The Catcher in the Rye

by J. D. Salinger

  “Wait a second, willya?” I said. “I’m asking you a question. Did they say what time they’d be back, or didn’t they?”

  “No, but not till very late. Daddy took the car and everything so they wouldn’t have to worry about trains. We have a radio in it now! Except that Mother said nobody can play it when the car’s in traffic.”

  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.

  You should’ve seen old Phoebe. She had on these blue pajamas with red elephants on the collars. Elephants knock her out.

  “So it was a good picture, huh?” I said.

  “Swell, except Alice had a cold, and her mother kept asking her all the time if she felt grippy. Right in the middle of the picture. Always in the middle of something important, her mother’d lean all over me and everything and ask Alice if she felt grippy. It got on my nerves.”

  Then I told her about the record. “Listen, I bought you a record,” I told her. “Only I broke it on the way home.” I took the pieces out of my coat pocket and showed her. “I was plastered,” I said.

  “Gimme the pieces,” she said. “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.

  “D.B. coming home for Christmas?” I asked her.

  “He may and he may not, Mother said. It all depends. He may have to stay in Hollywood and write a picture about Annapolis.”

  “Annapolis, for God’s sake!”

  “It’s a love story and everything. Guess who’s going to be in it! What movie star. Guess!”

  “I’m not interested. Annapolis, for God’s sake. What’s D.B. know about Annapolis, for God’s sake? What’s that got to do with the kind of stories he writes?” I said. Boy, that stuff drives me crazy. That goddam Hollywood. “What’d you do to your arm?” I asked her. I noticed she had this big hunk of adhesive tape on her elbow. The reason I noticed it, her pajamas didn’t have any sleeves.

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

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

  “I don’t know. I think he hates me,” old Phoebe said. “This other girl and me, Selma Atterbury, put ink and stuff all over his windbreaker.”

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

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

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

  “I don’t want him to like me,” she said. Then she started looking at me funny. “Holden,” she said, “how come you’re not home Wednesday?”

  “What?”

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

  “How come you’re not home Wednesday?” she asked me. “You didn’t get kicked out or anything, did you?”

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

  “You did get kicked out! You did!” old Phoebe said. Then she hit me on the leg with her fist. She gets very fisty when she feels like it. “You did! Oh, Holden!” She had her hand on her mouth and all. She gets very emotional, I swear to God.

  “Who said I got kicked out? Nobody said I—”

  “You did. You did,” she said. Then she smacked me again with her fist. If you don’t think that hurts, you’re crazy. “Daddy’ll kill you!” she said. Then she flopped on her stomach on the bed and put the goddam pillow over her head. She does that quite frequently. She’s a true madman sometimes.

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

  She wouldn’t take it off, though. You can’t make her do something if she doesn’t want to. All she kept saying was, “Daddy’s gonna kill you.” You could hardly understand her with that goddam pillow over her head.

  “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. I may get a job out there,” I said. “I’ll keep in touch with you and all when I’m gone, if I go. C’mon. Take that off your head. C’mon, hey, Phoeb. Please. Please, willya?”

  She wouldn’t take it off, though. I tried pulling it off, but she’s strong as hell. You get tired fighting with her. Boy, if she wants to keep a pillow over her head, she keeps it. “Phoebe, please. C’mon outa there,” I kept saying. “C’mon, hey… Hey, Weatherfield. C’mon out.”

  She wouldn’t come out, though. You can’t even reason with her sometimes. Finally, 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.

  22

  WHEN I CAME BACK, she had the pillow off her head all right—I knew she would—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.

  “How’s old Hazel Weatherfield?” I said. “You write any new stories about her? I got that one you sent me right in my suitcase. It’s down at the station. It’s very good.”

  “Daddy’ll kill you.”

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

  “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.”

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

  “Who can’t? Sure I can. Certainly I can. They can teach you in about two minutes,” I said. “Stop picking at that.” She was picking at that adhesive tape on her arm. “Who gave you that haircut?” I asked her. I just noticed what a stupid haircut somebody gave her. It was way too short.

  “None of your business,” she said. She can be very snotty sometimes. She can be quite snotty. “I suppose you failed in every single subject again,” she said—very snotty. It was sort of funny, too, in a way. She sounds like a goddam schoolteacher sometimes, and she’s only a little child.

  “No, I didn’t,” I said. “I passed English.” Then, just for the hell of it, I gave her a pinch on the behind. It was sticking way out in the breeze, the way she was laying on her side. She has hardly any behind. I didn’t do it hard, but she tried to hit my hand anyway, but she missed.

  Then all of a sudden, she said, “Oh, why did you do it?” She meant why did I get the ax again. It made me sort of sad, the way she said it.

  “Oh, God, Phoebe, don’t ask me. I’m sick of everybody asking me that,” I said. “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. For instance, if you were having a bull session in somebody’s room, and somebody wanted to come in, nobody’d let them in if they were some dopey, pimply guy. Everybody was always locking their door when somebody wanted to come in. 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.”

  Old Phoebe didn’t say anything, but she was listening. I could tell by the back of her neck that she was listening. She always listens when you tell her something. And the funny part is she knows, hal
f the time, what the hell you’re talking about. She really does.

  I kept talking about old Pencey. I sort of felt like it.

