The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [90]
“Hey, there’s that Jew punk, Stein. His old man speaks German. I’ll bet he’s a German spy,” Red said.
Studs grabbed Stein, a neatly dressed, twelve-or-thirteen-year-old, four-eyed sissy. Bawling like a mama’s cry baby, Stein asked what he had done. Kenny squirted seltzer water in his face. Stein shrieked to be let alone. Kenny appointed himself judge for a court martial and told them to hold the prisoner until he came back. He dashed away. While they waited, they tortured the kid with questions. Kenny quickly returned with a small American flag which he’d copped from the nearby five-and-dime store. Stein was sentenced to kneel down and kiss the flag. He demurred, but rough handling changed his mind. He knelt down and pressed his lips towards the flag which had been placed on the sidewalk. He was hurtled forwards by three swift kicks in the tocus. He was still bawling when Kenny grabbed his feet, and Studs and Red nabbed him under the arms. They gave him the royal bumps, slamming his can against the sidewalk. A stranger told them to let the kid alone. Kenny said that the kid’s father was a German and that he had just yelled “Down with Wilson” and “Hoch der Kaiser.”
MacNamara, the pot-bellied cop, came along twirling his club. He intruded to halt the punishment. They told him Stein had spit on the flag. Stein, stuttering and tearful, denied the accusation. MacNamara asked him his name. Stein replied meekly. The cop said you could expect anything from one with a name like that, kicked his tail, and told him to get home. He told the guys that they’d done right, but the next time to go back in the alley where they wouldn’t cause such a commotion. He flatfooted along twirling his club.
Kenny turned his cap around backwards and sang:
Oh, say can you see, any bedbugs on me .. .
It was funny. Red pointed at the empty seltzer bottle on the sidewalk, and asked Kenny wouldn’t he get canned on account of what he did with it. Kenny said no because he’d quit. He struck a Napoleonic attitude, and said: “On to Berlin!”
They shook on it.
II
After he became a hero, and everybody knew of him, the story of the stunt they were pulling would be remembered and they would all be telling it... Well, he would become a hero... He would!
He casually leaned against a girder in the alley in back of the Fifty-eighth Street elevated station, cigarette drooping from the corner of his mouth, his cap set back on his poll, a mop of darkish blond hair showing.
“I wish Kilarney would shake a leg, wherever he is,” Studs Lonigan said, as if he were not excited, and all this that was happening was just ordinary and everyday.
“He’ll cop a bike, all right. That boy is a past master,” Red said.
“Yeah,” said Studs, secretly envying Kenny Kilarney’s talents.
Studs itched to walk around a hit and do something—anything. Waiting like this got him. But he couldn’t let Red see he was nervous or Red might think he was yellow.
They heard whooping down the alley. They looked and saw Kenny on a bike, coming towards them like a bat out of Hell. He clamped the bicycle brake, and leaped off. He was breathless and he laughed.
“How do you like it?” he asked, smiling goofily.
They examined the bike, a new one, with blue bars and mud-guard, and a bushel basket tied in back of the seat.
“Jesus Christ!” Studs exclaimed admiringly.
“Where’d you get it?” asked Red, also with admiration.
“Off a back porch at Fifty-sixth and Prairie,” Kenny proudly said.
“That near? Maybe we better get away from here. Somebody might be following you,” said Studs.
“Hell, no! I stopped in the alley right near there and tied this bushel basket on,” Kenny said.
“Well, now let’s get going. We got lots to do today,” said Studs, nervous.
“You guys got any ideas on how we’ll pull the trick off?” asked Red.
“Leave that to Uncle Kilarney,” said Kenny confidently.
“Why? We ought to help,” said Red.
“If you leave it to me, it’ll be pie. I got the bike. All I got to do is find a banana peddler, and wait till he sells something and leaves his cart. Then, I’ll just fill the basket