Young Lonigan - James T. Farrell [366]
Studs looked bored and wanted to get out. And now she’d tell the old man and tonight at supper he’d have to do some explaining. The kettle steamed and Mrs. Lonigan put tea leaves and poured water into a crockery tea pot. She set a cup, milk, sugar, bread and butter before him on the table.
“Son, I’m talking to you because I’m your mother, and a boy can never do the wrong thing if he is guided by his mother. Now, tell me what was the trouble. Did she go out with another fellow?”
“It was nothing like that, I tell you.”
“You know, William, it takes a long time to know a girl, and to learn what she has in her, and whether or not she is the right kind for you,” the mother said, pouring him a steaming cup of tea.
“Catherine’s all right,” he said, controlling his gripe caused by her insinuations.
“Of course she is, son. God forbid that I say she isn’t. I just said that it takes a long time to really take the measure of a girl, and to know if she’ll make a good wife or not.”
Hell, no use arguing with his mother. When she set her mind on something, there was nothing to be done and that was the end of it. He broke a slice of bread and buttered it.
“When did this trouble start?”
“There wasn’t any real trouble.”
“But you’re not seeing her. Certainly there must have been trouble or you’d be seeing her. Before this quarrel you were seeing her almost every night, and the two of you were always hanging on the telephone.”
“I might be seeing her tonight,” Studs said to halt the talk, wishing that his words were true.
He arose from the table.
“I’ll be back soon.”
“Son, can’t you wait until the rain lets up?” she asked, and he could see the disappointment on her face.
“It won’t hurt me,” he said, quickly leaving the kitchen before his mother could continue pumping him.
II
Studs dallied by the drug store entrance with soggy feet, blankly watching people pass the rain-swept comer of Seventy-first and Jeffery. Quarter after eleven. He could wait a minute and get clear in his mind just what he would say to her. When she’d say hello, he’d say something like how are you, this is Studs. Then he would go right on and say: Listen, there’s no use of going on like this. We ought to talk it over. But suppose she slammed the receiver in his ear, or politely told him there wasn’t anything to talk over. He couldn’t stand to risk a thing like that.
He shouldn’t have come out. As soon as he got home, he’d soak his feet in hot water and drink some more hot tea. Couldn’t catch cold with his health and bum heart. He could call and pretend that someone had called when he was out, and ask had she called. And that would give her a chance to break the ice if she wanted to, and it would leave him a loophole to crawl out, and if she then said anything about his trying to make up, he’d have his excuse to show it wasn’t so. He just couldn’t take the risk of her cutting him cold. That was all.
He watched a man run stiff-legged around the comer onto Jeffery. An Upton Oil Company truck rumbled over the railroad tracks. A stout flat-footed woman pushed toward the bank, her head hidden under an umbrella.
He guessed it would be better to wait until she was home. She wouldn’t be able to talk much anyway from the office, because there were people listening in. He could catch the next downtown train and get down in front of the office building when she came out to lunch. That would be the best idea. It was easier to settle a thing seeing a person than over the telephone. He lit a cigarette and thought of how she would come out of the elevator, and seeing him, her face would pop with surprise. Then