Chapter 18

I thought about giving Jane a buzz, so I did. Only she didn’t answer. I gave old Carl Luce a buzz instead, he was 3 years older than me, I didn’t like him much, but I wanted to speak to someone. We made plans to meet for a drink at around 10 o’clock. I had a lot of time to kill so I went to see a movie at Radio City. It was probably the worst thing I could have done. The Rockettes’ Christmas stage show was on. It was so phoney. I used to go and watch it with Allie every year, we loved the drummer.

Then the picture started. It was boring as hell. I would tell you about it, but I might puke. The lady sat next to me cried al the way through the goddam picture. The phonier it got…the more she cried. She had a little kid with her who was bored as hell and wanted to go to the bathroom, but she just ignored him. It kills me when you see someone cry there eyes out over something as phoney as that and 9 times out of 10 their heartless bastards.

After it had finished I started to walk over to the Wicker Bar, where I was meeting Carl Luce. I started to think about war because the movie was about war and all. I couldn’t go to war, id rather be shot or something. I’m sort of glad they’ve got the atomic bomb invented. If there’s ever another war, I’m going to sit right the hell on top of it. Ill volunteer for it, I swear to God I will.