Young Lonigan - James T. Farrell [338]
“What?”
“Got a match?”
“Sure. I was just sort of sitting here and forgot where I was, and didn’t hear you. Here.”
“Thanks,” the stranger said, accepting the book of matches and lighting a cigarette.
“I suppose you’re out of work like the rest of us.”
“Well, in a way.”
“I know I’ve been carrying the banner during these days of Hoover prosperity.”
“Yes, it seems pretty tough, but things ought to get better, and Hoover probably won’t be elected next year.”
“Things won’t get better for me, not under this system.”
“How come? There’s no use throwing up the sponge,” Studs said, thinking that, hell, the guy looked on the level, and like a white man and just down on his luck, and he might just as well try to cheer the guy up a little.
“I’m not throwing up the sponge. I’m just learning things, and I’ve learned, this last winter, that a guy like me isn’t worth any more than a rusty piece of machinery.”
Studs lit a cigarette and tried to think of something to say. The guy seemed sore at the world, the way he had just made that last crack.
“If you’re a workingman, buddy, none of those Democrats or Republicans mean anything for you.”
“Well, what’s the matter with Al Smith?”
“The same thing that’s the matter with all of them. They don’t mean any good to me. I’ve carried the banner all winter. And by God, I’m not going to carry the banner forever, sleeping in that Hooverville under Wacker Drive.”
“Things can’t always go down.”
“I know it. They can come up in war.”
“Who do you think we’ll go to war with, Japan or Russia?”
“By God, if the U. S. goes to war with Russia, I don’t shoulder a gun.”
Jesus, a Red!
“But you wouldn’t be a traitor to your country?”
“My country, what do I own here?”
“Aren’t you an American?”
“I was born here, but if I had the fare I’d go to Russia tomorrow.”
“But aren’t they Reds and anarchists there? Don’t you read the papers?”
“Sure, I read the papers. Lies. Lad, they’re filling us full of lies so they can rob us all. We got to wake up.”
“But Bolshevism means revolution.”
“How else are we going to win the means of production for ourselves?”
“But that’s anarchy.”
“What is it when guys like me all over the country carry the banner, sleep in Hoovervilles? What is it when they shoot down coal miners?”
“I’m not a Bolshevik. It’s against the country and the church.” Studs wished the fellow would go away. If he was his size and in better health, he might sock him. He got up.
“I got to be traveling. But you’ll never get anywhere with those ideas, fellow.”
“Yes, I’ll never carry a musket.”
“So long.”
Studs laughed at the crazy bastard. A Bolshevik. He supposed the guy was a nigger lover, too. Well, let the Bolsheviks get tough. They’d be taken care of, just the same as the shines were during the race riots of ’19.
He felt tired, and the hell with that nutty guy. He had been thinking about old times, too, when the fellow had interrupted him to give that phony Bolshevik spiel.
II
Studs stood on the grass edge of the large, rectangular skin-dirt athletic field, hearing the crack of a baseball bat while a group of fellows snapped through infield practice, and a lad in a khaki shirt fungoed flies to five others in the outfield. About five yards from him a group of four sat watching.
The third baseman, a lank lad in a faded blue shirt, fozzled a ground ball, and, seeking hurriedly to pick it up, kicked it around in the dirt.
“The bush leagues for you, Spunk.”
“Get off your can and come out here and do better.”
“The bushes, boy. You’re getting old.”
“All right, Cal, get the lead out of your tail,” one of the fungo hitters called, lifting a long high fly which was easily caught by a swarthy left-handed fellow in a white shirt.
Studs watched the infield practice, the grounders slapped hard, cutting over the dirt, the ball snapped around from player to player. They were pretty good, and they worked fast. Even though he had never cared a hell of a lot for baseball, it was something to watch, neat, quick work. The shortstop ran low to his left, smeared