Young Lonigan - James T. Farrell [416]
He entered a small, dim office and found six others waiting on a bench to the left of the door. Same thing all over again with a line ahead of him, he thought spiritlessly. What time did one have to get out to be first in following a lead for a job? Was it necessary to bring a tent along and camp outside the building all night? There was certainly something wrong between seeing the lineups for jobs and listening to Carroll Dowson tell how times weren’t so bad, the way he’d done last Sunday.
Studs timidly approached the flapper with thickly rouged lips, who sat before a typewriter at a desk in a corner. Shame came upon him, and his cheeks were hot. Coming here and going to this dame was admitting to her that he wanted a job, putting himself at a disadvantage because it was acknowledging a kind of failure.
“I saw your ad in this morning’s paper,” he began with attempted casualness.
“What’s the name?” she interrupted.
“Lonigan,” he answered, feeling as if the hostile eyes of those on the bench were boring into his back.
“Well, Mr. Lonergan, will you sit down and wait? Mr. Peters will see you just as soon as he gets through seeing those ahead of you.”
“Thanks,” he said, not bothering to correct her mispronunciation of his name.
He sat down at the edge of the stiff bench. He was wet and chilled. His trouser legs were soggy, and the rain had soaked through his shoes. He watched the girl at the desk chew gum as she typed rapidly. Hard and tough-looking baby, all right, the kind who knew what it was all about, he guessed.
“Nasty day,” the fellow beside him said.
“Damn rotten, and I’m soaked,” Studs replied, surprised.
He watched the stranger squeeze slimy bubbles of ooze from his shoes by pressing continually on the balls of his feet. Noticing the rip on the instep of the right shoe, he guessed that here was a guy who was plenty hard up, and he seemed at least forty, his face thin, wrinkles under the eyes, the cheeks sunken.
“Hell to be looking for something to do on a day like this,” the fellow said, revealing discolored teeth when he spoke.
“Damn right,” Studs said, telling himself that the fellow’s teeth gave him the willies, they looked so ugly.
“But then, these are hard times. I’ve been through other depressions, but none of them can match this one.”
“Yeah, times are tough,” Studs said, holding back the impulse to talk about his own troubles.
“Me, maybe I don’t look it, but I once was up in the class. I’m a college graduate. Michigan, and I’ve been up in the class. Maybe I don’t look it, but I was a ten-thousand-dollar-a-year man, and I had my money tucked neatly in the bank. And the bank failed. So here I am, holding the sack. But I’ll come back.”
Studs nodded agreement. The other went on, “Stranger, these are tough times. And don’t I know it! It’s quite a comedown from being a ten-thousand-dollar-a-year man to this, but I’ll come back.”
Studs saw clearly that this fellow was full of bull, but the guy had a good line anyway, ought to make a good salesman.
“You know it’s these rich louses who ruined the country. They want to take everything for themselves and leave nothing for anybody else. So all of us, even those like myself, who’ve been in the class, we’re just underdogs to them. But they can’t keep a man like myself down. I’m a college graduate, Missouri University, and I’ll get back in the class.”
“Well, I was getting