Young Lonigan - James T. Farrell [462]
“You’re coming here, you bastard, and these flames go up your brown,” the Devil with the face of Weary Reilley said.
Hell, give me a break. Fathers, forgive me for I have sinned. I’m heartily sorry. Hell, give me a break. Jesus Christ, give me a break and a drink. I’m dying, I’m dying, I’m burning, for Christ’s sake give me some water and put out the fire. I’m dying. Goddamn it! I’m dying.”
“Well, hurry up about it, you fatheaded slob . . . can’t wait all eternity for a measly bastard with a . . . damned soul like yours to die,” the Devil with the face of Weary Reilley called out to him.
“. . . you had the water of faith to . . .” Father Gilhooley said sternly, rubbing his bay front, just as he had comfortably rubbed it when he stood speaking on the stage that night in June 1916 when Studs Lonigan had graduated from St. Patrick’s grammar school.
“Drink some moonshine now, and be damned with it,” said Father Shannon.
Studs rubbed his hand across his sweating, heat-tortured brow. Looking at it, he saw blood and fear and horror again spread through him.
The Pope of Rome turned and pointed at the bleeding Sacred Heart of Jesus.
“Each drop of that precious blood is shed because of the mortal sin you committed with whores, William . . . son of Lonigan,” the Pope of Rome said.
“I didn’t know no better. Forgive me, give me absolution . . . must I die like a goddamn dog?”
“You sonofabitch, you ain’t begun to suffer yet,” the Devil with the face of Weary Reilley said.
“Suffer little louse to come unto me and I will burn thee in the fires of Hell and damnation,” said Father Shannon, and brimstone, like firecrackers, shot up from the fires of Hell and fell all around the burning bare feet of Studs Lonigan.
He fell on his knees and cried.
Drink. A drink of water. For Christ’s sake give me a drink of water.
The Pope of Rome came forward and placed a bottle of fire to the lips of kneeling Studs Lonigan, and poured liquid fire down his throat, the fire burning a path into his stomach, and Studs Lonigan let out a terrified yell.
Mrs. Lonigan rushed into the bedroom and looked at the tossing, fire-burned, sick and wasting body of her son, and amidst a dribble of inarticulate sounds and disconnected words, he emitted a weak and painful cry. She screamed, and shouted:
“He’s dying.”
The nurse came over to Studs’s bed; wiping his face with a wet cloth. She turned.
“He’s in a very critical condition, and he is in a restless coma. His fever is very high too,” the nurse said.
Fighting back tears and sniffling, the mother looked down at her son, unable to hold back her tears any more. They ran hot down her cheeks.
“I’ll call the doctor,” the nurse said.
II
Lonigan sat drunk by the kitchen table. He hiccupped. He put his head down and cried like a baby. He got up and told himself, Paddy, buck up and be a man. Then he walked unsteadily to the stove, and lit the gas under the coffee pot. He staggered and looked down at it and at the gas flame.
He turned from the coffee pot and walked to the cupboard, drew out a cup and saucer, and set it on the table. Then he sat down at the table, looking at the cup and saucer.
Buck up Paddy, be a man, brace yourself, Paddy, my boy.
My son is dying.
He lowered his head on the table, thinking that he might close his eyes a minute while the coffee heated. He raised his head. Stupefied, he thought dully of himself as a ruined man, and of his son on his deathbed. Any minute Bill would die. He had a sense of there being so many things that might have been averted but that now it was too late! He looked at the clock on the window beyond the stove, acutely aware of the ticking of seconds in the quiet house, feeling that these ticking seconds meant the approach of a catastrophe. He looked at the clock hands that read a quarter to eight, and wished they would stop, that time would stop for a while. The ticking of these seconds, the slow change of the minute hand from notch to notch, was indissolubly tied up for him with the death of his son. He was tense, and stared evenly