Studs Lonigan (69 page)

“That Jew moocher,” sneered Studs.

“Yeah,” said Slug.

“Say, he's the kind, his kind, that sold out Wabash Avenue to the niggers. If it wasn't for the Jews, this would be a better neighborhood than it is. But anyway, with the new church, it will pick up,” said Red.

“I know my old man is beginning to wonder if he ought to sell his building after all, and clear out,” said Studs.

“Well, I tell you, once the kikes get in a neighborhood, it's all over,” said Red with unanswerable argument.

Davey Cohen bummed a dime off Joe Coady. He hung on Joe's neck talking, telling him about bumming, about anything, just to talk. Joe finally blew. Davey could see that he'd bored Joe. He suddenly hated Coady. Joe was only a punk. Once he'd been only that, and Davey'd been one of the big guys, and one of the toughest of the tough—well, he had—around the corner. Now, he was a little runt, cadging nickels and dimes off kids he'd formerly protected and been a hero to. He hoped, Jesus, some day—But it was pretty much crap to hope. He felt convinced that he had that pain back in the chest. He stopped in the Greek Restaurant for coffee.

Christy, the waiter, was at the last seat by the counter, writing, with a book at his side. He came forwards, and said hello. Davey got a cup of coffee.

“Gee, I wish I was back in California,” Davey remarked, putting sugar in the coffee, and stirring it.

Christy said that he'd gone to an American high school out on the coast.

“I like the climate. Jesus, it's a grand place,” Davey said, wishing pathetically that he were there, forgetting that when he had been on his uppers in Los Angeles, he'd wished that he'd been in Chicago.

“It's nice out there,” Christy said.

Christy was a tall, heavy-set, full-faced Greek in his forties. His hair was thinned out, and there was a bald spot on his head.

“The broads out there, they're thick as flies around a garbage can, and they're all like rabbits. Say, that place is paradise for a guy if he's got a little jack,” Davey said.

“That's the movies,” Christy said.

“Plenty of them are hot, nice.”

“I know girls go there. They want to be like . . . like Mary Pickford. They are poor girls, no money. They get no jobs. They become what . . . whores. Yes,” Christy said.

“I know it. Say, there's girls like that all right out there. They'll go the limit, do anything a guy wants for a meal. There's girls like that in any big town.”

“It's this country, capitalism.”

“I know how it feels to be out of work, in a strange town, stony,” said Davey reflectively, taking a sip of coffee.

“And in Los Angeles, they have fanatics. Christians,” said Christy.

“Sure. All kinds of bugs. There's more fake saviors there than any place in the world.”

“Christians. Love your neighbor as yourself. Christians,” sneered Pete.

“And what the hell did they do to get their God but steal him from the Jews,” laughed Davey.

“And the Catholic Church. Yes. It has perverted the great philosophy of Aristotle.”

“I don't like the Catholics none. They're hypocrites and idolators,” said Davey.

“Jesus, He was great. Great man like Lenin and Savonarola and Socrates. Christians, they drag him in the mud. They don't love Jesus, or follow his example. They are afraid. They have a God of fear. That's religion . . . fear.”

“The Irish made a shanty Irishman out of Christ,” Davey said.

“Yes, Jesus was a noble man. The Christians, Catholics, they put him in a sink of superstition.”

“Yeah, Christy,” said Davey, kind of agreeing with him, feeling that agreement got him even with the Irish bastards like Lonigan and Kelly.

“And America, this great country. It's all cheap journalism, selling. Everything is sell, and what do people get. Things they can't use. Automobiles. Radios. Cheap clothes. The capitalists kill workers, pay them starvation wages, and why? To sell all these things, junk. America was a good country. It isn't now. America is capitalism. It bleeds the world.”

Davey didn't know what to say. Maybe he agreed. Goddamn it, people didn't need as much as they had, when others, now himself, had to go without things, be sick, possibly die from want of care.

“America is a country for the parvenu rich man. No art, it's all journalism. America, you have one poet, you don't know him.”

