Сэлинджер Джером. Над пропастью во ржи (engl)

it." He went over to the closet in a big hurry. "How'sa boy, Ackley?" he
said to Ackley. He was at least a pretty friendly guy, Stradlater. It was
partly a phony kind of friendly, but at least he always said hello to Ackley
and all. Ackley just sort of grunted when he said "How'sa boy?" He wouldn't
answer him, but he didn't have guts enough not to at least grunt. Then he
said to me, "I think I'll get going. See ya later." "Okay," I said. He never
exactly broke your heart when he went back to his own room. Old Stradlater
started taking off his coat and tie and all. "I think maybe I'll take a fast
shave," he said. He had a pretty heavy beard. He really did. "Where's your
date?" I asked him. "She's waiting in the Annex." He went out of the room
with his toilet kit and towel under his arm. No shirt on or anything. He
always walked around in his bare torso because he thought he had a damn good
build. He did, too. I have to admit it.
4
I didn't have anything special to do, so I went down to the can and
chewed the rag with him while he was shaving. We were the only ones in the
can, because everybody was still down at the game. It was hot as hell and
the windows were all steamy. There were about ten washbowls, all right
against the wall. Stradlater had the middle one. I sat down on the one right
next to him and started turning the cold water on and off--this nervous
habit I have. Stradlater kept whistling 'Song of India" while he shaved. He
had one of those very piercing whistles that are practically never in tune,
and he always picked out some song that's hard to whistle even if you're a
good whistler, like "Song of India" or "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue." He could
really mess a song up. You remember I said before that Ackley was a slob in
his personal habits? Well, so was Stradlater, but in a different way.
Stradlater was more of a secret slob. He always looked all right,
Stradlater, but for instance, you should've seen the razor he shaved himself
with. It was always rusty as hell and full of lather and hairs and crap. He
never cleaned it or anything. He always looked good when he was finished
fixing himself up, but he was a secret slob anyway, if you knew him the way
I did. The reason he fixed himself up to look good was because he was madly
in love with himself. He thought he was the handsomest guy in the Western
Hemisphere. He was pretty handsome, too--I'll admit it. But he was mostly
the kind of a handsome guy that if your parents saw his picture in your Year
Book, they'd right away say, "Who's this boy?" I mean he was mostly a Year
Book kind of handsome guy. I knew a lot of guys at Pencey I thought were a
lot handsomer than Stradlater, but they wouldn't look handsome if you saw
their pictures in the Year Book. They'd look like they had big noses or
their ears stuck out. I've had that experience frequently. Anyway, I was
sitting on the washbowl next to where Stradlater was shaving, sort of
turning the water on and off. I still had my red hunting hat on, with the
peak around to the back and all. I really got a bang out of that hat. "Hey,"
Stradlater said. "Wanna do me a big favor?" "What?" I said. Not too
enthusiastic. He was always asking you to do him a big favor. You take a
very handsome guy, or a guy that thinks he's a real hot-shot, and they're
always asking you to do them a big favor. Just because they're crazy about
themseif, they think you're crazy about them, too, and that you're just
dying to do them a favor. It's sort of funny, in a way. "You goin' out
tonight?" he said. "I might. I might not. I don't know. Why?" "I got about a
hundred pages to read for history for Monday," he said. "How 'bout writing a
composition for me, for English? I'll be up the creek if I don't get the
goddam thing in by Monday, the reason I ask. How 'bout it?" It was very
ironical. It really was. "I'm the one that's flunking out of the goddam
place, and you're asking me to write you a goddam composition," I said.
"Yeah, I know. The thing is, though, I'll be up the creek if I don't get it
in. Be a buddy. Be a buddyroo. Okay?" I didn't answer him right away.
Suspense is good for some bastards like Stradlater. "What on?" I said.
"Anything. Anything descriptive. A room. Or a house. Or something you once
lived in or something-- you know. Just as long as it's descriptive as hell."
He gave out a big yawn while he said that. Which is something that gives me
a royal pain in the ass. I mean if somebody yawns right while they're asking
you to do them a goddam favor. "Just don't do it too good, is all," he said.
