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The Catcher in the Rye

STORYTELLER. I wasn’t down at the game, as I’d just got back from New York with the fencing team. I was the goddam manager of the fencing team. Very big deal. We’d gone for this fencing meet with McBurney School. Only, we didn’t have the meet. I left all the foils and equipment and stuff on the goddam subway. It wasn’t all my fault. I had to keep getting up to look at this map, so we’d know where to get off. So we got back to Pencey around two-thirty instead of around dinnertime. The whole team ostracized me the whole way back on the train. It was pretty funny, in a way. And I was on my way to say good-by to old Spencer, my history teacher. I forgot to tell you - they kicked me out. I was flunking four subjects and not applying myself and all. They gave me frequent warning to start applying myself, when my parents came up for a conference with old Thurmer—but I didn’t do it. So I got the ax. They give guys the ax quite frequently at Pencey. It has a very good academic rating, Pencey. It really does. What I was really hanging around for, I was trying to feel some kind of a good-by. I mean I’ve left schools and places I didn’t even know I was leaving them. I hate that. I don’t care if it’s a sad good-by or a bad good-by, but when I leave a place I like to know I’m leaving it. If you don’t, you feel even worse. I was lucky. I suddenly remembered this time, in around October, that we were chucking a football around, in front of the academic building. This teacher that taught biology, Mr. Zambesi, stuck his head out of this window and told us to go back to the dorm and get ready for dinner. If I get a chance to remember that kind of stuff, I can get a good-by when I need one. I started running toward old Spencer’s house. I ran all the way to the main gate, and then I waited a second till I got my breath. I have no wind, if you want to know the truth. I’m quite a heavy smoker, for one thing—that is, I used to be. They made me cut it out. Another thing, I grew six and a half inches last year. That’s also how I practically got t.b. and came out here for all these goddam checkups and stuff. I don’t even know what I was running for—I guess I just felt like it. After I got across the road, I felt like I was sort of disappearing. It was that kind of a crazy afternoon, terrifically cold, and no sun out or anything, and you felt like you were disappearing every time you crossed a road. Boy, I rang that doorbell fast when I got to old Spencer’s house. I was really frozen. My ears were hurting and I could hardly move my fingers at all.

HOLDEN. C’mon, c’mon! Somebody open the door!

STORYTELLER. Finally old Mrs. Spencer opened it.

MRS. SPENCER. Holden! How lovely to see you! Come in, dear! Are you frozen to death?

STORYTELLER. I think she was glad to see me. She liked me. At least, I think she did.

HOLDEN. How are you, Mrs. Spencer? How’s Mr. Spencer?

MRS. SPENCER. Let me take your coat, dear.

STORYTELLER. She was sort of deaf.

HOLDEN.How’ve you been, Mrs. Spencer?



MRS. SPENCER. I’ve been just fine, Holden. How have you been?

STORYTELLER. The way she asked me, I knew right away old Spencer’d told her I’d been kicked out.

HOLDEN. Fine. How’s Mr. Spencer? He over his grippe yet?

MRS. SPENCER. Over it! Holden, he’s behaving like a perfect—I don’t know what… He’s in his room, dear. Go right in.

STORYTELLER. They were both around seventy years old, or even more than that. They got a bang out of things, though—in a half-assed way, of course. I know that sounds mean to say, but I don’t mean it mean. I just mean that I used to think about old Spencer quite a lot, and if you thought about him too much, you wondered what the heck he was still living for. I mean he was all stooped over, and he had very terrible posture, and in class, whenever he dropped a piece of chalk at the blackboard, some guy in the first row always had to get up and pick it up and hand it to him. That’s awful, in my opinion. But if you thought about him just enough and not too much, you could figure it out that he wasn’t doing too bad for himself. For instance, one Sunday when some other guys and I were over there for hot chocolate, he showed us this old beat-up Navajo blanket that he and Mrs. Spencer’d bought off some Indian. You could tell old Spencer’d got a big bang out of buying it. That’s what I mean. You take somebody old as hell, like old Spencer, and they can get a big bang out of buying a blanket.

MR. SPENCER. Who’s that? Caulfield? Come in, boy.

STORYTELLER. The minute I went in, I was sort of sorry I’d come. There were pills and medicine all over the place, and everything smelled like Vicks Nose Drops. It was pretty depressing. I’m not too crazy about sick people, anyway. What made it even more depressing, old Spencer had on this very sad, ratty old bathrobe that he was probably born in or something. I don’t much like to see old guys in their pajamas and bathrobes anyway. Their bumpy old chests are always showing. And their legs. Old guys’ legs, at beaches and places, always look so white and unhairy.

HOLDEN. Hello, sir. I got your note. Thanks a lot. You didn’t have to do all that. I’d have come over to say good-by anyway.

MR. SPENCER.Have a seat there, boy.

HOLDEN. How’s your grippe, sir?

MR. SPENCER.M’boy, if I felt any better I’d have to send for the doctor.

STORYTELLER. That knocked him out. He started chuckling like a madman. Boy, his bed was like a rock.He started getting serious as hell. I knew he would.

MR. SPENCER.So you’re leaving us, eh?

HOLDEN. Yes, sir. I guess I am.

STORYTELLER. He started going into this nodding routine. You never saw anybody nod as much in your life as old Spencer did.

MR. SPENCER.What did Dr. Thurmer say to you, boy? I understand you had quite a little chat.

HOLDEN. Yes, we did. We really did. I was in his office for around two hours, I guess.

MR. SPENCER.What’d he say to you?

HOLDEN. Oh… well, about Life being a game and all. And how you should play it according to the rules. He was pretty nice about it. I mean he didn’t hit the ceiling or anything. He just kept talking about Life being a game and all. You know.

MR. SPENCER.Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rules.

HOLDEN. Yes, sir. I know it is. I know it.

STORYTELLER. Game, my ass. Some game. If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it’s a game, all right—I’ll admit that. But if you get on the other side, where there aren’t any hot-shots, then what’s a game about it? Nothing. No game.

