Young Lonigan - James T. Farrell [38]
Dirty thoughts rushed to his head like hot blood. He told himself he was a bastard because . . . she was his sister.
“I don’t know,” he said, confused.
“You think maybe they did something bad, and it was fun?”
He shrugged his shoulders and looked out the window so she couldn’t see his face.
“I feel funny,” she said.
He hadn’t better say anything to her, because she’d snitch and give him away.
“I want to do something . . . They’re all in bed. Let’s us play leap frog, you know that game that boys play where one bends down, and the others jump over him?” she said.
“We’ll make too much noise.”
“Do you really think that Weary and Helen did anything that might be fun?” she asked.
She got up, and walked nervously around the room. She plunked down on the piano stool, and part of her leg showed.
He looked out the window. He looked back. They sat. She fidgeted and couldn’t sit still. She got up and ran out of the room. He sat there. He must be a bastard . . . she was his sister.
He looked out the window. He wondered what it was like; he was getting old enough to find out.
He got up. He looked at himself in the mirror. He shadow-boxed, and thought of Lucy. He thought of Fran. He squinted at himself in the mirror.
He turned the light out and started down the hallway. Fran called him. She was lying in bed without the sheets over her.
“It’s hot here. Awful hot. Please put the window up higher.”
“It’s as high as it’ll go.”
“I thought it wasn’t.”
He looked at Fran. He couldn’t help it.
“And please get me some real cold water.”
He got the water. It wasn’t cold enough. She asked him to let the water run more. He did. He handed the water to her. As she rose to drink, she bumped her small breast against him.
She drank the water. He started out of the room. She called him to get her handkerchief.
“I’m not at all tired,” she said.
He left, thinking what a bastard he must be.
He went to the bathroom.
Kneeling down at his bedside, he tried to make a perfect act of contrition to wash his soul from sin.
He heard the wind, and was afraid that God might punish him, make him die in the night. He had found out he was old enough, but ... his soul was black with sin. He lay in bed, worried, suffering, and he tossed into a slow, troubled sleep.
SECTION TWO
Chapter Three
I
STUDS awoke to stare sleepily at a June morning that crashed through his bedroom window. The world outside the window was all shine and shimmer. Just looking at it made Studs glad that he was alive. And it was only the end of June. He still had July and August. And this was one of those days when he would feel swell; one of his days. He drowsed in bed, and glanced out to watch the sun scatter over the yard. He watched a tomcat slink along the fence ledge; he stared at the spot he had newly boarded so that his old man wouldn’t yelp about loose boards; he looked about at the patches in the grass that Martin and his gang had worn down playing their cowboy and Indian games. There was something about the things he watched that seemed to enter Studs as sun entered a field of grass; and as he watched, he felt that the things he saw were part of himself, and he felt as good as if he were warm sunlight; he was all glad to be living, and to be Studs Lonigan. Because when he came to think of it, living had been pretty good since he had graduated. Every morning he could lie in bed if he wanted to, or else he could hop up and go over and goof around Indiana Avenue and see the guys and . . . Lucy.
He reclined in bed and thought about looking for a job; he did this almost every morning, and usually he had good intentions. Then he would start pretending, as if his good intentions had been carried out and he was working, earning his own living, and independent, so that his old man couldn’t boss him. But every morning he would forget his good intentions before he got out of bed. And a morning like this was too nice a one to be wasted going downtown and trying to find a job, and maybe not finding it; and anyway, it was a little late, and most of the