"That sonuvabitch Hartzell thinks you're a hot-shot in English, and he knows
you're my roommate. So I mean don't stick all the commas and stuff in the
right place." That's something else that gives me a royal pain. I mean if
you're good at writing compositions and somebody starts talking about
commas. Stradlater was always doing that. He wanted you to think that the
only reason he was lousy at writing compositions was because he stuck all
the commas in the wrong place. He was a little bit like Ackley, that way. I
once sat next to Ackley at this basketball game. We had a terrific guy on
the team, Howie Coyle, that could sink them from the middle of the floor,
without even touching the backboard or anything. Ackley kept saying, the
whole goddam game, that Coyle had a perfect build for basketball. God, how I
hate that stuff. I got bored sitting on that washbowl after a while, so I
backed up a few feet and started doing this tap dance, just for the hell of
it. I was just amusing myself. I can't really tap-dance or anything, but it
was a stone floor in the can, and it was good for tap-dancing. I started
imitating one of those guys in the movies. In one of those musicals. I hate
the movies like poison, but I get a bang imitating them. Old Stradlater
watched me in the mirror while he was shaving. All I need's an audience. I'm
an exhibitionist. "I'm the goddarn Governor's son," I said. I was knocking
myself out. Tap-dancing all over the place. "He doesn't want me to be a tap
dancer. He wants me to go to Oxford. But it's in my goddam blood,
tap-dancing." Old Stradlater laughed. He didn't have too bad a sense of
humor. "It's the opening night of the Ziegfeld Follies." I was getting out
of breath. I have hardly any wind at all. "The leading man can't go on. He's
drunk as a bastard. So who do they get to take his place? Me, that's who.
The little ole goddam Governor's son." "Where'dja get that hat?" Stradlater
said. He meant my hunting hat. He'd never seen it before. I was out of
breath anyway, so I quit horsing around. I took off my hat and looked at it
for about the ninetieth time. "I got it in New York this morning. For a
buck. Ya like it?" Stradlater nodded. "Sharp," he said. He was only
flattering me, though, because right away he said, "Listen. Are ya gonna
write that composition for me? I have to know." "If I get the time, I will.
If I don't, I won't," I said. I went over and sat down at the washbowl next
to him again. "Who's your date?" I asked him. "Fitzgerald?" "Hell, no! I
told ya. I'm through with that pig." "Yeah? Give her to me, boy. No kidding.
She's my type." "Take her... She's too old for you." All of a sudden--for no
good reason, really, except that I was sort of in the mood for horsing
around--I felt like jumping off the washbowl and getting old Stradlater in a
half nelson. That's a wrestling hold, in case you don't know, where you get
the other guy around the neck and choke him to death, if you feel like it.
So I did it. I landed on him like a goddam panther. "Cut it out, Holden, for
Chrissake!" Stradlater said. He didn't feel like horsing around. He was
shaving and all. "Wuddaya wanna make me do--cut my goddam head off?" I
didn't let go, though. I had a pretty good half nelson on him. "Liberate
yourself from my viselike grip." I said. "Je-sus Christ." He put down his
razor, and all of a sudden jerked his arms up and sort of broke my hold on
him. He was a very strong guy. I'm a very weak guy. "Now, cut out the crap,"
he said. He started shaving himself all over again. He always shaved himself
twice, to look gorgeous. With his crumby old razor. "Who is your date if it
isn't Fitzgerald?" I asked him. I sat down on the washbowl next to him
again. "That Phyllis Smith babe?" "No. It was supposed to he, but the
arrangements got all screwed up. I got Bud Thaw's girl's roommate now...
Hey. I almost forgot. She knows you." "Who does?" I said. "My date." "Yeah?"
I said. "What's her name?" I was pretty interested. "I'm thinking... Uh.
Jean Gallagher." Boy, I nearly dropped dead when he said that. "Jane
Gallagher," I said. I even got up from the washbowl when he said that. I
damn near dropped dead. "You're damn right I know her. She practically lived
right next door to me, the summer before last. She had this big damn
Doberman pinscher. That's how I met her. Her dog used to keep coming over in
our--" "You're right in my light, Holden, for Chrissake," Stradlater said.
