“What?” he said. He always made you say everything twice.
“Nobody won,” I said. I sneaked a look to see what he was fiddling around with on my chiffonier. He was looking at this picture of this girl I used to go around with in New York, Sally Hayes. He must’ve picked up that goddam picture and looked at it at least five thousand times since I got it. He always put it back in the wrong place, too, when he was finished. He did it on purpose. You could tell.
“Nobody won,” he said. “How come?”
“I left the goddam foils and stuff on the subway.” I still didn’t look up at him.
“On the subway, for Chrissake! Ya lost them, ya mean?”
“We got on the wrong subway. I had to keep getting up to look at a goddam map on the wall.”
He came over and stood right in my light. “Hey,” I said. “I’ve read this same sentence about twenty times since you came in.”
Anybody else except Ackley would’ve taken the goddam hint. Not him, though. “Think they’ll make ya pay for em?” he said.
“I don’t know, and I don’t give a damn. How ’bout sitting down or something, Ackley kid? You’re right in my goddam light.” He didn’t like it when you called him “Ackley kid.” He was always telling me I was a goddam kid, because I was sixteen and he was eighteen. It drove him mad when I called him “Ackley kid.”
He kept standing there. He was exactly the kind of a guy that wouldn’t get out of your light when you asked him to. He’d do it, finally, but it took him a lot longer if you asked him to. “What the hellya reading?” he said.
“Goddam book.”
He shoved my book back with his hand so that he could see the name of it. “Any good?” he said.
“This sentence I’m reading is terrific.” I can be quite sarcastic when I’m in the mood. He didn’t get it, though. He started walking around the room again, picking up all my personal stuff, and Stradlater’s. Finally, I put my book down on the floor. You couldn’t read anything with a guy like Ackley around. It was impossible.
I slid way the hell down in my chair and watched old Ackley making himself at home. I was feeling sort of tired from the trip to New York and all, and I started yawning. Then I started horsing around a little bit. Sometimes I horse around quite a lot, just to keep from getting bored. What I did was, I pulled the old peak of my hunting hat around to the front, then pulled it way down over my eyes. That way, I couldn’t see a goddam thing. “I think I’m going blind,” I said in this very hoarse voice. “Mother darling, everything’s getting so dark in here.”
“You’re nuts. I swear to God,” Ackley said.
“Mother darling, give me your hand, Why won’t you give me your hand?”
“For Chrissake, grow up.”
I started groping around in front of me, like a blind guy, but without getting up or anything. I kept saying, “Mother darling, why won’t you give me your hand?” I was only horsing around, naturally. That stuff gives me a bang sometimes. Besides, I know it annoyed hell out of old Ackley. He always brought out the old sadist in me. I was pretty sadistic with him quite often. Finally, I quit, though. I pulled the peak around to the back again, and relaxed.
“Who belongs this?” Ackley said. He was holding my roommate’s knee supporter up to show me. That guy Ackley’d pick up anything. He’d even pick up your jock strap or something. I told him it was Stradlater’s. So he chucked it on Stradlater’s bed. He got it off Stradlater’s chiffonier, so he chucked it on the bed.
He came over and sat down on the arm of Stradlater’s chair. He never sat down in a chair. Just always on the arm. “Where the hellya get that hat?” he said.
“New York.”
“How much?”
“A buck.”
“You got robbed.” He started cleaning his goddam fingernails with the end of a match. He was always cleaning his fingernails. It was funny, in a way. His teeth were always mossy-looking, and his ears were always dirty as hell, but he was always cleaning his fingernails. I guess he thought that it made him a very neat guy. He took another look at my hat while he was cleaning them. “Up home we wear a hat like that to shoot deer in, for Chrissake,” he said. “That’s a deer shooting hat.”
“Like hell it is.” I took it off and looked at it. I sort of closed one eye, like I was taking aim at it. “This is a people shooting hat,” I said. “I shoot people in this hat.”
