can’t hear not’ing at all, no more, for eber and eber.”

MOBY DICK BY HERMAN MELVILLE

SECTION ONE

1917-1918-1919

I

The baby bawled. Lee heard a final sob from his wife. He slammed the door. Cursing in disgust, he walked along Calumet Avenue. He joined the lads in the barber shop, front of Charlie Bathcellar’s poolroom, and smiled with a lightened mood.

“Congratulate me, boys!”

“What, did you get a divorce?” asked fat, middle-aged, dour-faced Barney Keefe.

“You sound like you lost your job, Lee,” Jew Percentage smiled.

“Nope! I got a one-way ticket to Berlin. Leaving tomorrow,” Lee said.

“Say, I see where some guy in Kansas City put a Colt in his mouth, and fired, committing suicide. That’s four suicides in the paper tonight,” Slew Weber said, looking up from his newspaper; he was slouched in one of the barber chairs.

“Hey, Swede, drop that morbidity!” said Barney.

“Lee, what did the missus say?” asked Percentage.

“What she says ain’t nothin’ out of my poke. Her old man has enough to take care of her and her goddamn brat. And I don’t care if I never see her again,” Lee answered spiritedly.

“She must have thrown the rolling pin at you,” said Fitz, the poolroom pest.

“She acted like a goddamn bitch. She jerked on the tears. Then, she came petting around. Just like a goddamn bitch, trying to get me hot. She pulled every trick that a bitch pulls on a guy,” Lee said in disgust.

“She loves you. She just doesn’t want to see her man shot into sixteen pieces,” Pat Coady said.

“I ain’t afraid of death, and before they