MR. SPENCER.Has Dr. Thurmer written to your parents yet?

HOLDEN. He said he was going to write them Monday.

MR. SPENCER.And how do you think they’ll take the news?

HOLDEN. Well… they’ll be pretty irritated about it. They really will. This is about the fourth school I’ve gone to.

STORYTELLER. I shook my head. I shake my head quite a lot. I was sixteen then, and I’m seventeen now, and sometimes I act like I’m about thirteen. It’s really ironical, because I’m six foot two and a half and I have gray hair. I really do. The one side of my head—the right side—is full of millions of gray hairs. I’ve had them ever since I was a kid. And yet I still act sometimes like I was only about twelve. Everybody says that, especially my father. It’s partly true, too, but it isn’t all true. People always think something’s all true. I don’t give a damn, except that I get bored sometimes when people tell me to act my age. Sometimes I act a lot older than I am, but people never notice it. People never notice anything.Old Spencer started nodding again. He also started picking his nose. He made out like he was only pinching it, but he was really getting the old thumb right in there.

MR. SPENCER.I had the privilege of meeting your mother and dad some weeks ago. They’re grand people.

HOLDEN. Yes, they are. They’re very nice.

STORYTELLER. Grand. There’s a word I really hate. It’s a phony. I could puke every time I hear it.Then all of a sudden old Spencer looked like he had something very good, something sharp as a tack, to say to me. He sat up more in his chair and sort of moved around. I wanted to get the hell out of the room. I could feel a terrific lecture coming on. I didn’t mind the idea so much, but I didn’t feel like being lectured to and smell Vicks Nose Drops and look at old Spencer in his pajamas and bathrobe all at the same time. I really didn’t. It started, all right.

MR. SPENCER.What’s the matter with you, boy?How many subjects did you carry this term?

HOLDEN. Five, sir.

MR. SPENCER.Five. And how many are you failing in?

HOLDEN. Four.

STORYTELLER. It was the hardest bed I ever sat on. I passed English all right, because I had all that stuff when I was at the Whooton School. He wasn’t even listening.

MR. SPENCER.I flunked you in history because you knew absolutely nothing.

HOLDEN. I know that, sir. Boy, I know it. You couldn’t help it.

MR. SPENCER.Absolutely nothing.

STORYTELLER. That’s something that drives me crazy. When people say something twice that way, after you admit it the first time. Then he said it three times.

MR. SPENCER.But absolutely nothing. I doubt very much if you opened your textbook even once the whole term. Did you? Tell the truth, boy.

HOLDEN. Well, I sort of glanced through it a couple of times.

STORYTELLER. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. He was mad about history.

MR. SPENCER.You glanced through it, eh? Your, ah, exam paper is over there on top of my chiffonier. On top of the pile. Bring it here, please.

STORYTELLER. It was a very dirty trick. Boy, you can’t imagine how sorry I was getting that I’d stopped by to say good-by to him.He started handling my exam paper like it was a turd or something.

MR. SPENCER.We studied the Egyptians from November 4th to December 2nd. Would you care to hear what you had to say?

HOLDEN. No, sir, not very much.

STORYTELLER. He read it anyway, though. You can’t stop a teacher when they want to do something. They just do it.

MR. SPENCER.“The Egyptians were an ancient race of Caucasians residing in one of the northern sections of Africa. The latter as we all know is the largest continent in the Eastern Hemisphere”.

STORYTELLER. I had to sit there and listen to that crap. It certainly was a dirty trick.

MR. SPENCER.“The Egyptians are extremely interesting to us today for various reasons. Modern science would still like to know what the secret ingredients were that the Egyptians used when they wrapped up dead people so that their faces would not rot for innumerable centuries. This interesting riddle is still quite a challenge to modern science in the twentieth century”.

STORYTELLER. I was beginning to sort of hate him.

MR. SPENCER.Your essay, shall we say, ends there.

STORYTELLER. You wouldn’t think such an old guy would be so sarcastic and all.

MR. SPENCER.However, you dropped me a little note, at the bottom of the page.

HOLDEN. I know I did.

STORYTELLER. I said it very fast because I wanted to stop him before he started reading that out loud. But you couldn’t stop him. He was hot as a firecracker.

MR. SPENCER. “Dear Mr. Spencer. That is all I know about the Egyptians. I can’t seem to get very interested in them although your lectures are very interesting. It is all right with me if you flunk me though as I am flunking everything else except English anyway.Respectfully yours, Holden Caulfield.”

STORYTELLER. He put my goddam paper down then and looked at me like he’d just beaten hell out of me in ping-pong or something. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive him for reading me that crap out loud. I wouldn’t’ve read it out loud to him if he’d written it—I really wouldn’t. In the first place, I’d only written that damn note so that he wouldn’t feel too bad about flunking me.

MR. SPENCER.Do you blame me for flunking you, boy?

HOLDEN. No, sir! I certainly don’t.

STORYTELLER. I wished to hell he’d stop calling me “boy” all the time.(Picks up the notebook.)It’s boring to do that every two minutes.

MR. SPENCER.What would you have done in my place? Tell the truth, boy.

STORYTELLER. Well, you could see he really felt pretty lousy about flunking me. So I shot the bull for a while. I told him I was a real moron, and all that stuff. I told him how I would’ve done exactly the same thing if I’d been in his place, and how most people didn’t appreciate how tough it is being a teacher. That kind of stuff. The funny thing is, though, I was sort of thinking of something else while I shot the bull. I live in New York, and I was thinking about the lagoon in Central Park. I was wondering if it would be frozen over when I got home, and if it was, where did the ducks go. 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 just flew away.You don’t have to think too hard when you talk to a teacher.

MR. SPENCER.How do you feel about all this, boy? I’d be very interested to know. Very interested.

HOLDEN. You mean about my flunking out of Pencey and all?

STORYTELLER. I sort of wished he’d cover up his bumpy chest. It wasn’t such a beautiful view.

