- end_line
- 5015
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-27T17:18:35.110Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 4984
- text
- 4771 have to write it on a goddam piece of paper, like everybody else. If we had any children,
4772 we'd hide them somewhere. We could buy them a lot of books and teach them how to
4773 read and write by ourselves.
4774 I got excited as hell thinking about it. I really did. I knew the part about
4775 pretending I was a deaf-mute was crazy, but I liked thinking about it anyway. But I really
4776 decided to go out West and all. All I wanted to do first was say good-by to old Phoebe.
4777 So all of a sudden, I ran like a madman across the street--I damn near got killed doing it,
4778 if you want to know the truth--and went in this stationery store and bought a pad and
4779 pencil. I figured I'd write her a note telling her where to meet me so I could say good-by
4780 to her and give her back her Christmas dough, and then I'd take the note up to her school
4781 and get somebody in the principal's office to give it to her. But I just put the pad and
4782 pencil in my pocket and started walking fast as hell up to her school--I was too excited to
4783 write the note right in the stationery store. I walked fast because I wanted her to get the
4784 note before she went home for lunch, and I didn't have any too much time.
4785 I knew where her school was, naturally, because I went there myself when I was a
4786 kid. When I got there, it felt funny. I wasn't sure I'd remember what it was like inside, but
4787 I did. It was exactly the same as it was when I went there. They had that same big yard
4788 inside, that was always sort of dark, with those cages around the light bulbs so they
4789 wouldn't break if they got hit with a ball. They had those same white circles painted all
4790 over the floor, for games and stuff. And those same old basketball rings without any nets-
4791 -just the backboards and the rings.
4792 Nobody was around at all, probably because it wasn't recess period, and it wasn't
4793 lunchtime yet. All I saw was one little kid, a colored kid, on his way to the bathroom. He
4794 had one of those wooden passes sticking out of his hip pocket, the same way we used to
4795 have, to show he had permission and all to go to the bathroom.
4796 I was still sweating, but not so bad any more. I went over to the stairs and sat
4797 down on the first step and took out the pad and pencil I'd bought. The stairs had the same
4798 smell they used to have when I went there. Like somebody'd just taken a leak on them.
4799 School stairs always smell like that. Anyway, I sat there and wrote this note:
4800 DEAR PHOEBE,
4801 I can't wait around till Wednesday any more so I will
- title
- Chunk 12