Young Lonigan - James T. Farrell [106]
Screwy spoke of playing pirate in Missouri, when he was a shaver living only about a hundred miles from Hannibal, that Mark Twain had written about. The bakery man spoke of barefoot-boy days in Indiana. Studs listened and laughed as they detailed their boyhood pranks. He looked at Lucy cold. She looked back. Their eyes met. She turned away, as if he were a total stranger.
The tin-can battle raged on, and after an attack was repulsed, Andy again went batty, jumping and yelling that the Americans were winning.
And Studs wanted to be a soldier now, marching away in uniform, and become a hero, and then if he died, well, it would serve her right. Because he loved her with the best and deepest part of himself, and what did she care! And if he came back with medals all over his chest, then she might change her tune. He’d walk along Indiana in his major’s uniform, sword at his side, and she’d maybe come up and say, very penitent and meek:
“Studs, I’m sorry.”
And Major Lonigan would walk past her as if she was a flea.
The battle raged.
Lucy walked on. Maybe on her way back, with her arms full of groceries, she’d talk, and he’d help her carry them. Or maybe he wouldn’t. She’d say hello Studs, and he’d say, hello, or maybe not, and then let her go on with all her groceries. And if she dropped them, he’d just laugh. She’d laughed at him, not caring how he felt. He wouldn’t care about her feelings. He who laughs last, laughs best, and Studs Lonigan was the kind of a guy who got the last laugh on everybody, and he’d get it on her. He watched her go. She didn’t look back. The hell with her. Only the image of her girlbreasts, underneath her dress, stuck in his mind. Lucy!
“Yeah, great sport,” Screwy said for the sixth time, with nostalgia aching in his voice.
“Say, I see trenches like this all over,” the bakery man said.
“You do?” the needle-faced guy said.
Studs wished the bunch had thought of doing this a couple of years ago. Would have been fun. It still would, if they’d all come around. Nope, punk stuff.
“Yeah, great sport,” Screwy said for the seventh time.
In his mind, Private Lonigan, with a steel helmet, and in khaki, dodged star shells, crawled through the shell holes of Flanders Field, and flung a hand grenade into a dangerous German machine-gun nest. And with fixed bayonet, he leaped into the nest, and frightened all the Germans that were still alive into yelling:
“Kamerad!”
He led them back across the shell-torn midnight of No Man’s Land, and turned them over to that same sergeant, who’d said:
“G’wan home, children, and get your diapers pinned on!”
The men from Studs’ man’s-world departed. He watched the punks, alone. He glanced towards Fifty-eighth Street to see if she was coming back yet. Mrs. Dennis P. Gorman, the lawyer’s wife, stopped by him, and Studs perfunctorily tipped his hat. She remarked that it was very dangerous and rowdyish and disgraceful for those boys to play that way. She passed indignantly on.
War reigned in the vacant lot. And in the mind of Studs Lonigan. Suddenly, a randomly-flung tin can hit the young Buckford baby. It squawled, with irritating loudness. Young Horn rushed over and wheeled the buggy out on to the sidewalk. The punks gathered impotently around it, accusing each other of having thrown the can, while the baby continued to yell. Studs singled out Young Horn, who was a snotty kid with a head that seemed three sizes too big for his body, and told him he ought to be socked for leaving the baby where it could be hit like that. Young Horn shouted that it wasn’t his fault. Women surrounded the baby, and slobbered baby-talk over it. Young Horn turned his back on Studs, and, poking one lady in the thighs, said:
“Hey, what the hell, that guy ain’t hurt.”
The woman continued to slobber