MR. SPENCER.If I’m not mistaken, I believe you also had some difficulty at the Whooton School and at Elkton Hills.

HOLDEN. I didn’t have too much difficulty at Elkton Hills. I didn’t exactly flunk out or anything. I just quit, sort of.

MR. SPENCER.Why, may I ask?

HOLDEN. Why? Oh, well it’s a long story, sir. I mean it’s pretty complicated.

STORYTELLER. I didn’t feel like going into the whole thing with him. He wouldn’t have understood it anyway. It wasn’t up his alley at all. One of the biggest reasons I left Elkton Hills was because I was surrounded by phonies. That’s all. They were coming in the goddam window. For instance, they had this headmaster, Mr. Haas, that was the phoniest bastard I ever met in my life. On Sundays, for instance, old Haas went around shaking hands with everybody’s parents when they drove up to school. He’d be charming as hell and all. Except if some boy had little old funny-looking parents. You should’ve seen the way he did with my roommate’s parents. He would just shake hands with them and give them a phony smile and then he’d go talk, for maybe a half an hour, with somebody else’s parents. I can’t stand that stuff. It drives me crazy. It makes me so depressed I go crazy.

HOLDEN. What, sir?

MR. SPENCER.Do you have any particular qualms about leaving Pencey?

HOLDEN. Oh, I have a few qualms, all right. Sure… but not too many. Not yet, anyway. I guess it hasn’t really hit me yet. It takes things a while to hit me. All I’m doing right now is thinking about going home Wednesday. I’m a moron.

MR. SPENCER.Do you feel absolutely no concern for your future, boy?

HOLDEN. Oh, I feel some concern for my future, all right. Sure. Sure, I do.But not too much, I guess. Not too much, I guess.

MR. SPENCER.You will. You will, boy. You will when it’s too late.

STORYTELLER. I didn’t like hearing him say that. It made me sound dead or something. It was very depressing.

HOLDEN. I guess I will.

MR. SPENCER.I’d like to put some sense in that head of yours, boy. I’m trying to help you. I’m trying to help you, if I can.

STORYTELLER. He really was, too. You could see that.But it was just that we were too much on opposite sides of the pole, that’s all.

HOLDEN. I know you are, sir. Thanks a lot. No kidding. I appreciate it. I really do.

STORYTELLER. Boy, I couldn’t’ve sat there another ten minutes to save my life.

HOLDEN. The thing is, though, I have to get going now. I have quite a bit of equipment at the gym I have to get to take home with me. I really do.

STORYTELLER. He looked up at me and started nodding again, with this very serious look on his face. I felt sorry as hell for him, all of a sudden. But I just couldn’t hang around there any longer, the way we were on opposite sides of the pole, and his sad old bathrobe with his chest showing, and that grippy smell of Vicks Nose Drops all over the place.

HOLDEN. Look, sir. Don’t worry about me. I mean it. I’ll be all right. I’m just going through a phase right now. Everybody goes through phases and all, don’t they?

MR. SPENCER.I don’t know, boy. I don’t know.

STORYTELLER. I hate it when somebody answers that way.

HOLDEN. Sure. Sure, they do. I mean it, sir. Please don’t worry about me.Okay?

MR. SPENCER.Wouldn’t you like a cup of hot chocolate before you go? Mrs. Spencer would be…

HOLDEN. I would, I really would, but the thing is, I have to get going. I have to go right to the gym. Thanks, though. Thanks a lot, sir.

STORYTELLER. And all that crap. It made me feel sad as hell, though.

HOLDEN. I’ll drop you a line, sir. Take care of your grippe, now.

MR. SPENCER.Good-by, boy.

STORYTELLER. After I shut the door and started back to the living room, he yelled something at me, but I couldn’t exactly hear him. I’m pretty sure he yelled “Good luck!” at me, I hope to hell not. I’d never yell “Good luck!” at anybody. It sounds terrible, when you think about it.

A Date with Sally

STLR. Finally, oldSally started coming up the stairs. She looked terrific. She really did. The funny part is, I felt like marrying her the minute I saw her. I’m crazy. I didn’t even like her much, and yet all of a sudden I felt like I was in love with her and wanted to marry her. I swear to God I’m crazy. I admit it.

SALLY. Holden! It’s marvelous to see you! It’s been ages.

STORYTELLER. She had one of these very loud, embarrassing voices when you met her somewhere. She got away with it because she was so damn good-looking, but it always gave me a pain in the ass.

HOLDEN. Swell to see you. How are ya, anyway?

SALLY. Absolutely marvelous. Am I late?

HOLDEN. No

STORYTELLER. She was around ten minutes late, as a matter of fact. I didn’t give a damn, though. If a girl looks swell when she meets you, who gives a damn if she’s late? Nobody.We horsed around a little bit in the cab on the way over to the theater. At first she didn’t want to, because she had her lipstick on and all, but I was being seductive as hell and she didn’t have any alternative. Then, just to show you how crazy I am, when we were coming out of this big clinch, I told her I loved her and all. It was a lie, of course, but the thing is, I meant it when I said it. I’m crazy. I swear to God I am.

SALLY. Oh, darling, I love you too. Promise me you’ll let your hair grow. Crew cuts are getting corny. And your hair’s so lovely.

STORYTELLER. Lovely my ass.

HOLDEN. Hey, Sally.

SALLY. What?

HOLDEN. Did you ever get fed up? I mean did you ever get scared that everything was going to go lousy unless you did something? I mean do you like school, and all that stuff?

SALLY. It’s a terrific bore.

HOLDEN. I mean do you hate it? I know it’s a terrific bore, but do you hate it, is what I mean.

SALLY. Well, I don’t exactly hate it. You always have to—

HLDN. Well, I hate it. Boy, do I hate it. But it isn’t just that. It’s everything. I hate living in New York and all. Taxicabs, and buses, with the drivers and all always yelling at you, and going up and down in elevators when you just want to go outside, and guys fitting your pants all the time at Brooks, and people always—

SALLY. Don’t shout, please.

