Young Lonigan - James T. Farrell [42]
“I don’t like basketball so well,” he said, grinning weakly.
“You will after you learn the game,” she answered, dribbling back.
She dribbled again, and Studs, with a chance swing of the right arm, batted the ball out into the street. He changed his wish, and covertly side-glanced at the Scanlan window. Helen complimented him on his good guarding.
It was his turn. He came forward, awkward, clumsier than usual because he tried to show form. He bounced the ball too hard and too high, and he was slowed down. He lost control of the ball before he reached her, and it bounded onto the grass.
It was good he was only pretending that Lucy watched him. They kept dribbling, and she kept making him look sick. She was having a better time than he, because she could do the thing, and she could get the satisfaction one gets out of doing a thing right. But he stuck on.
Once when they paused, she said:
“You ought to make the football team at Loyola.”
“I’d like to,” he said.
“You will,” she said.
They talked for a while, and resumed dribbling. She dribbled and he guarded. He took a turn, and she snatched the ball from him, pivoted gracefully, and dribbled down the other way. They alternated, and he kept side-glancing at the Scanlan window.
After a half-hour, they were both a little fagged, and they sat on Helen’s front steps.
“Say, Studs, there’s a can house around on Fifty-seventh Street,” she said.
“There is?”
“Yeh.”
“You sure?”
“Sure! Paulie Haggerty was around the other day, and he told me about it, and I went and looked the other night, and saw a lot of cars parked there and a lot of men enterin’ and leavin’. One guy even wore a silk hat.”
“Whereabouts was it?”
“The flat building on the other side of the alley on Fifty-seventh. It’s on the first floor,” said she.
“The red one where we climbed on the front porch that afternoon when it was rainin’ and shot craps?” he asked.
“No. Next door to it,” she said.
“We’ll all go round there some night and look in,” said Studs.
“All right,” said Helen.
“Say, Weary hasn’t been around. I wonder if he’s workin’?” said Studs.
“I don’t like him,” she said.
“I don’t care so much for him,” Studs said.
“He’s too fresh,” she said.
“Yeh?”
“Yeh, he’s too darn fresh.”
“Why?”
“Well, he tries to take liberties with girls. You know what he tried to do to me, don’t you?”
“No?”
“Well, one day he asked me to let him see my kid sister’s playhouse in the back, and I did. Then he went and tried ... well, you know what he wanted to do to me, and I wouldn’t let him. I don’t care to do that sort of thing. I like to play with fellahs because, generally, they’re fellahs like you an’ Dan and Tubby, and they’re square and decent, and not rats like those guys from Fifty-eighth Street, or like Weary Reilley, and they’re not fussy and babyish, like girls. Girls are always tattling, and squealing, and snitching, and I can’t stand them. With decent guys, you can be . . . well, you can be yourself. Anyway, he tried to do that to me, and I wouldn’t let him. He kept arguin’ with me, and grabbin’ me, and I wouldn’t let him fool around and have a feel-day, so he lost his temper like he always does, and he got sore as blazes, and I was afraid, so I rushed out. He tried to get me to come back, and said he was only foolin’ and he didn’t mean anything, and all that sort of bull. But I didn’t fall for it, so he left me, sore as blazes, and sayin’ he’d get me some time.”
“I never knew that,” Studs said.
“Well, he did. I don’t like him; I hate him, the skunk; he’s a bastard,” she said.
“I don’t care so much for him, either. But you got to give him credit for being a damn good scrapper. He ain’t yellow.”
“You can fight him, can’t you?”
“I’m not afraid of him,” Studs said.
“Sure, you can lick him,” she said.
“Well, I never backed out of a fight with him,” Studs said.
“Say, let’s get a soda,” Helen suggested.
“I’m broke,” Studs said.
“I’ll treat,” she said.
They walked down to Levin’s drug store at the corner of Fifty-eighth and Indiana and they had double chocolate sodas; they sipped with their spoons,