The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [99]
“Bully for Wilson and Ireland!”
“Six cheers for the Scandinavians,” whooped a jag.
“Aw, quit your kiddin’,” Kenny innocently shouted back at the jag, and people nearly busted their guts laughing.
They passed the Thirty-third Street station. It was crowded with happy, singing dinges.
A monkey-faced mick blubbered tears, whining that Padraic Pearse was dead, whoever that guy was.
The trainwheels clattered with the friction of steel, rolling over steel rails. The whistle wah-wahed. The car grew more and more rancid with alcohol and tobacco breaths, stale per-fume, perspiring human odors.
Studs noted fox-in-the-bush, still barbering like an express train. He was envious, knowing she’d give the guy what he was after. He slowly squeezed nearer to the janes by Red, casually eyeing the train advertisement above the window. Chew Wrigley’s Gum! American Family Soap made it cheaper to wash than buy new clothes. The latest war news was to be found in the Chicago Daily Tribune. Red, the lucky bastard!
The train rocketed onward. Studs became suddenly oblivious to its strains and jerkings. He thought of France... Dough-boys marching, fighting, loving the mademoiselles. The Yanks were there rum-tum-tumming up everything. And if he was only one of the Yanks who’d come. He was seventeen, and just ready to try again, after that time he’d eaten the bananas, and everything at home was just grief. If he’d gone, he might be dead now.. But no, the Blessed Virgin would have protected him because he would have worn her scapular. And the next war we had, with Japan, or Mexico, or the Bolsheviks, he’d go and be a hero. If he was only a Sammy now, in Paris, celebrating the Armistice!
A fat, gray-haired woman in tears said that her son Allen ‘had been killed, but that she was happy the war was over, because no more mothers would be brokenhearted over their dead boys. A gray-haired man tried to soothe her, saying her son had died saving the world, and everybody had to bear their crosses. Studs edged further towards the janes by Red.
“It hurts me…here!” the mother sobbed, pointing to her heart. The train whistle wah-wahed. The jag on the back platform steadily clanged his cowbell. Studs was halted getting near the janes. The crying mother made him think of Death that was terrible, and cold, and all maggots and putridness, and rotting, and awful on the battlefields or anywhere, even when you died after receiving Extreme Unction. And even if he wasn’t Over There, he was alive, and might get in the next war. But he’d give any damn thing to be a soldier, laying up with a French broad right now in Paris. But he might have got killed, just before the Armistice whistles blew, and Death was an old man of ice, smelling lousier than the stockyards, or than a stiff pair of socks that have been worn a year, if anybody wore socks that long. And he had a swell time, shadowing soldiers in France, until they were cold and gray and stiffer than branches stuck to the ground in January. Anyway, he wasn’t getting Studs Lonigan for a long time now.
The crowd took up singing, and Studs, swaying in the grinding car, edged nearer the janes. He saw that one was giving Red the works. The other smiled at him, and yelled:
“TO HELL WITH THE KAISER!”
Smiling, Studs accidentally on purpose bumped against her and the quick brush against her body went through him like electricity. She said it was all kinds of fun celebrating the war, and he could feel her bad breath on his face, and smell it too. He didn’t care. She had everything she owned pressed right up to him, yumyum, and she made him want it like he almost never wanted it before, and he knew he’d be able to pick her up and make the grade.
The train passed Twelfth Street.
“It won’t be long now,” said Red.
And Studs didn’t want it to be long until they hit Congress Street, and she was pressed right into him, and he could feel the whole outline of her body, too, and she seemed to be breathing hot in his face,