Jerome Salinger - The Catcher in the Rye

“Not so loud. Just now. How are ya anyway?”

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

“Yeah—not so loud. Thanks.”

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. She told me not to make any dates or anything for Friday so that I could come see it.

“How’s the play?” I asked her. “What’d you say the name of it was?”

“ ‘A Christmas Pageant for Americans.” It stinks, but I’m Benedict Arnold. I have practically the biggest part,” she said. Boy, was she wide-awake. She gets very excited when she tells you that stuff. “It starts out when I’m dying. This ghost comes in on Christmas Eve and asks me if I’m ashamed and everything. You know. For betraying my country and everything. Are you coming to it?” She was sitting way the hell up in the bed and all. “That’s what I wrote you about. Are you?”

“Sure I’m coming. Certainly I’m coming.”

“Daddy can’t come. He has to fly to California,” she said. 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. “Listen. Mother said you’d be home Wednesday,” she said. “She said Wednesday.”

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

“What time is it? They won’t be home till very late, Mother said. They went to a party in Norwalk, Connecticut,” old Phoebe said. “Guess what I did this afternoon! What movie I saw. Guess!”

“I don’t know—Listen. Didn’t they say what time they’d—”

“The Doctor,” old Phoebe said. “It’s a special movie they had at the Lister Foundation. Just this one day they had it—today was the only day. It was all about this doctor in Kentucky and everything that sticks a blanket over this child’s face that’s a cripple and can’t walk. Then they send him to jail and everything. It was excellent.”

“Listen a second. Didn’t they say what time they’d—”

“He feels sorry for it, the doctor. That’s why he sticks this blanket over her face and everything and makes her suffocate. Then they make him go to jail for life imprisonment, but this child that he stuck the blanket over its head comes to visit him all the time and thanks him for what he did. He was a mercy killer. Only, he knows he deserves to go to jail because a doctor isn’t supposed to take things away from God. This girl in my class’s mother took us. Alice Holmborg, She’s my best friend. She’s the only girl in the whole—”

“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.

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.