Young Lonigan - James T. Farrell [463]
“Goodness, Patrick, what’s this? Is the house on fire?” Mrs. Lonigan exclaimed, rushing into the kitchen, making a face.
He looked up at her.
“What, Mary?” he asked vacantly.
She rushed to the stove and turned off the gas. He realized he had let the coffee pot burn and was aware of the smell in the kitchen. He looked at her like a guilty small boy, and immediately she thought of her dying son and saw in the abashed and guilty expression her son William in short pants after being caught in some domestic misadventure. She started to cry. Lonigan moved clumsily to her. Awkwardly he put his arms around her shoulder and drew her against him.
“Father,” she said in a moan.
“Now, Mary, we got to be brave, you and me, and face whatever the Lord gives us. I know it’s hard, but, Mary, now you and me, we’ve come through a lot together, and we’ve still got each other.” Her body shook as she cried against his shoulder. She seemed not to have heard what he had said.
He patted her back, stroked her hair. . . .
He had nothing to say, and he looked aside. He felt like crying too. She finally turned from him and busied herself with washing out the burned coffee pot. He stood helplessly by her side.
III
The white-garbed nurse looked down at the form of Studs Lonigan and smiled. He was resting easily now, and that was a hopeful sign. She sat back in her chair by the bedside and yawned. There was a tremor in the body on the bed, and she dropped into a snooze.
Studs lay on the bed, his body twitched. There was a twitch in his wasted face, a slight motion of a hand under the cover, the movement of his breathing beneath the sheet.
And Studs Lonigan walked along a strange street with a gun, and he said to himself:
Al Capone Lonigan.
He pulled the gun out and shot at a man on the opposite side of the street who looked like Weary Reilley. He calmly walked along, and three policemen intruded on him, looking like Bull MacNamara, the cop around Fifty-eighth Street. He pot-shotted them, and they dropped like felled logs.
Al Capone Lonigan.
He walked along, forgetting that he was Al Capone Lonigan. He thought to himself:
I’m Jack Dempsey Lonigan.
He was no longer walking along a street, but he was entering a ring with two million people looking on, and he was the heavyweight champion of the world, and across from him, seated in the ring, there were Jim Jeffries, Jack Johnson, Jess Willard, Jack Dempsey, Gene Tunney, and Jack Sharkey, and he thought it funny that he would be fighting six men. And he thought, could they all be fighting at the same time, when they were not of the same age and some were oldtimers? He turned to his handler and manager, Lucy Scanlan:
How come?
They’re fighting you. You can beat them. You can beat them because I have confidence in you, and I’ve always loved you.
He walked into the ring and he knocked. . . .
The nurse awakened and looked at him. He seemed to be resting, and again she heard him call out something in a feeble voice.
She felt his pulse and bent down to listen to his heart, and then sat down again by his bedside.
Studs Lonigan rode on a railroad train, thinking that Lucy would be in the next town and he would meet her. He had something to tell her and he forgot what it was, but he felt that if he saw her, he would remember all over again what he had to tell her. The train was drawing near to the city where he would see Lucy, but instead of stopping it gathered speed and shot right through. Studs