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# Chapter 18 ## Overview This entity is a chapter from a literary work, labeled as "18" and spanning lines 3368 to 3527 of the source text. It is part of the file [Rye.pdf](arke:01KFYRMP38MZY7WVH2Q0JN0CWH), which belongs to the collection [More Classics](arke:01KFXT0KM64XT6K8W52TDEE0YS). The chapter was extracted and structured on January 27, 2026, and consists of five text chunks that together form a continuous narrative passage. ## Context The chapter is narrated in the first person and reflects the voice of a teenage protagonist navigating urban life, relationships, and personal philosophy. It follows the narrator’s evening after leaving a skating rink, during which he reflects on past experiences and social dynamics. The narrative is characteristic of mid-20th-century American literature, particularly in its colloquial tone and themes of alienation and authenticity. The chapter is embedded within a larger work that includes references to characters such as Jane, Sally Hayes, and D.B., and alludes to books like *The Great Gatsby* and *A Farewell to Arms*, situating it within a broader literary and cultural context. ## Contents The chapter details the narrator’s attempt to connect with Jane by phone, his sparse social circle, and his decision to meet Carl Luce for a drink. To pass the time, he attends a movie at Radio City, where he critiques the stage show and a sentimental war film he describes as “putrid.” He reflects on the irony of audiences crying over artificial emotion while displaying indifference in real life. The experience prompts thoughts about war, influenced by his brother D.B.’s service, and leads to a critique of military life. The narrator expresses disdain for conformity and phoniness, contrasting his values with those of society. He concludes with a darkly humorous declaration of preferring to sit on an atomic bomb rather than face another war, underscoring his deep ambivalence toward violence and modern life.

