{"id":"01KG0770B61JD5CE4TD8VSNJDJ","cid":"bafkreia7snzj742wsz7ps6uj53cfv3iax25dc4ixesqs7td25nnfag5yym","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":1901,"extracted_at":"2026-01-27T17:14:41.546Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 10","source_file":"01KFYTG9MG93RTB6YAW34V48XG","start_line":1857,"text":" 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.\n 1784\tThe bar was closing up for the night, so I bought them all two drinks apiece quick\n 1785\tbefore it closed, and I ordered two more Cokes for myself. The goddam table was lousy\n 1786\twith glasses. The one ugly one, Laverne, kept kidding me because I was only drinking\n 1787\tCokes. She had a sterling sense of humor. She and old Marty were drinking Tom\n 1788\tCollinses--in the middle of December, for God's sake. They didn't know any better. The\n\n\n 1789\tblonde one, old Bernice, was drinking bourbon and water. She was really putting it away,\n 1790\ttoo. The whole three of them kept looking for movie stars the whole time. They hardly\n 1791\ttalked--even to each other. Old Marty talked more than the other two. She kept saying\n 1792\tthese very corny, boring things, like calling the can the \"little girls' room,\" and she\n 1793\tthought Buddy Singer's poor old beat-up clarinet player was really terrific when he stood\n 1794\tup and took a couple of ice-cold hot licks. She called his clarinet a \"licorice stick.\" Was\n 1795\tshe corny. The other ugly one, Laverne, thought she was a very witty type. She kept\n 1796\tasking me to call up my father and ask him what he was doing tonight. She kept asking\n 1797\tme if my father had a date or not. Four times she asked me that--she was certainly witty.\n 1798\tOld Bernice, the blonde one, didn't say hardly anything at all. Every time I'd ask her\n 1799\tsomething, she said \"What?\" That can get on your nerves after a while.\n 1800\tAll of a sudden, when they finished their drink, all three of them stood up on me\n 1801\tand said they had to get to bed. They said they were going to get up early to see the first\n 1802\tshow at Radio City Music Hall. I tried to get them to stick around for a while, but they\n 1803\twouldn't. So we said good-by and all. I told them I'd look them up in Seattle sometime, if\n 1804\tI ever got there, but I doubt if I ever will. Look them up, I mean.\n 1805\tWith cigarettes and all, the check came to about thirteen bucks. I think they\n 1806\tshould've at least offered to pay for the drinks they had before I joined them--I\n 1807\twouldn't've let them, naturally, but they should've at least offered. I didn't care much,\n 1808\tthough. They were so ignorant, and they had those sad, fancy hats on and all. And that\n 1809\tbusiness about getting up early to see the first show at Radio City Music Hall depressed\n 1810\tme. If somebody, some girl in an awful-looking hat, for instance, comes all the way to\n 1811\tNew York--from Seattle, Washington, for God's sake--and ends up getting up early in the\n 1812\tmorning to see the goddam first show at Radio City Music Hall, it makes me so\n 1813\tdepressed I can't stand it. I'd've bought the whole three of them a hundred drinks if only\n 1814\tthey hadn't told me that.\n 1815\tI left the Lavender Room pretty soon after they did. They were closing it up\n 1816\tanyway, and the band had quit a long time ago. In the first place, it was one of those\n 1817\tplaces that are very terrible to be in unless you have somebody good to dance with, or\n 1818\tunless the waiter lets you buy real drinks instead of just Cokes. There isn't any night club\n 1819\tin the world you can sit in for a long time unless you can at least buy some liquor and get\n 1820\tdrunk. Or unless you're with some girl that really knocks you out.","title":"Chunk 10"},"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":"2026-01-27T17:14:55.937Z","ts":"2026-01-27T17:14:55.937Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}