Young Lonigan - James T. Farrell [316]
“It can’t start too soon to satisfy me. My dogs have had enough wear already,” Studs said, leaning against the back wall in the crowded little room that buzzed with talk.
“It doesn’t particularly reflect to the credit of the Order of Christopher when the best waiting-room they can find for us is a sardine can like this stuffy hole. Hell, we haven’t even got enough room to breathe in here,” a well-dressed, beefy, middle-aged man sourly declared.
“Fellow, this is an initiation and an initiation is an initiation, isn’t it?”
“Me, I no lika this,” a swarthy Italian said.
“Me, neither, but an initiation is an initiation, and you can’t expect it to be nothing else.”
“I don’t mind the waiting so much, but what I don’t like is this waiting-room. How about you, stranger?” the well-dressed man asked, looking at Studs.
“The whole business is all Greek to me,” Studs said.
He noticed slanting rays of sunlight cutting down through the dusty air from the small, rectangular and unwashed window above him. The sunbeams made him feel how it was a pleasant March Sunday outside, and here he was cooped up, and he didn’t know what was going to happen at this initiation. Yawning, his eyelids seemed heavy. He wished that he’d had enough sense to have made an earlier break from Catherine last night and gotten a decent night’s rest. His eyes fell absently on a group of fellows a few feet ahead of him, who seemed to be quite at home, talking and laughing, not so anxious as he and as most of these other candidates were. He wished he’d had a friend along with him. It would make it easier.
“I wonder what it’s going to be like?”
“Well, the degree they put us through this mornin‘, it was nothin’. I came expecting to take a lot, just like college boys do when they get initiated into one of their fraternities, but this mornin’ degree, it was nothin’.”
“That’s why I feel so eggy. They probably saved this afternoon to give us the works.”
“Hell, they can’t do no more than kill you, and they won’t do that.”
“Whatever they’re going to do, I wish they’d get started on it and not keep us here until the Fourth of July.”
Them’s my sentiments, Studs silently told himself, feeling a dryness in his throat. He thought of the morning’s event. The mass with a church crowded tight with candidates and members of the Order of Christopher. What Father Gilhooley would have called an edifying sight. So many Catholic men from all walks of life, rich and poor, young and old, marching to the altar rail in a body, receiving Communion, like true knights of the church. Seeing that, being one of those in it, he had been proud of his Church, proud to be entering an order of men so closely connected with the Church. Remembering his catechism from grammar school, he told himself that the Church was One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic, built upon the rock of Peter, and that it would last until Judgment Day. Yes, he was glad, damn glad, that he had been born on the right side of the fence.
“Me, I’m in the laundry business. Sure, I drive a laundry truck for the Vincent Laundry. I pick up much less laundry these days than I did a year ago, and my commissions have been going down,” a red-faced lad near Studs said.
“I’m in the insurance business. I’m getting as many policies as I ever did, but the collections are not as steady, and it’s like pulling teeth getting money out of policy holders. That reminds me, here’s my card in case you ever want any insurance. Since we’re both going to be Christys, we might as well help each other whenever we can.”
“And any time you want any laundry done, well, give us a shot at it. . . .”
“Say, they don’t seem any too keen on wanting us, from the time they’re taking,” a dark, frowning man said.
“Maybe they got to figure it all out. When I was in high school, we had a frat, and before each initiation we had to figure out what we’d do.”
“This is different. The Christys aren’t high-school kids, and joining the Christys is not like joining a bunch of high-school kids.