"Ya have to stand right there?" Boy, was I excited, though. I really was.
"Where is she?" I asked him. "I oughta go down and say hello to her or
something. Where is she? In the Annex?" "Yeah." "How'd she happen to mention
me? Does she go to B. M. now? She said she might go there. She said she
might go to Shipley, too. I thought she went to Shipley. How'd she happen to
mention me?" I was pretty excited. I really was. "I don't know, for
Chrissake. Lift up, willya? You're on my towel," Stradlater said. I was
sitting on his stupid towel. "Jane Gallagher," I said. I couldn't get over
it. "Jesus H. Christ." Old Stradlater was putting Vitalis on his hair. My
Vitalis. "She's a dancer," I said. "Ballet and all. She used to practice
about two hours every day, right in the middle of the hottest weather and
all. She was worried that it might make her legs lousy--all thick and all. I
used to play checkers with her all the time." "You used to play what with
her all the time?" "Checkers." "Checkers, for Chrissake!" "Yeah. She
wouldn't move any of her kings. What she'd do, when she'd get a king, she
wouldn't move it. She'd just leave it in the back row. She'd get them all
lined up in the back row. Then she'd never use them. She just liked the way
they looked when they were all in the back row." Stradlater didn't say
anything. That kind of stuff doesn't interest most people. "Her mother
belonged to the same club we did," I said. "I used to caddy once in a while,
just to make some dough. I caddy'd for her mother a couple of times. She
went around in about a hundred and seventy, for nine holes." Stradlater
wasn't hardly listening. He was combing his gorgeous locks. "I oughta go
down and at least say hello to her," I said. "Why don'tcha?" "I will, in a
minute." He started parting his hair all over again. It took him about an
hour to comb his hair. "Her mother and father were divorced. Her mother was
married again to some booze hound," I said. "Skinny guy with hairy legs. I
remember him. He wore shorts all the time. Jane said he was supposed to be a
playwright or some goddam thing, but all I ever saw him do was booze all the
time and listen to every single goddam mystery program on the radio. And run
around the goddam house, naked. With Jane around, and all." "Yeah?"
Stradlater said. That really interested him. About the booze hound running
around the house naked, with Jane around. Stradlater was a very sexy
bastard. "She had a lousy childhood. I'm not kidding." That didn't interest
Stradlater, though. Only very sexy stuff interested him. "Jane Gallagher.
Jesus... I couldn't get her off my mind. I really couldn't. "I oughta go
down and say hello to her, at least." "Why the hell don'tcha, instead of
keep saying it?" Stradlater said. I walked over to the window, but you
couldn't see out of it, it was so steamy from all the heat in the can.. "I'm
not in the mood right now," I said. I wasn't, either. You have to be in the
mood for those things. "I thought she went to Shipley. I could've sworn she
went to Shipley." I walked around the can for a little while. I didn't have
anything else to do. "Did she enjoy the game?" I said. "Yeah, I guess so. I
don't know." "Did she tell you we used to play checkers all the time, or
anything?" "I don't know. For Chrissake, I only just met her," Stradlater
said. He was finished combing his goddam gorgeous hair. He was putting away
all his crumby toilet articles. "Listen. Give her my regards, willya?"
"Okay," Stradlater said, but I knew he probably wouldn't. You take a guy
like Stradlater, they never give your regards to people. He went back to the
room, but I stuck around in the can for a while, thinking about old Jane.
Then I went back to the room, too. Stradlater was putting on his tie, in
front of the mirror, when I got there. He spent around half his goddam life
in front of the mirror. I sat down in my chair and sort of watched him for a
while. "Hey," I said. "Don't tell her I got kicked out, willya?" "Okay."
