Young Lonigan - James T. Farrell [374]
He wished that he could have slept all night with her and had it again. But he would when they got married. He was going to get his just as regular as he damn well pleased. Still, when he got married, he would be getting damaged goods. But no, it had been only himself. He was sure of that. But he had been a goddamn brute hurting her, and it was almost like pain to think back about it, her wincing, moaning, begging him please to stop. And she had been snow white, too, and warm in the darkness when she had moaned like that.
A stranger passed. Studs wished that the fellow could look into his head, see his thoughts. He wondered, though, wasn’t he just thinking like a clown.
He saw Pat Carrigan and some other lads at the counter of that same restaurant where Catherine and he had fought. He entered, self-consciously returning the proprietor’s smile.
“I say there, Studs.”
“How’s tricks, Pat?”
“Can’t complain.”
“The kid brother was around earlier tonight, but he dragged off to a show,” Pat said.
“Coffee and apple pie. . . . I was down to see my girl tonight,” Studs said, tempted to say more.
“Seeing your girl, huh, Studs?” Pat said.
“Yeah.”
“Hello, boys. Hello, Lonigan, how they hanging?” said Bryan, seating himself at the counter.
“Oh, Studs, by the way, I saw Long-Nose Jerry Rooney the other night,” Pat said.
“That’s the Big-Nose himself,” Allison called down the counter.
“If noses were gold, thousands of people would be shoving pans up that boy’s nose and prospecting for gold in his snot,” pimply Don Bryan said, and they looked at him in disgust.
“Oh, Jerry’s singing the blues like everybody else because he ain’t getting as much pay as he used to,” Pat said.
Studs thought that some guys had a hell of a lot of guts singing them over a measly five bucks a week less when here he was out over a thousand bucks and not batting an eye. He felt like saying so, very casually.
“Well, boys, congratulate me,” Allison said.
“How come?”
“I copped it. I copped that little dame’s cherry. I’m putting her through an intensive course in the Allison Training School.”
“Lucky rat,” Bryan said.
“Lucky, hell! I worked two months before she came across.”
“Is she nice?”
“Nice is the word for what she’s going to be. Listen . . .”
A couple entered the restaurant and Bryan nudged Allison. They spoke low.
“How you feeling these days, Studs?”
“Pretty good,” Studs said, but he was getting damn tired of being asked how he was feeling, as if he was a cripple.
He finished his pie and coffee and noticed Allison and Bryan still talking in whispers. Well, he had things he could talk about, too.
“Nothing much happening, huh, Studs?” Pat said.
“No, Pat.”
“Same here, Studs.”
He sat for a while.
“Guess I’ll be going home and turning in,” Studs yawned.
He arose, paid his bill, waved a final so-long, left the restaurant.
He walked home feeling pretty good.
Chapter Twelve
I
STUDS walked slowly to the center of the Bryn Mawr station platform, eyeing the scattering of people who waited for a downtown train. He hoped that some of these people would notice him and think that here was a fellow who didn’t have to get up early to go to work but had time to himself. He stopped near the small waiting-room and dramatically stuck his hands in his trouser pockets.
“What else can I do? If our roles were reversed wouldn’t he drive me into bankruptcy? He says it’s not his fault. Well, is it my fault? So he’s got until next Monday to pay up or my lawyer institutes bankruptcy proceedings,” a stout, puffy-cheeked man said to a friend as they stood a few feet from Studs.
Tough tiddy for someone there, Studs thought. Anyway, over the telephone, Catherine’s voice had sounded sweet