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- sort of afraid she'd fall off the goddam horse, but I didn't say anything or do anything.
The thing with kids is, if they want to grab the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and
not say anything. If they fall off they fall off, but it's bad if you say anything to them.
When the ride was over she got off her horse and came over to me. "You ride
once, too, this time," she said.
"No, I'll just watch ya. I think I'll just watch," I said. I gave her some more of her
dough. "Here. Get some more tickets."
She took the dough off me. "I'm not mad at you any more," she said.
"I know. Hurry up--the thing's gonna start again."
Then all of a sudden she gave me a kiss. Then she held her hand out, and said,
"It's raining. It's starting to rain."
"I know."
Then what she did--it damn near killed me--she reached in my coat pocket and
took out my red hunting hat and put it on my head.
"Don't you want it?" I said.
"You can wear it a while."
"Okay. Hurry up, though, now. You're gonna miss your ride. You won't get your
own horse or anything."
She kept hanging around, though.
"Did you mean it what you said? You really aren't going away anywhere? Are
you really going home afterwards?" she asked me.
"Yeah," I said. I meant it, too. I wasn't lying to her. I really did go home
afterwards. "Hurry up, now," I said. "The thing's starting."
She ran and bought her ticket and got back on the goddam carrousel just in time.
Then she walked all the way around it till she got her own horse back. Then she got on it.
She waved to me and I waved back.
Boy, it began to rain like a bastard. In buckets, I swear to God. All the parents and
mothers and everybody went over and stood right under the roof of the carrousel, so they
wouldn't get soaked to the skin or anything, but I stuck around on the bench for quite a
while. I got pretty soaking wet, especially my neck and my pants. My hunting hat really
gave me quite a lot of protection, in a way; but I got soaked anyway. I didn't care, though.
I felt so damn happy all of sudden, the way old Phoebe kept going around and around. I
was damn near bawling, I felt so damn happy, if you want to know the truth. I don't know
why. It was just that she looked so damn nice, the way she kept going around and around,
in her blue coat and all. God, I wish you could've been there.
26
That's all I'm going to tell about. I could probably tell you what I did after I went
home, and how I got sick and all, and what school I'm supposed to go to next fall, after I
get out of here, but I don't feel like it. I really don't. That stuff doesn't interest me too
much right now.
A lot of people, especially this one psychoanalyst guy they have here, keeps
asking me if I'm going apply myself when I go back to school next September. It's such a
stupid question, in my opinion. I mean how do you know what you're going to do till you
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