Studs Lonigan (62 page)

“WHY,
Marty O'Brien, how are you?” Patrick Lonigan asked, seeing Mr. O'Brien in front of church after ten o'clock mass. Mrs. Lonigan and Mrs. O'Brien greeted each other.

STUDS observed that the Scanlans had a lamp in every corner, floor-lamps, table-lamps and lamps on the piano. The parlor contained so much furniture that it seemed over-crowded. He wanted to light a cigarette but restrained himself for fear that he might spill ashes. He looked at a rose-green pottery lamp set on the table near the heavy blue velvet drapes. He moved over to sit on a large overstuffed davenport that was upholstered in dark blue velour. He touched it, studied it. The Scanlans must have spent more dough than the old man on furniture. They'd always been well off, but the old man wasn't tight. He'd been awfully decent, too, slipping him a ten-dollar bill just before he had left to come out here and call for Lucy. He looked about the parlor again, wishing that Lucy would shake a leg. Doggy house all right! Mrs. Scanlan entered. Studs jumped to his feet, smiled, and asked her how she was, simultaneous actions performed with the feeling that he knew the book of etiquette by heart, and the determination that he was going to carry the evening off. Mrs. Scanlan shook hands with him. He saw that she had changed, and it made him feel a little bit sorry. She was gray, and much stouter, and she didn't seem to have any pep. When she commented on how pleased she was to see him, and on what a fine young man he had grown up to be, it seemed almost as if it was only a tired voice without any body behind it. She sat down. He sat down after her. She asked if his mother and dad were well, and he said they were. It was hard trying to talk to her. But all girls were the same, didn't care how long they made a guy wait. Thought it was their privilege. Fran and even Loretta were that way. It was hard to think of anything to say to Mrs. Scanlan. He hoped Lucy would hurry up.

“Lord have mercy on me, I suppose I wouldn't even recognize the old place, if I was to go back there now. Five years is a long time, the way the world does change nowadays,” Mrs. Scanlan droned monotonously.

“It hasn't changed so awfully much. Some of the old people, like the O'Briens, have moved away, but many of them are still in the parish.”

“Have the Shires sold their house yet?”

“No.”

“Ah, they were fine people, even if they were on the other side of the fence. What I always said to my girls, and what I still say, is that if many Catholics lived as upright lives as the Shires family did, they would need have no fear of meeting their Maker on the Day of Judgment. That oldest girl, Helen, she was a bit of a wild one, but a fine, decent girl. I suppose now she's settled down.”

“Yes, she's working downtown,” Studs said.

“My Helen was saying she saw the O'Brien boy downtown, and he was saying the niggers were getting in there. Isn't it a shame?”

“There's some on Wabash Avenue. That's why my father sold his building, and got one on Michigan. But they won't get any farther. Father thinks property values will go up and the property will be worth a lot more after Father Gilhooley builds the new Church.”

“You know, William, I never felt the same about any place I've lived in as I did about our home on Indiana. I wouldn't have sold it only for the girls. That neighborhood, there, it was just like home. I lived in it for over twenty years, and raised my family and buried my husband from it. But after he died, I did feel kind of sad like he was always coming back, and I felt it was bad luck to stay living in a house when one of yours has died in it. I've always heard that said.”

Studs smoothed his hair back. He wanted to look groomed when Lucy walked in.

“Your sister, Loretta, the one that always played with my Helen, she must be a grown girl now, too. I can remember when they were just tots together, and my Helen had such long red curls. I used to braid her hair every morning. But you know, my Helen, she had scarlet fever, and they had to cut off every inch of that lovely hair, and it's never grown back like it used to be. It's bobbed now. Loretta, she must be the young lady, and the youngest boy—what was his name?—he must be a big strapping lad too. My, my, how time flies.”

“Martin, you mean, he's a little bit taller than I am,” Studs said.

“Well, life is strange. . . but here's my Lucy now.”

“Well, well, so we meet again. How are you, Studs?”

Studs arose and smiled sheepishly as he shook hands with her. His old feelings arose so strongly that he saw her as through a mist. No use kidding himself, his feelings hadn't changed a bit. He'd always like Lucy.

“You haven't changed a bit,” she said, standing before him, with a self-possession that dismayed him and aroused envy.

“You have. You look even sweller than you used to,” he gulped.

“I'm wrong. You have changed. You've picked up the blarney,” she said, smiling and pointing a finger at him in the old teasing manner.

He was only gradually able to see the attractive, sweetly plump young woman before him. He perceived the same devilishness in her eyes. He noticed how her lips and cheeks were still red. And she knew how to dress.

She wore a green crepe, low-waisted dress, the semi-f blouse forming a broad, tight band around her hips; and the skirt fell about three inches below the knee. The ensemble effect was flaring and there were silver rose-buds on the shoulder straps, which were matched by high-heeled silver pumps.

