Chapter 9

The first thing I did when I got off the train was I went into the phone booth. I felt like giving someone a buzz, but I couldn't think of anyone to call up. After about twenty minutes of thinking of something to call I came out of the booth. I went over to the tunnel where the cabs are and got a cab. After a while I asked the driver if he knew where the ducks in that lagoon near Central Park South went in winter. He turned around and looked at me like I was a goddamn madman.
He dropped me at Endmont Hotel. I'd put on my hunting cap on when I was in the cab. Just for the fun of it. But I took it off before I went to check in. I didn't know then that the goddamn hotel was full of perverts and morons. When I was in my room I went and looked out of the window and saw this gray-haired guy do something you wouldn't believe if I told you. He put his suitcase on the bed and took out all these women's clothes - then he started dressing up and goddamn walking around in them smoking a cigarette like a woman does.
Then, in another window, I saw a woman and a man squirting water out of their goddamn mouths at each other and laughing hysterically.
After a while I sat down and smoke a couple of cigarettes. I decided to ring a girl up whose number I got off Eddie Birdsell at a party last summer. She was the type of girl who didn't mind doing it once in a while. When she answered she didn't sound too friendly that I'd rang her up that late at night. I explained that I was a friend of Eddie's and then asked if she wanted to meet up for cocktails or something. She said it was too goddamn late but we could meet up tomorrow. I said that tonight was the only night I could meet up and then we hung up. I shouldn't have said that. Boy, I really fouled that up.