Properties
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- 2026-01-27T17:13:03.336Z
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- 301 cover up his bumpy chest. It wasn't such a beautiful view.
302 "If I'm not mistaken, I believe you also had some difficulty at the Whooton
303 School and at Elkton Hills." He didn't say it just sarcastic, but sort of nasty, too.
304 "I didn't have too much difficulty at Elkton Hills," I told him. "I didn't exactly
305 flunk out or anything. I just quit, sort of."
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306 "Why, may I ask?"
307 "Why? Oh, well it's a long story, sir. I mean it's pretty complicated." I didn't feel
308 like going into the whole thing with him. He wouldn't have understood it anyway. It
309 wasn't up his alley at all. One of the biggest reasons I left Elkton Hills was because I was
310 surrounded by phonies. That's all. They were coming in the goddam window. For
311 instance, they had this headmaster, Mr. Haas, that was the phoniest bastard I ever met in
312 my life. Ten times worse than old Thurmer. On Sundays, for instance, old Haas went
313 around shaking hands with everybody's parents when they drove up to school. He'd be
314 charming as hell and all. Except if some boy had little old funny-looking parents. You
315 should've seen the way he did with my roommate's parents. I mean if a boy's mother was
316 sort of fat or corny-looking or something, and if somebody's father was one of those guys
317 that wear those suits with very big shoulders and corny black-and-white shoes, then old
318 Hans would just shake hands with them and give them a phony smile and then he'd go
319 talk, for maybe a half an hour, with somebody else's parents. I can't stand that stuff. It
320 drives me crazy. It makes me so depressed I go crazy. I hated that goddam Elkton Hills.
321 Old Spencer asked me something then, but I didn't hear him. I was thinking about
322 old Haas. "What, sir?" I said.
323 "Do you have any particular qualms about leaving Pencey?"
324 "Oh, I have a few qualms, all right. Sure. . . but not too many. Not yet, anyway. I
325 guess it hasn't really hit me yet. It takes things a while to hit me. All I'm doing right now
326 is thinking about going home Wednesday. I'm a moron."
327 "Do you feel absolutely no concern for your future, boy?"
328 "Oh, I feel some concern for my future, all right. Sure. Sure, I do." I thought about
329 it for a minute. "But not too much, I guess. Not too much, I guess."
330 "You will," old Spencer said. "You will, boy. You will when it's too late."
331 I didn't like hearing him say that. It made me sound dead or something. It was
332 very depressing. "I guess I will," I said.
333 "I'd like to put some sense in that head of yours, boy. I'm trying to help you. I'm
334 trying to help you, if I can."
335 He really was, too. You could see that. But it was just that we were too much on
336 opposite sides ot the pole, that's all. "I know you are, sir," I said. "Thanks a lot. No
337 kidding. I appreciate it. I really do." I got up from the bed then. Boy, I couldn't've sat
338 there another ten minutes to save my life. "The thing is, though, I have to get going now.
339 I have quite a bit of equipment at the gym I have to get to take home with me. I really
340 do." He looked up at me and started nodding again, with this very serious look on his
341 face. I felt sorry as hell for him, all of a sudden. But I just couldn't hang around there any
342 longer, the way we were on opposite sides of the pole, and the way he kept missing the
343 bed whenever he chucked something at it, and his sad old bathrobe with his chest
344 showing, and that grippy smell of Vicks Nose Drops all over the place. "Look, sir. Don't
345 worry about me," I said. "I mean it. I'll be all right. I'm just going through a phase right
346 now. Everybody goes through phases and all, don't they?"
347 "I don't know, boy. I don't know."
- title
- Chunk 5