Properties
- end_line
- 789
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-27T17:13:49.920Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 732
- text
- 701 washbowl next to him again. "Who's your date?" I asked him. "Fitzgerald?"
702 "Hell, no! I told ya. I'm through with that pig."
703 "Yeah? Give her to me, boy. No kidding. She's my type."
704 "Take her . . . She's too old for you."
705 All of a sudden--for no good reason, really, except that I was sort of in the mood
706 for horsing around--I felt like jumping off the washbowl and getting old Stradlater in a
707 half nelson. That's a wrestling hold, in case you don't know, where you get the other guy
708 around the neck and choke him to death, if you feel like it. So I did it. I landed on him
709 like a goddam panther.
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710 "Cut it out, Holden, for Chrissake!" Stradlater said. He didn't feel like horsing
711 around. He was shaving and all. "Wuddaya wanna make me do--cut my goddam head
712 off?"
713 I didn't let go, though. I had a pretty good half nelson on him. "Liberate yourself
714 from my viselike grip." I said.
715 "Je-sus Christ." He put down his razor, and all of a sudden jerked his arms up and
716 sort of broke my hold on him. He was a very strong guy. I'm a very weak guy. "Now, cut
717 out the crap," he said. He started shaving himself all over again. He always shaved
718 himself twice, to look gorgeous. With his crumby old razor.
719 "Who is your date if it isn't Fitzgerald?" I asked him. I sat down on the washbowl
720 next to him again. "That Phyllis Smith babe?"
721 "No. It was supposed to he, but the arrangements got all screwed up. I got Bud
722 Thaw's girl's roommate now . . . Hey. I almost forgot. She knows you."
723 "Who does?" I said.
724 "My date."
725 "Yeah?" I said. "What's her name?" I was pretty interested.
726 "I'm thinking . . . Uh. Jean Gallagher."
727 Boy, I nearly dropped dead when he said that.
728 "Jane Gallagher," I said. I even got up from the washbowl when he said that. I
729 damn near dropped dead. "You're damn right I know her. She practically lived right next
730 door to me, the summer before last. She had this big damn Doberman pinscher. That's
731 how I met her. Her dog used to keep coming over in our--"
732 "You're right in my light, Holden, for Chrissake," Stradlater said. "Ya have to
733 stand right there?"
734 Boy, was I excited, though. I really was.
735 "Where is she?" I asked him. "I oughta go down and say hello to her or
736 something. Where is she? In the Annex?"
737 "Yeah."
738 "How'd she happen to mention me? Does she go to B.M. now? She said she might
739 go there. She said she might go to Shipley, too. I thought she went to Shipley. How'd she
740 happen to mention me?" I was pretty excited. I really was.
741 "I don't know, for Chrissake. Lift up, willya? You're on my towel," Stradlater
742 said. I was sitting on his stupid towel.
743 "Jane Gallagher," I said. I couldn't get over it. "Jesus H. Christ."
744 Old Stradlater was putting Vitalis on his hair. My Vitalis.
745 "She's a dancer," I said. "Ballet and all. She used to practice about two hours
746 every day, right in the middle of the hottest weather and all. She was worried that it might
747 make her legs lousy--all thick and all. I used to play checkers with her all the time."
748 "You used to play what with her all the time?"
749 "Checkers."
750 "Checkers, for Chrissake!"
751 "Yeah. She wouldn't move any of her kings. What she'd do, when she'd get a king,
752 she wouldn't move it. She'd just leave it in the back row. She'd get them all lined up in the
753 back row. Then she'd never use them. She just liked the way they looked when they were
754 all in the back row."
755 Stradlater didn't say anything. That kind of stuff doesn't interest most people.
- title
- Chunk 3