Young Lonigan - James T. Farrell [408]
“Gee, I’m sorry to hear that. Know what he’s doing?”
“No.”
“I’d like to see him. Good old Dan,” Studs said.
“Dan’s a fine fellow, and smart, too.”
“Seen Phil’s place since he fixed it up?”
“Have I!” Carroll smiled. “It looks like a movie set in a penthouse picture. But it was smart. It cost Phil plenty, but he’ll get it back in time. Phil has a smart head on his shoulders.”
“Well, people, I think we’d better be running along,” Catherine said.
“And Catherine, darling, make him watch himself. See you on Wednesday,” Fran said after the girls had kissed.
They parted. Studs felt very weak, and walked slowly, thinking of how healthy Carroll had looked.
“Carroll looks like he’s up in the bucks, all right. But then his brother married the niece of Judge Joe O’Reilly, and Carroll and Judge O’Reilly’s nephew, Tommy O’Reilly, get all the business Joe O’Reilly used to have before he was elected. They ought to be getting along.”
“Yes,” Catherine said moodily.
“What’s the matter, Kid?”
“Your sister, I’m afraid she thinks I’m responsible for your health. And then we have to meet them now when naturally you’d look pale.”
“No, she doesn’t. She knows me from old.”
“Well, I think she does. And maybe that’s how your whole family thinks.”
“It’s not. And anyway, you’re marrying me, not my family.”
“You don’t understand,” she said in a choked voice.
“Come on, Kid, snap out of it,” he said gently, taking her arm. “We won’t have to worry. The breaks are going to start coming our way now. You watch. A girl like you couldn’t bring me anything but good luck.”
“Bill, darling, I love you so.”
Studs, because of his heart attack, had the feeling of being divorced from life and from the things that other people did. He was unsure of himself, and in his weakness asked himself would he be alive tomorrow, next week? He looked at people on the sidewalk, thinking that he didn’t know how long he would still be a part of all this. He saw himself as if Studs Lonigan was already limping with one foot over the grave. But no, he knew that he wouldn’t die. He knew that. He knew that he would pull through everything. Still, he could not shake away the feeling that he was cut off from life as if he was only half alive himself. He could not get it out of his head that soon he might die, and then all these strangers on Seventy-first Street would still be able to go out walking on sunny Sunday afternoons. He stopped, concerned about how he really felt. There was just a little weakness. These thoughts were only like a bad dream. He took Catherine’s arm firmly, as if he were masterful and confident in himself.
“I’m all right now.”
“Honest?”
“Uh huh!”
“We were having such a nice time at the beach, and I was so happy. And I still am. I know you’re going to take care of yourself, and I believe in you.”
A gray Stutz whirled toward them.
“Say, there’s a beaut of a car. Some day maybe we’ll be able to get one like it,” he said.
She smiled consolingly at him.
Chapter Sixteen
I
WHERE would he go to look for a job? And what would he say? And on such a lousy day.
Studs glanced out the window of the moving Illinois Central suburban train and saw the rain beating down on Seventy-first Street. He turned over the pages of the newspaper, and his eyes hit on the column of advice to the lovelorn. Should the girl, who signed herself Terribly Puzzled, go out with a young man to whom she had never been properly introduced? Jesus, she had a tough problem on her mind, he thought ironically. If the gal asked him, he’d just tell her to find out how much dough the lad had.
In just two weeks now, he would be married. And who ever would have thought that Studs Lonigan would be up the creek the way he was when he was getting married? He had to get a job, too, because even if the old man could let him work every day, there were the doctor’s orders. With his heart, he couldn