“Yeah, I guess so. I don’t know.”

“Did she tell you we used to play checkers all the time, or anything?”

“I don’t know. For Chrissake, I only just met her,” Stradlater said. He was finished combing his goddam gorgeous hair. He was putting away all his crumby toilet articles.

“Listen. Give her my regards, willya?”

“Okay,” Stradlater said, but I knew he probably wouldn’t. You take a guy like Stradlater, they never give your regards to people.

He went back to the room, but I stuck around in the can for a while, thinking about old Jane. Then I went back to the room, too.

Stradlater was putting on his tie, in front of the mirror, when I got there. He spent around half his goddam life in front of the mirror. I sat down in my chair and sort of watched him for a while.

“Hey,” I said. “Don’t tell her I got kicked out, willya?”

“Okay.”

That was one good thing about Stradlater. You didn’t have to explain every goddam little thing with him, the way you had to do with Ackley. Mostly, I guess, because he wasn’t too interested. That’s really why. Ackley, it was different. Ackley was a very nosy bastard.

He put on my hound’s-tooth jacket.

“Jesus, now, try not to stretch it all over the place” I said. I’d only worn it about twice.

“I won’t. Where the hell’s my cigarettes?”

“On the desk.” He never knew where he left anything. “Under your muffler.” He put them in his coat pocket—my coat pocket.

I pulled the peak of my hunting hat around to the front all of a sudden, for a change. I was getting sort of nervous, all of a sudden. I’m quite a nervous guy. “Listen, where ya going on your date with her?” I asked him. “Ya know yet?”

“I don’t know. New York, if we have time. She only signed out for nine-thirty, for Chrissake.”

I didn’t like the way he said it, so I said, “The reason she did that, she probably just didn’t know what a handsome, charming bastard you are. If she’d known, she probably would’ve signed out for nine-thirty in the morning.”

“Goddam right,” Stradlater said. You couldn’t rile him too easily. He was too conceited. “No kidding, now. Do that composition for me,” he said. He had his coat on, and he was all ready to go. “Don’t knock yourself out or anything, but just make it descriptive as hell. Okay?”

I didn’t answer him. I didn’t feel like it. All I said was, “Ask her if she still keeps all her kings in the back row.”

“Okay,” Stradlater said, but I knew he wouldn’t. “Take it easy, now.” He banged the hell out of the room.

I sat there for about a half hour after he left. I mean I just sat in my chair, not doing anything. I kept thinking about Jane, and about Stradlater having a date with her and all. It made me so nervous I nearly went crazy. I already told you what a sexy bastard Stradlater was.

All of a sudden, Ackley barged back in again, through the damn shower curtains, as usual. For once in my stupid life, I was really glad to see him. He took my mind off the other stuff.

He stuck around till around dinnertime, talking about all the guys at Pencey that he hated their guts, and squeezing this big pimple on his chin. He didn’t even use his handkerchief. I don’t even think the bastard had a handkerchief, if you want to know the truth. I never saw him use one, anyway.

We always had the same meal on Saturday nights at Pencey. It was supposed to be a big deal, because they gave you steak. I’ll bet a thousand bucks the reason they did that was because a lot of guys’ parents came up to school on Sunday, and old Thurmer probably figured everybody’s mother would ask their darling boy what he had for dinner last night, and he’d say, “Steak.” What a racket. You should’ve seen the steaks. They were these little hard, dry jobs that you could hardly even cut. You always got these very lumpy mashed potatoes on steak night, and for dessert you got Brown Betty, which nobody ate, except maybe the little kids in the lower school that didn’t know any better—and guys like Ackley that ate everything.

It was nice, though, when we got out of the dining room. There were about three inches of snow on the ground, and it was still coming down like a madman. It looked pretty as hell, and we all started throwing snowballs and horsing around all over the place. It was very childish, but everybody was really enjoying themselves.

I didn’t have a date or anything, so I and this friend of mine, Mal Brossard, that was on the wrestling team, decided we’d take a bus into Agerstown and have a hamburger and maybe see a lousy movie. Neither of us felt like sitting around on our ass all night. I asked Mal if he minded if Ackley came along with us. The reason I asked was because Ackley never did anything on Saturday night, except stay in his room and squeeze his pimples or something. Mal said he didn’t mind but that he wasn’t too crazy about the idea. He didn’t like Ackley much. Anyway, we both went to our rooms to get ready and all, and while I was putting on my galoshes and crap, I yelled over and asked old Ackley if he wanted to go to the movies. He could hear me all right through the shower curtains, but he didn’t answer me right away. He was the kind of a guy that hates to answer you right away. Finally he came over, through the goddam curtains, and stood on the shower ledge and asked who was going besides me. He always had to know who was going. I swear, if that guy was shipwrecked somewhere, and you rescued him in a goddam boat, he’d want to know who the guy was that was rowing it before he’d even get in. I told him Mal Brossard was going. He said, “That bastard… All right. Wait a second.” You’d think he was doing you a big favor.

It took him about five hours to get ready. While he was doing it, I went over to my window and opened it and packed a snowball with my bare hands. The snow was very good for packing. I didn’t throw it at anything, though. I started to throw it. At a car that was parked across the street. But I changed my mind. The car looked so nice and white. Then I started to throw it at a hydrant, but that looked too nice and white, too. Finally I didn’t throw it at anything. All I did was close the window and walk around the room with the snowball, packing it harder. A little while later, I still had it with me when I and Brossnad and Ackley got on the bus. The bus driver opened the doors and made me throw it out. I told him I wasn’t going to chuck it at anybody, but he wouldn’t believe me. People never believe you.

Brossard and Ackley both had seen the picture that was playing, so all we did, we just had a couple of hamburgers and played the pinball machine for a little while, then took the bus back to Pencey. I didn’t care about not seeing the movie, anyway. It was supposed to be a comedy, with Cary Grant in it, and all that crap. Besides, I’d been to the movies with Brossard and Ackley before. They both laughed like hyenas at stuff that wasn’t even funny. I didn’t even enjoy sitting next to them in the movies.

It was only about a quarter to nine when we got back to the dorm. Old Brossard was a bridge fiend, and he started looking around the dorm for a game. Old Ackley parked himself in my room, just for a change. Only, instead of sitting on the arm of Stradlater’s chair, he laid down on my bed, with his face right on my pillow and all. He started talking in this very monotonous voice, and picking at all his pimples. I dropped about a thousand hints, but I couldn’t get rid of him. All he did was keep talking in this very monotonous voice about some babe he was supposed to have had sexual intercourse with the summer before. He’d already told me about it about a hundred times. Every time he told it, it was different. One minute he’d be giving it to her in his cousin’s Buick, the next minute he’d be giving it to her under some boardwalk. It was all a lot of crap, naturally. He was a virgin if ever I saw one. I doubt if he ever even gave anybody a feel. Anyway, finally I had to come right out and tell him that I had to write a composition for Stradlater, and that he had to clear the hell out, so I could concentrate. He finally did, but he took his time about it, as usual. After he left, I put on my pajamas and bathrobe and my old hunting hat, and started writing the composition.