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2026-01-27T17:22:14.655Z

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Chapter 18

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3527

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2026-01-27T17:12:16.506Z

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3225 18 3226 When I left the skating rink I felt sort of hungry, so I went in this drugstore and 3227 had a Swiss cheese sandwich and a malted, and then I went in a phone booth. I thought 3228 maybe I might give old Jane another buzz and see if she was home yet. I mean I had the 3229 whole evening free, and I thought I'd give her a buzz and, if she was home yet, take her 3230 dancing or something somewhere. I never danced with her or anything the whole time I 3231 knew her. I saw her dancing once, though. She looked like a very good dancer. It was at <!-- [Page 73](arke:01KFYTACA8R0T9QCYDTRCH762V) --> 3232 this Fourth of July dance at the club. I didn't know her too well then, and I didn't think I 3233 ought to cut in on her date. She was dating this terrible guy, Al Pike, that went to Choate. 3234 I didn't know him too well, but he was always hanging around the swimming pool. He 3235 wore those white Lastex kind of swimming trunks, and he was always going off the high 3236 dive. He did the same lousy old half gainer all day long. It was the only dive he could do, 3237 but he thought he was very hot stuff. All muscles and no brains. Anyway, that's who Jane 3238 dated that night. I couldn't understand it. I swear I couldn't. After we started going around 3239 together, I asked her how come she could date a showoff bastard like Al Pike. Jane said 3240 he wasn't a show-off. She said he had an inferiority complex. She acted like she felt sorry 3241 for him or something, and she wasn't just putting it on. She meant it. It's a funny thing 3242 about girls. Every time you mention some guy that's strictly a bastard--very mean, or very 3243 conceited and all--and when you mention it to the girl, she'll tell you he has an inferiority 3244 complex. Maybe he has, but that still doesn't keep him from being a bastard, in my 3245 opinion. Girls. You never know what they're going to think. I once got this girl Roberta 3246 Walsh's roommate a date with a friend of mine. His name was Bob Robinson and he 3247 really had an inferiority complex. You could tell he was very ashamed of his parents and 3248 all, because they said "he don't" and "she don't" and stuff like that and they weren't very 3249 wealthy. But he wasn't a bastard or anything. He was a very nice guy. But this Roberta 3250 Walsh's roommate didn't like him at all. She told Roberta he was too conceited--and the 3251 reason she thought he was conceited was because he happened to mention to her that he 3252 was captain of the debating team. A little thing like that, and she thought he was 3253 conceited! The trouble with girls is, if they like a boy, no matter how big a bastard he is, 3254 they'll say he has an inferiority complex, and if they don't like him, no matter how nice a 3255 guy he is, or how big an inferiority complex he has, they'll say he's conceited. Even smart 3256 girls do it. 3257 Anyway, I gave old Jane a buzz again, but her phone didn't answer, so I had to 3258 hang up. Then I had to look through my address book to see who the hell might be 3259 available for the evening. The trouble was, though, my address book only has about three 3260 people in it. Jane, and this man, Mr. Antolini, that was my teacher at Elkton Hills, and my 3261 father's office number. I keep forgetting to put people's names in. So what I did finally, I 3262 gave old Carl Luce a buzz. He graduated from the Whooton School after I left. He was 3263 about three years older than I was, and I didn't like him too much, but he was one of these 3264 very intellectual guys-- he had the highest I.Q. of any boy at Whooton--and I thought he 3265 might want to have dinner with me somewhere and have a slightly intellectual 3266 conversation. He was very enlightening sometimes. So I gave him a buzz. He went to 3267 Columbia now, but he lived on 65th Street and all, and I knew he'd be home. When I got 3268 him on the phone, he said he couldn't make it for dinner but that he'd meet me for a drink 3269 at ten o'clock at the Wicker Bar, on 54th. I think he was pretty surprised to hear from me. 3270 I once called him a fat-assed phony. 3271 I had quite a bit of time to kill till ten o'clock, so what I did, I went to the movies 3272 at Radio City. It was probably the worst thing I could've done, but it was near, and I 3273 couldn't think of anything else. 3274 I came in when the goddam stage show was on. The Rockettes were kicking their 3275 heads off, the way they do when they're all in line with their arms around each other's 3276 waist. The audience applauded like mad, and some guy behind me kept saying to his 3277 wife, "You know what that is? That's precision." He killed me. Then, after the Rockettes, <!-- [Page 74](arke:01KFYTAC62KYX49VQXF2086TDA) --> 3278 a guy came out in a tuxedo and roller skates on, and started skating under a bunch of little 3279 tables, and telling jokes while he did it. He was a very good skater and all, but I couldn't 3280 enjoy it much because I kept picturing him practicing to be a guy that roller-skates on the 3281 stage. It seemed so stupid. I guess I just wasn't in the right mood. Then, after him, they 3282 had this Christmas thing they have at Radio City every year. All these angels start coming 3283 out of the boxes and everywhere, guys carrying crucifixes and stuff all over the place, 3284 and the whole bunch of them--thousands of them--singing "Come All Ye Faithful!" like 3285 mad. Big deal. It's supposed to be religious as hell, I know, and very pretty and all, but I 3286 can't see anything religious or pretty, for God's sake, about a bunch of actors carrying 3287 crucifixes all over the stage. When they were all finished and started going out the boxes 3288 again, you could tell they could hardly wait to get a cigarette or something. I saw it with 3289 old Sally Hayes the year before, and she kept saying how beautiful it was, the costumes 3290 and all. I said old Jesus probably would've puked if He could see it--all those fancy 3291 costumes and all. Sally said I was a sacrilegious atheist. I probably am. The thing Jesus 3292 really would've liked would be the guy that plays the kettle drums in the orchestra. I've 3293 watched that guy since I was about eight years old. My brother Allie and I, if we were 3294 with our parents and all, we used to move our seats and go way down so we could watch 3295 him. He's the best drummer I ever saw. He only gets a chance to bang them a couple of 3296 times during a whole piece, but he never looks bored when he isn't doing it. Then when 3297 he does bang them, he does it so nice and sweet, with this nervous expression on his face. 3298 One time when we went to Washington with my father, Allie sent him a postcard, but I'll 3299 bet he never got it. We weren't too sure how to address it. 3300 After the Christmas thing was over, the goddam picture started. It was so putrid I 3301 couldn't take my eyes off it. It was about this English guy, Alec something, that was in 3302 the war and loses his memory in the hospital and all. He comes out of the hospital 3303 carrying a cane and limping all over the place, all over London, not knowing who the hell 3304 he is. He's really a duke, but he doesn't know it. Then he meets this nice, homey, sincere 3305 girl getting on a bus. Her goddam hat blows off and he catches it, and then they go 3306 upstairs and sit down and start talking about Charles Dickens. He's both their favorite 3307 author and all. He's carrying this copy of Oliver Twist and so's she. I could've puked. 