That was one good thing about Stradlater. You didn't have to explain every
goddam little thing with him, the way you had to do with Ackley. Mostly, I
guess, because he wasn't too interested. That's really why. Ackley, it was
different. Ackley was a very nosy bastard. He put on my hound's-tooth
jacket. "Jesus, now, try not to stretch it all over the place" I said. I'd
only worn it about twice. "I won't. Where the hell's my cigarettes?" "On the
desk." He never knew where he left anything. "Under your muffler." He put
them in his coat pocket--my coat pocket. I pulled the peak of my hunting hat
around to the front all of a sudden, for a change. I was getting sort of
nervous, all of a sudden. I'm quite a nervous guy. "Listen, where ya going
on your date with her?" I asked him. "Ya know yet?" "I don't know. New York,
if we have time. She only signed out for nine-thirty, for Chrissake." I
didn't like the way he said it, so I said, "The reason she did that, she
probably just didn't know what a handsome, charming bastard you are. If
she'd known, she probably would've signed out for nine-thirty in the
morning." "Goddam right," Stradlater said. You couldn't rile him too easily.
He was too conceited. "No kidding, now. Do that composition for me," he
said. He had his coat on, and he was all ready to go. "Don't knock yourself
out or anything, but just make it descriptive as hell. Okay?" I didn't
answer him. I didn't feel like it. All I said was, "Ask her if she still
keeps all her kings in the back row." "Okay," Stradlater said, but I knew he
wouldn't. "Take it easy, now." He banged the hell out of the room. I sat
there for about a half hour after he left. I mean I just sat in my chair,
not doing anything. I kept thinking about Jane, and about Stradlater having
a date with her and all. It made me so nervous I nearly went crazy. I
already told you what a sexy bastard Stradlater was. All of a sudden, Ackley
barged back in again, through the damn shower curtains, as usual. For once
in my stupid life, I was really glad to see him. He took my mind off the
other stuff. He stuck around till around dinnertime, talking about all the
guys at Pencey that he hated their guts, and squeezing this big pimple on
his chin. He didn't even use his handkerchief. I don't even think the
bastard had a handkerchief, if you want to know the truth. I never saw him
use one, anyway.
5
We always had the same meal on Saturday nights at Pencey. It was
supposed to be a big deal, because they gave you steak. I'll bet a thousand
bucks the reason they did that was because a lot of guys' parents came up to
school on Sunday, and old Thurmer probably figured everybody's mother would
ask their darling boy what he had for dinner last night, and he'd say,
"Steak." What a racket. You should've seen the steaks. They were these
little hard, dry jobs that you could hardly even cut. You always got these
very lumpy mashed potatoes on steak night, and for dessert you got Brown
Betty, which nobody ate, except maybe the little kids in the lower school
that didn't know any better--and guys like Ackley that ate everything. It
was nice, though, when we got out of the dining room. There were about three
inches of snow on the ground, and it was still coming down like a madman. It
looked pretty as hell, and we all started throwing snowballs and horsing
around all over the place. It was very childish, but everybody was really
enjoying themselves. I didn't have a date or anything, so I and this friend
of mine, Mal Brossard, that was on the wrestling team, decided we'd take a
bus into Agerstown and have a hamburger and maybe see a lousy movie. Neither
of us felt like sitting around on our ass all night. I asked Mal if he
minded if Ackley came along with us. The reason I asked was because Ackley
never did anything on Saturday night, except stay in his room and squeeze
his pimples or something. Mal said he didn't mind but that he wasn't too
crazy about the idea. He didn't like Ackley much. Anyway, we both went to
our rooms to get ready and all, and while I was putting on my galoshes and
crap, I yelled over and asked old Ackley if he wanted to go to the movies.
He could hear me all right through the shower curtains, but he didn't answer
me right away. He was the kind of a guy that hates to answer you right away.
Finally he came over, through the goddam curtains, and stood on the shower
ledge and asked who was going besides me. He always had to know who was
going. I swear, if that guy was shipwrecked somewhere, and you rescued him
in a goddam boat, he'd want to know who the guy was that was rowing it
before he'd even get in. I told him Mal Brossard was going. He said, "That
bastard... All right. Wait a second." You'd think he was doing you a big
favor. It took him about five hours to get ready. While he was doing it, I
went over to my window and opened it and packed a snowball with my bare
hands. The snow was very good for packing. I didn't throw it at anything,
though. I started to throw it. At a car that was parked across the street.
