Young Lonigan - James T. Farrell [363]
“Come in,” she said.
He entered the small, neat bedroom and saw her, naked, her black hair falling down her back, reclining on a high poster bed, with feminine clothes and a copy of True Stories magazine on a chair beside it.
“Well, I suppose we better get started,” she said coldly.
IV
“Three cheers,” said Cohen when Studs re-entered the parlor, interrupting them as they cut cards for nickels.
He was disappointed, because it had all happened so quickly.
“Boys, wish me luck,” said Coombs, arising.
“How you like the lady?” asked Burke.
The baby began squawling as Studs grinned knowingly at Burke.
“Hey, Coombs, tell her the brat is bawling. Ask her what we should do?” Burke called. Turning to Cohen, he said, “That big mugg Coombs is dumb. Let’s tell him to mind it.”
Cohen grinned.
They saw her, naked, enter the bedroom, carry the baby back. It still cried as she closed the door behind her.
Coombs was in the room with her, and the baby let out a long wail as Studs put on his hat and left. All over so quickly. He wanted more, but she’d said no encores without another two and a half. And he’d rather go back alone some morning than now with the others there.
He felt lazy, too, and he thought of how when he went back it would be better. She was nice, and he remembered her naked on the bed when he’d entered the room. But a married woman and mother who’d do such a thing, lower than a snake. What was the difference between her and a whore? None. And what a chump and sap of a husband she must have.
Women like her, and a girl like Catherine, now there was all the difference in the world between them. After being with her, and then thinking of a girl like Catherine, a guy wanted to go and fumigate himself. But what the hell? Just as Slug Mason had always said, tail was tail. Catherine didn’t know about it, and what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. If she wanted to be tough, as she had last night, let her, and then she could see what she was going to lose. Lighting a cigarette, he thought that this was a just revenge on her.
He stopped at a newspaper stand at Seventy-first Street, bought a paper, quickly opened to the day’s stock-market quotations. Eight and a half. Hell, wouldn’t it ever go up? Hardly any use now in selling it, losing so much dough.
The street was alive with people, women rushing through their lastminute marketing, people coming home from work. Suppose one of these men coming along was George Jackson. Nice surprise for Georgie.
Catherine. Was she home yet? What was she doing at this minute? And that broad, he wished he hadn’t seen her, a broad who would do as lousy a thing as that made a guy feel contaminated. Still trying to kid himself. He’d wanted her, and he’d gotten just what he needed, and she was better than a whore. Catherine, though, was she home yet? Didn’t she really give a damn about him? Had she meant the things she’d said to him last night? He couldn’t make up his mind about it, or about her. Call her up? Forget her?
And now that the day was finished, he had to get through the night. Christ, things sometimes got dull for a guy.
But maybe she’d call up after supper, and he’d go over and see her. He thought she would. She really cared for him. Maybe when he got home there would already be a message for him from her.
Chapter Eleven
I
WAS it going to turn out the same way as it had with Lucy? There had been a little scrap, and he’d waited for something to happen and for Lucy to take the first step, and days had dragged into months, and then it was about two years gone by and one day he discovered that she had moved. It was already three days since the quarrel with Catherine, and no word. He didn’t want it to drag along and die out as it had with Lucy.
Since then, he would feel free and forget her, and then he wouldn’t want to feel free, and the thought of her would pop right back in his mind. Then he would want to call her up, but he wouldn’t because it might seem like he was crawling back, ready to eat dirt. So he had just had it on his mind, the fight, thinking of how they would