Robert Ackley

I'd only read about two pages, when I heard somebody coming through the shower curtains. Evev without looking up I knew right away who it was. It was Robert Ackley this gut who roomed next to me. There was a shower right between every two rooms in our wing, and about eighty-five times a day old Ackley barged in on me. He was a very peculiar guy. He was a senior. He was one of these very, very tall round-shouldered guys - he was about six four - with lousy teeth. He had a lot a pimples. Not just on his forehead or on his chin, like most other guys, but all over his face, and not only that he had a terrible personality. He was a sort of a nasty guy. I wasn't to crazy about him, to tell you the truth. He always made you say the everything twice. He didn't like it when you called him 'Ackley kid'. He was always telling me I was a goddam kid, because I was sixteen and he was eighteen. It drove him mad when I called him 'Ackley kid'. That guy Ackley would pick up anything. He did'nt care if you'd packed something or not and had it way in the top of the closet. 'you have a damn good sence of humour Ackley kid,' I told him. He had lousy manners. The only way he did anything was if you yelled at him. He could be really aggravating sometimes. He never missed a chance to let you know you were sixteen and he was eighteen.

Book

I got this book I was reading and sat down in my chair. There were two chairs in every room. I had one and my roommate, Ward Stradlater, had one. The arms were in sad shape, because everybody was always sitting on them, but they were pretty comfortable chairs. The book I was reading was this book i took out of the libary by mistake. They gave me the wrong book, and I didn't notice it till I got back to my room. They gave me Out of Africa, by Isak Dinesen. I thought it was going to stink, but it didn't. It was a very good book. I'm Quite illiterate, but I read a lot.

Red hunting hat

It was nice to get back to my room, after I left old Spencer, because everybody was down at the game, and the heat was in our room for a change. I took off my coat and my tie and unbuttoned my shirt collar, and then then I put on this hat i'd bought in New York that morning. It was this red hunting hat, one of those very, very long peaks. I saw it in the window of this sports store when we got out of the subway, just after i noticed i'd lost all the goddam foils. It only coat me a buck. They way a wore it, i swung the old peak way around to the back- very corny, i'll admit, but i liked it that way.

Chapter 3

I'm the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It's awful. So when I told old Spencer I had to go to the gym to get my equipment and stuff, that was a sheer lie. I don't even keep my goddam equipment in the gym.
I live in the Ossenburger Memorial wing of the new dorms. It was for juniors and seniors. I was a junior. My roommate was a senior. It was named after this guy Ossenburger that went to Pency. What he did, he started these undertaking business after parlors all over the country that you could get your family buried for about five bucks a piece. He probably just shoves them in a sack and dumps them in a river. Anyway, he gave Pencey a pile of dough, and the named our wing after him.

School

I have carried five subjects, and I am failing in four. I'd only written that god damn note so he wouldn't feel bad in flunking me. I was wondering where the ducks went when the lagoon got all icy and frozen over. I wondered if some guy came in a truck and took them away to a zoo or something. Or if they flew away. I'm lucky I could shoot the bukk to old Spencer and think about those ducks at the same time. You don't have to think to hard when you talk to a teacher. I didnt have too much difficulty at Elkton Hills, I didnt flunk out i jus sort or quit. One of the biggest reasons I left Elkton Hills was because I was surrounded be phonies. I couldnt stand to stay in there any longer, the way we were on opposite side of the pole, the way he kept missing the bed whenever he chucked something at it, and that grippe smell of vicks nose drops all over the place, and his sad bathrobe with his chest showing. I'd never yell 'good luck' at anybody. It sounds terrible, when you think about it.

Me

This is about the fourth school i've gone to. I shake my head quiet a lot. I have a lousy volcabulary. Grand there's a word I really hate I could puke everytime I here it. It's a phony.

Chapter 2 Old Spencer

He was bout seventy years old. He was al stooped over and had very terrible posture, and in class whenever he dropped a piece of chalk some guy had to pick it up and hand it to him. He showed me some old beat-up navajo blanket that he and Mrs Spencer'd bought off some indian in Yellowstone Park. You tke someone as old as hell, like old Spencer, and they get a big bang out of buying a blanket. Old Spencer had on this sad, ratty bathrobe that he was probably born in or something, I dont like to see old guys and pajamas and bathrobes anyway. You never seen anybody nod as much in your life aas old Spencer.