{"id":"01KG6FVF98XM1SV6JK1BNEQQSE","cid":"bafkreifkkxirtgek4i5rrbseuzczrfjstr5auvkxr4ve6rgeeijn57dqkq","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":4952,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T03:41:20.747Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KG6FT59BXAZ3C5HRJ6SW8F58","start_line":4904,"text":"have cancer or not. It said if you had any sores in your mouth that didn't heal pretty\nquickly, it was a sign that you probably had cancer. I'd had this sore on the inside of my\nlip for about two weeks. So figured I was getting cancer. That magazine was some little\ncheerer upper. I finally quit reading it and went outside for a walk. I figured I'd be dead in\na couple of months because I had cancer. I really did. I was even positive I would be. It\ncertainly didn't make me feel too gorgeous. It'sort of looked like it was going to rain, but I\nwent for this walk anyway. For one thing, I figured I ought to get some breakfast. I wasn't\nat all hungry, but I figured I ought to at least eat something. I mean at least get something\nwith some vitamins in it. So I started walking way over east, where the pretty cheap\nrestaurants are, because I didn't want to spend a lot of dough.\nWhile I was walking, I passed these two guys that were unloading this big\nChristmas tree off a truck. One guy kept saying to the other guy, \"Hold the sonuvabitch\nup! Hold it up, for Chrissake!\" It certainly was a gorgeous way to talk about a Christmas\ntree. It was sort of funny, though, in an awful way, and I started to sort of laugh. It was\nabout the worst thing I could've done, because the minute I started to laugh I thought I\nwas going to vomit. I really did. I even started to, but it went away. I don't know why. I\nmean I hadn't eaten anything unsanitary or like that and usually I have quite a strong\n\n<!-- [Page 106](arke:01KG6FJ3CTHMH8NT7E4ZRT8RPR) -->\nstomach. Anyway, I got over it, and I figured I'd feel better if I had something to eat. So I\nwent in this very cheap-looking restaurant and had doughnuts and coffee. Only, I didn't\neat the doughnuts. I couldn't swallow them too well. The thing is, if you get very\ndepressed about something, it's hard as hell to swallow. The waiter was very nice,\nthough. He took them back without charging me. I just drank the coffee. Then I left and\nstarted walking over toward Fifth Avenue.\nIt was Monday and all, and pretty near Christmas, and all the stores were open. So\nit wasn't too bad walking on Fifth Avenue. It was fairly Christmasy. All those scraggy-\nlooking Santa Clauses were standing on corners ringing those bells, and the Salvation\nArmy girls, the ones that don't wear any lipstick or anything, were tinging bells too. I sort\nof kept looking around for those two nuns I'd met at breakfast the day before, but I didn't\nsee them. I knew I wouldn't, because they'd told me they'd come to New York to be\nschoolteachers, but I kept looking for them anyway. Anyway, it was pretty Christmasy all\nof a sudden. A million little kids were downtown with their mothers, getting on and off\nbuses and coming in and out of stores. I wished old Phoebe was around. She's not little\nenough any more to go stark staring mad in the toy department, but she enjoys horsing\naround and looking at the people. The Christmas before last I took her downtown\nshopping with me. We had a helluva time. I think it was in Bloomingdale's. We went in\nthe shoe department and we pretended she--old Phoebe-- wanted to get a pair of those\nvery high storm shoes, the kind that have about a million holes to lace up. We had the\npoor salesman guy going crazy. Old Phoebe tried on about twenty pairs, and each time\nthe poor guy had to lace one shoe all the way up. It was a dirty trick, but it killed old\nPhoebe. We finally bought a pair of moccasins and charged them. The salesman was very\nnice about it. I think he knew we were horsing around, because old Phoebe always starts\ngiggling.\nAnyway, I kept walking and walking up Fifth Avenue, without any tie on or\nanything. Then all of a sudden, something very spooky started happening. Every time I\ncame to the end of a block and stepped off the goddam curb, I had this feeling that I'd\nnever get to the other side of the street. I thought I'd just go down, down, down, and\nnobody'd ever see me again. Boy, did it scare me. You can't imagine. I started sweating","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6FV1MXSJGSEB5SJM280689","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6FT59BXAZ3C5HRJ6SW8F58","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KFF1K6A8V452X8SQKY55DD16","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6FVF98W0R57CKY5VMWFS1Z","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6FVF940DAVVTBFQ7PQZZ25","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T03:41:21.576Z","ts":"2026-01-30T03:41:32.522Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}