{"id":"01KG6FVM5M764CN5QSYXBS5ASA","cid":"bafkreiemfjbffrllm6wxtpx2dmepptxittu7b4aay2njikb7vqtabdcrqm","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":3975,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T03:41:20.744Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 10","source_file":"01KG6FT59BXAZ3C5HRJ6SW8F58","start_line":3926,"text":"\"That's all right,\" I said. \"I'm supposed to wait for them. I'm their nephew.\"\nHe gave me this sort of stupid, suspicious look. \"You better wait in the lobby,\nfella,\" he said.\n\"I'd like to--I really would,\" I said. \"But I have a bad leg. I have to hold it in a\ncertain position. I think I'd better sit down in the chair outside their door.\"\nHe didn't know what the hell I was talking about, so all he said was \"Oh\" and took\nme up. Not bad, boy. It's funny. All you have to do is say something nobody understands\nand they'll do practically anything you want them to.\nI got off at our floor--limping like a bastard--and started walking over toward the\nDicksteins' side. Then, when I heard the elevator doors shut, I turned around and went\n\n\nover to our side. I was doing all right. I didn't even feel drunk anymore. Then I took out\nmy door key and opened our door, quiet as hell. Then, very, very carefully and all, I went\ninside and closed the door. I really should've been a crook.\nIt was dark as hell in the foyer, naturally, and naturally I couldn't turn on any\nlights. I had to be careful not to bump into anything and make a racket. I certainly knew I\nwas home, though. Our foyer has a funny smell that doesn't smell like anyplace else. I\ndon't know what the hell it is. It isn't cauliflower and it isn't perfume--I don't know what\nthe hell it is--but you always know you're home. I started to take off my coat and hang it\nup in the foyer closet, but that closet's full of hangers that rattle like madmen when you\nopen the door, so I left it on. Then I started walking very, very slowly back toward old\nPhoebe's room. I knew the maid wouldn't hear me because she had only one eardrum. She\nhad this brother that stuck a straw down her ear when she was a kid, she once told me.\nShe was pretty deaf and all. But my parents, especially my mother, she has ears like a\ngoddam bloodhound. So I took it very, very easy when I went past their door. I even held\nmy breath, for God's sake. You can hit my father over the head with a chair and he won't\nwake up, but my mother, all you have to do to my mother is cough somewhere in Siberia\nand she'll hear you. She's nervous as hell. Half the time she's up all night smoking\ncigarettes.\nFinally, after about an hour, I got to old Phoebe's room. She wasn't there, though.\nI forgot about that. I forgot she always sleeps in D.B.'s room when he's away in\nHollywood or some place. She likes it because it's the biggest room in the house. Also\nbecause it has this big old madman desk in it that D.B. bought off some lady alcoholic in\nPhiladelphia, and this big, gigantic bed that's about ten miles wide and ten miles long. I\ndon't know where he bought that bed. Anyway, old Phoebe likes to sleep in D.B.'s room\nwhen he's away, and he lets her. You ought to see her doing her homework or something\nat that crazy desk. It's almost as big as the bed. You can hardly see her when she's doing\nher homework. That's the kind of stuff she likes, though. She doesn't like her own room\nbecause it's too little, she says. She says she likes to spread out. That kills me. What's old\nPhoebe got to spread out? Nothing.\nAnyway, I went into D.B.'s room quiet as hell, and turned on the lamp on the\ndesk. Old Phoebe didn't even wake up. When the light was on and all, I sort of looked at\nher for a while. She was laying there asleep, with her face sort of on the side of the\npillow. She had her mouth way open. It's funny. You take adults, they look lousy when\nthey're asleep and they have their mouths way open, but kids don't. Kids look all right.\nThey can even have spit all over the pillow and they still look all right.\nI went around the room, very quiet and all, looking at stuff for a while. I felt\nswell, for a change. I didn't even feel like I was getting pneumonia or anything any more.\nI just felt good, for a change. Old Phoebe's clothes were on this chair right next to the","title":"Chunk 10"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6FV1MS094QPPD7BPA0982X","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6FT59BXAZ3C5HRJ6SW8F58","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KFF1K6A8V452X8SQKY55DD16","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6FVM5GCZVGXX2W16BYECF1","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6FVM5HVAGVCRN0WDHQVP6W","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T03:41:26.580Z","ts":"2026-01-30T03:41:31.488Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}