Properties
- end_line
- 3961
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-27T17:18:13.524Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 3915
- text
- 3748 21
3749 The best break I had in years, when I got home the regular night elevator boy,
3750 Pete, wasn't on the car. Some new guy I'd never seen was on the car, so I figured that if I
3751 didn't bump smack into my parents and all I'd be able to say hello to old Phoebe and then
3752 beat it and nobody'd even know I'd been around. It was really a terrific break. What made
3753 it even better, the new elevator boy was sort of on the stupid side. I told him, in this very
3754 casual voice, to take me up to the Dicksteins'. The Dicksteins were these people that had
3755 the other apartment on our floor. I'd already taken off my hunting hat, so as not to look
3756 suspicious or anything. I went in the elevator like I was in a terrific hurry.
3757 He had the elevator doors all shut and all, and was all set to take me up, and then
3758 he turned around and said, "They ain't in. They're at a party on the fourteenth floor."
3759 "That's all right," I said. "I'm supposed to wait for them. I'm their nephew."
3760 He gave me this sort of stupid, suspicious look. "You better wait in the lobby,
3761 fella," he said.
3762 "I'd like to--I really would," I said. "But I have a bad leg. I have to hold it in a
3763 certain position. I think I'd better sit down in the chair outside their door."
3764 He didn't know what the hell I was talking about, so all he said was "Oh" and took
3765 me up. Not bad, boy. It's funny. All you have to do is say something nobody understands
3766 and they'll do practically anything you want them to.
3767 I got off at our floor--limping like a bastard--and started walking over toward the
3768 Dicksteins' side. Then, when I heard the elevator doors shut, I turned around and went
<!-- [Page 85](arke:01KFYTAC8VQN3RRKC0SKNJEDZQ) -->
3769 over to our side. I was doing all right. I didn't even feel drunk anymore. Then I took out
3770 my door key and opened our door, quiet as hell. Then, very, very carefully and all, I went
3771 inside and closed the door. I really should've been a crook.
3772 It was dark as hell in the foyer, naturally, and naturally I couldn't turn on any
3773 lights. I had to be careful not to bump into anything and make a racket. I certainly knew I
3774 was home, though. Our foyer has a funny smell that doesn't smell like anyplace else. I
3775 don't know what the hell it is. It isn't cauliflower and it isn't perfume--I don't know what
3776 the hell it is--but you always know you're home. I started to take off my coat and hang it
3777 up in the foyer closet, but that closet's full of hangers that rattle like madmen when you
3778 open the door, so I left it on. Then I started walking very, very slowly back toward old
3779 Phoebe's room. I knew the maid wouldn't hear me because she had only one eardrum. She
3780 had this brother that stuck a straw down her ear when she was a kid, she once told me.
3781 She was pretty deaf and all. But my parents, especially my mother, she has ears like a
3782 goddam bloodhound. So I took it very, very easy when I went past their door. I even held
3783 my breath, for God's sake. You can hit my father over the head with a chair and he won't
3784 wake up, but my mother, all you have to do to my mother is cough somewhere in Siberia
3785 and she'll hear you. She's nervous as hell. Half the time she's up all night smoking
3786 cigarettes.
3787 Finally, after about an hour, I got to old Phoebe's room. She wasn't there, though.
3788 I forgot about that. I forgot she always sleeps in D.B.'s room when he's away in
3789 Hollywood or some place. She likes it because it's the biggest room in the house. Also
3790 because it has this big old madman desk in it that D.B. bought off some lady alcoholic in
3791 Philadelphia, and this big, gigantic bed that's about ten miles wide and ten miles long. I
3792 don't know where he bought that bed. Anyway, old Phoebe likes to sleep in D.B.'s room
- title
- Chunk 1