Young Lonigan - James T. Farrell [110]
He was plumped on the head with a banana stalk, and went sick with a sudden thud of a headache. He shook his head, turned, and tripped the guy with the stalk, just as he had lifted it to club someone else. He grabbed the stalk, and circumspectly clubbed a little fellow. Ahead, he saw a guy parting a way by brandishing a blackjack. Somebody spit in his ear, yelling that the war was over. A drunk came up to him, seriously and methodically shook hands, and then seriously and methodically walked on. Another drunk rolled in dt’s on the sidewalk, and a girl stuck her high heel in his guts.
Jesus, it was great! he thought.
He suddenly looked up through the noise and falling paper, and there was Old Glory on a flag pole, furled in the breeze, glinting the November sunlight—Old Glory that had never kissed the dust in defeat, and he could see it floating, flying over the trenches, ruins, corpses of the fields of France, again Victorious! Old Glory! His Flag! Proudly he told himself:
I’m an American.
He heard raucous feminine shouting. Turning, he saw a hysterical woman, her gray hair falling over her ageing face. She yelled:
“My son didn’t die in vain. Thank God, my Willie is not dead in vain!”
He joined a snake dance which sang There’ll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight. The snake dance dissolved, when a man on crutches, with two wooden legs, solemnly marched holding a small American flag between his teeth. He was cheered uproariously.
He bumped into the gang while they were gathered around a drunk who insisted that they all would hang the Kaiser to a sour apple tree. They tried to scrouge a drink but he said that now the Kaiser must be hung to a sour apple tree and Wilson must be crowned King of Germany and the League of Nations. They tried to scrouge a drink, and he said they’d get a barrel if they’d bring the Kaiser to him. A soldier dragged him off.
An insane-looking woman passed, holding a sign aloft:
FOLLOW ME TO THE KAISER’S FUNERAL HANS AND FRITZ HAVE THE FITS.
“WAHOOOOOOOOOOO!” they yelled under the leadership of Kenny Kilarney.
Studs lost the gang again. He didn’t care. There’d never been a day like this in history. And he’d find her or another girl, and would he get it today!
He went on, head lowering as if he was a fullback hitting the line, feeling like he was a bursting boiler that was liable to blow the whole Loop to smithereens.
“WAHOOOOOOOOOOO!”
He fought his way into a store in a jam, copped a horn, crushed out, and blew the horn for all he was worth. A funny-looking egg pushed a wheel-barrow along, lashing an effigy of the Kaiser in it with a horse whip. Studs got behind the guy, blowing his horn, feeling swell that everybody was seeing him in the midst of things, hoping she’d see him, and rush out and grab his arm, hoping that Lucy Scanlan would see him and think that he was pretty much the real stuff.
He blew the horn out and joined in a mob that was making a center rush. A girl’s dress and coat got torn off, and Studs fought to get a look at her. But she flung herself into the arms of a sailor and yelled for him to hurry up and take her with him where she wouldn’t need the damn rags. Jesus, it made him hot.
He was jammed to the curb to watch a parade of hearses. The first hearse was black, and carried a sign:
THE KAISER’S COFFIN! KILLED BY THE U. S. A.! A white hearse following it:
THE KAISER’S FUNERAL! A third, black:
THE KULTUR INVENTOR DIED AT 2 A.M. HIS NEXT EMPIRE IS HELL!
Damn good stunt! thought Studs, trying to out-bellow everyone else, wishing like hell he had mightier lungs and stronger mitts.
A bunch of sailors came by, and he joined them. They cursed fiercely because they wouldn’t get their shot at the Huns. One of them gave Studs his first slug of whiskey. It burned all the way down, made him sneeze and cough, with watering eyes, and they laughed at him. He slunk off, and even when out of their sight, seemed to hear their laughter. Shamed feelings blistered into oaths. He put his cap on at a crooked tough-guy angle, slung back his shoulders, scowled