第56章
《THE CATCHER IN THE RYE(麦田里的守望者英文版)》章节:第56章,宠文网网友提供全文无弹窗免费在线阅读。!
"Go home, Mac, like a good guy. Go home and hit the sack."
"No home to go to. No kidding--you need a manager?"
He didn't answer me. He just went out. He was all through combing his hair and
patting it and all, so he left. Like Stradlater. All these handsome guys are the same. When
they're done combing their goddam hair, they beat it on you.
When I finally got down off the radiator and went out to the hat-check room, I
was crying and all. I don't know why, but I was. I guess it was because I was feeling so
damn depressed and lonesome. Then, when I went out to the checkroom, I couldn't find
my goddam check. The hat-check girl was very nice about it, though. She gave me my
coat anyway. And my "Little Shirley Beans" record--I still had it with me and all. I gave
her a buck for being so nice, but she wouldn't take it. She kept telling me to go home and
go to bed. I sort of tried to make a date with her for when she got through working, but
she wouldn't do it. She said she was old enough to be my mother and all. I showed her
my goddam gray hair and told her I was forty-two--I was only horsing around, naturally.
She was nice, though. I showed her my goddam red hunting hat, and she liked it. She
made me put it on before I went out, because my hair was still pretty wet. She was all
right.
I didn't feel too drunk any more when I went outside, but it was getting very cold
out again, and my teeth started chattering like hell. I couldn't make them stop. I walked
over to Madison Avenue and started to wait around for a bus because I didn't have hardly
any money left and I had to start economizing on cabs and all. But I didn't feel like
getting on a damn bus. And besides, I didn't even know where I was supposed to go. So
what I did, I started walking over to the park. I figured I'd go by that little lake and see
what the hell the ducks were doing, see if they were around or not, I still didn't know if
they were around or not. It wasn't far over to the park, and I didn't have anyplace else
special to go to--I didn't even know where I was going to sleep yet--so I went. I wasn't
tired or anything. I just felt blue as hell.
Then something terrible happened just as I got in the park. I dropped old Phoebe's
record. It broke-into about fifty pieces. It was in a big envelope and all, but it broke
en8848
anyway. I damn near cried, it made me feel so terrible, but all I did was, I took the pieces
out of the envelope and put them in my coat pocket. They weren't any good for anything,
but I didn't feel like just throwing them away. Then I went in the park. Boy, was it dark.
I've lived in New York all my life, and I know Central Park like the back of my
hand, because I used to roller-skate there all the time and ride my bike when I was a kid,
but I had the most terrific trouble finding that lagoon that night. I knew right where it
was--it was right near Central Park South and all--but I still couldn't find it. I must've
been drunker than I thought. I kept walking and walking, and it kept getting darker and
darker and spookier and spookier. I didn't see one person the whole time I was in the
park. I'm just as glad. I probably would've jumped about a mile if I had. Then, finally, I
found it. What it was, it was partly frozen and partly not frozen. But I didn't see any
ducks around. I walked all around the whole damn lake--I damn near fell in once, in fact-
-but I didn't see a single duck. I thought maybe if there were any around, they might be
asleep or something near the edge of the water, near the grass and all. That's how I nearly
fell in. But I couldn't find any.
Finally I sat down on this bench, where it wasn't so goddam dark. Boy, I was still
shivering like a bastard, and the back of my hair, even though I had my hunting hat on,
was sort of full of little hunks of ice. That worried me. I thought probably I'd get
pneumonia and die. I started picturing millions of jerks coming to my funeral and all. My
grandfather from Detroit, that keeps calling out the numbers of the streets when you ride
on a goddam bus with him, and my aunts--I have about fifty aunts--and all my lousy
cousins. What a mob'd be there. They all came when Allie died, the whole goddam stupid
bunch of them. I have this one stupid aunt with halitosis that kept saying how peaceful he
looked lying there, D.B. told me. I wasn't there. I was still in the hospital. I had to go to
the hospital and all after I hurt my hand. Anyway, I kept worrying that I was getting
pneumonia, with all those hunks of ice in my hair, and that I was going to die. I felt sorry
as hell for my mother and father. Especially my mother, because she still isn't over my
brother Allie yet. I kept picturing her not knowing what to do with all my suits and
athletic equipment and all. The only good thing, I knew she wouldn't let old Phoebe come
to my goddam funeral because she was only a little kid. That was the only good part.
Then I thought about the whole bunch of them sticking me in a goddam cemetery and all,
with my name on this tombstone and all. Surrounded by dead guys. Boy, when you're
dead, they really fix you up. I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to
just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam
cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and
all that crap. Who wants flowers when you're dead?