Young Lonigan - James T. Farrell [109]
“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, panting. It made him proud, a manly feeling. He asked where she was going.
“To hell, want to come along?”
“It’ll be Heaven if you’re there.”
“You’re a kidder.”
She twisted against him and he felt that it was all set.
At Congress, the whole car seemed to jam towards the door simultaneously. He and Red lost the janes in the crush; just their goddamn luck.
He hoped he’d pick her up again, as he ganged along with the guys over to State and Van Buren. He looked frantically into faces, hurried the going, wanting to get her again, suddenly wanting Lucy Scanlan, but wanting her the more because she had everything a guy could wish for, and she’d go the limit, and what the hell if her breath was bad.
The Chicago loop was like a nuthouse on fire. The sidewalks were swollen with people, the streets were clogged, and autoists honked their horns, and motor men donged bells in vain. Tons of paper and confetti blizzarded from the upper stories of buildings and sundry noise-makers echoed an insistent racket. People sang, shouted until it seemed that their lungs would burst from their mouths.
Studs followed a guy playing a clarinet. A bag of water dropped on the guy’s bean. He played on, and a fellow clamped him on the dome with a banana stalk. He played on. He was caught in a laughing crowd which followed a fat black mammy who paraded down the sidewalk, dressed in a washtub full of clothes, joyously singing:
Oh, Lawd, I’se happy!
No mo’ washin’ fo’ me!
No mo’ washin’ fo’ me!
My two boys’ll be comin’ home soon!
My two boys’ll be comin’ home soon!
Oh, Lawd, I’se happy!
He watched a sailor and a marine scrapping. A pretty girl stopped the fight by kissing each of them. He clapped and catcalled with the crowd. If he was only in uniform. Everybody snickered as another sailor rushed forwards and threatened to fight if he wasn’t kissed. She kissed him, and the other two demanded second