  “Even the couple of nice teachers on the faculty, they were phonies, too,” I said. “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 and sat down in the back of the room. He was always coming in and sitting down in the back of the room for about a half an hour. He was supposed to be incognito or something. 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.”

  “Don’t swear so much.”

  “It would’ve made you puke, I swear it would,” I said. “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. 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. I don’t know. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if he hadn’t been all out of breath. He was all out of breath from just climbing up the stairs, and the whole time he was looking for his initials he kept breathing hard, with his nostrils all funny and sad, while he kept telling Stradlater and I to get all we could out of Pencey. God, Phoebe! I can’t explain. I just didn’t like anything that was happening at Pencey. I can’t explain.”

  Old Phoebe said something then, but I couldn’t hear her. She had the side of her mouth right smack on the pillow, and I couldn’t hear her.

  “What?” I said. “Take your mouth away. I can’t hear you with your mouth that way.”

  “You don’t like anything that’s happening.”

  It made me even more depressed when she said that.

  “Yes I do. Yes I do. Sure I do. Don’t say that. Why the hell do you say that?”

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

  “I do! That’s where you’re wrong—that’s exactly where you’re wrong! Why the hell do you have to say that?” I said. Boy, was she depressing me.

  “Because you don’t,” she said. “Name one thing.”

  “One thing? One thing I like?” I said. “Okay.”

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

  “One thing I like a lot you mean?” I asked her.

  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. “C’mon, answer me,” I said. “One thing I like a lot, or one thing I just like?”

  “You like a lot.”

  “All right,” I said. But the trouble was, I couldn’t concentrate. About all I could think of were those two nuns that went around collecting dough in those beat-up old straw baskets. Especially the one with the glasses with those iron rims. And this boy I knew at Elkton Hills. There was this one boy at Elkton Hills, named James Castle, that wouldn’t take back something he said about this very conceited boy, Phil Stabile. James Castle called him a very conceited guy, and one of Stabile’s lousy friends went and squealed on him to Stabile. So Stabile, with about six other dirty bastards, went down to James Castle’s room and went in and locked the goddam door and tried to make him take back what he said, but he wouldn’t do it. So they started in on him. I won’t even tell you what they did to him—it’s too repulsive—but he still wouldn’t take it back, old James Castle. And you should’ve seen him. He was a skinny little weak-looking guy, with wrists about as big as pencils. Finally, what he did, instead of taking back what he said, he jumped out the window. I was in the shower and all, and even I could hear him land outside. But I just thought something fell out the window, a radio or a desk or something, not a boy or anything. Then I heard everybody running through the corridor and down the stairs, so I put on my bathrobe and I ran downstairs too, and there was old James Castle laying right on the stone steps and all. He was dead, and his teeth, and blood, were all over the place, and nobody would even go near him. He had on this turtleneck sweater I’d lent him. All they did with the guys that were in the room with him was expel them. They didn’t even go to jail.

  That was about all I could think of, though. Those two nuns I saw at breakfast and this boy James Castle I knew at Elkton Hills. The funny part is, I hardly even know James Castle, if you want to know the truth. He was one of these very quiet guys. He was in my math class, but he was way over on the other side of the room, and he hardly ever got up to recite or go to the blackboard or anything. Some guys in school hardly ever get up to recite or go to the blackboard. I think the only time I ever even had a conversation with him was that time he asked me if he could borrow this turtleneck sweater I had. I damn near dropped dead when he asked me, I was so surprised and all. I remember I was brushing my teeth, in the can, when he asked me. He said his cousin was coming up to take him for a drive and all. I didn’t even know he knew I had a turtleneck sweater. All I knew about him was that his name was always right ahead of me at roll call. Cabel, R., Cabel, W., Castle, Caulfield—I can still remember it. If you want to know the truth, I almost didn’t lend him my sweater. Just because I didn’t know him too well.

  “What?” I said to old Phoebe. She said something to me, but I didn’t hear her.

  “You can’t even think of one thing.”

  “Yes, I can. Yes, I can.”

  “Well, do it, then.”

  “I like Allie,” I said. “And I like doing what I’m doing right now. Sitting here with you, and talking, and thinking about stuff, and—”

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

  “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.”

  Old Phoebe didn’t say anything. When she can’t think of anything to say, she doesn’t say a goddam word.

  “Anyway, I like it now,” I said. “I mean right now. Sitting here with you and just chewing the fat and horsing—”

  “That isn’t anything really!”

  “It is so something really! Certainly it is! Why the hell isn’t it? People never think anything is anything really. I’m getting goddam sick of it.”

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

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

  “Well, a lawyer—like Daddy and all.”

  “Lawyers are all right, I guess—but it doesn’t appeal to me,” I said. “I mean they’re all right if they go ar
ound 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.”

  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.

  “Daddy’s going to kill you. He’s going to kill you,” she said.

  I wasn’t listening, though. I was thinking about something else—something crazy. “You know what I’d like to be?” I said. “You know what I’d like to be? I mean if I had my goddam choice?”

  “What? Stop swearing.”

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

  “It’s ‘If a body meet a body coming through the rye’!” old Phoebe said. “It’s a poem. By Robert Burns.”

  “I know it’s a poem by Robert Burns.”

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

  “I thought it was ‘If a body catch a body,’” I said. “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.”