第61章
《THE CATCHER IN THE RYE(麦田里的守望者英文版)》章节:第61章,宠文网网友提供全文无弹窗免费在线阅读。!
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She wouldn t take it off, though I tried pulling it off, but she's strong as hell. You
get tired fighting with her. Boy, if she wants to keep a pillow over her head, she keeps it.
"Phoebe, please. C'mon outa there," I kept saying. "C'mon, hey . . . Hey, Weatherfield.
C'mon out."
She wouldn't come out, though. You can't even reason with her sometimes.
Finally, I got up and went out in the living room and got some cigarettes out of the box
on the table and stuck some in my pocket. I was all out.
22
When I came back, she had the pillow off her head all right--I knew she would--
but she still wouldn't look at me, even though she was laying on her back and all. When I
came around the side of the bed and sat down again, she turned her crazy face the other
way. She was ostracizing the hell out of me. Just like the fencing team at Pencey when I
left all the goddam foils on the subway.
"How's old Hazel Weatherfield?" I said. "You write any new stories about her? I
got that one you sent me right in my suitcase. It's down at the station. It's very good."
"Daddy'll kill you."
Boy, she really gets something on her mind when she gets something on her mind.
"No, he won't. The worst he'll do, he'll give me hell again, and then he'll send me
to that goddam military school. That's all he'll do to me. And in the first place, I won't
even be around. I'll be away. I'll be--I'll probably be in Colorado on this ranch."
"Don't make me laugh. You can't even ride a horse."
"Who can't? Sure I can. Certainly I can. They can teach you in about two
minutes," I said. "Stop picking at that." She was picking at that adhesive tape on her arm.
"Who gave you that haircut?" I asked her. I just noticed what a stupid haircut somebody
gave her. It was way too short.
"None of your business," she said. She can be very snotty sometimes. She can be
quite snotty. "I suppose you failed in every single subject again," she said--very snotty. It
was sort of funny, too, in a way. She sounds like a goddam schoolteacher sometimes, and
she's only a little child.
"No, I didn't," I said. "I passed English." Then, just for the hell of it, I gave her a
pinch on the behind. It was sticking way out in the breeze, the way she was laying on her
side. She has hardly any behind. I didn't do it hard, but she tried to hit my hand anyway,
but she missed.
Then all of a sudden, she said, "Oh, why did you do it?" She meant why did I get
the ax again. It made me sort of sad, the way she said it.
"Oh, God, Phoebe, don't ask me. I'm sick of everybody asking me that," I said. "A
million reasons why. It was one of the worst schools I ever went to. It was full of
phonies. And mean guys. You never saw so many mean guys in your life. For instance, if
you were having a bull session in somebody's room, and somebody wanted to come in,
nobody'd let them in if they were some dopey, pimply guy. Everybody was always
locking their door when somebody wanted to come in. And they had this goddam secret
fraternity that I was too yellow not to join. There was this one pimply, boring guy, Robert
Ackley, that wanted to get in. He kept trying to join, and they wouldn't let him. Just
because he was boring and pimply. I don't even feel like talking about it. It was a stinking
school. Take my word."
Old Phoebe didn't say anything, but she was listen ing. I could tell by the back of
her neck that she was listening. She always listens when you tell her something. And the
funny part is she knows, half the time, what the hell you're talking about. She really does.
I kept talking about old Pencey. I sort of felt like it.
"Even the couple of nice teachers on the faculty, they were phonies, too," I said.
"There was this one old guy, Mr. Spencer. His wife was always giving you hot chocolate
and all that stuff, and they were really pretty nice. But you should've seen him when the
headmaster, old Thurmer, came in the history class and sat down in the back of the room.
He was always coming in and sitting down in the back of the room for about a half an
hour. He was supposed to be incognito or something. After a while, he'd be sitting back
there and then he'd start interrupting what old Spencer was saying to crack a lot of corny
jokes. Old Spencer'd practically kill himself chuckling and smiling and all, like as if
Thurmer was a goddam prince or something."
"Don't swear so much."
"It would've made you puke, I swear it would," I said. "Then, on Veterans' Day.
They have this day, Veterans' Day, that all the jerks that graduated from Pencey around
1776 come back and walk all over the place, with their wives and children and
everybody. You should've seen this one old guy that was about fifty. What he did was, he
came in our room and knocked on the door and asked us if we'd mind if he used the
bathroom. The bathroom was at the end of the corridor--I don't know why the hell he
asked us. You know what he said?