3308 Anyway, they fell in love right away, on account of they're both so nuts about Charles 3309 Dickens and all, and he helps her run her publishing business. She's a publisher, the girl. 3310 Only, she's not doing so hot, because her brother's a drunkard and he spends all their 3311 dough. He's a very bitter guy, the brother, because he was a doctor in the war and now he 3312 can't operate any more because his nerves are shot, so he boozes all the time, but he's 3313 pretty witty and all. Anyway, old Alec writes a book, and this girl publishes it, and they 3314 both make a hatful of dough on it. They're all set to get married when this other girl, old 3315 Marcia, shows up. Marcia was Alec's fiancée before he lost his memory, and she 3316 recognizes him when he's in this store autographing books. She tells old Alec he's really a 3317 duke and all, but he doesn't believe her and doesn't want to go with her to visit his mother 3318 and all. His mother's blind as a bat. But the other girl, the homey one, makes him go. 3319 She's very noble and all. So he goes. But he still doesn't get his memory back, even when 3320 his great Dane jumps all over him and his mother sticks her fingers all over his face and 3321 brings him this teddy bear he used to slobber around with when he was a kid. But then, 3322 one day, some kids are playing cricket on the lawn and he gets smacked in the head with 3323 a cricket ball. Then right away he gets his goddam memory back and he goes in and <!-- [Page 75](arke:01KFYTAC5FEV93BM4DCHGCNC93) --> 3324 kisses his mother on the forehead and all. Then he starts being a regular duke again, and 3325 he forgets all about the homey babe that has the publishing business. I'd tell you the rest 3326 of the story, but I might puke if I did. It isn't that I'd spoil it for you or anything. There 3327 isn't anything to spoil for Chrissake. Anyway, it ends up with Alec and the homey babe 3328 getting married, and the brother that's a drunkard gets his nerves back and operates on 3329 Alec's mother so she can see again, and then the drunken brother and old Marcia go for 3330 each other. It ends up with everybody at this long dinner table laughing their asses off 3331 because the great Dane comes in with a bunch of puppies. Everybody thought it was a 3332 male, I suppose, or some goddam thing. All I can say is, don't see it if you don't want to 3333 puke all over yourself. 3334 The part that got me was, there was a lady sitting next to me that cried all through 3335 the goddam picture. The phonier it got, the more she cried. You'd have thought she did it 3336 because she was kindhearted as hell, but I was sitting right next to her, and she wasn't. 3337 She had this little kid with her that was bored as hell and had to go to the bathroom, but 3338 she wouldn't take him. She kept telling him to sit still and behave himself. She was about 3339 as kindhearted as a goddam wolf. You take somebody that cries their goddam eyes out 3340 over phony stuff in the movies, and nine times out of ten they're mean bastards at heart. 3341 I'm not kidding. 3342 After the movie was over, I started walking down to the Wicker Bar, where I was 3343 supposed to meet old Carl Luce, and while I walked I sort of thought about war and all. 3344 Those war movies always do that to me. I don't think I could stand it if I had to go to war. 3345 I really couldn't. It wouldn't be too bad if they'd just take you out and shoot you or 3346 something, but you have to stay in the Army so goddam long. That's the whole trouble. 3347 My brother D.B. was in the Army for four goddam years. He was in the war, too--he 3348 landed on D-Day and all--but I really think he hated the Army worse than the war. I was 3349 practically a child at the time, but I remember when he used to come home on furlough 3350 and all, all he did was lie on his bed, practically. He hardly ever even came in the living 3351 room. Later, when he went overseas and was in the war and all, he didn't get wounded or 3352 anything and he didn't have to shoot anybody. All he had to do was drive some cowboy 3353 general around all day in a command car. He once told Allie and I that if he'd had to 3354 shoot anybody, he wouldn't've known which direction to shoot in. He said the Army was 3355 practically as full of bastards as the Nazis were. I remember Allie once asked him wasn't 3356 it sort of good that he was in the war because he was a writer and it gave him a lot to 3357 write about and all. He made Allie go get his baseball mitt and then he asked him who 3358 was the best war poet, Rupert Brooke or Emily Dickinson. Allie said Emily Dickinson. I 3359 don't know too much about it myself, because I don't read much poetry, but I do know it'd 3360 drive me crazy if I had to be in the Army and be with a bunch of guys like Ackley and 3361 Stradlater and old Maurice all the time, marching with them and all. I was in the Boy 3362 Scouts once, for about a week, and I couldn't even stand looking at the back of the guy's 3363 neck in front of me. They kept telling you to look at the back of the guy's neck in front of 3364 you. I swear if there's ever another war, they better just take me out and stick me in front 3365 of a firing squad. I wouldn't object. What gets me about D.B., though, he hated the war so 3366 much, and yet he got me to read this book A Farewell to Arms last summer. He said it 3367 was so terrific. That's what I can't understand. It had this guy in it named Lieutenant 3368 Henry that was supposed to be a nice guy and all. I don't see how D.B. could hate the 3369 Army and war and all so much and still like a phony like that. I mean, for instance, I don't <!-- [Page 76](arke:01KFYTAC5JM99P7R4TYDHX0TV8) --> 3370 see how he could like a phony book like that and still like that one by Ring Lardner, or 3371 that other one he's so crazy about, The Great Gatsby. D.B. got sore when I said that, and 3372 said I was too young and all to appreciate it, but I don't think so. I told him I liked Ring 3373 Lardner and The Great Gatsby and all. I did, too. I was crazy about The Great Gatsby. 3374 Old Gatsby. Old sport. That killed me. Anyway, I'm sort of glad they've got the atomic 3375 bomb invented. If there's ever another war, I'm going to sit right the hell on top of it. I'll 3376 volunteer for it, I swear to God I will.

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