my whole goddam life. I swear.
I didn’t know what the hell to talk about while I was waiting for the elevator, and he kept standing there, so I said, “I’m gonna start reading some good books. I really am.” I mean you had to say something. It was very embarrassing.
“You grab your bags and scoot right on back here again. I’ll leave the door unlatched.”
“Thanks a lot,” I said. “G’by!” The elevator was finally there. I got in and went down. Boy, I was shaking like a madman. I was sweating, too. When something perverty like that happens, I start sweating like a bastard. That kind of stuff’s happened to me about twenty times since I was a kid. I can’t stand it.
25
When I got outside, it was just getting light out. It was pretty cold, too, but it felt good because I was sweating so much.
I didn’t know where the hell to go. I didn’t want to go to another hotel and spend all Phoebe’s dough. So finally all I did was I walked over to Lexington and took the subway down to Grand Central. My bags were there and all, and I figured I’d sleep in that crazy waiting room where all the benches are. So that’s what I did. It wasn’t too bad for a while because there weren’t many people around and I could stick my feet up. But I don’t feel much like discussing it. It wasn’t too nice. Don’t ever try it. I mean it. It’ll depress you.
I only slept till around nine o’clock because a million people started coming in the waiting room and I had to take my feet down. I can’t sleep so hot if I have to keep my feet on the floor. So I sat up. I still had that headache. It was even worse. And I think I was more depressed than I ever was in my whole life.
I didn’t want to, but I started thinking about old Mr. Antolini and I wondered what he’d tell Mrs. Antolini when she saw I hadn’t slept there or anything. That part didn’t worry me too much, though, because I knew Mr. Antolini was very smart and that he could make up something to tell her. He could tell her I’d gone home or something. That part didn’t worry me much. But what did worry me was the part about how I’d woke up and found him patting me on the head and all. I mean I wondered if just maybe I was wrong about thinking he was making a flitty pass at me. I wondered if maybe he just liked to pat guys on the head when they’re asleep. I mean how can you tell about that stuff for sure? You can’t. I even started wondering if maybe I should’ve got my bags and gone back to his house, the way I’d said I would. I mean I started thinking that even if he was a flit he certainly’d been very nice to me. I thought how he hadn’t minded it when I’d called him up so late, and how he’d told me to come right over if I felt like it. And how he went to all that trouble giving me that advice about finding out the size of your mind and all, and how he was the only guy that’d even gone near that boy James Castle I told you about when he was dead. I thought about all that stuff. And the more I thought about it, the more depressed I got. I mean I started thinking maybe I should’ve gone back to his house. Maybe he was only patting my head just for the hell of it. The more I thought about it, though, the more depressed and screwed up about it I got. What made it even worse, my eyes were sore as hell. They felt sore and burny from not getting too much sleep. Besides that, I was getting sort of a cold, and I didn’t even have a goddam handkerchief with me. I had some in my suitcase, but I didn’t feel like taking it out of that strong box and opening it up right in public and all.
There was this magazine that somebody’d left on the bench next to me, so I started reading it, thinking it’d make me stop thinking about Mr. Antolini and a million other things for at least a little while. But this damn article I started reading made me feel almost worse. It was all about hormones. It described how you should look, your face and eyes and all, if your hormones were in good shape, and I didn’t look that way at all. I looked exactly like the guy in the article with lousy hormones. So I started getting worried about my hormones. Then I read this other article about how you can tell if you have cancer or not. It said if you had any sores in your mouth that didn’t heal pretty quickly, it was a sign that you probably had cancer. I’d had this sore on the inside of my lip for about two weeks. So figured I was getting cancer. That magazine was some little cheerer upper. I finally quit reading it and went outside for a walk. I figured I’d be dead in a couple of months because I had cancer. I really did. I was even positive I would be. It certainly didn’t make me feel too gorgeous. It’sort of looked like it was going to rain, but I went for this walk anyway. For one thing, I figured I ought to get some breakfast. I wasn’t at all hungry, but I figured I ought to at least eat something. I mean at least get something with some vitamins in it. So I started walking way over east, where the pretty cheap restaurants are, because I didn’t want to spend a lot of dough.
