Properties
- end_line
- 737
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-27T17:13:49.920Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 686
- text
- 657 It was very ironical. It really was.
658 "I'm the one that's flunking out of the goddam place, and you're asking me to
659 write you a goddam composition," I said.
660 "Yeah, I know. The thing is, though, I'll be up the creek if I don't get it in. Be a
661 buddy. Be a buddyroo. Okay?"
662 I didn't answer him right away. Suspense is good for some bastards like
663 Stradlater.
664 "What on?" I said.
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665 "Anything. Anything descriptive. A room. Or a house. Or something you once
666 lived in or something-- you know. Just as long as it's descriptive as hell." He gave out a
667 big yawn while he said that. Which is something that gives me a royal pain in the ass. I
668 mean if somebody yawns right while they're asking you to do them a goddam favor. "Just
669 don't do it too good, is all," he said. "That sonuvabitch Hartzell thinks you're a hot-shot in
670 English, and he knows you're my roommate. So I mean don't stick all the commas and
671 stuff in the right place."
672 That's something else that gives me a royal pain. I mean if you're good at writing
673 compositions and somebody starts talking about commas. Stradlater was always doing
674 that. He wanted you to think that the only reason he was lousy at writing compositions
675 was because he stuck all the commas in the wrong place. He was a little bit like Ackley,
676 that way. I once sat next to Ackley at this basketball game. We had a terrific guy on the
677 team, Howie Coyle, that could sink them from the middle of the floor, without even
678 touching the backboard or anything. Ackley kept saying, the whole goddam game, that
679 Coyle had a perfect build for basketball. God, how I hate that stuff.
680 I got bored sitting on that washbowl after a while, so I backed up a few feet and
681 started doing this tap dance, just for the hell of it. I was just amusing myself. I can't really
682 tap-dance or anything, but it was a stone floor in the can, and it was good for tap-dancing.
683 I started imitating one of those guys in the movies. In one of those musicals. I hate the
684 movies like poison, but I get a bang imitating them. Old Stradlater watched me in the
685 mirror while he was shaving. All I need's an audience. I'm an exhibitionist. "I'm the
686 goddarn Governor's son," I said. I was knocking myself out. Tap-dancing all over the
687 place. "He doesn't want me to be a tap dancer. He wants me to go to Oxford. But it's in
688 my goddam blood, tap-dancing." Old Stradlater laughed. He didn't have too bad a sense
689 of humor. "It's the opening night of the Ziegfeld Follies." I was getting out of breath. I
690 have hardly any wind at all. "The leading man can't go on. He's drunk as a bastard. So
691 who do they get to take his place? Me, that's who. The little ole goddam Governor's son."
692 "Where'dja get that hat?" Stradlater said. He meant my hunting hat. He'd never
693 seen it before.
694 I was out of breath anyway, so I quit horsing around. I took off my hat and looked
695 at it for about the ninetieth time. "I got it in New York this morning. For a buck. Ya like
696 it?"
697 Stradlater nodded. "Sharp," he said. He was only flattering me, though, because
698 right away he said, "Listen. Are ya gonna write that composition for me? I have to
699 know."
700 "If I get the time, I will. If I don't, I won't," I said. I went over and sat down at the
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
- title
- Chunk 2