The Catcher in the Rye

Okay, so I got kicked out of Pencey Prep again. It's always the same phony crap with those schools, full of guys who are either big shots or jerks, and teachers who pretend to care but are mostly just grandstanders. Before I even really left, I had this run-in with my roommate, Stradlater, a secret slob but a good-looking guy, who was going out with Jane Gallagher, a girl I used to know. That really got under my skin, thinking about old Jane with a guy like him. After he came back, all full of himself, I tried to get him to tell me if he'd pulled anything with her, but he just acted like a big shot, which made me so mad I tried to punch him. He really socked me good, though. That was it. I couldn't stand another minute in that dump with all those phonies, so I decided to clear out early and head for New York City.

The train ride to New York was typical. I ended up talking to the mother of one of the Pencey jerks, Ernest Morrow, and I lied my head off about how great her son was, just to make her feel good. I'm a terrific liar, sometimes. Once I got to the city, I checked into this crummy hotel, the Edmont, and right away I started noticing all these perverts and phonies through my window. I even called up this old stripper I knew, Faith Cavendish, but she was a bust. I was feeling pretty lonesome and horny, which is how I ended up with Sunny, a prostitute, in my room. But when it came down to it, I just wanted to talk, not do anything. She was just a kid, really. Her pimp, Maurice, came up later and shook me down for more money, and then punched me in the gut. That whole thing was such a goddam mess.

I tried to connect with other people, but it was just one phony encounter after another. I went on a date with Sally Hayes, who was pretty, but such a phony, always talking about actors and how wonderful everything was. I got this crazy idea to run away with her, to live in a cabin in Massachusetts or Vermont, just the two of us, away from all the phoniness. But she started screaming at me, calling me a madman, and that was the end of that. Later, I met up with Carl Luce, an older guy from another school, at a bar. I just wanted to talk to him about sex and girls, because he was supposed to be so sophisticated, but he just acted like a big snob and told me I needed a psychoanalyst. Everything felt so goddam pointless. I was getting drunk, stumbling around, calling Sally again, just trying to find some genuine connection, but everyone was just so fake.

The only person I really wanted to see, the only one who wasn't a phony, was my little sister, Phoebe. So, I snuck back home, knowing my parents would kill me if they found out I'd been expelled again. Phoebe was still awake, writing in her notebook, and she was so happy to see me at first. But then she figured out I'd gotten the axe from Pencey, and she got really mad, telling me I didn't like anything. She kept asking me to name one thing I really liked. The only thing I could think of was Allie, my brother who died of leukemia, and that's not something you can just *like* in the present.

That's when I told her about my fantasy, about being the "catcher in the rye." I pictured all these little kids playing in a big field of rye, and if they started to go too close to the edge of a cliff, I'd be there to catch them before they fell off. I just want to save kids from losing their innocence, from falling into the phony adult world. But Phoebe, smart as she is, told me I had the poem all wrong. It's "if a body meet a body, coming through the rye," not "catch a body." She really is something, that kid.

After that, I called up my old English teacher, Mr. Antolini, who was probably the only adult I knew who wasn't a complete phony. He let me crash at his place, and he tried to give me some advice, telling me I was headed for a fall and that an educated man finds a way to live humbly for a cause. But then I woke up in the middle of the night and he was patting my head, which really freaked me out, so I bolted. I started thinking about heading west, just getting out of New York, away from everything.

I left a note for Phoebe, telling her I was going to run away, and she showed up at the museum with her suitcase, wanting to come with me. She wouldn't let me go without her, which broke my heart. I told her I wasn't going, and we went to the carousel. Watching her ride, reaching for the gold ring, I felt this overwhelming happiness, this feeling that I might be okay. You can't stop kids from reaching, from falling sometimes, and maybe that's okay. I ended up back home, and now I'm here, in this place, telling you all about it. I keep thinking about all those phonies, and how much I miss some of the people I knew. It's a funny thing, but you don't ever really tell anybody anything without missing everybody.