“Your folks know you got kicked out yet?”
“Nope.”
“Where the hell’s Stradlater at, anyway?”
“Down at the game. He’s got a date.” I yawned. I was yawning all over the place. For one thing, the room was too damn hot. It made you sleepy. At Pencey, you either froze to death or died of the heat.
“The great Stradlater,” Ackley said. “Hey. Lend me your scissors a second, willya? Ya got ’em handy?”
“No. I packed them already. They’re way in the top of the closet.”
“Get ’em a second, willya?” Ackley said, “I got this hangnail I want to cut off.”
He didn’t care if you’d packed something or not and had it way in the top of the closet. I got them for him though. I nearly got killed doing it, too. The second I opened the closet door, Stradlater’s tennis racket — in its wooden press and all — fell right on my head. It made a big clunk, and it hurt like hell. It damn near killed old Ackley, though. He started laughing in this very high falsetto voice. He kept laughing the whole time I was taking down my suitcase and getting the scissors out for him. Something like that — a guy getting hit on the head with a rock or something — tickled the pants off Ackley. “You have a damn good sense of humor, Ackley kid,” I told him. “You know that?” I handed him the scissors. “Lemme be your manager. I’ll get you on the goddam radio.” I sat down in my chair again, and he started cutting his big horny-looking nails. “How ’bout using the table or something?” I said. “Cut ’em over the table, willya? I don’t feel like walking on your crumby nails in my bare feet tonight.” He kept right on cutting them over the floor, though. What lousy manners. I mean it.
“Who’s Stradlater’s date?” he said. He was always keeping tabs on who Stradlater was dating, even though he hated Stradlater’s guts.
“I don’t know. Why?”
“No reason. Boy, I can’t stand that sonuvabitch. He’s one sonuvabitch I really can’t stand.”
“He’s crazy about you. He told me he thinks you’re a goddam prince,” I said. I call people a “prince” quite often when I’m horsing around. It keeps me from getting bored or something.
“He’s got this superior attitude all the time,” Ackley said. “I just can’t stand the sonuvabitch. You’d think he —”
“Do you mind cutting your nails over the table, hey?” I said. “I’ve asked you about fifty—”
“He’s got this goddam superior attitude all the time,” Ackley said. “I don’t even think the sonuvabitch is intelligent. He thinks he is. He thinks he’s about the most—”
“Ackley! For Chrissake. Willya please cut your crumby nails over the table? I’ve asked you fifty times.”
He started cutting his nails over the table, for a change. The only way he ever did anything was if you yelled at him.
I watched him for a while. Then I said, “The reason you’re sore at Stradlater is because he said that stuff about brushing your teeth once in a while. He didn’t mean to insult you, for cryin’ out loud. He didn’t say it right or anything, but he didn’t mean anything insulting. All he meant was you’d look better and feel better if you sort of brushed your teeth once in a while.”
“I brush my teeth. Don’t gimme that.”
“No, you don’t. I’ve seen you, and you don’t,” I said. I didn’t say it nasty, though. I felt sort of sorry for him, in a way. I mean it isn’t too nice, naturally, if somebody tells you you don’t brush your teeth. “Stradlater’s all right. He’s not too bad,” I said. “You don’t know him, that’s the trouble.”
“I still say he’s a sonuvabitch. He’s a conceited sonuvabitch.”
“He’s conceited, but he’s very generous in some things. He really is,” I said. “Look. Suppose, for instance, Stradlater was wearing a tie or something that you liked. Say he had a tie on that you liked a helluva lot — I’m just giving you an example, now. You know what he’d do? He’d probably take it off and give it ta you. He really would. Or — you know what he’d do? He’d leave it on your bed or something. But he’d give you the goddam tie. Most guys would probably just—”
“Hell,” Ackley said. “If I had his dough, I would, too.”
“No, you wouldn’t.” I shook my head. “No, you wouldn’t, Ackley kid. If you had his dough, you’d be one of the
