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- "Jesus, now, try not to stretch it all over the place" I said. I'd only worn it about
twice.
"I won't. Where the hell's my cigarettes?"
"On the desk." He never knew where he left anything. "Under your muffler." He
put them in his coat pocket--my coat pocket.
I pulled the peak of my hunting hat around to the front all of a sudden, for a
change. I was getting sort of nervous, all of a sudden. I'm quite a nervous guy. "Listen,
where ya going on your date with her?" I asked him. "Ya know yet?"
"I don't know. New York, if we have time. She only signed out for nine-thirty, for
Chrissake."
I didn't like the way he said it, so I said, "The reason she did that, she probably
just didn't know what a handsome, charming bastard you are. If she'd known, she
probably would've signed out for nine-thirty in the morning."
"Goddam right," Stradlater said. You couldn't rile him too easily. He was too
conceited. "No kidding, now. Do that composition for me," he said. He had his coat on,
and he was all ready to go. "Don't knock yourself out or anything, but just make it
descriptive as hell. Okay?"
I didn't answer him. I didn't feel like it. All I said was, "Ask her if she still keeps
all her kings in the back row."
"Okay," Stradlater said, but I knew he wouldn't. "Take it easy, now." He banged
the hell out of the room.
I sat there for about a half hour after he left. I mean I just sat in my chair, not
doing anything. I kept thinking about Jane, and about Stradlater having a date with her
and all. It made me so nervous I nearly went crazy. I already told you what a sexy bastard
Stradlater was.
All of a sudden, Ackley barged back in again, through the damn shower curtains,
as usual. For once in my stupid life, I was really glad to see him. He took my mind off the
other stuff.
He stuck around till around dinnertime, talking about all the guys at Pencey that
he hated their guts, and squeezing this big pimple on his chin. He didn't even use his
handkerchief. I don't even think the bastard had a handkerchief, if you want to know the
truth. I never saw him use one, anyway.
5
We always had the same meal on Saturday nights at Pencey. It was supposed to
be a big deal, because they gave you steak. I'll bet a thousand bucks the reason they did
that was because a lot of guys' parents came up to school on Sunday, and old Thurmer
probably figured everybody's mother would ask their darling boy what he had for dinner
last night, and he'd say, "Steak." What a racket. You should've seen the steaks. They were
these little hard, dry jobs that you could hardly even cut. You always got these very
lumpy mashed potatoes on steak night, and for dessert you got Brown Betty, which
nobody ate, except maybe the little kids in the lower school that didn't know any better--
and guys like Ackley that ate everything.
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