chapter 20

I stayed in the bar and got drunk. I sat there till about one o’clock or so, getting drunk as a bastard. I started that stupid business with the bullet in my guts again. I left and stumbled over to a phone booth. I thought I would give Jane a buzz, but by the time I got there I didn’t feel like ringing Jane, I was to drunk I guess. So what I did was, I gave old Sally Hayes a buzz. We didn’t have much of a conversation, my fault; I was to drunk to even understand. After a bit we both hung up and I stayed in the booth for a while holding onto he phone so I wouldn’t pass out, I wasn’t feeling too good. So, I thought I’d walk to the duck pond in Central Park to see if the ducks were still around. As I just got into the park I dropped Phoebes goddam record, it broke into about 50 pieces. I damn near cried, it made me feel so terrible. I didn’t jus leave the pieces though, I picked them all up and put them in my pocket. They wasn’t any good but I didn’t want to just leave them. I must have been drunker than I thought because I couldn’t find the lagoon. When I finally found it, it was half frozen and half not and there were no ducks in sight. I was shivering like hell, I had little chunks of ice on the back of my head. I thought I might get pneumonia and die. I started to imagine the mob that would come to my funeral. It’d be just like Allies funeral with all the aunts and what not coming over. I wasn’t at Allies funeral though, just like he wont be at mine, because I was still at the hospital because of my hand.
Anyway, when the weathers nice m parents go and put a bunch of flowers on Allies grave. I used to go but I cut it out. It wasn’t too bad when the weather was nice but when it rained and everybody rushed to their cars to put the radio and heater on to got somewhere nice for dinner. Goddam crappy people. I wanted to speak to Phoebe, so I decided to risk going home. My parents would be asleep so I could sneak in and out without them knowing. So I got the hell out of the park, and went home. I walked all the way. It wasn’t too far and I wasn’t tires or even drunk anymore. It was just very cold and nobody around anywhere.