Properties
- end_line
- 2284
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-27T17:15:40.755Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 2231
- text
- 2136 much when I lose something--it used to drive my mother crazy when I was a kid. Some
2137 guys spend days looking for something they lost. I never seem to have anything that if I
2138 lost it I'd care too much. Maybe that's why I'm partly yellow. It's no excuse, though. It
2139 really isn't. What you should be is not yellow at all. If you're supposed to sock somebody
2140 in the jaw, and you sort of feel like doing it, you should do it. I'm just no good at it,
2141 though. I'd rather push a guy out the window or chop his head off with an ax than sock
2142 him in the jaw. I hate fist fights. I don't mind getting hit so much--although I'm not crazy
2143 about it, naturally--but what scares me most in a fist fight is the guy's face. I can't stand
2144 looking at the other guy's face, is my trouble. It wouldn't be so bad if you could both be
2145 blindfolded or something. It's a funny kind of yellowness, when you come to think of it,
2146 but it's yellowness, all right. I'm not kidding myself.
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2147 The more I thought about my gloves and my yellowness, the more depressed I
2148 got, and I decided, while I was walking and all, to stop off and have a drink somewhere.
2149 I'd only had three drinks at Ernie's, and I didn't even finish the last one. One thing I have,
2150 it's a terrific capacity. I can drink all night and not even show it, if I'm in the mood. Once,
2151 at the Whooton School, this other boy, Raymond Goldfarb, and I bought a pint of Scotch
2152 and drank it in the chapel one Saturday night, where nobody'd see us. He got stinking, but
2153 I hardly didn't even show it. I just got very cool and nonchalant. I puked before I went to
2154 bed, but I didn't really have to--I forced myself.
2155 Anyway, before I got to the hotel, I started to go in this dumpy-looking bar, but
2156 two guys came out, drunk as hell, and wanted to know where the subway was. One of
2157 them was this very Cuban-looking guy, and he kept breathing his stinking breath in my
2158 face while I gave him directions. I ended up not even going in the damn bar. I just went
2159 back to the hotel.
2160 The whole lobby was empty. It smelled like fifty million dead cigars. It really did.
2161 I wasn't sleepy or anything, but I was feeling sort of lousy. Depressed and all. I almost
2162 wished I was dead.
2163 Then, all of a sudden, I got in this big mess.
2164 The first thing when I got in the elevator, the elevator guy said to me, "Innarested
2165 in having a good time, fella? Or is it too late for you?"
2166 "How do you mean?" I said. I didn't know what he was driving at or anything.
2167 "Innarested in a little tail t'night?"
2168 "Me?" I said. Which was a very dumb answer, but it's quite embarrassing when
2169 somebody comes right up and asks you a question like that.
2170 "How old are you, chief?" the elevator guy said.
2171 "Why?" I said. "Twenty-two."
2172 "Uh huh. Well, how 'bout it? Y'innarested? Five bucks a throw. Fifteen bucks the
2173 whole night." He looked at his wrist watch. "Till noon. Five bucks a throw, fifteen bucks
2174 till noon."
2175 "Okay," I said. It was against my principles and all, but I was feeling so depressed
2176 I didn't even think. That's the whole trouble. When you're feeling very depressed, you
2177 can't even think.
2178 "Okay what? A throw, or till noon? I gotta know."
2179 "Just a throw."
2180 "Okay, what room ya in?"
2181 I looked at the red thing with my number on it, on my key. "Twelve twenty-two,"
2182 I said. I was already sort of sorry I'd let the thing start rolling, but it was too late now.
2183 "Okay. I'll send a girl up in about fifteen minutes." He opened the doors and I got
2184 out.
2185 "Hey, is she good-looking?" I asked him. "I don't want any old bag."
2186 "No old bag. Don't worry about it, chief."
2187 "Who do I pay?"
- title
- Chunk 2