Properties
- end_line
- 1899
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T03:41:20.744Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 1849
- text
- was like dragging the Statue of Liberty around the floor. The only way I could even half
enjoy myself dragging her around was if I amused myself a little. So I told her I just saw
Gary Cooper, the movie star, on the other side of the floor.
"Where?" she asked me--excited as hell. "Where?"
"Aw, you just missed him. He just went out. Why didn't you look when I told
you?"
She practically stopped dancing, and started looking over everybody's heads to
see if she could see him. "Oh, shoot!" she said. I'd just about broken her heart-- I really
had. I was sorry as hell I'd kidded her. Some people you shouldn't kid, even if they
deserve it.
Here's what was very funny, though. When we got back to the table, old Marty
told the other two that Gary Cooper had just gone out. Boy, old Laverne and Bernice
nearly committed suicide when they heard that. They got all excited and asked Marty if
she'd seen him and all. Old Mart said she'd only caught a glimpse of him. That killed me.
The bar was closing up for the night, so I bought them all two drinks apiece quick
before it closed, and I ordered two more Cokes for myself. The goddam table was lousy
with glasses. The one ugly one, Laverne, kept kidding me because I was only drinking
Cokes. She had a sterling sense of humor. She and old Marty were drinking Tom
Collinses--in the middle of December, for God's sake. They didn't know any better. The
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blonde one, old Bernice, was drinking bourbon and water. She was really putting it away,
too. The whole three of them kept looking for movie stars the whole time. They hardly
talked--even to each other. Old Marty talked more than the other two. She kept saying
these very corny, boring things, like calling the can the "little girls' room," and she
thought Buddy Singer's poor old beat-up clarinet player was really terrific when he stood
up and took a couple of ice-cold hot licks. She called his clarinet a "licorice stick." Was
she corny. The other ugly one, Laverne, thought she was a very witty type. She kept
asking me to call up my father and ask him what he was doing tonight. She kept asking
me if my father had a date or not. Four times she asked me that--she was certainly witty.
Old Bernice, the blonde one, didn't say hardly anything at all. Every time I'd ask her
something, she said "What?" That can get on your nerves after a while.
All of a sudden, when they finished their drink, all three of them stood up on me
and said they had to get to bed. They said they were going to get up early to see the first
show at Radio City Music Hall. I tried to get them to stick around for a while, but they
wouldn't. So we said good-by and all. I told them I'd look them up in Seattle sometime, if
I ever got there, but I doubt if I ever will. Look them up, I mean.
With cigarettes and all, the check came to about thirteen bucks. I think they
should've at least offered to pay for the drinks they had before I joined them--I
wouldn't've let them, naturally, but they should've at least offered. I didn't care much,
though. They were so ignorant, and they had those sad, fancy hats on and all. And that
business about getting up early to see the first show at Radio City Music Hall depressed
me. If somebody, some girl in an awful-looking hat, for instance, comes all the way to
New York--from Seattle, Washington, for God's sake--and ends up getting up early in the
morning to see the goddam first show at Radio City Music Hall, it makes me so
depressed I can't stand it. I'd've bought the whole three of them a hundred drinks if only
they hadn't told me that.
I left the Lavender Room pretty soon after they did. They were closing it up
anyway, and the band had quit a long time ago. In the first place, it was one of those
places that are very terrible to be in unless you have somebody good to dance with, or
unless the waiter lets you buy real drinks instead of just Cokes. There isn't any night club
- title
- Chunk 5