{"id":"01KG076JST7XS7D832R7ZDRKVY","cid":"bafkreieuihre6milghe4grixw2lr4iq4r6leswrfmf2m6juu3mrzetuso4","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":1862,"extracted_at":"2026-01-27T17:14:41.545Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 9","source_file":"01KFYTG9MG93RTB6YAW34V48XG","start_line":1814,"text":"  1737\tbit, if they play a fast one? Not corny jitterbug, not jump or anything--just nice and easy.\n  1738\tEverybody'll all sit down when they play a fast one, except the old guys and the fat guys,\n  1739\tand we'll have plenty of room. Okay?\"\n  1740\t\"It's immaterial to me,\" she said. \"Hey--how old are you, anyhow?\"\n  1741\tThat annoyed me, for some reason. \"Oh, Christ. Don't spoil it,\" I said. \"I'm\n  1742\ttwelve, for Chrissake. I'm big for my age.\"\n\n<!-- [Page 40](arke:01KFYTAC5YWJTH54X209NFJ7HQ) -->\n  1743\t\"Listen. I toleja about that. I don't like that type language,\" she said. \"If you're\n  1744\tgonna use that type language, I can go sit down with my girl friends, you know.\"\n  1745\tI apologized like a madman, because the band was starting a fast one. She started\n  1746\tjitterbugging with me-- but just very nice and easy, not corny. She was really good. All\n  1747\tyou had to do was touch her. And when she turned around, her pretty little butt twitched\n  1748\tso nice and all. She knocked me out. I mean it. I was half in love with her by the time we\n  1749\tsat down. That's the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty, even if\n  1750\tthey're not much to look at, or even if they're sort of stupid, you fall half in love with\n  1751\tthem, and then you never know where the hell you are. Girls. Jesus Christ. They can\n  1752\tdrive you crazy. They really can.\n  1753\tThey didn't invite me to sit down at their table-- mostly because they were too\n  1754\tignorant--but I sat down anyway. The blonde I'd been dancing with's name was Bernice\n  1755\tsomething--Crabs or Krebs. The two ugly ones' names were Marty and Laverne. I told\n  1756\tthem my name was Jim Steele, just for the hell of it. Then I tried to get them in a little\n  1757\tintelligent conversation, but it was practically impossible. You had to twist their arms.\n  1758\tYou could hardly tell which was the stupidest of the three of them. And the whole three\n  1759\tof them kept looking all around the goddam room, like as if they expected a flock of\n  1760\tgoddam movie stars to come in any minute. They probably thought movie stars always\n  1761\thung out in the Lavender Room when they came to New York, instead of the Stork Club\n  1762\tor El Morocco and all. Anyway, it took me about a half hour to find out where they all\n  1763\tworked and all in Seattle. They all worked in the same insurance office. I asked them if\n  1764\tthey liked it, but do you think you could get an intelligent answer out of those three\n  1765\tdopes? I thought the two ugly ones, Marty and Laverne, were sisters, but they got very\n  1766\tinsulted when I asked them. You could tell neither one of them wanted to look like the\n  1767\tother one, and you couldn't blame them, but it was very amusing anyway.\n  1768\tI danced with them all--the whole three of them--one at a time. The one ugly one,\n  1769\tLaverne, wasn't too bad a dancer, but the other one, old Marty, was murder. Old Marty\n  1770\twas like dragging the Statue of Liberty around the floor. The only way I could even half\n  1771\tenjoy myself dragging her around was if I amused myself a little. So I told her I just saw\n  1772\tGary Cooper, the movie star, on the other side of the floor.\n  1773\t\"Where?\" she asked me--excited as hell. \"Where?\"\n  1774\t\"Aw, you just missed him. He just went out. Why didn't you look when I told\n  1775\tyou?\"\n  1776\tShe practically stopped dancing, and started looking over everybody's heads to\n  1777\tsee if she could see him. \"Oh, shoot!\" she said. I'd just about broken her heart-- I really\n  1778\thad. I was sorry as hell I'd kidded her. Some people you shouldn't kid, even if they\n  1779\tdeserve it.\n  1780\tHere's what was very funny, though. When we got back to the table, old Marty\n  1781\ttold the other two that Gary Cooper had just gone out. Boy, old Laverne and Bernice\n  1782\tnearly committed suicide when they heard that. They got all excited and asked Marty if\n  1783\tshe'd seen him and all. Old Mart said she'd only caught a glimpse of him. That killed me.","title":"Chunk 9"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG0725E9A9CCEYGRP2MDJ6G5","peer_label":"Chapter 9","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFXT0KM64XT6K8W52TDEE0YS","peer_label":"More Classics","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"}],"ver":1,"created_at":"2026-01-27T17:14:42.056Z","ts":"2026-01-27T17:14:42.056Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}