Young Lonigan - James T. Farrell [465]
You’re small fry, brother, Red Kelly said, walking . . . leaving Studs alone and sad and envious as he crawled slowly with lowered head. . . .
In pain, Studs Lonigan sensed mistiness, and in this mistiness terror and danger. He sensed a sickness through a surrounding layer of this grayish blue mistiness, as if it were to attack him, to transport its danger from outside him to his body, his mind, his soul. He knew he was sick, his soul was sick, and the world was unhappy, and he was unhappy, and he was standing in it alone. If only he could hear a voice. If only he could see someone. If only he could see Lucy. Hear Lucy. Speak to Lucy. Or if not Lucy, then Catherine. Yes, Catherine. Now he remembered. He had loved Lucy, and he had loved Catherine. He had loved and laid Catherine, and she had said to him, Studs jazz me when you want me, any time, anywhere, any place . . . he had led her into sin, and the sin black on her soul was blacker on his own soul, and now he was . . . and sick in a sick world, unhappy in an unhappy world, sinful in a world of black sin, and around him there was mist, mist and no one, no voice, no voice of . . . no voice from Lucy, from Catherine, from friends or enemies, or angels.
He sat down. He was too sick and too fatigued. . . .
And Studs Lonigan understood. Clarity came to him, and the voice of his conscience said to him:
Die, goddamn you, die, die like a dog. Die, you Lonigan louse, die like a mangy dog.
He sat there, looking from right to left, forward and behind him, his face distorted with terror and fear, and he knew something was happening to him. He sat there.
He took mist in his hands, and formed it, and he realized, in terror and abjectness, that he was Antichrist. Antichrist Lonigan arose. He was afraid and knew that he was sinning, and he heard from beyond the mist the powerful voice of God.
I am the Lord thy God, and thou shalt not have graven images before Me!
He knew he must not defy God, and Antichrist Lonigan was forced to defy God. He was compelled to stand up as the rival of God. He held the mist in his hands, and he said:
. . . there be a sinful black world of orangemen . . . . . . saw the mist spread . . . . . . before him there was a . . . . . . urine at his feet, and blessed himself lefthanded, and then, over the world, with his left hand, he spread the filthy holy water of his own urine, and said:
As Antichrist I say, let there be sin. Let there be birds and beasts, and flowers, and trees, and let there be males, and let there be females, and let the males be like tomcats, and let the females be like she bitch dogs, and let them jazz morning and noon and night, and let them jazz until their sin rises to heaven in a great and powerful stink like that of the Chicago stockyards.
And Antichrist on the fifth Sunday of February after Pentecost went on into the world of his own sinful creation, and Antichrist Lonigan walked among . . . cities, and over the plains, and across the mountains and down into the seas, and on the waters that were his own urine, and everywhere, among the birds and among the bees, and among the fishes, and . . . and cows, and cats, and men and women, he went, jazzing, and he said, everywhere he went:
Let Heaven stink with the jazzing of my own . . .
. . . stink rose from the world of . . .
. . . the duty of leading his people in sin, and he jazzed in the mountains, and in the valleys, in the hills and in the dales, in the cities and in the villages, towns and hamlets, and on the plains, and the plateaus, and on the oceans, and he jazzed the fishes and the beasts of the fields, and the birds of the air, and he jazzed Lucy Scanlan, and he jazzed his sisters and his mother and his cousin, and he jazzed Catherine, and he jazzed Helen Shires, and Helen Borax, and he jazzed the sister of Weary Reilley, and the sister of Lucy Scanlan, and the sister of Helen Shires, and he jazzed until . . . God could no longer stand the stockyard stench in His nostrils, and He turned his face away, and . . .
Amen, amen, verily I say unto you, I cannot