Chapter 1"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want
to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and
how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that
David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you
want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in
the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece
if I told anything pretty personal about them. They're quite touchy
about anything like that, especially my father. They're nice and all -
I'm not saying that - but they're also touchy as hell. Besides, I'm not
going to tell you my whole goddam autobiography or anything. I'll
just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me around
last Christmas just before I got pretty run-down and had to come
out here and take it easy. I mean that's all I told D.B. about, and
he's my brother and all. He's in Hollywood. That isn't too far from
this crumby place, and he comes over and visits me practically every
week end. He's going to drive me home when I go home next month
maybe. He's just got a Jaguar. One of those little English jobs that
can do around two hundred miles an hour. It cost him damn near
four thousand bucks. He's got a lot of dough, now. He didn't use
to. He used to be just a regular writer, when he was home. He
wrote this terrific book of short stories, The Secret Goldfish,
in case you never heard of him. The best one in it was The Secret
Goldfish. It was about this little kid that wouldn't let anybody
look at his goldfish because he'd bought it with his own money.
It killed me. Now he's out in Hollywood, D.B., being a prostitute.
If there's one thing I hate, it's the movies. Don't even mention
them to me."
0 comments:
Post a Comment