STORYTELLER. Which was very funny, because I wasn’t even shouting.

HOLDEN. Take cars. Take most people, they’re crazy about cars. They worry if they get a little scratch on them, and they’re always talking about how many miles they get to a gallon, and if they get a brand-new car already they start thinking about trading it in for one that’s even newer. I don’t even like old cars. I mean they don’t even interest me. I’d rather have a goddam horse. A horse is at least human, for God’s sake. A horse you can at least—

SALLY. I don’t know what you’re even talking about. You jump from one—

HOLDEN. You know something? You’re probably the only reason I’m in New York right now, or anywhere. If you weren’t around, I’d probably be someplace way the hell off. In the woods or some goddam place. You’re the only reason I’m around, practically.

SALLY. You’re sweet.

STORYTELLER. But you could tell she wanted me to change the damn subject.

HOLDEN. You ought to go to a boys’ school sometime. Try it sometime. It’s full of phonies, and all you do is study so that you can learn enough to be smart enough to be able to buy a goddam Cadillac some day, and you have to keep making believe you give a damn if the football team loses, and all you do is talk about girls and liquor and sex all day, and everybody sticks together in these dirty little goddam cliques. If you try to have a little intelligent—

SALLY. Now, listen. Lots of boys get more out of school than that.

HOLDEN. I agree! I agree they do, some of them! But that’s all I get out of it. See? That’s my point. That’s exactly my goddam point. I don’t get hardly anything out of anything.I’m in bad shape. I’m in lousy shape.

SALLY. You certainly are.

STORYTELLER. Then, all of a sudden, I got this idea.

HOLDEN. Look. Here’s my idea. How would you like to get the hell out of here? Here’s my idea. I know this guy that we can borrow his car for a couple of weeks. He used to go to the same school I did and he still owes me ten bucks. What we could do is, tomorrow morning we could drive up to Massachusetts and Vermont, and all around there, see. It’s beautiful as hell up there, It really is.

STORYTELLER. I was getting excited as hell, the more I thought of it, and I sort of reached over and took old Sally’s goddam hand. What a goddam fool I was.

HOLDEN. No kidding. I have about a hundred and eighty bucks in the bank. I can take it out when it opens in the morning, and then I could go down and get this guy’s car. No kidding. We’ll stay in these cabin camps and stuff like that till the dough runs out. Then I could get a job somewhere and we could live somewhere with a brook and all and, later on, we could get married or something. I could chop all our own wood in the wintertime and all. Honest to God, we could have a terrific time! Wuddaya say? C’mon! Wuddaya say? Will you do it with me? Please!

SALLY. You can’t just do something like that.

HOLDEN. Why not? Why the hell not?

SALLY. Stop screaming at me, please.

STORYTELLER. Which was crap, because I wasn’t even screaming at her.

HOLDEN. Why can’tcha? Why not?

SALLY. Because you can’t, that’s all. In the first place, we’re both practically children. And did you ever stop to think what you’d do if you didn’t get a job when your money ran out? We’d starve to death. The whole thing’s so fantastic, it isn’t even—

HOLDEN. It isn’t fantastic. I’d get a job. Don’t worry about that. You don’t have to worry about that. What’s the matter? Don’t you want to go with me? Say so, if you don’t.

SALLY. It isn’t that. It isn’t that at all.

STORYTELLER. I was beginning to hate her, in a way.

SALLY. We’ll have oodles of time to do those things—all those things. I mean after you go to college and all, and if we should get married and all. There’ll be oodles of marvelous places to go to. You’re just—

HOLDEN. No, there won’t be. There won’t be oodles of places to go to at all. It’ll be entirely different.

STORYTELLER. I was getting depressed as hell again.

SALLY. What? I can’t hear you. One minute you scream at me, and the next you—

HOLDEN. No! there won’t be marvelous places to go to after I go to college and all. Open your ears. It’ll be entirely different. We’d have to go downstairs in elevators with suitcases and stuff. We’d have to phone up everybody and tell ’em good-by and send ’em postcards from hotels and all. And I’d be working in some office, making a lot of dough, and riding to work in cabs and Madison Avenue buses, and reading newspapers, and playing bridge all the time, and going to the movies and seeing a lot of stupid shorts and coming attractions and newsreels. Newsreels. Christ almighty. There’s always a dumb horse race, and some dame breaking a bottle over a ship, and some chimpanzee riding a goddam bicycle with pants on. It wouldn’t be the same at all. You don’t see what I mean at all.

SALLY. Maybe I don’t! Maybe you don’t, either.

STORYTELLER. We both hated each other’s guts by that time. You could see there wasn’t any sense trying to have an intelligent conversation. I was sorry as hell I’d started it.

HOLDEN. C’mon, let’s get outa here. You give me a royal pain in the ass, if you want to know the truth.

STORYTELLER. Boy, did she hit the ceiling when I said that. I know I shouldn’t’ve said it, and I probably wouldn’t’ve ordinarily, but she was depressing the hell out of me. Usually I never say crude things like that to girls. Boy, did she hit the ceiling. I apologized like a madman, but she wouldn’t accept my apology. She was even crying. Which scared me a little bit, because I was a little afraid she’d go home and tell her father I called her a pain in the ass. Her father was one of those big silent bastards, and he wasn’t too crazy about me anyhow. He once told old Sally I was too goddam noisy.

HOLDEN. No kidding. I’m sorry.

SALLY. You’re sorry. You’re sorry. That’s very funny.

STORYTELLER. And all of a sudden I did feel sort of sorry I’d said it.

HOLDEN. C’mon, I’ll take ya home. No kidding.

SALLY. I can go home by myself, thank you. If you think I’d let you take me home, you’re mad. No boy ever said that to me in my entire life.

