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  When I left the skating rink I felt sort of hungry, so I went in this drugstore and

  had a Swiss cheese sandwich and a malted, and then I went in a phone booth. I thought

  maybe I might give old Jane another buzz and see if she was home yet. I mean I had the

  whole evening free, and I thought I'd give her a buzz and, if she was home yet, take her

  dancing or something somewhere. I never danced with her or anything the whole time I

  knew her. I saw her dancing once, though. She looked like a very good dancer. It was at

  www.en8848.com

  

  this Fourth of July dance at the club. I didn't know her too well then, and I didn't think I

  ought to cut in on her date. She was dating this terrible guy, Al Pike, that went to Choate.

  I didn't know him too well, but he was always hanging around the swimming pool. He

  wore those white Lastex kind of swimming trunks, and he was always going off the high

  dive. He did the same lousy old half gainer all day long. It was the only dive he could do,

  but he thought he was very hot stuff. All muscles and no brains. Anyway, that's who Jane

  dated that night. I couldn't understand it. I swear I couldn't. After we started going around

  together, I asked her how come she could date a showoff bastard like Al Pike. Jane said

  he wasn't a show-off. She said he had an inferiority complex. She acted like she felt sorry

  for him or something, and she wasn't just putting it on. She meant it. It's a funny thing

  about girls. Every time you mention some guy that's strictly a bastard--very mean, or very

  conceited and all--and when you mention it to the girl, she'll tell you he has an inferiority

  complex. Maybe he has, but that still doesn't keep him from being a bastard, in my

  opinion. Girls. You never know what they're going to think. I once got this girl Roberta

  Walsh's roommate a date with a friend of mine. His name was Bob Robinson and he

  really had an inferiority complex. You could tell he was very ashamed of his parents and

  all, because they said "he don't" and "she don't" and stuff like that and they weren't very

  wealthy. But he wasn't a bastard or anything. He was a very nice guy. But this Roberta

  Walsh's roommate didn't like him at all. She told Roberta he was too conceited--and the

  reason she thought he was conceited was because he happened to mention to her that he

  was captain of the debating team. A little thing like that, and she thought he was

  conceited! The trouble with girls is, if they like a boy, no matter how big a bastard he is,

  they'll say he has an inferiority complex, and if they don't like him, no matter how nice a

  guy he is, or how big an inferiority complex he has, they'll say he's conceited. Even smart

  girls do it.

  Anyway, I gave old Jane a buzz again, but her phone didn't answer, so I had to

  hang up. Then I had to look through my address book to see who the hell might be

  available for the evening. The trouble was, though, my address book only has about three

  people in it. Jane, and this man, Mr. Antolini, that was my teacher at Elkton Hills, and my

  father's office number. I keep forgetting to put people's names in. So what I did finally, I

  gave old Carl Luce a buzz. He graduated from the Whooton School after I left. He was

  about three years older than I was, and I didn't like him too much, but he was one of these

  very intellectual guys-- he had the highest I.Q. of any boy at Whooton--and I thought he

  might want to have dinner with me somewhere and have a slightly intellectual

  conversation. He was very enlightening sometimes. So I gave him a buzz. He went to

  Columbia now, but he lived on 65th Street and all, and I knew he'd be home. When I got

  him on the phone, he said he couldn't make it for dinner but that he'd meet me for a drink

  at ten o'clock at the Wicker Bar, on 54th. I think he was pretty surprised to hear from me.

  I once called him a fat-assed phony.

  I had quite a bit of time to kill till ten o'clock, so what I did, I went to the movies

  at Radio City. It was probably the worst thing I could've done, but it was near, and I

  couldn't think of anything else.

  I came in when the goddam stage show was on. The Rockettes were kicking their

  heads off, the way they do when they're all in line with their arms around each other's

  waist. The audience applauded like mad, and some guy behind me kept saying to his

  wife, "You know what that is? That's precision." He killed me. Then, after the Rockettes,

  

  a guy came out in a tuxedo and roller skates on, and started skating under a bunch of little

  tables, and telling jokes while he did it. He was a very good skater and all, but I couldn't

  enjoy it much because I kept picturing him practicing to be a guy that roller-skates on the

  stage. It seemed so stupid. I guess I just wasn't in the right mood. Then, after him, they

  had this Christmas thing they have at Radio City every year. All these angels start coming

  out of the boxes and everywhere, guys carrying crucifixes and stuff all over the place,

  and the whole bunch of them--thousands of them--singing "Come All Ye Faithful!" like

  mad. Big deal. It's supposed to be religious as hell, I know, and very pretty and all, but I

  can't see anything religious or pretty, for God's sake, about a bunch of actors carrying

  crucifixes all over the stage. When they were all finished and started going out the boxes

  again, you could tell they could hardly wait to get a cigarette or something. I saw it with

  old Sally Hayes the year before, and she kept saying how beautiful it was, the costumes

  and all. I said old Jesus probably would've puked if He could see it--all those fancy

  costumes and all. Sally said I was a sacrilegious atheist. I probably am. The thing Jesus

  really would've liked would be the guy that plays the kettle drums in the orchestra. I've

  watched that guy since I was about eight years old. My brother Allie and I, if we were

  with our parents and all, we used to move our seats and go way down so we could watch

  him. He's the best drummer I ever saw. He only gets a chance to bang them a couple of

  times during a whole piece, but he never looks bored when he isn't doing it. Then when

  he does bang them, he does it so nice and sweet, with this nervous expression on his face.

  One time when we went to Washington with my father, Allie sent him a postcard, but I'll

  bet he never got it. We weren't too sure how to address it.

