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- 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,
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