Properties
- end_line
- 1562
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-27T17:14:41.542Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 1518
- text
- 1453 "Well--take me to the Edmont then," I said. "Would you care to stop on the way
1454 and join me for a cocktail? On me. I'm loaded."
1455 "Can't do it, Mac. Sorry." He certainly was good company. Terrific personality.
1456 We got to the Edmont Hotel, and I checked in. I'd put on my red hunting cap
1457 when I was in the cab, just for the hell of it, but I took it off before I checked in. I didn't
1458 want to look like a screwball or something. Which is really ironic. I didn't know then that
1459 the goddam hotel was full of perverts and morons. Screwballs all over the place.
1460 They gave me this very crumby room, with nothing to look out of the window at
1461 except the other side of the hotel. I didn't care much. I was too depressed to care whether
1462 I had a good view or not. The bellboy that showed me to the room was this very old guy
1463 around sixty-five. He was even more depressing than the room was. He was one of those
1464 bald guys that comb all their hair over from the side to cover up the baldness. I'd rather be
1465 bald than do that. Anyway, what a gorgeous job for a guy around sixty-five years old.
1466 Carrying people's suitcases and waiting around for a tip. I suppose he wasn't too
1467 intelligent or anything, but it was terrible anyway.
1468 After he left, I looked out the window for a while, with my coat on and all. I didn't
1469 have anything else to do. You'd be surprised what was going on on the other side of the
1470 hotel. They didn't even bother to pull their shades down. I saw one guy, a gray-haired,
1471 very distinguished-looking guy with only his shorts on, do something you wouldn't
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1472 believe me if I told you. First he put his suitcase on the bed. Then he took out all these
1473 women's clothes, and put them on. Real women's clothes--silk stockings, high-heeled
1474 shoes, brassiere, and one of those corsets with the straps hanging down and all. Then he
1475 put on this very tight black evening dress. I swear to God. Then he started walking up and
1476 down the room, taking these very small steps, the way a woman does, and smoking a
1477 cigarette and looking at himself in the mirror. He was all alone, too. Unless somebody
1478 was in the bathroom--I couldn't see that much. Then, in the window almost right over his,
1479 I saw a man and a woman squirting water out of their mouths at each other. It probably
1480 was highballs, not water, but I couldn't see what they had in their glasses. Anyway, first
1481 he'd take a swallow and squirt it all over her, then she did it to him--they took turns, for
1482 God's sake. You should've seen them. They were in hysterics the whole time, like it was
1483 the funniest thing that ever happened. I'm not kidding, the hotel was lousy with perverts. I
1484 was probably the only normal bastard in the whole place--and that isn't saying much. I
1485 damn near sent a telegram to old Stradlater telling him to take the first train to New York.
1486 He'd have been the king of the hotel.
1487 The trouble was, that kind of junk is sort of fascinating to watch, even if you don't
1488 want it to be. For instance, that girl that was getting water squirted all over her face, she
1489 was pretty good-looking. I mean that's my big trouble. In my mind, I'm probably the
1490 biggest sex maniac you ever saw. Sometimes I can think of very crumby stuff I wouldn't
1491 mind doing if the opportunity came up. I can even see how it might be quite a lot of fun,
1492 in a crumby way, and if you were both sort of drunk and all, to get a girl and squirt water
1493 or something all over each other's face. The thing is, though, I don't like the idea. It
1494 stinks, if you analyze it. I think if you don't really like a girl, you shouldn't horse around
1495 with her at all, and if you do like her, then you're supposed to like her face, and if you
- title
- Chunk 2