Young Lonigan - James T. Farrell [75]
Nate shuffled on, trying to light his pipe and talking to himself.
Percentage took Studs through the barber shop and back into the pool room to wash his hands. Studs said hello, casually, to Frank who always cut his hair; Frank was cutting the hair of some new guy in the neighborhood, who was reading the Police Gazette while Frank worked. The pool room was long and narrow; it was like a furnace, and its air was weighted with smoke. Three of the six tables were in use, and in the rear a group of lads sat around a card table, playing poker. The scene thrilled Studs, and he thought of the time he could come in and play pool and call Charley Bathcellar by his first name. He was elated as he washed his hands in the filthy lavatory.
He came out and saw that Barney was around. Barney was a bubblebellied, dark-haired, middle-aged guy. He looked like a politician, or something similarly important.
“Say, Barney, you think you’ll ever amount to much?” asked Barlowe.
“Sure, he’s something already,” said Swan.
“What?”
“He’s a hoisting engineer,” said Swan, who accompanied his statement with the appropriate drinking gesture.
“Yeh, he’s a first-class hoistin’ engineer,” said Emmet Kelly, one of Red’s brothers.
“He hoists down a barrel of beer a week, don’t you, Barney?” said Mickey O’Callaghan.
They laughed. Studs told himself that, goddamn it, they were funny all right.
“You two-bit wiseacres can mind your own business,” said Barney.
They all laughed.
“But, Barney, no foolin’ . . . I want to ask you a question in all sincerity,” said Percentage.
“Save the effort and don’t get a brainstorm, hebe,” said Barney.
“Why don’t you go to work?” asked Percentage.
“Times are hard, jobs are scarce and good men is plentiful,” said Barney.
They all laughed.
“Well, anyway, Barney, did you get yer beers last Sunday?” asked Weber.
“Listen, brother! Them Sunday blue laws don’t mean nothin’ to me,” said Barney.
“Nope, I guess you’d get your beer even if the Suffragettes put Prohibition down our necks,” said Pat Coady.
“Why, hell! I seen him over in Duffy’s saloon last Sunday, soppin’ up the beers like there was no law against buyin’ drinks on Sunday. He was drinkin’ so much, I thought he was gonna get his false teeth drowned in beer,” Barlowe said, and they all laughed.
Studs noticed the people passing. Some of them were fat guys and they had the same sleepy look his old man always had when he went for a walk.... Those old dopey-looking guys must envy the gang here, young and free like they were. Old Izzy Hersch, the consumptive, went by. He looked yellow and almost like a ghost; he ran the delicatessen-bakery down next to Morty Ascher’s tailor shop near the corner of Calumet, but nobody bought anything from him because he had the con, and anyway you were liable to get cockroaches or mice in anything you bought. Izzy looked like he was going to have a funeral in his honor any one of these days. Studs felt that Izzy must envy these guys. They were young and strong, and they were the real stuff; and it wouldn’t be long before he’d be one of them and then he’d be the real stuff.
Suddenly he thought of death. He didn’t know why. Death just came into his thoughts, dripping black night-gloom. Death