Young Lonigan - James T. Farrell [365]
Jesus Christ.
He had to do something, think about something, say something. And all he could do was curse and mope and look out the window at the rain and at a passing girl. He realized how so many times in his life he had just kept on living on wishes, and the days had dragged along, and the wishes hadn’t come true. He returned to the chair.
Just a gigolo . . .
He told himself that he was a clown clean through. Every time a fly ball had been hit to him with men on the bases, he’d muffed it. Hoping for one thing, then another, and when he did get his chances—foul ball.
Girls, too. He’d never held one. Twice Lucy had given him the cold shoulder. That girl he’d knelt next to at Christmas mass in Saint Patrick’s once—cold shoulder. Never got beyond wishing about her. Now Catherine.
Football. He’d wanted to be a star high-school quarterback and he’d not had the guts to stay in school. Fighting. His kid brother had even cleaned him up. In the war when he’d tried to enlist, a leather-necked sergeant had laughed at him.
He was just an all-around no-soap guy.
Happy days are here again,
The skies are clear again . . .
And he didn’t have anything ahead of him that looked so keen. The old man was just about washed out and when he died, he wouldn’t hardly leave a nickel. And he had always counted on that, too.
He jumped from his chair, determining that, goddamn it, he had to break through somewhere. He looked at himself in the mirror and frowned in an ugly, menacing manner. He walked back and forth across the parlor, clenching and unclenching his fists.
So let’s tell the world about it now.
He swung viciously through the air, as if he were ripping into some bastard in a fight, slugging.
He paused, sat down, his tension relaxing, and he felt ridiculous.
Let us sing a song of cheer again,
Happy days are here again.
Couldn’t even make up his mind on any kind of a resolution. On the stocks, he’d frittered around hoping, while they sank to seven bucks on each of his eighty shares, and now it wasn’t even much use to dump them and get back only five hundred and sixty out of his original two thousand.
He wanted to be with Catherine and to forget, and to talk to her, maybe tell her some of these things.
Hello, housewives of Radioland, this is Sally Saucer speaking.
He turned the radio off. Catherine would maybe still have confidence in him. It was just pride, false pride, that was keeping them apart, and it would cost them a lot to stick to it. Perhaps all she was waiting for was for him to telephone her. And that’s just what he was going to do.
“Mom, I’m going down to the corner a minute.”
“Son, not in all this rain.”
“I got my slicker and it won’t hurt me.”
“But, son, if you want anything like cigarettes, you can telephone for it, can’t you? It’s raining cats and dogs.”
“It won’t hurt me.”
“You’ll get your feet wet, William.”
“I won’t be gone long or out in it enough for that.”
“Well, at least wait and let me make you a cup of tea to warm you up before you go.”
“All right,” he said, walking into the kitchen and sitting down while she turned the gas on under a kettle.
“You haven’t seen Catherine for the last two or three days?”
“I saw her three or four nights ago,” he said, his voice so unconvincing that she turned to stare at him.
“Son, have you and Catherine quarrelled?”
“Why, no, of course not.”
“Well, I know that something is on your mind, because you seem to be carrying on very strange. And you haven’t gone to see her these last nights, or called her up, nor she you. Now, son, tell me the truth. Have you two been quarrelling?”
He showed his embarrassment. Hell, he wished he was a better actor.
“Well, it wasn’t anything serious.”
“Just a spat, or what?”
“Nothing much. We just had a disagreement and lost our temper,” he said, wondering what made her so curious, regretting having given it away.
“Son, I didn’t want to say this,” the mother