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- while he was hanging stuff up in the closet--that it could kill you. Naturally, I never told
him I thought he was a terrific whistler. I mean you don't just go up to somebody and say,
"You're a terrific whistler." But I roomed with him for about two whole months, even
though he bored me till I was half crazy, just because he was such a terrific whistler, the
best I ever heard. So I don't know about bores. Maybe you shouldn't feel too sorry if you
see some swell girl getting married to them. They don't hurt anybody, most of them, and
maybe they're secretly all terrific whistlers or something. Who the hell knows? Not me.
Finally, old Sally started coming up the stairs, and I started down to meet her. She
looked terrific. She really did. She had on this black coat and sort of a black beret. She
hardly ever wore a hat, but that beret looked nice. The funny part is, I felt like marrying
her the minute I saw her. I'm crazy. I didn't even like her much, and yet all of a sudden I
felt like I was in love with her and wanted to marry her. I swear to God I'm crazy. I admit
it.
"Holden!" she said. "It's marvelous to see you! It's been ages." She had one of
these very loud, embarrassing voices when you met her somewhere. She got away with it
because she was so damn good-looking, but it always gave me a pain in the ass.
"Swell to see you," I said. I meant it, too. "How are ya, anyway?"
"Absolutely marvelous. Am I late?"
I told her no, but she was around ten minutes late, as a matter of fact. I didn't give
a damn, though. All that crap they have in cartoons in the Saturday Evening Post and all,
showing guys on street corners looking sore as hell because their dates are late--that's
bunk. If a girl looks swell when she meets you, who gives a damn if she's late? Nobody.
"We better hurry," I said. "The show starts at two-forty." We started going down the
stairs to where the taxis are.
"What are we going to see?" she said.
"I don't know. The Lunts. It's all I could get tickets for."
"The Lunts! Oh, marvelous!" I told you she'd go mad when she heard it was for
the Lunts.
We horsed around a little bit in the cab on the way over to the theater. At first she
didn't want to, because she had her lipstick on and all, but I was being seductive as hell
and she didn't have any alternative. Twice, when the goddam cab stopped short in traffic,
I damn near fell off the seat. Those damn drivers never even look where they're going, I
swear they don't. Then, just to show you how crazy I am, when we were coming out of
this big clinch, I told her I loved her and all. It was a lie, of course, but the thing is, I
meant it when I said it. I'm crazy. I swear to God I am.
"Oh, darling, I love you too," she said. Then, right in the same damn breath, she
said, "Promise me you'll let your hair grow. Crew cuts are getting corny. And your hair's
so lovely."
Lovely my ass.
The show wasn't as bad as some I've seen. It was on the crappy side, though. It
was about five hundred thousand years in the life of this one old couple. It starts out when
they're young and all, and the girl's parents don't want her to marry the boy, but she
marries him anyway. Then they keep getting older and older. The husband goes to war,
and the wife has this brother that's a drunkard. I couldn't get very interested. I mean I
didn't care too much when anybody in the family died or anything. They were all just a
bunch of actors. The husband and wife were a pretty nice old couple--very witty and all--
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