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 — but I couldn’t get too interested in them. For one thing, they kept drinking tea or some goddam thing all through the play. Every time you saw them, some butler was shoving some tea in front of them, or the wife was pouring it for somebody. And everybody kept coming in and going out all the time — you got dizzy watching people sit down and stand up. Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne were the old couple, and they were very good, but I didn’t like them much. They were different, though, I’ll say that. They didn’t act like people and they didn’t act like actors. It’s hard to explain. They acted more like they knew they were celebrities and all. I mean they were good, but they were too good. When one of them got finished making a speech, the other one said something very fast right after it. It was supposed to be like people really talking and interrupting each other and all. The trouble was, it was too much like people talking and interrupting each other. They acted a little bit the way old Ernie, down in the Village, plays the piano. If you do something too good, then, after a while, if you don’t watch it, you start showing off. And then you’re not as good any more. But anyway, they were the only ones in the show — the Lunts, I mean — that looked like they had any real brains. I have to admit it.
At the end of the first act we went out with all the other jerks for a cigarette. What a deal that was. You never saw so many phonies in all your life, everybody smoking their ears off and talking about the play so that everybody could hear and know how sharp they were. Some dopey movie actor was standing near us, having a cigarette. I don’t know his name, but he always plays the part of a guy in a war movie that gets yellow before it’s time to go over the top. He was with some gorgeous blonde, and the two of them were trying to be very blase and all, like as if he didn’t even know people were looking at him. Modest as hell. I got a big bang out of it. Old Sally didn’t talk much, except to rave about the Lunts, because she was busy rubbering and being charming. Then all of a sudden, she saw some jerk she knew on the other side of the lobby. Some guy in one of those very dark gray flannel suits and one of those checkered vests. Strictly Ivy League. Big deal. He was standing next to the wall, smoking himself to death and looking bored as hell. Old Sally kept saying, “I know that boy from somewhere.” She always knew somebody, any place you took her, or thought she did. She kept saying that till I got bored as hell, and I said to her, “Why don’t you go on over and give him a big soul kiss, if you know him? He’ll enjoy it.” She got sore when I said that. Finally, though, the jerk noticed her and came over and said hello. You should’ve seen the way they said hello. You’d have thought they hadn’t seen each other in twenty years. You’d have thought they’d taken baths in the same bathtub or something when they were little kids. Old buddyroos. It was nauseating. The funny part was, they probably met each other just once, at some phony party. Finally, when they were all done slobbering around, old Sally introduced us. His name was George something — I don’t even remember — and he went to Andover. Big, big deal. You should’ve seen him when old Sally asked him how he liked the play. He was the kind of a phony that have to give themselves room when they answer somebody’s question. He stepped back, and stepped right on the lady’s foot behind him. He probably broke every toe in her body. He said the play itself was no masterpiece, but that the Lunts, of course, were absolute angels. Angels. For Chrissake. Angels. That killed me. Then he and old Sally started talking about a lot of people they both knew. It was the phoniest conversation you ever heard in your life. They both kept thinking of places as fast as they could, then they’d think of somebody that lived there and mention their name. I was all set to puke when it was time to go sit down again. I really was. And then, when the next act was over, they continued their goddam boring conversation. They kept thinking of more places and more names of people that lived there. The worst part was, the jerk had one of those very phony, Ivy League voices, one of those very tired, snobby voices. He sounded just like a girl. He didn’t hesitate to horn in on my date, the bastard. I even thought for a minute that he was going to get in the goddam cab with us when the show was over, because he walked about two blocks with us, but he had to meet a bunch of phonies for cocktails, he said. I could see them all sitting around in some bar, with their goddam checkered vests, criticizing shows and books and women in those tired, snobby voices. They kill me, those guys.
I sort of hated old Sally by the time we got in the cab, after listening to that phony Andover bastard for about ten hours. I was all set to take her home and all — I really was — but she said, “I have a marvelous idea!” She was always having a marvelous idea. “Listen,” she said. “What time do you have to be home for dinner? I mean are you in a terrible hurry or anything? Do you have to be home any special time?”
