Properties
- end_line
- 3313
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-27T17:16:48.808Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 3262
- text
- 3123 "Take cars," I said. I said it in this very quiet voice. "Take most people, they're
3124 crazy about cars. They worry if they get a little scratch on them, and they're always
3125 talking about how many miles they get to a gallon, and if they get a brand-new car
3126 already they start thinking about trading it in for one that's even newer. I don't even like
3127 old cars. I mean they don't even interest me. I'd rather have a goddam horse. A horse is at
3128 least human, for God's sake. A horse you can at least--"
3129 "I don't know what you're even talking about," old Sally said. "You jump from
3130 one--"
3131 "You know something?" I said. "You're probably the only reason I'm in New
3132 York right now, or anywhere. If you weren't around, I'd probably be someplace way the
3133 hell off. In the woods or some goddam place. You're the only reason I'm around,
3134 practically."
3135 "You're sweet," she said. But you could tell she wanted me to change the damn
3136 subject.
3137 "You ought to go to a boys' school sometime. Try it sometime," I said. "It's full of
3138 phonies, and all you do is study so that you can learn enough to be smart enough to be
3139 able to buy a goddam Cadillac some day, and you have to keep making believe you give
3140 a damn if the football team loses, and all you do is talk about girls and liquor and sex all
3141 day, and everybody sticks together in these dirty little goddam cliques. The guys that are
3142 on the basketball team stick together, the Catholics stick together, the goddam
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3143 intellectuals stick together, the guys that play bridge stick together. Even the guys that
3144 belong to the goddam Book-of-the-Month Club stick together. If you try to have a little
3145 intelligent--"
3146 "Now, listen," old Sally said. "Lots of boys get more out of school than that."
3147 "I agree! I agree they do, some of them! But that's all I get out of it. See? That's
3148 my point. That's exactly my goddam point," I said. "I don't get hardly anything out of
3149 anything. I'm in bad shape. I'm in lousy shape."
3150 "You certainly are."
3151 Then, all of a sudden, I got this idea.
3152 "Look," I said. "Here's my idea. How would you like to get the hell out of here?
3153 Here's my idea. I know this guy down in Greenwich Village that we can borrow his car
3154 for a couple of weeks. He used to go to the same school I did and he still owes me ten
3155 bucks. What we could do is, tomorrow morning we could drive up to Massachusetts and
3156 Vermont, and all around there, see. It's beautiful as hell up there, It really is." I was
3157 getting excited as hell, the more I thought of it, and I sort of reached over and took old
3158 Sally's goddam hand. What a goddam fool I was. "No kidding," I said. "I have about a
3159 hundred and eighty bucks in the bank. I can take it out when it opens in the morning, and
3160 then I could go down and get this guy's car. No kidding. We'll stay in these cabin camps
3161 and stuff like that till the dough runs out. Then, when the dough runs out, I could get a
3162 job somewhere and we could live somewhere with a brook and all and, later on, we could
3163 get married or something. I could chop all our own wood in the wintertime and all.
3164 Honest to God, we could have a terrific time! Wuddaya say? C'mon! Wuddaya say? Will
3165 you do it with me? Please!"
3166 "You can't just do something like that," old Sally said. She sounded sore as hell.
3167 "Why not? Why the hell not?"
3168 "Stop screaming at me, please," she said. Which was crap, because I wasn't even
3169 screaming at her.
3170 "Why can'tcha? Why not?"
3171 "Because you can't, that's all. In the first place, we're both practically children.
3172 And did you ever stop to think what you'd do if you didn't get a job when your money ran
- title
- Chunk 6