“Who's that? Longfellow?”

“Whitman. I'm translating him for my countrymen to read. Perhaps they will appreciate his greatness more than his own countrymen.”

“Christy, what do you think of that German-Jewish poet, Heine?”

“A great spirit too, like Nietzsche. He was a great spirit, a great lyric poet.”

“But wasn't Nietzsche pretty much of an anarchist?”

“Nietzsche was a great genius. Too great for people like Americans with Sinclair Lewis and all their journalism,” said Christy.

Christy waited on another customer. Then, Davey told about how he had picked up the book of Heine when he was on the bum, and how much he'd liked it.

“Yes, he was a fine lyric poet.”

“You know, Christy, I like to talk with you, because, you know, hell, I never got a break. It makes me think there are things in life after all,” Davey said, sentimentally.

“Yes, but the fine things in life, they are obscured in America because of greed. In America you have greed, capitalism. There are, boy, two countries in the world. Greece and Russia. Greece is the world's past, Russia the future of the world.

“You know, I wonder. Look now at all the things about Russia you read in the newspaper.”

“Don't believe the newspaper, American journalism. That's the trouble with Americans. They believe the newspaper lies all the time. The newspaper is an American's Bible.”

“The papers are pretty yellow.”

“You want to read, read Plato's Republic. That's what Russia is going to become, maybe. A government and land of justice.”

“Well, maybe bolshevism is not so bad as it seems,” said Davey.

“Bolshevism is going to be justice for the workingman. He will no longer be a slave, work ten, twelve hours a day and have his children starved and underfed. He will have opportunities. Bolshevism will not allow greed, not allow capitalists to steal all the money to crush people, kill them in wars, to waste their toil on jewelry for silly women and silly wives. Russia is trying to make a decent world. America is trying to make a world for greed, capitalists, crooks, gangsters, criminals, and kill the workingman, make him a slave.”

Davey sipped his coffee. He liked Christy, and maybe some of the things Christy said were true, but, hell, Christy was a Greek. He didn't get the idea about America right.

“In America what have you got? . . . politicians. Crooks and liars. You have that man in this city, Gorman, running for judge. What does he know of . . . justice? A noble word, and you make it like a whore in America.”

“I guess Gorman is a shyster, but all the boys around here are for him.”

“Yes, what do they know? Silly boys. They have no education. They go to school to the sisters.” (Christy folded his arms, and made a face of mock piety.) “Sisters, sanctimonious hypocrites. They pray and pray and pray. Fear! Crazy! What can they teach boys? To pray and become sanctimonious hypocrites too. Silly boys, they grow up, their fathers want to make money, their mothers are silly women and pray like the sanctimonious sisters, hypocrites. The boys run the streets, and grow up in poolrooms, drink and become hooligans. They don't know any better. Silly boys, and they kill themselves with diseases from whores and this gin they drink.”

Studs came in.

“Or else they are sent to the capitalist war and they get killed, for what? Like the last war, they get killed to make more money for Morgan and the bankers.”

Studs looked quizzically at Christy.

“Why did America fight? Because of money, money for Morgan and the capitalists. Why, even the Kaiser in Germany, he had a better government, better laws for the workingman than America.”

“I guess the war was for money all right, but I think Wilson was a great man, the greatest American we ever had.”

“Why, then, did he want war to save the bankers, and why did he keep Debs in jail?” asked Christy.

“Who's he?” Studs asked.

“He was a great man,” said Christy.

“He was a socialist,” said Davey.

“Oh, he was against religion and the home,” said Studs.

“How come the boys aren't back?” Davey asked.

“Oh, they went drinking beer after the show. I thought I'd go home for a change. Jesus, I've been hitting the bottle too goddamn heavy lately,” said Studs.

Davey hoped Studs hadn't heard much of the talk. He didn't want them to think him completely cracked.

Christy looked at them, two boys. He went back to work on his translation of Whitman into Greek.

“What the hell was that goddamn Greek talking about?” asked Studs.