“Me? No. No special time,” I said. Truer word was never spoken, boy. “Why?”
“Let’s go ice-skating at Radio City!”
That’s the kind of ideas she always had.
“Ice-skating at Radio City? You mean right now?”
“Just for an hour or so. Don’t you want to? If you don’t want to—”
“I didn’t say I didn’t want to,” I said. “Sure. If you want to.”
“Do you mean it? Don’t just say it if you don’t mean it. I mean I don’t give a darn, one way or the other.”
Not much she didn’t.
“You can rent those darling little skating skirts,” old Sally said. “Jeannette Cultz did it last week.”
That’s why she was so hot to go. She wanted to see herself in one of those little skirts that just come down over their butt and all.
So we went, and after they gave us our skates, they gave Sally this little blue butt-twitcher of a dress to wear. She really did look damn good in it, though. I have to admit it. And don’t think she didn’t know it. They kept walking ahead of me, so that I’d see how cute her little ass looked. It did look pretty cute, too. I have to admit it.
The funny part was, though, we were the worst skaters on the whole goddam rink. I mean the worst. And there were some lulus, too. Old Sally’s ankles kept bending in till they were practically on the ice. They not only looked stupid as hell, but they probably hurt like hell, too. I know mine did. Mine were killing me. We must’ve looked gorgeous. And what made it worse, there were at least a couple of hundred rubbernecks that didn’t have anything better to do than stand around and watch everybody falling all over themselves.
“Do you want to get a table inside and have a drink or something?” I said to her finally.
“That’s the most marvelous idea you’ve had all day,” the said. She was killing herself. It was brutal. I really felt sorry for her.
We took off our goddam skates and went inside this bar where you can get drinks and watch the skaters in just your stocking feet. As soon as we sat down, old Sally took off her gloves, and I gave her a cigarette. She wasn’t looking too happy. The waiter came up, and I ordered a Coke for her — she didn’t drink — and a Scotch and soda for myself, but the sonuvabitch wouldn’t bring me one, so I had a Coke, too. Then I sort of started lighting matches. I do that quite a lot when I’m in a certain mood. I sort of let them burn down till I can’t hold them any more, then I drop them in the ashtray. It’s a nervous habit.
Then all of a sudden, out of a clear blue sky, old Sally said, “Look. I have to know. Are you or aren’t you coming over to help me trim the tree Christmas Eve? I have to know.” She was still being snotty on account of her ankles when she was skating.
“I wrote you I would. You’ve asked me that about twenty times. Sure, I am.”
“I mean I have to know,” she said. She started looking all around the goddam room.
All of a sudden I quit lighting matches, and sort of leaned nearer to her over the table. I had quite a few topics on my mind. “Hey, Sally,” I said.
“What?” she said. She was looking at some girl on the other side of the room.
“Did you ever get fed up?” I said. “I mean did you ever get scared that everything was going to go lousy unless you did something? I mean do you like school, and all that stuff?”
“It’s a terrific bore.”
“I mean do you hate it? I know it’s a terrific bore, but do you hate it, is what I mean.”
“Well, I don’t exactly hate it. You always have to—”
“Well, I hate it. Boy, do I hate it,” I said. “But it isn’t just that. It’s everything. I hate living in New York and all. Taxicabs, and Madison Avenue buses, with the drivers and all always yelling at you to get out at the rear door, and being introduced to phony guys that call the Lunts angels, and going up and down in elevators when you just want to go outside, and guys fitting your pants all the time at Brooks, and people always—”
“Don’t shout, please,” old Sally said. Which was very funny, because I wasn’t even shouting.
“Take cars,” I said. I said it in this very quiet voice. “Take most people, they’re crazy about cars. They worry if they get a little scratch on them, and they’re always talking about how many miles they get to a gallon, and if they get a brand-new car already they start thinking about trading it in for one that’s even newer. I don’t even like