STORYTELLER. The whole thing was sort of funny, in a way, if you thought about it, and all of a sudden I did something I shouldn’t have. I laughed. And I have one of these very loud, stupid laughs. I mean if I ever sat behind myself in a movie or something, I’d probably lean over and tell myself to please shut up. It made old Sally madder than ever. I stuck around for a while, apologizing and trying to get her to excuse me, but she wouldn’t. She kept telling me to go away and leave her alone. So finally I did it. I shouldn’t’ve, but I was pretty goddam fed up by that time.If you want to know the truth, I don’t even know why I started all that stuff with her. I mean about going away somewhere and all. I probably wouldn’t’ve taken her even if she’d wanted to go with me. She wouldn’t have been anybody to go with. The terrible part, though, is that I meant it when I asked her. That’s the terrible part. I swear to God I’m a madman.

Monologue about war

I don’t think I could stand it if I had to go to war. I really couldn’t. It wouldn’t be too bad if they’d just take you out and shoot you or something, but you have to stay in the Army so goddam long. That’s the whole trouble. My brother was in the Army for four goddam years. He was in the war, too—he landed on D-Day and all—but I really think he hated the Army worse than the war. I was practically a child at the time, but I remember when he used to come home on furlough and all, all he did was lie on his bed, practically. He hardly ever even came in the living room. Later, when he went overseas and was in the war and all, he didn’t get wounded or anything and he didn’t have to shoot anybody. All he had to do was drive some cowboy general around all day in a command car. He once told us that if he’d had to shoot anybody, he wouldn’t’ve known which direction to shoot in. He said the Army was practically as full of bastards as the Nazis were. I do know it’d drive me crazy if I had to be in the Army and be with a bunch of guys like Ackley and Stradlater and old Maurice all the time, marching with them and all. I was in the Boy Scouts once, for about a week, and I couldn’t even stand looking at the back of the guy’s neck in front of me. They kept telling you to look at the back of the guy’s neck in front of you. I swear if there’s ever another war, they better just take me out and stick me in front of a firing squad. I wouldn’t object. Anyway, I’m sort of glad they’ve got the atomic bomb invented. If there’s ever another war, I’m going to sit right the hell on top of it. I’ll volunteer for it, I swear to God I will.

À Meeting with Carl Luce

STORYTELLER. I sat down at the bar—it was pretty crowded—and had a couple of Scotch and sodas before old Luce even showed up. I stood up when I ordered them so they could see how tall I was and all and not think I was a goddam minor. Finally old Luce showed up.

 

Old Luce. What a guy. He was supposed to be my Student Adviser when I was at Whooton. The only thing he ever did, though, was give these sex talks and all, late at night when there was a bunch of guys in his room. He knew quite a bit about sex, especially perverts and all. Old Luce knew who every flit and Lesbian in the United States was. All you had to do was mention somebody—anybody—and old Luce’d tell you if he was a flit or not. Sometimes it was hard to believe, the people he said were flits and Lesbians and all, movie actors and like that. Some of the ones he said were flits were even married, for God’s sake. He said it didn’t matter if a guy was married or not. He said half the married guys in the world were flits and didn’t even know it. He said you could turn into one practically overnight, if you had all the traits and all. He used to scare the hell out of us. I kept waiting to turn into a flit or something. The funny thing about old Luce, I used to think he was sort of flitty himself, in a way. He was always saying, “Try this for size,” and then he’d goose the hell out of you while you were going down the corridor. He was a pretty intelligent guy, though. He really was.

LUCE. Can only stay a couple of minutes. Have a date.

STORYTELLER. He never said hello or anything when he met you.

LUCE. Dry Martini. Make it very dry, and no olive.

HOLDEN.Hey, I got a flit for you. At the end of the bar. Don’t look now. I been saving him for ya.

LUCE. Very funny. Same old Caulfield. When are you going to grow up?

STORYTELLER. I bored him a lot. I really did. He amused me, though. He was one of those guys that sort of amuse me a lot.

HOLDEN. How’s your sex life?

STORYTELLER. He hated you to ask him stuff like that.

LUCE. Relax. Just sit back and relax, for Chrissake.”

HOLDEN. I’m relaxed. How’s Columbia? Ya like it?

LUCE. Certainly I like it. If I didn’t like it I wouldn’t have gone there.

HOLDEN. What’re you majoring in?Perverts?

STORYTELLER. I was only horsing around.

LUCE. What’re you trying to be—funny?

HOLDEN.No. I’m only kidding. Listen, hey, Luce. You’re one of these intellectual guys. I need your advice. I’m in a terrific—”

LUCE. (big groan) Listen, Caulfield. If you want to sit here and have a quiet, peaceful drink and a quiet, peaceful conver—

HOLDEN. All right, all right. Relax.

STORYTELLER. You could tell he didn’t feel like discussing anything serious with me. That’s the trouble with these intellectual guys. They never want to discuss anything serious unless they feel like it.

HOLDEN.No kidding, how’s your sex life? You still going around with that same babe you used to at Whooton? The one with the terrific—

LUCE. Good God, no.

HOLDEN. How come? What happened to her?

LUCE. I haven’t the faintest idea. For all I know, since you ask, she’s probably... (whispers, laughing)

HOLDEN.That isn’t nice. If she was decent enough to let you get sexy with her all the time, you at least shouldn’t talk about her that way.

LUCE. Oh, God! Is this going to be a typical Caulfield conversation? I want to know right now.

HOLDEN. No, but it isn’t nice anyway. If she was decent and nice enough to let you—

LUCE. Must we pursue this horrible trend of thought?

STORYTELLER.I didn’t say anything. I was sort of afraid he’d get up and leave on me if I didn’t shut up. So all I did was, I ordered another drink. I felt like getting stinking drunk.

HOLDEN. Who’re you going around with now? You feel like telling me?

LUCE. Nobody you know.

HOLDEN. Yeah, but who? I might know her.

LUCE. Girl lives in the Village. Sculptress. If you must know.

HOLDEN. Yeah? No kidding? How old is she?

LUCE. I’ve never asked her, for God’s sake.

HOLDEN. Well, around how old?

LUCE. I should imagine she’s in her late thirties.

HOLDEN. In her late thirties? Yeah? You like that? You like ’em that old?

