Free Three Stories by J. D. Salinger Page B

about good stuff, I mean about good guys and all. Boy, Vincent!” He looked at me with his eyes shining—yes, shining. The boy’s eyes could shine.
    “Kenneth,” I said—but I knew I was licked; “this guy with the bowling ball is a good guy. There’s nothing wrong with him. It’s just his wife that isn’t a good guy.”
    “Sure, I know, but—boy, Vincent! You’re taking revenge for him and all. Wuddya wanna take revenge on him for? I mean, Vincent. He’s all right. Let her alone. The lady, I mean. She doesn’t know what she’s doing. I mean about the radio and the cowboy stories and all,” Kenneth said. “Let her alone, huh, Vincent? Okay?”
    I didn’t say anything.
    “Don’t have her throw that thing out the window. That bowling ball. Huh, Vincent? Okay?”
    I nodded, “Okay,” I said.
    I got up and went inside to the kitchen and drank a bottle of ginger ale. He knocked me out. He always knocked me out. Then I went upstairs and tore up the story.
    I came down and sat on the porch railing again, and watched him read. He looked up at me abruptly.
    “Let’s drive down to Lassiter’s for some steamers,” he said.
    “All right. You want to put on a coat or something?” He only had on a striped T-shirt, and he got sunburnt the way red-haired people get sunburnt.
    “No I’m all right.” He stood up, dropping his book on the seat of the wicker. “Let’s just go. Right away,” he said.
    ***
    Rolling down my shirtsleeves, I followed him across the lawn, stopping at the edge of it, and watched him back my car out of the garage. When he had backed it into the driveway a ways, I walked over. He slid over to the right as I got into the driver’s seat, and began to lower his window—it was still in a raised position from my date with Helen Beebers the night before; she didn’t use to like her hair to blow. Then Kenneth pressed the dash button, and the canvas top, helped by an overhead slam of my hand, began to go to its act, collapsing finally behind the seat.
    I pulled out of the driveway and into Caruck Boulevard and out of Caruck onto Ocean. It was about a seven mile drive to Lassiter’s, on Ocean. The first couple of miles neither of us had anything to say. The sun was terrific. It showed up my pasty hands; ribbon-inky and nail-bitten at the fingers; but it struck and settled handsomely on Kenneth’s red hair, and that seemed fair enough. I said to him, “Reach in that there compartment, Doctor. You’ll find a package of cigarettes and a fifty-thousand dollar bill. I’m planning to send Lassiter through college. Hand me a cigarette.”
    He handed over the cigarettes, saying, “Vincent, you oughtta marry Helen. No kidding. She’s going nuts, waiting around. She’s not so smart or anything but that’s good. You wouldn’t have to argue with her so much. And you wouldn’t hurt her feelings when you’re sarcastic. I been watching her. She never knows what you’re talking about. Boy, that’s good! And boy, does she have swell legs.”
    “Why, Doctor!”
    “No. No kidding, Vincent. You oughtta marry her. I played checkers with her once. You know what she did with her kings?”
    “What’d she do with her kings?”
    “She kept them all in the back row so I wouldn’t take them. She didn’t want to use them at all. Boy, that’s a good kind of girl, Vincent! And you remember that time that I caddied for her? You know what she does?”
    “She uses my tees. She won’t use her own tees.”
    “You know the fifth hole? Where that big tree is right before you get to the green? She asked me to throw her ball over that ole tree. She said she never can throw it over. Boy, that’s the kind of girl you wanna marry, Vincent. You don’t wanna let her get away.”
    “I won’t.” It was as though I were talking to a man twice my age.
    “You will if you let your stories kill you. Don’t worry about them so much. You’ll be good. You’ll be terrific.”
    We rode on, me, very happy.