While I was walking, I passed these two guys that were unloading this big Christmas tree off a truck. One guy kept saying to the other guy, “Hold the sonuvabitch up! Hold it up, for Chrissake!” It certainly was a gorgeous way to talk about a Christmas tree. It was sort of funny, though, in an awful way, and I started to sort of laugh. It was about the worst thing I could’ve done, because the minute I started to laugh I thought I was going to vomit. I really did. I even started to, but it went away. I don’t know why. I mean I hadn’t eaten anything unsanitary or like that and usually I have quite a strong stomach. Anyway, I got over it, and I figured I’d feel better if I had something to eat. So I went in this very cheap-looking restaurant and had doughnuts and coffee. Only, I didn’t eat the doughnuts. I couldn’t swallow them too well. The thing is, if you get very depressed about something, it’s hard as hell to swallow. The waiter was very nice, though. He took them back without charging me. I just drank the coffee. Then I left and started walking over toward Fifth Avenue.
It was Monday and all, and pretty near Christmas, and all the stores were open. So it wasn’t too bad walking on Fifth Avenue. It was fairly Christmasy. All those scraggy-looking Santa Clauses were standing on corners ringing those bells, and the Salvation Army girls, the ones that don’t wear any lipstick or anything, were tinging bells too. I sort of kept looking around for those two nuns I’d met at breakfast the day before, but I didn’t see them. I knew I wouldn’t, because they’d told me they’d come to New York to be schoolteachers, but I kept looking for them anyway. Anyway, it was pretty Christmasy all of a sudden. A million little kids were downtown with their mothers, getting on and off buses and coming in and out of stores. I wished old Phoebe was around. She’s not little enough any more to go stark staring mad in the toy department, but she enjoys horsing around and looking at the people. The Christmas before last I took her downtown shopping with me. We had a helluva time. I think it was in Bloomingdale’s. We went in the shoe department and we pretended she — old Phoebe — wanted to get a pair of those very high storm shoes, the kind that have about a million holes to lace up. We had the poor salesman guy going crazy. Old Phoebe tried on about twenty pairs, and each time the poor guy had to lace one shoe all the way up. It was a dirty trick, but it killed old Phoebe. We finally bought a pair of moccasins and charged them. The salesman was very nice about it. I think he knew we were horsing around, because old Phoebe always starts giggling.
Anyway, I kept walking and walking up Fifth Avenue, without any tie on or anything. Then all of a sudden, something very spooky started happening. Every time I came to the end of a block and stepped off the goddam curb, I had this feeling that I’d never get to the other side of the street. I thought I’d just go down, down, down, and nobody’d ever see me again. Boy, did it scare me. You can’t imagine. I started sweating like a bastard — my whole shirt and underwear and everything. Then I started doing something else. Every time I’d get to the end of a block I’d make believe I was talking to my brother Allie. I’d say to him, “Allie, don’t let me disappear. Allie, don’t let me disappear. Allie, don’t let me disappear. Please, Allie.” And then when I’d reach the other side of the street without disappearing, I’d thank him. Then it would start all over again as soon as I got to the next corner. But I kept going and all. I was sort of afraid to stop, I think — I don’t remember, to tell you the truth. I know I didn’t stop till I was way up in the Sixties, past the zoo and all. Then I sat down on this bench. I could hardly get my breath, and I was still sweating like a bastard. I sat there, I guess, for about an hour. Finally, what I decided I’d do, I decided I’d go away. I decided I’d never go home again and I’d never go away to another school again. I decided I’d just see old Phoebe and sort of say good-by to her and all, and give her back her Christmas dough, and then I’d start hitchhiking my way out West. What I’d do, I figured, I’d go down to the Holland Tunnel and bum a ride, and then I’d bum another one, and another one, and another one, and in a few days I’d be somewhere out West where it was very pretty and sunny and where nobody’d know me and I’d get a job. I figured I could get a job at a filling station somewhere, putting gas and oil in people’s cars. I didn’t care what kind of job it was, though. Just so people didn’t know me and I didn’t know anybody. I thought what I’d do was, I’d pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes. That way I wouldn’t have to have any goddam stupid useless conversations with anybody. If anybody wanted to tell me something, they’d have to write it on a piece of paper and shove it over to me. They’d get bored as hell doing that after a while, and then I’d be through with having conversations for the rest of my life. Everybody’d think I was just