STORYTELLER. The reason I was asking was because he really knew quite a bit about sex and all. He was one of the few guys I knew that did. He lost his virginity when he was only fourteen, in Nantucket. He really did.

LUCE. I like a mature person, if that’s what you mean. Certainly.

HOLDEN. You do? Why? No kidding, they better for sex and all?

LUCE. Listen. Let’s get one thing straight. I refuse to answer any typical Caulfield questions tonight. When in hell are you going to grow up?

STORYTELLER. I didn’t say anything for a while.

HOLDEN. Listen. How long you been going around with her, this sculpture babe?

STORYTELLER. I was really interested.

HOLDEN. Did you know her when you were at Whooton?

LUCE. Hardly. She just arrived in this country a few months ago.

HOLDEN. She did? Where’s she from?

LUCE. She happens to be from Shanghai.

HOLDEN. No kidding! She Chinese, for Chrissake?

LUCE. Obviously.

HOLDEN. No kidding! Do you like that? Her being Chinese?

LUCE. Obviously.

HOLDEN. Why? I’d be interested to know—I really would.

LUCE. I simply happen to find Eastern philosophy more satisfactory than Western. Since you ask.

HOLDEN.You do? Wuddaya mean ‘philosophy’? Ya mean sex and all? You mean it’s better in China? That what you mean?

LUCE. Not necessarily in China, for God’s sake. The East I said. Must we go on with this inane conversation?

HOLDEN. Listen, I’m serious. No kidding. Why’s it better in the East?

LUCE. It’s too involved to go into, for God’s sake. They simply happen to regard sex as both a physical and a spiritual experience. If you think I’m—

HOLDEN.So do I! So do I regard it as a wuddayacallit—a physical and spiritual experience and all. I really do. But it depends on who the hell I’m doing it with. If I’m doing it with somebody I don’t even—

LUCE. Not so loud, for God’s sake, Caulfield. If you can’t manage to keep your voice down, let’s drop the whole—

HOLDEN. All right, but listen.

STORYTELLER. I was getting excited and I was talking a little too loud. Sometimes I talk a little loud when I get excited.

HOLDEN.This is what I mean, though. I know it’s supposed to be physical and spiritual, and artistic and all. But what I mean is, you can’t do it with everybody—every girl you neck with and all—and make it come out that way. Can you?

LUCE. Let’s drop it. Do you mind?

HOLDEN. All right, but listen. Take you and this Chinese babe. What’s so good about you two?

LUCE. Drop it, I said.

STORYTELLER. I was getting a little too personal. I realize that. But that was one of the annoying things about Luce. When we were at Whooton, he’d make you describe the most personal stuff that happened to you, but if you started asking him questions about himself, he got sore. These intellectual guys don’t like to have an intellectual conversation with you unless they’re running the whole thing. When I was at Whooton old Luce used to hate it—you really could tell he did—when after he was finished giving his sex talk to a bunch of us in his room we stuck around and chewed the fat by ourselves for a while. I mean the other guys and myself. In somebody else’s room. Old Luce hated that. He always wanted everybody to go back to their own room and shut up when he was finished being the big shot. The thing he was afraid of, he was afraid somebody’d say something smarter than he had. He really amused me.

HOLDEN. Maybe I’ll go to China. My sex life is lousy.

LUCE. Naturally. Your mind is immature.

HOLDEN.It is. It really is. I know it. You know what the trouble with me is? I can never get really sexy—I mean really sexy—with a girl I don’t like a lot. I mean I have to like her a lot. If I don’t, I sort of lose my goddam desire for her and all. Boy, it really screws up my sex life something awful. My sex life stinks.

LUCE. Naturally it does, for God’s sake. I told you the last time I saw you what you need.

HOLDEN. You mean to go to a psychoanalyst and all?

STORYTELLER. That’s what he’d told me I ought to do. His father was a psychoanalyst and all.

LUCE. It’s up to you, for God’s sake. It’s none of my goddam business what you do with your life.

HOLDEN. Supposing I went to your father and had him psychoanalyze me and all. What would he do to me? I mean what would he do to me?

LUCE. He wouldn’t do a goddam thing to you. He’d simply talk to you, and you’d talk to him, for God’s sake. For one thing, he’d help you to recognize the patterns of your mind.

HOLDEN. The what?

LUCE. The patterns of your mind. Your mind runs in— Listen. I’m not giving an elementary course in psychoanalysis. If you’re interested, call him up and make an appointment. If you’re not, don’t. I couldn’t care less, frankly.

STORYTELLER. I put my hand on his shoulder. Boy, he amused me.

HOLDEN. You’re a real friendly bastard. You know that?

LUCE. (looking at his wrist watch) I have to tear.(stood up) Nice seeing you.Bartender!my check.

HOLDEN. Hey. Did your father ever psychoanalyze you?

LUCE. Me? Why do you ask?

HOLDEN. No reason. Did he, though? Has he?

LUCE. Not exactly. He’s helped me to adjust myself to a certain extent, but an extensive analysis hasn’t been necessary. Why do you ask?

HOLDEN. No reason. I was just wondering.

LUCE. Well. Take it easy. (He was leaving his tip and all and he was starting to go)

HOLDEN. Have just one more drink. Please. I’m lonesome as hell. No kidding.

LUCE. I can't. I am late now.(he left)

STORYTELLER. Old Luce. He was strictly a pain in the ass, but he certainly had a good vocabulary.

 

Meeting with Phoebe

STORYTELLER. She wakes up very easily. I mean you don’t have to yell at her or anything. All you have to do, practically, is sit down on the bed and say, “Wake up, Phoeb,” and bingo, she’s awake.

PHOEBE. Holden!(put her arms around my neck and all)

STORYTELLER. She’s very affectionate. I mean she’s quite affectionate, for a child. Sometimes she’s even too affectionate. (I sort of gave her a kiss)

PHOEBE. Whenja get home?

STORYTELLER. She was glad as hell to see me. You could tell.

