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
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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 beatup 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 in 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 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
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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."
Old Phoebe didn't say anything for a long time. Then, when she said something,
all she said was, "Daddy's going to kill you."
"I don't give a damn if he does," I said. I got up from the bed then, because what I
wanted to do, I wanted to phone up this guy that was my English teacher at Elkton Hills,
Mr. Antolini. He lived in New York now. He quit Elkton Hills. He took this job teaching
English at N.Y.U. "I have to make a phone call," I told Phoebe. "I'll be right back. Don't
go to sleep." I didn't want her to go to sleep while I was in the living room. I knew she
wouldn't but I said it anyway, just to make sure.
While I was walking toward the door, old Phoebe said, "Holden!" and I turned
around.
She was sitting way up in bed. She looked so pretty. "I'm taking belching lessons
from this girl, Phyllis Margulies," she said. "Listen."
I listened, and I heard something, but it wasn't much. "Good," I said. Then I went
out in the living room and called up this teacher I had, Mr. Antolini.
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