- end_line
- 2053
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-27T17:15:17.642Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 2018
- text
- 1931 12
1932 The cab I had was a real old one that smelled like someone'd just tossed his
1933 cookies in it. I always get those vomity kind of cabs if I go anywhere late at night. What
1934 made it worse, it was so quiet and lonesome out, even though it was Saturday night. I
1935 didn't see hardly anybody on the street. Now and then you just saw a man and a girl
1936 crossing a street, with their arms around each other's waists and all, or a bunch of
1937 hoodlumy-looking guys and their dates, all of them laughing like hyenas at something
1938 you could bet wasn't funny. New York's terrible when somebody laughs on the street very
1939 late at night. You can hear it for miles. It makes you feel so lonesome and depressed. I
1940 kept wishing I could go home and shoot the bull for a while with old Phoebe. But finally,
1941 after I was riding a while, the cab driver and I sort of struck up a conversation. His name
1942 was Horwitz. He was a much better guy than the other driver I'd had. Anyway, I thought
1943 maybe he might know about the ducks.
1944 "Hey, Horwitz," I said. "You ever pass by the lagoon in Central Park? Down by
1945 Central Park South?"
1946 "The what?"
1947 "The lagoon. That little lake, like, there. Where the ducks are. You know."
1948 "Yeah, what about it?"
1949 "Well, you know the ducks that swim around in it? In the springtime and all? Do
1950 you happen to know where they go in the wintertime, by any chance?"
1951 "Where who goes?"
1952 "The ducks. Do you know, by any chance? I mean does somebody come around
1953 in a truck or something and take them away, or do they fly away by themselves--go south
1954 or something?"
1955 Old Horwitz turned all the way around and looked at me. He was a very
1956 impatient-type guy. He wasn't a bad guy, though. "How the hell should I know?" he said.
1957 "How the hell should I know a stupid thing like that?"
1958 "Well, don't get sore about it," I said. He was sore about it or something.
1959 "Who's sore? Nobody's sore."
1960 I stopped having a conversation with him, if he was going to get so damn touchy
1961 about it. But he started it up again himself. He turned all the way around again, and said,
1962 "The fish don't go no place. They stay right where they are, the fish. Right in the goddam
1963 lake."
1964 "The fish--that's different. The fish is different. I'm talking about the ducks," I
1965 said.
- title
- Chunk 1