8. Rudolf Schmidt, That Killed Me!

It was too late to call up for a cab or anything, so I walked the whole way to the station. It wasn't that far, but it was cold as hell, and the snow made it hard for walking and my Gladstones kept banging the hell out of my legs. I enjoyed the fresh air though. It was very cold, especially on my lip where Stradlater smacked me, but my ears were nice and warm. The hat that I bought had earlaps on it. I didn't give a damn about how I looked because everyone was in bed anyway.

I usually enjoy riding on trains, especially at night time, when the lights are on, but the windows are black. And then you get those guys walking the train with trolleys with sandwiches and magazines on. I usually buy a ham sandwich and about four magazines. At night, on the train, I can usually read those dumb stories with people called David and Linda or Marcia, you know, those phoneys, and the women would always be lighting the goddam pipes for the Davids. I can usually read those ones at night on the train, but this time I couldnt, this time was different, I just didn't feel like it, all I did was take my hunting hat off and put it in my pocket.

All of a sudden, this lady got on at Trenton and sat down next to me, even though the entire car was empty because it was quite late, but instead of sitting in an empty seat, she sat next to me because she had this big bag with her and i was sitting in the front seat. She stuck that bag right out in the aisle where everybody that was going to walk could trip over it. She looked around forty, forty five, but damn did she look good. Women kill me, they really do.
All of a sudden we started talking about Pencey and I gave her a false name after she asked me about her son, Ernest Morrow, and so I shot the bull to her for a while, because im really good at lying to people I've never met before. I called myself Rudolf Schmidt. I was shooting the bull at her about how amazing and bright and popular Ernie was, but really, he was just an idiot, a bully. It killed me.

She got off at Newark. She wanted to see me again, me to visit Ernie, but I just told her I was having an operation on my brain, to remove a tumor, then I'd visit my grandmother in South America and stay with her for a while. That got her off by back.