Entry 25

When I got outside it was getting light. I dint want to spend all Phoebe's dough on another hotel so I took the subway down to grand central to get my bags. When I got there I put my feet up on the seats and fell asleep in their for a while. but eventualy it started to get pretty busy so I left. I was so goddam depressed. Then I started to think about what Mr Antolini did. But it scaed the hell out of me. I thought of when Mr Antolini was the only one who would pick James Castles body up off the ground. I wasnt hungry but I thought i'd better get some breakfast so i walked over to where the cheap restaurants were so as not to spend too much of Phoebe's dough. I passed some guys on the way their who made me laugh. Only thing was, When I laughed I felt like I was about to vomit. When I went into the restaurant I couldn't swallow my doughnuts too well so the waitor took them back without charging me. Later on after i'd left the restaurant something very spooky happened. Every time I got to the end of a block and stepped off the curb, I had a feeling i'd just keep on going down, down, down. What I did was, when I got to the end of a block I spoke to Allie and asked him to not let me disappear. I cant remember it all too well. All I remember is thinking about what it would be like if I went and got a job filling up gas in people's cars, I figured what i'd do was act like I was a deaf mute. That would stop people making these long phoney conversations with me. But first before I went out west and got a job, I figured i'd like to see Phoebe and give her christmas money back to her. So what I did was, I wrote a note telling old Phoebe to meet me at the museum of art when she was on her dinner break. I took the note up to Phoebes school for the old lady to give to her. But then I saw something which annoyed the hell out of me. Someone had wrote a swear word on the wall of the stairs. Just thinking aout all the children reading the word and wondering what it meant drove me crazy! So I rubbed it out. When I left the school, I made my way up to the museum to wait for Phoebe. I saw these two little kids and they asked me where the mummies were. I'd been there hundreds of times when I was a kid and I knew the museum like the back of my hand. But that day I just couldn't find the mummies. Finally I found it and left the two little kids to go and look for Phoebe. I waited quite a while. But when she did come up those stairs she had her cases with her. She wouldn't go back to school unless i promised her I wouldn't leave or else she wanted to go with me. Finally I managed to persuade her I wasn't going anywhere and we went for a walk around the zoo. After we left that place we started to hear the carrousel music. Phoebe commented on it and I asked if she wanted to ride it. When she got on it I felt so goddam happy all of a sudden. Just watching her go round and round made me the happiest i'd been in a long time.