“No kidding, you do look swell!” he said with embarrassment.

“Enough of that, now,” she said in a tone which was almost maternal.

“You know, it seems only like yesterday that you two were only children. Now you're a grown up young man and young woman. Ah, 'tis strange, life,” the mother said.

Studs came out of a feeling of paralysis sufficiently to suggest that maybe he'd better call a taxi. She said they could pick one up outside.

“You know, Lucy, I'm right. William does take after his father. All of the children, except maybe the youngster, what's his name, do,” Mrs. Scanlan said, studying Studs.

“Oh, mother!” Lucy said impatiently.

The mother's face dropped. Lucy got her wrap, a large square silver and gold cloth shawl with black thread through it and bordered in white fox. She threw it over her shoulders. She looked like a knockout. The mother muttered maternal benedictions upon them as they left.

“Poor mother,” said Lucy as they walked along a street of apartment buildings, toward Sheridan Road. They heard a Victrola record from an open window, and Lucy started snapping her fingers, and singing:

It was like a picture that Studs wanted never to forget. The warm spring evening, the promise it offered to him, a mist in the lush air, Sheridan Road ahead, with traffic lights, people crossing the street, automobiles going by, the Victrola, Lucy singing, so pretty that he wanted to look at her, touch her, kiss her, love her, take her arm, say something to her of what it all meant, and of how all along he had really wanted nothing like he had wanted her. And he couldn't say anything, because it all stopped him. He guessed that when you felt like he did, you just had too many feelings to tell them to anybody. And it made him feel like a louse, him still not completely cured from the dose that little bitch from Nolan's had given him, taking Lucy out when he had a dirty disease. He wasn't at all worthy of her. He felt as if he wanted to crawl before her on his hands and knees, and kiss the hem of her dress.

“Poor mother, she's never been happy since we've moved,” Lucy said.

“My folks like the old neighborhood. I suppose they would feel the same as your mother if they left it.”

“How about you?” she said, looking at him as if she could see through his mind.

“One place to sleep is as good as another,” he said, indifferently shrugging his shoulders.

“Cynical,” she said in a dismaying tone.

He haled a Yellow Cab on Sheridan Road, and helped her in, the mere touching of her arm affecting him like electricity. He tried to give directions in an assured and suave manner and felt like a clown. He sat beside her, liking the perfume smell, and the clean new smell of her clothes.

“You know we sold our building and moved over to Michigan. There's niggers on Wabash now,” he said, trying to make conversation.

“Yes, isn't it awful . . . those niggers.”

“I suppose there'll have to be more race riots to put them where they belong,” he said.

“That would be just perfectly horrible . . . but exciting.”

They became silent as the cab rolled along. The silence grew upon Studs. He guessed he better talk, not give her reason to think that he was so damn dumb that he couldn't even open his mouth.

“The O'Briens and some of the other old parishioners have moved out,” he said.

“Yes, I saw Johnny. He's made a frat that rates high at the University,” she said.

He glanced out of the window at the lake in the spring night. He looked at Lucy. He wanted to put his arm around her.

“You weren't at the last Zeta dance?” she asked.

“What?”

She repeated the question.

“No,” he muttered.

“You don't go to many dances?”

“Oh, once in a while.”

“I see Dan. He does a lot of stepping out when he's in town,” she said.

“I see Bill once in a while,” said Studs.

“Bill, he was so funny.”

“He still is.”

“Say, Studs, have you a cigarette?”

He gave her one and smoked himself. It put him more at ease. He edged an imperceptible inch towards her.

‟This is going to be a big dance.”

“Fran talked about it enough.”

“She works so hard for her sorority. I suppose Loretta will be there. She's gotten to be such a darling.”

“She's a good kid,” said Studs.

The bumping of the car pitched her against him. She stayed there. That perfume smell, and the smell of her clothes made him want to kiss her even more than he had been wanting to.

“With my sister and your sister grown up, I feel like the older generation,” Lucy said.

“Yeah,” he said.

He put his arm around her. He quickly and clumsily, on an impulse, kissed her.

“This is awfully public,” she calmly said, completely disturbing him.

He looked at her, her face now vague in the cab.

“You work fast,” she teased, pursing her lips as if she were waiting for another kiss. He kissed her again.

“You're fast,” she said.

He tried to hug her more tightly against his shoulder. She stiffened.

He seriously puffed at his cigarette. Remembering the afternoon in the park, in the tree, swinging her legs, himself looking through the leaves at the park lagoon, neither of them speaking, swinging their legs, her singing
The Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.
It couldn't have been so many years ago. It wasn't all gone. He wished she'd sing that song now.