HOLDEN. Not so loud. Just now. How are ya anyway?

PHOEBE. I’m fine. Did you get my letter? I wrote you a five-page—

HOLDEN. Yeah—not so loud. Thanks.

STORYTELLER. She wrote me this letter. I didn’t get a chance to answer it, though. It was all about this play she was in in school.

HOLDEN. How’s the play?

PHOEBE. It stinks, but I have practically the biggest part.

STORYTELLER. Boy, was she wide-awake. She gets very excited when she tells you that stuff.

PHOEBE. Are you coming to it? (She was sitting way the hell up in the bed) That’s what I wrote you about. Are you?

HOLDEN. Sure I’m coming. Certainly I’m coming.

STORYTELLER. Boy, was she wide-awake. It only takes her about two seconds to get wide-awake.

She was sitting—sort of kneeling—way up in bed, and she was holding my goddam hand.

PHOEBE. Listen. Mother said you’d be home Wednesday. She said Wednesday.

HOLDEN. I got out early. Not so loud. You’ll wake everybody up.

PHOEBE. They went to a party. Guess what I did this afternoon! What movie I saw. Guess!

HOLDEN. I don’t know—Listen. Did they say what time they’d be back, or didn’t they?

PHOEBE. No, but not till very late.

STORYTELLER. I began to relax, sort of. I mean I finally quit worrying about whether they’d catch me home or not. I figured the hell with it. If they did, they did. (She had on these blue pajamas with red elephants on the collars)

HOLDEN. Listen, I bought you a record. Only I broke it on the way home.(I took the pieces out of my coat pocket and showed her) I was plastered.

PHOEBE. Gimme the pieces. I’m saving them.(She took them right out of my hand and then she put them in the drawer of the night table. She kills me.)

HOLDEN. What’d you do to your arm?(she had this big hunk of adhesive tape on her elbow)

PHOEBE. This boy, Curtis Weintraub, that’s in my class, pushed me while I was going down the stairs in the park. Wanna see?(She started taking the crazy adhesive tape off her arm)

HOLDEN. Leave it alone. Why’d he push you down the stairs?

PHOEBE. I don’t know. I think he hates me. This other girl and me put ink and stuff all over his windbreaker.

HOLDEN. That isn’t nice. What are you—a child, for God’s sake?

PHOEBE. No, but every time I’m in the park, he follows me everywhere. He’s always following me. He gets on my nerves.

HOLDEN. He probably likes you. That’s no reason to put ink all—

PHOEBE. I don’t want him to like me. (looking at me funny) Holden, how come you’re not home Wednesday?

HOLDEN. What?

STORYTELLER. Boy, you have to watch her every minute. If you don’t think she’s smart, you’re mad.

PHOEBE. How come you’re not home Wednesday? You didn’t get kicked out or anything, did you?

HOLDEN. I told you. They let us out early. They let the whole—

PHOEBE. You did get kicked out! You did!(hit me on the leg with her fist)

STORYTELLER. She gets very fisty when she feels like it.

PHOEBE. You did! Oh, Holden!(her hand on her mouth)

STORYTELLER. She gets very emotional, I swear to God.

HOLDEN. Who said I got kicked out? Nobody said I—

PHOEBE. You did. You did. (smacked me again with her fist)

STORYTELLER. If you don’t think that hurts, you’re crazy.

PHOEBE. Daddy’ll kill you!(flopped on her stomach on the bed and put the goddam pillow over her head)

HOLDEN. Cut it out, now. Nobody’s gonna kill me. Nobody’s gonna even—C’mon, Phoeb, take that goddam thing off your head. Nobody’s gonna kill me.

STORYTELLER. She wouldn’t take it off, though. You can’t make her do something if she doesn’t want to.

PHOEBE. Daddy’s gonna kill you.(with that goddam pillow over her head)

HOLDEN. Nobody’s gonna kill me. Use your head. In the first place, I’m going away. What I may do, I may get a job on a ranch or something for a while. I know this guy whose grandfather’s got a ranch in Colorado. C’mon. Take that off your head. C’mon, hey, Phoeb. Please. Please, willya?

STORYTELLER. She strong as hell. You get tired fighting with her.

HOLDEN. Phoebe, please. C’mon outa there. C’mon, hey… Hey, Weatherfield. C’mon out.

STORYTELLER. She wouldn’t come out, though. You can’t even reason with her sometimes. (I got up and went out in the living room and got some cigarettes out of the box on the table and stuck some in my pocket) I was all out. (When I came back, she had the pillow off her head all right—but she still wouldn’t look at me, even though she was laying on her back and all. When I came around the side of the bed and sat down again, she turned her crazy face the other way) She was ostracizing the hell out of me. Just like the fencing team at Pencey when I left all the goddam foils on the subway.

PHOEBE. Daddy’ll kill you.

STORYTELLER. Boy, she really gets something on her mind when she gets something on her mind.

HOLDEN. No, he won’t. The worst he’ll do, he’ll give me hell again, and then he’ll send me to that goddam military school. That’s all he’ll do to me. And in the first place, I won’t even be around. I’ll be away. I’ll be—I’ll probably be in Colorado on this ranch.

PHOEBE. Don’t make me laugh. You can’t even ride a horse.

HOLDEN. Who can’t? Sure I can. Certainly I can. They can teach you in about two minutes.

PHOEBE. (very snotty) I suppose you failed in every single subject again.

STORYTELLER. She sounds like a goddam schoolteacher sometimes, and she’s only a little child.

HOLDEN. No, I didn’t. I passed English.(I gave her a pinch on the behind, she tried to hit my hand anyway, but she missed)

PHOEBE. Oh, why did you do it?(It made me sort of sad, the way she said it)

HOLDEN. Oh, God, Phoebe, don’t ask me. I’m sick of everybody asking me that. A million reasons why. It was one of the worst schools I ever went to. It was full of phonies. And mean guys. You never saw so many mean guys in your life. And they had this goddam secret fraternity that I was too yellow not to join. There was this one pimply, boring guy, Robert Ackley, that wanted to get in. He kept trying to join, and they wouldn’t let him. Just because he was boring and pimply. I don’t even feel like talking about it. It was a stinking school. Take my word.

