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- people he said were flits and Lesbians and all, movie actors and like that. Some of the
ones he said were flits were even married, for God's sake. You'd keep saying to him,
"You mean Joe Blow's a flit? Joe Blow? That big, tough guy that plays gangsters and
cowboys all the time?" Old Luce'd say, "Certainly." He was always saying "Certainly."
He said it didn't matter if a guy was married or not. He said half the married guys in the
world were flits and didn't even know it. He said you could turn into one practically
overnight, if you had all the traits and all. He used to scare the hell out of us. I kept
waiting to turn into a flit or something. The funny thing about old Luce, I used to think he
was sort of flitty himself, in a way. He was always saying, "Try this for size," and then
he'd goose the hell out of you while you were going down the corridor. And whenever he
went to the can, he always left the goddam door open and talked to you while you were
brushing your teeth or something. That stuff's sort of flitty. It really is. I've known quite a
few real flits, at schools and all, and they're always doing stuff like that, and that's why I
always had my doubts about old Luce. He was a pretty intelligent guy, though. He really
was.
He never said hello or anything when he met you. The first thing he said when he
sat down was that he could only stay a couple of minutes. He said he had a date. Then he
ordered a dry Martini. He told the bartender to make it very dry, and no olive.
"Hey, I got a flit for you," I told him. "At the end of the bar. Don't look now. I
been saving him for ya."
"Very funny," he said. "Same old Caulfield. When are you going to grow up?"
I bored him a lot. I really did. He amused me, though. He was one of those guys
that sort of amuse me a lot.
"How's your sex life?" I asked him. He hated you to ask him stuff like that.
"Relax," he said. "Just sit back and relax, for Chrissake."
"I'm relaxed," I said. "How's Columbia? Ya like it?"
"Certainly I like it. If I didn't like it I wouldn't have gone there," he said. He could
be pretty boring himself sometimes.
"What're you majoring in?" I asked him. "Perverts?" I was only horsing around.
"What're you trying to be--funny?"
"No. I'm only kidding," I said. "Listen, hey, Luce. You're one of these intellectual
guys. I need your advice. I'm in a terrific--"
He let out this big groan on me. "Listen, Caulfield. If you want to sit here and
have a quiet, peaceful drink and a quiet, peaceful conver--"
"All right, all right," I said. "Relax." You could tell he didn't feel like discussing
anything serious with me. That's the trouble with these intellectual guys. They never want
to discuss anything serious unless they feel like it. So all I did was, I started discussing
topics in general with him. "No kidding, how's your sex life?" I asked him. "You still
going around with that same babe you used to at Whooton? The one with the terrffic--"
"Good God, no," he said.
"How come? What happened to her?"
"I haven't the faintest idea. For all I know, since you ask, she's probably the
Whore of New Hampshire by this time."
"That isn't nice. If she was decent enough to let you get sexy with her all the time,
you at least shouldn't talk about her that way."
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