The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [98]
He heard a laugh. He looked towards the sidewalk. Lucy Scanlan stood there laughing at him, holding her head high. His face a blazing red, he walked out of the vacant lot past her, and on over towards Fifty-eighth and Prairie Avenue. He tried to think of himself as a hero. He was a hero in his own mind. He was utterly miserable.
II
KILLED IN ACTION, NOVEMBER 11, 1918... LESTER H. COLE.
CHAPTER TWO
A drunk in the jammed elevated car sang The Star-Spangled Banner. Studs tried to join in. The train rocketed along, and the song died feebly in the noise. A souse on the rear platform donged a cowbell. The train whistle emitted a piercing wah-wah. A powerful roar came from the front of the car:
“TO HELL WITH THE KAISER!”
Studs was swayed with the crowd as the train pulled into the Fifty-first Street station. The platform was crushed with people, and when the conductor refused to open the gates and admit additional passengers, they blared protests and loud-voiced jokes. There was another drunken bellow when the train pulled out:
“TO HELL WITH KAISER BILL!”
A female body pressed against Studs. From the corner of his eye, he lamped the woman; her face was wrinkling, and she must be forty or over, almost old enough to be his grandmother. But she excited him as much as if she was a young jane. Perspiration beaded his broad, planed face.
He again tried to sing and was toppled sidewise in a wave of good-natured shoving. A fox-in-the-bush got his place beside grandma. Studs looked at the beard, lace curtains that must be dirty as a doormat. Hatred of fox-in-the-bush flared in him. He remembered his excited sensation as she wiggled against him. She’d been giving him the works all right, and he didn’t care about her age, and he’d liked it. And that god-damn fox-in-the-bush had gotten his place. He wished he was alone with her; he’d bet she knew her onions, and could teach him plenty that he ought to know. Catching a quick glimpse of her ruined face, he was disgusted with himself. But he looked around, to see if he could get shoved against any other woman on the car.
The train passed Forty-seventh Street. He was all nerves to be downtown and off the train. The whistle wah-wahed. Kenny let out a long and funny wahooo that took down the car. Studs glanced around for a woman, wondering how he’d never before thought of the possibilities of getting against one in crowded el trains. Suddenly everybody was laughing. He looked to his right, and saw that Kenny Kilarney had fallen into the lap of a young chicken and didn’t want to get up.
He heard the fox-in-the-bush squeaking that the war was over. He imagined himself socking the guy. He was shoved near him, and as fox-in-the-bush said something else to hot grandma, Studs felt like asking why he didn’t give towels with his shower baths. A drunk in front of Studs ponderously muttered uh huh the war was over. Two girls near Red Kelly sang Over There, making Studs lonesome to be in France. He looked at the young janes, and thought that Red was a lucky guy, and there was gold in them there hills. To attract their attention, he started singing, We’ll Make the Hindenburg Line Look Like a Dime, very loudly.
The train stopped at the Indiana Avenue station, started, switched onto the express track, took the curve to go north again, and quickly gained momentum. The passengers were thrown every which way, Studs saw that fox-in-the-bush had grandma leaned forwards on him, and he was jabbing to her a mile-a-minute. They meant business, but how could any dame, even grandma, kiss a guy like that. Her tongue would get lost in all the thickets on his map. He edged down towards the janes by Red.
The train whistle wah-wahed. It roared downtown, over the slums and filth of the black belt.
A drunk yelled that America had won the war. A long-faced