Young Lonigan - James T. Farrell [298]
“He was a nice fellow. Tell him I asked for him if you see him again. See anybody else? How’s Art Hahn?”
“I haven’t seen Art for about a year. He’d just lost his job then and was selling vacuum cleaners. And I saw Father McCarthy a few weeks ago. He’s an assistant at some parish out West.”
“His brother, Monk McCarthy, is getting along, too.”
“Every time I see anybody from Fifty-eighth Street, Studs, I always say to myself how times change, how they change”
“Yeah, that’s so, Austin,” Studs said weightily.
“And Martin, the way you’ve sprung up, you look like Studs’ big brother now. I suppose one of these days we’ll be hearing the wedding bells ring out for you,” Austin said, laughing.
“Not this lad.”
“I don’t doubt that Studs once said the same thing.”
“One in the family at a time,” said Martin.
They stood in an awkward silence, talked out.
“Well, boys, I’ll be seeing you around again. Got to run along and turn in. It’s been a hard day in court, and tomorrow I got to go out to Carmody, Indiana, and collect a bill.”
“So long, Austin.”
“Sappy, I’d say,” Martin said.
“Oh, Austin’s all right. He’s a smart fellow. He always studied a lot, and got himself a good education, and now he’s reaping the benefits of it.”
“Education or not, he’s a dope to me,” Martin said.
Walking along with him, Studs began to see in his kid brother a lot of what he’d once been.
V
“I see we have the Lonigans in person with us tonight,” Pat Carrigan said, smiling as Studs and Martin approached the group of fellows who idled and talked in front of the chain drug store at the northeast corner of the busy, well-lit intersection of Seventy-first and Jeffery.
“Hello, Pat. How’s it going tonight?” Studs said, pleased to be in a group of fellows and in the midst of a little noise and light after the dullness of home. He thought, too, that he liked Pat, had liked him in the old days when Pat was one of the second generation of punks coming around the comer.
“Know all the boys, Studs?” Pat asked, a note of solicitude in his voice. “Boys, this is Studs Lonigan. Studs, Don Bryan, Al Schuber, Jack Allison, Steve O‘Grady, and of course you know Kodak Kid O’Doul,” Pat said.
Studs shook hands around, and coming to O’Doul, he said laconically:
“Still smashing the broads’ hearts?”
“Studs, what’s been on your mind since we went to that movie together a couple of weeks ago?”
“Nothing much to write home about,” Studs said.
“What movie was that?” asked O’Doul.
“Doomed Victory. It’s an interesting gangster movie, only in real life, a gangster would grease a dick a little instead of letting himself be run out of town,” Pat said.
“Don’t tell me about it. I want to see it,” Bryan said.
“Did Ike sell you his stock?” Pat asked Studs.
“Well . . . not quite,” Studs said, wondering if Ike would keep his promise not to mention to anyone that he’d bought the stock. Pat might think him a chump, and also tell Martin, and Martin might let it out of the bag at home without meaning to or something.
“It may be a good bargain. I don’t know nothing about it, but I do know that Ike, while being a swell guy, is one first rate B.S. artist.”
“Say, Lonigan, what’s your racket?” Bryan asked.
“Painting with my old man,” Studs said, glancing surprised at Bryan, not liking the fellow’s thin, slightly-pocked, snotty face.
“Not much doing in it these days, huh?”
“Well, of course, everything could be better,” Studs said seriously, seeing himself as older than these kids, a fellow with investments now, business interests, and talking to them as an experienced guy.
“There’s nothing doing anywhere now, I guess, except for a few bootleggers. They’re just about the only ones who cash in these days.