{"id":"01KG07D1RPRXKGZ6TQ58NSWPA0","cid":"bafkreid67h7kyeskwlxjs7l4xc4h5vr4rmyle2r2jho7b6fiqbiicdl2nq","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":3961,"extracted_at":"2026-01-27T17:18:13.524Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KFYTG9MG93RTB6YAW34V48XG","start_line":3915,"text":" 3748\t21\n 3749\tThe best break I had in years, when I got home the regular night elevator boy,\n 3750\tPete, wasn't on the car. Some new guy I'd never seen was on the car, so I figured that if I\n 3751\tdidn't bump smack into my parents and all I'd be able to say hello to old Phoebe and then\n 3752\tbeat it and nobody'd even know I'd been around. It was really a terrific break. What made\n 3753\tit even better, the new elevator boy was sort of on the stupid side. I told him, in this very\n 3754\tcasual voice, to take me up to the Dicksteins'. The Dicksteins were these people that had\n 3755\tthe other apartment on our floor. I'd already taken off my hunting hat, so as not to look\n 3756\tsuspicious or anything. I went in the elevator like I was in a terrific hurry.\n 3757\tHe had the elevator doors all shut and all, and was all set to take me up, and then\n 3758\the turned around and said, \"They ain't in. They're at a party on the fourteenth floor.\"\n 3759\t\"That's all right,\" I said. \"I'm supposed to wait for them. I'm their nephew.\"\n 3760\tHe gave me this sort of stupid, suspicious look. \"You better wait in the lobby,\n 3761\tfella,\" he said.\n 3762\t\"I'd like to--I really would,\" I said. \"But I have a bad leg. I have to hold it in a\n 3763\tcertain position. I think I'd better sit down in the chair outside their door.\"\n 3764\tHe didn't know what the hell I was talking about, so all he said was \"Oh\" and took\n 3765\tme up. Not bad, boy. It's funny. All you have to do is say something nobody understands\n 3766\tand they'll do practically anything you want them to.\n 3767\tI got off at our floor--limping like a bastard--and started walking over toward the\n 3768\tDicksteins' side. Then, when I heard the elevator doors shut, I turned around and went\n\n\n 3769\tover to our side. I was doing all right. I didn't even feel drunk anymore. Then I took out\n 3770\tmy door key and opened our door, quiet as hell. Then, very, very carefully and all, I went\n 3771\tinside and closed the door. I really should've been a crook.\n 3772\tIt was dark as hell in the foyer, naturally, and naturally I couldn't turn on any\n 3773\tlights. I had to be careful not to bump into anything and make a racket. I certainly knew I\n 3774\twas home, though. Our foyer has a funny smell that doesn't smell like anyplace else. I\n 3775\tdon't know what the hell it is. It isn't cauliflower and it isn't perfume--I don't know what\n 3776\tthe hell it is--but you always know you're home. I started to take off my coat and hang it\n 3777\tup in the foyer closet, but that closet's full of hangers that rattle like madmen when you\n 3778\topen the door, so I left it on. Then I started walking very, very slowly back toward old\n 3779\tPhoebe's room. I knew the maid wouldn't hear me because she had only one eardrum. She\n 3780\thad this brother that stuck a straw down her ear when she was a kid, she once told me.\n 3781\tShe was pretty deaf and all. But my parents, especially my mother, she has ears like a\n 3782\tgoddam bloodhound. So I took it very, very easy when I went past their door. I even held\n 3783\tmy breath, for God's sake. You can hit my father over the head with a chair and he won't\n 3784\twake up, but my mother, all you have to do to my mother is cough somewhere in Siberia\n 3785\tand she'll hear you. She's nervous as hell. Half the time she's up all night smoking\n 3786\tcigarettes.\n 3787\tFinally, after about an hour, I got to old Phoebe's room. She wasn't there, though.\n 3788\tI forgot about that. I forgot she always sleeps in D.B.'s room when he's away in\n 3789\tHollywood or some place. She likes it because it's the biggest room in the house. Also\n 3790\tbecause it has this big old madman desk in it that D.B. bought off some lady alcoholic in\n 3791\tPhiladelphia, and this big, gigantic bed that's about ten miles wide and ten miles long. I\n 3792\tdon't know where he bought that bed. Anyway, old Phoebe likes to sleep in D.B.'s room","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG0725JB8PA1B3W3FH26N49E","peer_label":"21","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFXT0KM64XT6K8W52TDEE0YS","peer_label":"More Classics","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"}],"ver":1,"created_at":"2026-01-27T17:18:13.951Z","ts":"2026-01-27T17:18:13.951Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}