Young Lonigan - James T. Farrell [165]
Studs chased him half way across the sidewalk. Strangers watched with amusement. Levinsky stopped on the other side of the alley, which ran parallel to the station, and laughed. Studs floundered like a listing ship, and again plastered himself against the station bricks. Mr. and Mrs. Dennis P. Gorman, passing, saw Studs and clucked.
“Everybody’s a bastard!” Studs mumbled to himself.
“William!”
“Thought Studs Lonigan die influenza. Plenty left in Studs Lonigan, get that, you bastards! Whoops!”
“William!”
The sharp, aggravated feminine pronunciation of his name slowly wormed itself into his drunken consciousness. He looked in the direction of the voice. He saw Fran leaning from the front of a closed car that was parked at the curb. He lip-farted.
“William! . . . Come here!”
He threw his shoulders back, and almost toppled sidewise in his effort to walk straight. He stood before her, swaying, his leering face smudged, his clothes spotted with dust.
“The idea! You’re a perfect sight; you ought to be ashamed of yourself, disgracing the whole family by your drunken boorishness. And you just out of a sick bed!”
“Whatjahsay?”
“It’s shocking, disgraceful!”
A slick-looking Tuxedoed young man, with a talcum-powdered shaven face, leaned sidewise from the wheel.
“Fran, we’ll have time to drive him around for a spin in the park and let him get some air.”
“Huh!” Studs nastily exclaimed.
“Then, a cup of black coffee might help sober him up.”
“Who in the name of all holy hell wants to get sobered up. . . . Sobered up, huh there, Droopy Drawers? Christ is born, and I’m celebrating,” he whooped.
“William Lonigan, you’ll stop that uncouth, blasphemous talk this minute and get in here!”
“Whoops!”
“Fran, he’s drunk. Let me handle him!”
“What’s that, Charley?”
“William, don’t be so disgusting! You’re not funny.”
“Sure thing, Charley!” he said with an insulting laugh; he almost fell on his face.
“William. . . .”
“I’m just about ready to haul off on a skunk that I see!”
“William!”
“You’re the bastard I’m talking to!” he said, stepping forwards.
Fran slammed the car door, and it shot off. Studs stumbled after it, cursing. He fell in the street. A traffic jam was caused, while he struggled to his feet, and staggered back onto the sidewalk. Slug Mason grabbed his arm, and said, with his familiar mispronunciations:
“Studs, you crazy bastard! Here we all hears that you was in bed with the flu, and what does I do but find you trying to take a nose dive in the gutter.”
“Like tuxedoes?” asked Studs.
“What’s that?”
“Sure,” Studs said, trying to light a cigarette.
Slug lit it for him.
“Say, who took your stick of candy away?” Studs asked Les Coady, as Les lay crying against the poolroom window with tears running down his bucolic face.
“Studs, I’m no good!” Les said heavily.
“You need another drink,” Slug said, pronouncing it “anoder.”
“I’m only a common ordinary wagon man for the Continental Express Company; I never got a chance. I’ll never amount to nothing. I’m rotting away like I was dead, a common ordinary wagon man.”
“You better come with me tonight, and get yourself a fast and furious jazz,” Slug said.
“Slug, go down to the drug store, and buy him a lolly pop!” Studs said.
Les ran a gloved hand across his teary face, streaking it.
“And I almost went and studied to be a priest. I’m no good,” he whined.
Inside the poolroom, a crowd was gathered around the telephone booth, where Red Kelly was cursing his girl. The gang laughed boisterously. Slug took Studs and Les to the can, where they secretively had a drink. When they came out, TB McCarthy tried to scrouge a nip and two bits from them. He was so insistent that Studs handed him a quarter, but said that if he ever asked again, a certain louse named McCarthy would get his consumptive face pounded full of holes.
“Yeah, up your back, Charley,” Red yelled, slamming the receiver.
He came out, and led Vinc Curley to the rear of the poolroom, telling him, as a friend, to stand there a minute. He returned to the first