Chapter 23

Mr Antolini said to go over to his right away if I wanted. He was about the best teacher I ever had. He was the one who finally picked up James Castle when he jumped out the window. When I went back to D.B's room, old Phoebe had put some music on, so we danced for a while. Then Phoebe heard the front door open so I had to hide in the goddamn closet. When mother went out of the bedroom I decided to leave. Boy was I nervous. Phoebe leant me some of her Christmas dough because I was broke. I took my hunting hat out of my pocket and gave it to her. I'll bet she slept with it on.
It was a helluva lot easier getting out of the house than it was getting in. I didn't really care if they caught me to be honest. I almost wished they did, in a way.

Chapter 22

When she spoke to me again all she talked about was me getting kicked out of school, so I told her that it was the worst school that I ever went to and it was full of goddamn phonies and mean guys. I started thinking about this boy I knew at Elkton Hills. James Castle. He wouldn’t take back what he’d said about somebody, so when they all started on him, instead of taking back what he said; he jumped out of the window. All they did to guys that were in his room was expel them. They didn’t even go to jail.
Phoebe asked me what I wanted to be, and I said I wanted to be a person that caught the children when they fell off a cliff when they were playing. That’s all I’d do all day. I know it’s crazy. I decided to ring my old English up from Elkton Hills, Mr Antolini.

Chapter 21

When I got home I had to sneak in very goddamn carefully. It turned out that my parents weren’t even in. Phoebe seemed very excited to see me, but then she sort of found out that I got kicked out of Pencey and then put her head under the pillow and ignored me. All she said was that dad was going to kill me. I said nobody was gonna kill me, but you can’t reason with that kid sometimes. Finally I got up and went out into the living room to get some cigarettes.

Chapter 20

When he left I just kept sitting there getting drunk. Boy, I was sat at that goddamn bar till around one o’clock or something. I was drunk as a b*stard. When I got outside I gave Sally Hayes a buzz. I kept asking her if she wanted me to go around on Christmas Eve and trim the tree for her. She could tell I was drunk so she just kept saying yes and then hung up on me. I started to walk over to the park and see what the hell the ducks were doing. The something terrible happened. I dropped old Phoebe’s record and it broke into about fifty pieces. I damn near cried. When I went into the park it was very dark. After a while I decided that I was going to try and sneak home and see Phoebe.

Chapter 19

I got to the bar before old Luce did, so I ordered the drinks then watched the phonies for a while. Finally he showed up. Carl Luce. What a guy. All he ever used to do was give these s*x talks and all. When he arrived all he did was sit down and say he could only stay for a couple of minutes. I pointed out a flit at the bar but he just told me to grow up. I kept asking him about his s*x life but he didn’t seem interested in talking about it. All he said was that he was going out with this woman from Shanghai who was in her late thirties.

Chapter 18

I gave old Jane a buzz again but she didn't answer so I hung up. I rang Carl Luce instead. We agreed to meet up for drinks later on, so what I did was I went to the movies at Radio City. It was probably the worst thing I could have done. It was so putrid I couldn't take my eyes off it. There was this woman sat next to me that cried all the way through the goddamn thing. The phonier it got, the more she cried. All I can say is, don't go and see it if you don't want to puke all over yourself.