“Oh, lots of things. He's radical,” Davey said in a very low voice.

“Well, if he doesn't like this country why don't he go back to Greece or Russia?” asked Studs.

“He's a nice fellow, a white Greek. Only he's a little bit radical. He's a poet,” said Davey.

“For Christ sake! I suppose he writes about the birdies and the stars, and my heart in love,” sneered Studs.

A song of several years back jingled in Studs' mind, Don't Bite the
Hand
That's
Feeding You . . .
The first line kept returning to him:

The song hit the nail square. Studs had an image of Uncle Sammy in his brain, tall, thin, angular, kindly, a trifle bucolic, but with powerful Abe Lincoln or Slug Mason mitts. He had a picture of him steady in his mind, this thin, tall, kindly, bearded man in red, white and blue clothes, his eyes sad with sorrow caused by the ingratitude of all the foreigners who had come over here and been ungrateful to him. But he was a powerful man. He had licked the Kaiser and he could lick the world. It made Studs feel like saying to Christy:

“Why, you lousy Greek sonofabitch, get the hell out of a white man's country.”

“Say, is that Greek an American citizen?” asked Studs.

“Yeah,” said Davey.

“A hell of a lot of nerve he had, being an American,” said Studs.

He had that image of Uncle Sam again, and it made him think of how, as a kid, he had used to see cartoons with Uncle Sam in them in the newspapers, and he used to wish that Uncle Sam was a real man, the same to America as God was to the world. It made him wish that again, and wishing that, he was wishing he was a kid again. He had a heartburn. He felt his stomach. Getting more and more of an alderman. He felt rotten. He wasn't sleeping so well, and some days, he got all pooped out at three or four o'clock.

“Say, remember the fun we used to have as kids?” he said to Davey.

“Yeah. It was the nuts. Jesus, wouldn't it be swell to be like that again, no responsibilities. Remember the time you licked Red Kelly?” said Davey.

“Yeah, and Paulie had that trouble in the piggy game with that punk, what was his name?”

“Young Dennis,” said Davey.

“That was it.”

“And I remember the day you licked Weary Reilley. That was a battle,” said Davey.

“Were you there? I didn't think you were,” said Studs.

“Yeah. In front of Helen Shires' house. Sure I was,” said Davey.

“I didn't remember you there. But that was a fight, the hardest fight I ever had,” said Studs.

“Say, Studs, could you stand me to another cup of coffee?” Davey asked.

“Sure.”

Davey got the coffee. He asked Studs if a piece of pie would be all right, too. Studs said yes. He was thinking of the old days.

When Davey finished, they went outside. Hink Weber was on the corner, and he had a wandering look about him. Davey rushed up to Hink, put out his hand, and said hello. Hink didn't notice him.

“Hello, Hink!” said Studs, more ordinarily, feeling a sense of triumph that Hink had not batted an eye when the Jew had tried to put the rush act on him. Hink scarcely raised an eyebrow, but did not speak. He walked on, like a somnambulist.

“Jesus Christ!”

“Say, what the hell, Hink never used to be high hat like this, did he?” asked Davey.

“No. Jesus, he looked queer tonight.”

“Yeah, he looked awfully strange. Did you catch that look in his eyes?” asked Davey.

“Yeah.”

“I wonder was he drunk.”

“He didn't look drunk to me. He looked crazy,” said Studs.

“Jesus!” exclaimed Davey.

“He's been acting queer of late,” said Studs.

“Yeah,” said Davey knowingly.

“He hasn't been around much of late, but when he has, he's been acting sort of far away,” said Studs.

“That's too bad, all right,” said Davey.

“I'm sorry, all right,” said Studs.

“Me too,” said Davey.

Studs had gas on his stomach from the coffee an'. He knew now he wouldn't sleep. It worried him.

“Well, I guess I'll be moving along,” he said.

“So long.”

“Poor Hink!”

“Poor Hink!”

“Say, I just thought: we oughtn't to say anything about it, huh?” said Studs.

“I guess so.”