Young Lonigan - James T. Farrell [37]
Studs tried to dissent, but he was inarticulate.
His incoherent protests were cut short by his mother suggesting that he ought to study for the priesthood. She said one could always change one’s mind, up to the taking of the vows, and a priest got a wonderful education, and even if he didn’t go on with it, he would be more educated than most people. She said it was, just as Father Gilhooley said, the duty of all parents to see if their children had the call. How would God and his poor Mother, and great St. Patrick, guardian saint of the parish, feel if Studs turned a deaf ear on the sacred call? Lonigan opened his mouth to say something, but Studs said decisively he didn’t have the call. The mother said he should pray more, so he would know, and God would reveal to him if he had. Frances interrupted to say that Studs should go to Loyola, because everybody of any consequence was going there and it was the school to go to. They talked on, and it was decided, against Studs’ wishes, that he go to Loyola.
Then the parents rose to retire, yawning.
Mrs. Lonigan put Martin to bed. She hugged the boy close to her meager bosom and said:
“Martin, don’t you think you’d like to be a priest when you grow up, and serve God?”
“I want to be a grave digger,” Martin answered sleepily.
She left the room, her cheeks slightly wet with tears. She prayed to God that he would give one of her boys the call.
After they had left the parlor, Studs sat by the window. He looked out, watching the night strangeness, listening. The darkness was over everything like a warm bed-cover, and all the little sounds of night seemed to him as if they belonged to some great mystery. He listened to the wind in the tree by the window. The street was queer, and didn’t seem at all like Wabash Avenue. He watched a man pass, his heels beating a monotonous echo. Studs imagined him to be some criminal being pursued by a detective like Maurice Costello, who used to act detective parts for Vitagraph. He watched. He thought of Lucy on the street and himself bravely rescuing her from horrors more terrible than he could imagine. He thought about the fall, and of the arguments for working that he should have sprung on the old man. He thought of himself on a scaffold, wearing a painter’s overalls, chewing tobacco, and talking man-talk with the other painters; and of pay days and the independence they would bring him. He thought of Studs Lonigan, a free and independent working man, on his first pay night, plunking down some dough to the old lady for board, putting on his new straw katy, calling for Lucy, and taking her out stepping to White City, having a swell time.
Frances came in. She wore a thin nightgown. He could almost see right through it. He tried to keep looking away, but he had to turn his head back to look at her. She stood before him, and didn’t seem to know that he was looking at her. She seemed kind of queer; he thought maybe she was sick.
“Do you like Lucy?”
“Oh, a little,” he said.
He was excited, and couldn’t talk much, because he didn’t want her to notice it.
“Do you like to kiss girls?”
“Not so much,” he said.
“You did tonight.”
“It was all in the game.”
“Helen must like Weary.”
“I hate her.”
“I don’t like her either, but . . . do you think they did anything in the post office?”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
She wasn’t going to pump him and get anything out of him.
She seemed to be looking at him, awful queer, all right.
“You know. Do you think they did anything that was fun . . . or that the sisters wouldn’t want them to do . . . or that’s bad?”