STORYTELLER. She always listens when you tell her something. And the funny part is she knows, half the time, what the hell you’re talking about. She really does.

HOLDEN. Even the couple of nice teachers on the faculty, they were phonies, too. There was this one old guy, Mr. Spencer. His wife was always giving you hot chocolate and all that stuff, and they were really pretty nice. But you should’ve seen him when the headmaster, old Thurmer, came in the history class. After a while, he’d be sitting back there and then he’d start interrupting what old Spencer was saying to crack a lot of corny jokes. Old Spencer’d practically kill himself chuckling and smiling and all, like as if Thurmer was a goddam prince or something.

PHOEBE. Don’t swear so much.

HOLDEN. It would’ve made you puke, I swear it would. Then, on Veterans’ Day. They have this day, Veterans’ Day, that all the jerks that graduated from Pencey around 1776 come back and walk all over the place, with their wives and children and everybody. You should’ve seen this one old guy that was about fifty. What he did was, he came in our room and knocked on the door and asked us if we’d mind if he used the bathroom. The bathroom was at the end of the corridor—I don’t know why the hell he asked us. You know what he said? He said he wanted to see if his initials were still in one of the can doors. What he did, he carved his goddam stupid sad old initials in one of the can doors about ninety years ago, and he wanted to see if they were still there. So my roommate and I walked him down to the bathroom and all, and we had to stand there while he looked for his initials in all the can doors. He kept talking to us the whole time, telling us how when he was at Pencey they were the happiest days of his life, and giving us a lot of advice for the future and all.

STORYTELLER. Boy, did he depress me! I don’t mean he was a bad guy—he wasn’t. But you don’t have to be a bad guy to depress somebody—you can be a good guy and do it. All you have to do to depress somebody is give them a lot of phony advice while you’re looking for your initials in some can door—that’s all you have to do.

HOLDEN. God, Phoebe! I can’t explain. I just didn’t like anything that was happening at Pencey. I can’t explain.

PHOEBE. (She had the side of her mouth right smack on the pillow)You don’t like anything that’s happening.

HOLDEN. (even more depressed) Yes I do. Yes I do. Sure I do. Don’t say that. Why the hell do you say that?

PHOEBE. Because you don’t. You don’t like any schools. You don’t like a million things. You don’t.

HOLDEN. I do! That’s where you’re wrong—that’s exactly where you’re wrong! Why the hell do you have to say that?

STORYTELLER. Boy, was she depressing me.

PHOEBE. Because you don’t. Name one thing.

HOLDEN. One thing? One thing I like?Okay.

STORYTELLER. The trouble was, I couldn’t concentrate too hot. Sometimes it’s hard to concentrate.

HOLDEN. One thing I like a lot you mean? (She didn’t answer me, though. She was in a cockeyed position way the hell over the other side of the bed. She was about a thousand miles away)

PHOEBE. You can’t even think of one thing.

HOLDEN. Yes, I can. Yes, I can.

PHOEBE. Well, do it, then.

HOLDEN. I like Allie. And I like sitting here with you, and talking, and thinking about stuff, and—

PHOEBE. Allie’s dead—You always say that! If somebody’s dead and everything, and in Heaven, then it isn’t really—

HOLDEN. I know he’s dead! Don’t you think I know that? I can still like him, though, can’t I? Just because somebody’s dead, you don’t just stop liking them, for God’s sake—especially if they were about a thousand times nicer than the people you know that’re alive and all.

PHOEBE. All right, name something else. Name something you’d like to be. Like a scientist. Or a lawyer or something.”

HOLDEN. I couldn’t be a scientist. I’m no good in science.

PHOEBE. Well, a lawyer—like Daddy and all.

HOLDEN. Lawyers are all right, I guess—but it doesn’t appeal to me. I mean they’re all right if they go around saving innocent guys’ lives all the time, and like that, but you don’t do that kind of stuff if you’re a lawyer. All you do is make a lot of dough and play golf and play bridge and buy cars and drink Martinis and look like a hot-shot. And besides. Even if you did go around saving guys’ lives and all, how would you know if you did it because you really wanted to save guys’ lives, or because you did it because what you really wanted to do was be a terrific lawyer, with everybody slapping you on the back and congratulating you in court when the goddam trial was over, the reporters and everybody, the way it is in the dirty movies? How would you know you weren’t being a phony? The trouble is, you wouldn’t.”

STORYTELLER. I’m not too sure old Phoebe knew what the hell I was talking about. I mean she’s only a little child and all. But she was listening, at least. If somebody at least listens, it’s not too bad.

PHOEBE. Daddy’s going to kill you. He’s going to kill you.

HOLDEN. You know what I’d like to be? You know what I’d like to be? I mean if I had my goddam choice?

PHOEBE. What? Stop swearing.

HOLDEN. You know that song ‘If a body catch a body comin’ through the rye’? I’d like—

PHOEBE. It’s ‘If a body meet a body coming through the rye’!It’s a poem. By Robert Burns.

HOLDEN. I know it’s a poem by Robert Burns.

STORYTELLER. She was right, though. It is “If a body meet a body coming through the rye.” I didn’t know it then, though.

HOLDEN. I thought it was ‘If a body catch a body. Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around—nobody big, I mean—except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff—I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be. I know it’s crazy.

PHOEBE. (long silence)Daddy’s going to kill you.”

HOLDEN. I don’t give a damn if he does. (got up from the bed) I have to make a phone call. I’ll be right back. Don’t go to sleep.

PHOEBE. Holden!(I turned around) I’m taking belching lessons from this girl, Phyllis Margulies. Listen.

STORYTELLER. I listened, and I heard something, but it wasn’t much.

HOLDEN. Good. Then I went out in the living room and called up this teacher I had, Mr. Antolini.

 


Date: 2015-02-28; view: 1833


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