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- 2828
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- 2026-01-27T17:16:18.881Z
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- 2663 discussed it with her for a while. "Well, I'm not too crazy about Romeo and Juliet," I said.
2664 "I mean I like them, but--I don't know. They get pretty annoying sometimes. I mean I felt
2665 much sorrier when old Mercutio got killed than when Romeo and Juliet did. The think is,
2666 I never liked Romeo too much after Mercutio gets stabbed by that other man--Juliet's
2667 cousin--what's his name?"
2668 "Tybalt."
2669 "That's right. Tybalt," I said--I always forget that guy's name. "It was Romeo's
2670 fault. I mean I liked him the best in the play, old Mercutio. I don't know. All those
2671 Montagues and Capulets, they're all right--especially Juliet--but Mercutio, he was--it's
2672 hard to explain. He was very smart and entertaining and all. The thing is, it drives me
2673 crazy if somebody gets killed-- especially somebody very smart and entertaining and all--
2674 and it's somebody else's fault. Romeo and Juliet, at least it was their own fault."
2675 "What school do you go to?" she asked me. She probably wanted to get off the
2676 subject of Romeo and Juliet.
2677 I told her Pencey, and she'd heard of it. She said it was a very good school. I let it
2678 pass, though. Then the other one, the one that taught history and government, said they'd
2679 better be running along. I took their check off them, but they wouldn't let me pay it. The
2680 one with the glasses made me give it back to her.
2681 "You've been more than generous," she said. "You're a very sweet boy." She
2682 certainly was nice. She reminded me a little bit of old Ernest Morrow's mother, the one I
2683 met on the train. When she smiled, mostly. "We've enjoyed talking to you so much," she
2684 said.
2685 I said I'd enjoyed talking to them a lot, too. I meant it, too. I'd have enjoyed it
2686 even more though, I think, if I hadn't been sort of afraid, the whole time I was talking to
2687 them, that they'd all of a sudden try to find out if I was a Catholic. Catholics are always
2688 trying to find out if you're a Catholic. It happens to me a lot, I know, partly because my
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2689 last name is Irish, and most people of Irish descent are Catholics. As a matter of fact, my
2690 father was a Catholic once. He quit, though, when he married my mother. But Catholics
2691 are always trying to find out if you're a Catholic even if they don't know your last name. I
2692 knew this one Catholic boy, Louis Shaney, when I was at the Whooton School. He was
2693 the first boy I ever met there. He and I were sitting in the first two chairs outside the
2694 goddam infirmary, the day school opened, waiting for our physicals, and we sort of
2695 struck up this conversation about tennis. He was quite interested in tennis, and so was I.
2696 He told me he went to the Nationals at Forest Hills every summer, and I told him I did
2697 too, and then we talked about certain hot-shot tennis players for quite a while. He knew
2698 quite a lot about tennis, for a kid his age. He really did. Then, after a while, right in the
2699 middle of the goddam conversation, he asked me, "Did you happen to notice where the
2700 Catholic church is in town, by any chance?" The thing was, you could tell by the way he
2701 asked me that he was trying to find out if I was a Catholic. He really was. Not that he was
2702 prejudiced or anything, but he just wanted to know. He was enjoying the conversation
2703 about tennis and all, but you could tell he would've enjoyed it more if I was a Catholic
2704 and all. That kind of stuff drives me crazy. I'm not saying it ruined our conversation or
2705 anything--it didn't--but it sure as hell didn't do it any good. That's why I was glad those
2706 two nuns didn't ask me if I was a Catholic. It wouldn't have spoiled the conversation if
2707 they had, but it would've been different, probably. I'm not saying I blame Catholics. I
- title
- Chunk 5