  After the Christmas thing was over, the goddam picture started. It was so putrid I

  couldn't take my eyes off it. It was about this English guy, Alec something, that was in

  the war and loses his memory in the hospital and all. He comes out of the hospital

  carrying a cane and limping all over the place, all over London, not knowing who the hell

  he is. He's really a duke, but he doesn't know it. Then he meets this nice, homey, sincere

  girl getting on a bus. Her goddam hat blows off and he catches it, and then they go

  upstairs and sit down and start talking about Charles Dickens. He's both their favorite

  author and all. He's carrying this copy of Oliver Twist and so's she. I could've puked.

  Anyway, they fell in love right away, on account of they're both so nuts about Charles

  Dickens and all, and he helps her run her publishing business. She's a publisher, the girl.

  Only, she's not doing so hot, because her brother's a drunkard and he spends all their

  dough. He's a very bitter guy, the brother, because he was a doctor in the war and now he

  can't operate any more because his nerves are shot, so he boozes all the time, but he's

  pretty witty and all. Anyway, old Alec writes a book, and this girl publishes it, and they

  both make a hatful of dough on it. They're all set to get married when this other girl, old

  Marcia, shows up. Marcia was Alec's fianc閑 before he lost his memory, and she

  recognizes him when he's in this store autographing books. She tells old Alec he's really a

  duke and all, but he doesn't believe her and doesn't want to go with her to visit his mother

  and all. His mother's blind as a bat. But the other girl, the homey one, makes him go.

  She's very noble and all. So he goes. But he still doesn't get his memory back, even when

  his great Dane jumps all over him and his mother sticks her fingers all over his face and

  brings him this teddy bear he used to slobber around with when he was a kid. But then,

  one day, some kids are playing cricket on the lawn and he gets smacked in the head with

  a cricket ball. Then right away he gets his goddam memory back and he goes in and

  www.en8848.com

  

  kisses his mother on the forehead and all. Then he starts being a regular duke again, and

  he forgets all about the homey babe that has the publishing business. I'd tell you the rest

  of the story, but I might puke if I did. It isn't that I'd spoil it for you or anything. There

  isn't anything to spoil for Chrissake. Anyway, it ends up with Alec and the homey babe

  getting married, and the brother that's a drunkard gets his nerves back and operates on

  Alec's mother so she can see again, and then the drunken brother and old Marcia go for

  each other. It ends up with everybody at this long dinner table laughing their asses off

  because the great Dane comes in with a bunch of puppies. Everybody thought it was a

  male, I suppose, or some goddam thing. All I can say is, don't see it if you don't want to

  puke all over yourself.

  The part that got me was, there was a lady sitting next to me that cried all through

  the goddam picture. The phonier it got, the more she cried. You'd have thought she did it

  because she was kindhearted as hell, but I was sitting right next to her, and she wasn't.

  She had this little kid with her that was bored as hell and had to go to the bathroom, but

  she wouldn't take him. She kept telling him to sit still and behave himself. She was about

  as kindhearted as a goddam wolf. You take somebody that cries their goddam eyes out

  over phony stuff in the movies, and nine times out of ten they're mean bastards at heart.

  I'm not kidding.

  After the movie was over, I started walking down to the Wicker Bar, where I was

  supposed to meet old Carl Luce, and while I walked I sort of thought about war and all.

  Those war movies always do that to me. I don't think I could stand it if I had to go to war.

  I really couldn't. It wouldn't be too bad if they'd just take you out and shoot you or

  something, but you have to stay in the Army so goddam long. That's the whole trouble.

  My brother D.B. was in the Army for four goddam years. He was in the war, too--he

  landed on D-Day and all--but I really think he hated the Army worse than the war. I was

  practically a child at the time, but I remember when he used to come home on furlough

  and all, all he did was lie on his bed, practically. He hardly ever even came in the living

  room. Later, when he went overseas and was in the war and all, he didn't get wounded or

  anything and he didn't have to shoot anybody. All he had to do was drive some cowboy

  general around all day in a command car. He once told Allie and I that if he'd had to

  shoot anybody, he wouldn't've known which direction to shoot in. He said the Army was

  practically as full of bastards as the Nazis were. I remember Allie once asked him wasn't

  it sort of good that he was in the war because he was a writer and it gave him a lot to

  write about and all. He made Allie go get his baseball mitt and then he asked him who

  was the best war poet, Rupert Brooke or Emily Dickinson. Allie said Emily Dickinson. I

  don't know too much about it myself, because I don't read much poetry, but I do know it'd

  drive me crazy if I had to be in the Army and be with a bunch of guys like Ackley and

  Stradlater and old Maurice all the time, marching with them and all. I was in the Boy

  Scouts once, for about a week, and I couldn't even stand looking at the back of the guy's

  neck in front of me. They kept telling you to look at the back of the guy's neck in front of

  you. I swear if there's ever another war, they better just take me out and stick me in front

  of a firing squad. I wouldn't object. What gets me about D.B., though, he hated the war so

  much, and yet he got me to read this book A Farewell to Arms last summer. He said it

  was so terrific. That's what I can't understand. It had this guy in it named Lieutenant

  Henry that was supposed to be a nice guy and all. I don't see how D.B. could hate the

  Army and war and all so much and still like a phony like that. I mean, for instance, I don't

  

  (奇*书*网.整*理*提*供)

  see how he could like a phony book like that and still like that one by Ring Lardner, or

  that other one he's so crazy about, The Great Gatsby. D.B. got sore when I said that, and

  said I was too young and all to appreciate it, but I don't think so. I told him I liked Ring

  Lardner and The Great Gatsby and all. I did, too. I was crazy about The Great Gatsby.

  Old Gatsby. Old sport. That killed me. Anyway, I'm sort of glad they've got the atomic

  bomb invented. If there's ever another war, I'm going to sit right the hell on top of it. I'll

  volunteer for it, I swear to God I will.

  

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