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- 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
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