Young Lonigan - James T. Farrell [163]
“One more bat out of you while I’m shooting, and it’ll be curtains for you, punk!”
Studs couldn’t regain his form. Joe walked away with the game, and won a second game with ease. Studs handed him a buck, and paid for the time with some of his chips. Joe said it was tough, going so good, and then suddenly losing your form. Next time, he might have better luck. Studs smiled weakly, but a sudden hatred of Joe stirred in him. Joe was almost chinless, not good-looking, a nice guy, but he had nothing on his side except his ability with the cue. No reason for jealousy and hatred. But Studs hated him for winning, hated to lose or be second fiddle at any thing. He was even glad when Joe remarked that his rheumatism was bothering him again.
He started out and met Arnold Sheehan limping in the doorway. He asked how tricks were. Arnold said he had a job with a construction gang for the city, and was on the wagon. He was going to start working as soon as his knee, twisted in the football game last Sunday, was better. Studs said swell.
He walked along amidst the six-o’clock confusion of Fifty-eighth Street, with people pouring out of the elevated station, elevated trains rumbling almost continuously, kids barking as they sold the Saturday Evening Post, Sammy Schmaltz yelling his latest papers, people hurrying in front of and by him. It made him nervous. And he thought how he had just been going so good, ran the table for the third time in his life at straight pool, had been on the verge of breaking his record run. He remembered the feeling of power he had had, running the table, his eye, brains, arm, all of himself concentrated on the balls, all clicking together like a coordinated machine, and the thrill that went with each shot as the balls were smashed, cut, banked, eased into the pockets. A feeling that, in its way, was like the one he’d had making that first clean tackle of Jewboy Schwartz in the football game.
He saw the dumpy figure of Helen Shires ahead of him, and caught up with her. She looked mannish, with a shingle bob, a simple felt hat, almost like a man’s, a plain blue suit with shirt waist and blue tie. Not good-looking any more. She’d been almost like a pal with him when they’d been kids. Some of the old feeling for her came back. But she hadn’t turned into much. Wouldn’t be a bargain in bed now either.
“I’m glad to see you again, Studs; haven’t seen you in ages,” she said.
“How are you, Helen?”
“Fine. Working in an office, stenographer. I hear you’re still working for your dad,” she said, and he nodded, lighting a cigarette.
“I saw Loretta the other day and she has certainly grown into a sweet young girl.”
Not much for them to say to each other. It made him sorry they had changed and drifted apart, because he could remember how she had been such a pal, just like a guy you liked a lot.
“Seen any of the old bunch?” she asked, after the silence between them had grown uncomfortable.
“Bill comes around once in a while and we go to a show together. He has a pretty good job, repairing adding-machines.”
“And how’s Fran?”
“All right.”
He wanted to talk about old times, and have them just naturally talk about themselves, and maybe Lucy.
“I saw Jim Clayburn. He’s studying law,” she said.
He told her about last Sunday’s football game and the fight.
“You’re just the same as ever, aren’t you? Haven’t changed, even to the fighting,” she said in a complimentary way; he was pleased, and looked at her out of the corner of his eye. Might date her up at that and make her; she probably could be made, and every jane a guy made was another notch in his belt. But he liked her and wished they could be as they used to be.
“What’s your sister doing?”
“She’s in high school. She’s a flapper now,” Helen said.
“You haven’t changed either, Helen,” he said, but it was a lie. She wasn’t the old Helen. And she looked sort of whipped, too. Maybe it was because she wasn’t good-looking or something.
They stood awkwardly at the corner of Fifty-eighth and Indiana. Finally they said they’d have to be trotting along.