Jerome Salinger - THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing youll probably want to know is where I was born, an what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I dont feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them. Theyre quite touchy about anything like that, especially my father. Theyre nice and allIm not saying thatbut theyre also touchy as hell. Besides, Im not going to tell you my whole goddam autobiography or anything. Ill just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me around last Christmas just before I got pretty run-down and had to come out here and take it easy. I mean thats all I told D.B. about, and hes my brother and all. Hes in Hollywood. That isnt too far from this crumby place, and he comes over and visits me practically every week end. Hes going to drive me home when I go home next month maybe. He just got a Jaguar. One of those little English jobs that can do around two hundred miles an hour. It cost him damn near four thousand bucks. Hes got a lot of dough, now. He didnt use to. He used to be just a regular writer, when he was home. He wrote this terrific book of short stories, The Secret Goldfish, in case you never heard of him. The best one in it was The Secret Goldfish. It was about this little kid that wouldnt let anybody look at his goldfish because hed bought it with his own money. It killed me. Now hes out in Hollywood, D.B., being a prostitute. If theres one thing I hate, its the movies. Dont even mention them to me.

Where I want to start telling is the day I left Pencey Prep. Pencey Prep is this school thats in Agerstown, Pennsylvania. You probably heard of it. Youve probably seen the ads, anyway. They advertise in about a thousand magazines, always showing some hotshot guy on a horse jumping over a fence. Like as if all you ever did at Pencey was play polo all the time. I never even once saw a horse anywhere near the place. And underneath the guy on the horses picture, it always says: Since 1888 we have been molding boys into splendid, clear-thinking young men. Strictly for the birds. They dont do any damn more molding at Pencey than they do at any other school. And I didnt know anybody there that was splendid and clear-thinking and all. Maybe two guys. If that many. And they probably came to Pencey that way.

Anyway, it was the Saturday of the football game with Saxon Hall. The game with Saxon Hall was supposed to be a very big deal around Pencey. It was the last game of the year, and you were supposed to commit suicide or something if old Pencey didnt win. I remember around three oclock that afternoon I was standing way the hell up on top of Thomsen Hill, right next to this crazy cannon that was in the Revolutionary War and all. You could see the whole field from there, and you could see the two teams bashing each other all over the place. You couldnt see the grandstand too hot, but you could hear them all yelling, deep and terrific on the Pencey side, because practically the whole school except me was there, and scrawny and faggy on the Saxon Hall side, because the visiting team hardly ever brought many people with them.

There were never many girls at all at the football games. Only seniors were allowed to bring girls with them. It was a terrible school, no matter how you looked at it. I like to be somewhere at least where you can see a few girls around once in a while, even if theyre only scratching their arms or blowing their noses or even just giggling or something. Old Selma Thurmershe was the headmasters daughtershowed up at the games quite often, but she wasnt exactly the type that drove you mad with desire. She was a pretty nice girl, though. I sat next to her once in the bus from Agerstown and we sort of struck up a conversation. I liked her. She had a big nose and her nails were all bitten down and bleedy-looking and she had on those damn falsies that point all over the place, but you felt sort of sorry for her. What I liked about her, she didnt give you a lot of horse manure about what a great guy her father was. She probably knew what a phony slob he was.

The reason I was standing way up on Thomsen Hill, instead of down at the game, was because Id just got back from New York with the fencing team. I was the goddam manager of the fencing team. Very big deal. Wed gone in to New York that morning for this fencing meet with McBurney School. Only, we didnt have the meet. I left all the foils and equipment and stuff on the goddam subway. It wasnt all my fault. I had to keep getting up to look at this map, so wed 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.

The other reason I wasnt down at the game was because I was on my way to say good-by to old Spencer, my history teacher. He had the grippe, and I figured I probably wouldnt see him again till Christmas vacation started. He wrote me this note saying he wanted to see me before I went home. He knew I wasnt coming back to Pencey.

I forgot to tell you about that. They kicked me out. I wasnt supposed to come back after Christmas vacation on account of I was flunking four subjects and not applying myself and all. They gave me frequent warning to start applying myselfespecially around midterms, when my parents came up for a conference with old Thurmerbut I didnt 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.

Anyway, it was December and all, and it was cold as a witchs teat, especially on top of that stupid hill. I only had on my reversible and no gloves or anything. The week before that, somebodyd stolen my camels-hair coat right out of my room, with my fur-lined gloves right in the pocket and all. Pencey was full of crooks. Quite a few guys came from these very wealthy families, but it was full of crooks anyway. The more expensive a school is, the more crooks it hasIm not kidding. Anyway, I kept standing next to that crazy cannon, looking down at the game and freezing my ass off. Only, I wasnt watching the game too much. What I was really hanging around for, I was trying to feel some kind of a good-by. I mean Ive left schools and places I didnt even know I was leaving them. I hate that. I dont care if its a sad good-by or a bad goodby, but when I leave a place I like to know Im leaving it. If you dont, you feel even worse.

I was lucky. All of a sudden I thought of something that helped make me know I was getting the hell out. I suddenly remembered this time, in around October, that I and Robert Tichener and Paul Campbell were chucking a football around, in front of the academic building. They were nice guys, especially Tichener. It was just before dinner and it was getting pretty dark out, but we kept chucking the ball around anyway. It kept getting darker and darker, and we could hardly see the ball any more, but we didnt want to stop doing what we were doing. Finally we had to. This teacher that taught biology, Mr. Zambesi, stuck his head out of this window in the academic building 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 oneat least, most of the time I can. As soon as I got it, I turned around and started running down the other side of the hill, toward old Spencers house. He didnt live on the campus. He lived on Anthony Wayne Avenue.

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. Im quite a heavy smoker, for one thingthat is, I used to be. They made me cut it out. Another thing, I grew six and a half inches last year. Thats also how I practically got t.b. and came out here for all these goddam checkups and stuff. Im pretty healthy, though.