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- dripping down my neck, getting all over my collar and tie and all, but I didn't give a
damn. I was too drunk to give a damn. Then, pretty soon, the guy that played the piano
for old Valencia, this very wavyhaired, flitty-looking guy, came in to comb his golden
locks. We sort of struck up a conversation while he was combing it, except that he wasn't
too goddam friendly.
"Hey. You gonna see that Valencia babe when you go back in the bar?" I asked
him.
"It's highly probable," he said. Witty bastard. All I ever meet is witty bastards.
"Listen. Give her my compliments. Ask her if that goddam waiter gave her my
message, willya?"
"Why don't you go home, Mac? How old are you, anyway?"
"Eighty-six. Listen. Give her my compliments. Okay?"
"Why don't you go home, Mac?"
"Not me. Boy, you can play that goddam piano." I told him. I was just flattering
him. He played the piano stinking, if you want to know the truth. "You oughta go on the
radio," I said. "Handsome chap like you. All those goddam golden locks. Ya need a
manager?"
"Go home, Mac, like a good guy. Go home and hit the sack."
"No home to go to. No kidding--you need a manager?"
He didn't answer me. He just went out. He was all through combing his hair and
patting it and all, so he left. Like Stradlater. All these handsome guys are the same. When
they're done combing their goddam hair, they beat it on you.
When I finally got down off the radiator and went out to the hat-check room, I
was crying and all. I don't know why, but I was. I guess it was because I was feeling so
damn depressed and lonesome. Then, when I went out to the checkroom, I couldn't find
my goddam check. The hat-check girl was very nice about it, though. She gave me my
coat anyway. And my "Little Shirley Beans" record--I still had it with me and all. I gave
her a buck for being so nice, but she wouldn't take it. She kept telling me to go home and
go to bed. I sort of tried to make a date with her for when she got through working, but
she wouldn't do it. She said she was old enough to be my mother and all. I showed her
my goddam gray hair and told her I was forty-two--I was only horsing around, naturally.
She was nice, though. I showed her my goddam red hunting hat, and she liked it. She
made me put it on before I went out, because my hair was still pretty wet. She was all
right.
I didn't feel too drunk any more when I went outside, but it was getting very cold
out again, and my teeth started chattering like hell. I couldn't make them stop. I walked
over to Madison Avenue and started to wait around for a bus because I didn't have hardly
any money left and I had to start economizing on cabs and all. But I didn't feel like
getting on a damn bus. And besides, I didn't even know where I was supposed to go. So
what I did, I started walking over to the park. I figured I'd go by that little lake and see
what the hell the ducks were doing, see if they were around or not, I still didn't know if
they were around or not. It wasn't far over to the park, and I didn't have anyplace else
special to go to--I didn't even know where I was going to sleep yet--so I went. I wasn't
tired or anything. I just felt blue as hell.
Then something terrible happened just as I got in the park. I dropped old Phoebe's
record. It broke-into about fifty pieces. It was in a big envelope and all, but it broke
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