Properties
- end_line
- 3866
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-27T17:17:48.454Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 3822
- text
- 3659 my goddam check. The hat-check girl was very nice about it, though. She gave me my
3660 coat anyway. And my "Little Shirley Beans" record--I still had it with me and all. I gave
3661 her a buck for being so nice, but she wouldn't take it. She kept telling me to go home and
3662 go to bed. I sort of tried to make a date with her for when she got through working, but
3663 she wouldn't do it. She said she was old enough to be my mother and all. I showed her
3664 my goddam gray hair and told her I was forty-two--I was only horsing around, naturally.
3665 She was nice, though. I showed her my goddam red hunting hat, and she liked it. She
3666 made me put it on before I went out, because my hair was still pretty wet. She was all
3667 right.
3668 I didn't feel too drunk any more when I went outside, but it was getting very cold
3669 out again, and my teeth started chattering like hell. I couldn't make them stop. I walked
3670 over to Madison Avenue and started to wait around for a bus because I didn't have hardly
3671 any money left and I had to start economizing on cabs and all. But I didn't feel like
3672 getting on a damn bus. And besides, I didn't even know where I was supposed to go. So
3673 what I did, I started walking over to the park. I figured I'd go by that little lake and see
3674 what the hell the ducks were doing, see if they were around or not, I still didn't know if
3675 they were around or not. It wasn't far over to the park, and I didn't have anyplace else
3676 special to go to--I didn't even know where I was going to sleep yet--so I went. I wasn't
3677 tired or anything. I just felt blue as hell.
3678 Then something terrible happened just as I got in the park. I dropped old Phoebe's
3679 record. It broke-into about fifty pieces. It was in a big envelope and all, but it broke
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3680 anyway. I damn near cried, it made me feel so terrible, but all I did was, I took the pieces
3681 out of the envelope and put them in my coat pocket. They weren't any good for anything,
3682 but I didn't feel like just throwing them away. Then I went in the park. Boy, was it dark.
3683 I've lived in New York all my life, and I know Central Park like the back of my
3684 hand, because I used to roller-skate there all the time and ride my bike when I was a kid,
3685 but I had the most terrific trouble finding that lagoon that night. I knew right where it
3686 was--it was right near Central Park South and all--but I still couldn't find it. I must've
3687 been drunker than I thought. I kept walking and walking, and it kept getting darker and
3688 darker and spookier and spookier. I didn't see one person the whole time I was in the
3689 park. I'm just as glad. I probably would've jumped about a mile if I had. Then, finally, I
3690 found it. What it was, it was partly frozen and partly not frozen. But I didn't see any
3691 ducks around. I walked all around the whole damn lake--I damn near fell in once, in fact-
3692 -but I didn't see a single duck. I thought maybe if there were any around, they might be
3693 asleep or something near the edge of the water, near the grass and all. That's how I nearly
3694 fell in. But I couldn't find any.
3695 Finally I sat down on this bench, where it wasn't so goddam dark. Boy, I was still
3696 shivering like a bastard, and the back of my hair, even though I had my hunting hat on,
3697 was sort of full of little hunks of ice. That worried me. I thought probably I'd get
3698 pneumonia and die. I started picturing millions of jerks coming to my funeral and all. My
3699 grandfather from Detroit, that keeps calling out the numbers of the streets when you ride
3700 on a goddam bus with him, and my aunts--I have about fifty aunts--and all my lousy
3701 cousins. What a mob'd be there. They all came when Allie died, the whole goddam stupid
- title
- Chunk 3