Properties
- end_line
- 3608
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-27T17:17:32.056Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 3559
- text
- 3408 especially perverts and all. He was always telling us about a lot of creepy guys that go
3409 around having affairs with sheep, and guys that go around with girls' pants sewed in the
3410 lining of their hats and all. And flits and Lesbians. Old Luce knew who every flit and
3411 Lesbian in the United States was. All you had to do was mention somebody--anybody--
3412 and old Luce'd tell you if he was a flit or not. Sometimes it was hard to believe, the
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3413 people he said were flits and Lesbians and all, movie actors and like that. Some of the
3414 ones he said were flits were even married, for God's sake. You'd keep saying to him,
3415 "You mean Joe Blow's a flit? Joe Blow? That big, tough guy that plays gangsters and
3416 cowboys all the time?" Old Luce'd say, "Certainly." He was always saying "Certainly."
3417 He said it didn't matter if a guy was married or not. He said half the married guys in the
3418 world were flits and didn't even know it. He said you could turn into one practically
3419 overnight, if you had all the traits and all. He used to scare the hell out of us. I kept
3420 waiting to turn into a flit or something. The funny thing about old Luce, I used to think he
3421 was sort of flitty himself, in a way. He was always saying, "Try this for size," and then
3422 he'd goose the hell out of you while you were going down the corridor. And whenever he
3423 went to the can, he always left the goddam door open and talked to you while you were
3424 brushing your teeth or something. That stuff's sort of flitty. It really is. I've known quite a
3425 few real flits, at schools and all, and they're always doing stuff like that, and that's why I
3426 always had my doubts about old Luce. He was a pretty intelligent guy, though. He really
3427 was.
3428 He never said hello or anything when he met you. The first thing he said when he
3429 sat down was that he could only stay a couple of minutes. He said he had a date. Then he
3430 ordered a dry Martini. He told the bartender to make it very dry, and no olive.
3431 "Hey, I got a flit for you," I told him. "At the end of the bar. Don't look now. I
3432 been saving him for ya."
3433 "Very funny," he said. "Same old Caulfield. When are you going to grow up?"
3434 I bored him a lot. I really did. He amused me, though. He was one of those guys
3435 that sort of amuse me a lot.
3436 "How's your sex life?" I asked him. He hated you to ask him stuff like that.
3437 "Relax," he said. "Just sit back and relax, for Chrissake."
3438 "I'm relaxed," I said. "How's Columbia? Ya like it?"
3439 "Certainly I like it. If I didn't like it I wouldn't have gone there," he said. He could
3440 be pretty boring himself sometimes.
3441 "What're you majoring in?" I asked him. "Perverts?" I was only horsing around.
3442 "What're you trying to be--funny?"
3443 "No. I'm only kidding," I said. "Listen, hey, Luce. You're one of these intellectual
3444 guys. I need your advice. I'm in a terrific--"
3445 He let out this big groan on me. "Listen, Caulfield. If you want to sit here and
3446 have a quiet, peaceful drink and a quiet, peaceful conver--"
3447 "All right, all right," I said. "Relax." You could tell he didn't feel like discussing
3448 anything serious with me. That's the trouble with these intellectual guys. They never want
3449 to discuss anything serious unless they feel like it. So all I did was, I started discussing
3450 topics in general with him. "No kidding, how's your sex life?" I asked him. "You still
3451 going around with that same babe you used to at Whooton? The one with the terrffic--"
3452 "Good God, no," he said.
3453 "How come? What happened to her?"
3454 "I haven't the faintest idea. For all I know, since you ask, she's probably the
3455 Whore of New Hampshire by this time."
- title
- Chunk 2