Chapter 11

I had old Jane Gallagher on the brain again. I was sitting in the lobby in a vomity-looking chair and thought about her and Stradlater, I was pretty damn sure he hadn’t given her the time – I know old Jane like a book. I really got to know her quite intimately, it wasn’t anything physical or anything. You don’t have to get too sexy to get to know a girl.

She used to have a dog that relieved himself on our lawn, that’s how I got to know her. I saw her by the pool a couple of days later and had a hell of a time convincing her that I didn’t give a goddam where her dog relieved himself. I improved her golf immensely, I’m a pretty good golfer I was almost once in a movie short, but I don’t like movies so I changed my mind.

Jane wasn’t strictly beautiful, she knocked me out though. She was the only one, outside my family that I showed Allie’s baseball mitt to. I told her quite a lot about Allie, even thought she had never met him she was interested in that kind of stuff. My mother didn’t think Jane was pretty. I just liked the way she looked, that’s all.
We got close to necking one afternoon. We were playing checkers in her porch and this booze hound her mum was married to came in. he kept asking her where the cigarettes were but she ignored him. When he went out a tear rolled down her cheek, it bothered the hell out of me. I practically sat down on her lap. Then she really started to cry and before I knew I was kissing her all over – her eyes, her nose, her forehead and her ears, everywhere apart from her mouth. That was the closest we got to necking. I never did find out what the hell was the matter. I held hands with her all the time. She was terrific to hold hands with. You never even worried if your hand was sweaty or not with Jane. All you knew was, you were happy. She put her hand on the back of my neck in a move once, if a girl’s quite young and she does that, it’s so pretty it just about kills you.

Anyway, that’s what I was thinking while I sat in the lobby. There was hardly anyone in the lobby anymore. All of a sudden I felt like getting the hell out of the place. I got my coat and got a cab. I told the driver to take me to Ernie’s, a nightclub I used to go to with my brother D.B. Ernie’s a terrific snob that doesn’t talk to you unless you’re a big shot or something. I certainly like to hear him play the piano.