But I changed my mind. The car looked so nice and white. Then I started to
throw it at a hydrant, but that looked too nice and white, too. Finally I
didn't throw it at anything. All I did was close the window and walk around
the room with the snowball, packing it harder. A little while later, I still
had it with me when I and Brossnad and Ackley got on the bus. The bus driver
opened the doors and made me throw it out. I told him I wasn't going to
chuck it at anybody, but he wouldn't believe me. People never believe you.
Brossard and Ackley both had seen the picture that was playing, so all we
did, we just had a couple of hamburgers and played the pinball machine for a
little while, then took the bus back to Pencey. I didn't care about not
seeing the movie, anyway. It was supposed to be a comedy, with Cary Grant in
it, and all that crap. Besides, I'd been to the movies with Brossard and
Ackley before. They both laughed like hyenas at stuff that wasn't even
funny. I didn't even enjoy sitting next to them in the movies. It was only
about a quarter to nine when we got back to the dorm. Old Brossard was a
bridge fiend, and he started looking around the dorm for a game. Old Ackley
parked himself in my room, just for a change. Only, instead of sitting on
the arm of Stradlater's chair, he laid down on my bed, with his face right
on my pillow and all. He started talking in this very monotonous voice, and
picking at all his pimples. I dropped about a thousand hints, but I couldn't
get rid of him. All he did was keep talking in this very monotonous voice
about some babe he was supposed to have had sexual intercourse with the
summer before. He'd already told me about it about a hundred times. Every
time he told it, it was different. One minute he'd be giving it to her in
his cousin's Buick, the next minute he'd be giving it to her under some
boardwalk. It was all a lot of crap, naturally. He was a virgin if ever I
saw one. I doubt if he ever even gave anybody a feel. Anyway, finally I had
to come right out and tell him that I had to write a composition for
Stradlater, and that he had to clear the hell out, so I could concentrate.
He finally did, but he took his time about it, as usual. After he left, I
put on my pajamas and bathrobe and my old hunting hat, and started writing
the composition. The thing was, I couldn't think of a room or a house or
anything to describe the way Stradlater said he had to have. I'm not too
crazy about describing rooms and houses anyway. So what I did, I wrote about
my brother Allie's baseball mitt. It was a very descriptive subject. It
really was. My brother Allie had this left-handed fielder's mitt. He was
left-handed. The thing that was descriptive about it, though, was that he
had poems written all over the fingers and the pocket and everywhere. In
green ink. He wrote them on it so that he'd have something to read when he
was in the field and nobody was up at bat. He's dead now. He got leukemia
and died when we were up in Maine, on July 18, 1946. You'd have liked him.
He was two years younger than I was, but he was about fifty times as
intelligent. He was terrifically intelligent. His teachers were always
writing letters to my mother, telling her what a pleasure it was having a
boy like Allie in their class. And they weren't just shooting the crap. They
really meant it. But it wasn't just that he was the most intelligent member
in the family. He was also the nicest, in lots of ways. He never got mad at
anybody. People with red hair are supposed to get mad very easily, but Allie
never did, and he had very red hair. I'll tell you what kind of red hair he
had. I started playing golf when I was only ten years old. I remember once,
the summer I was around twelve, teeing off and all, and having a hunch that
if I turned around all of a sudden, I'd see Allie. So I did, and sure
enough, he was sitting on his bike outside the fence--there was this fence
that went all around the course--and he was sitting there, about a hundred
and fifty yards behind me, watching me tee off. That's the kind of red hair
he had. God, he was a nice kid, though. He used to laugh so hard at
something he thought of at the dinner table that he just about fell off his
chair. I was only thirteen, and they were going to have me psychoanalyzed
and all, because I broke all the windows in the garage. I don't blame them.
I really don't. I slept in the garage the night he died, and I broke all the
goddam windows with my fist, just for the hell of it. I even tried to break
all the windows on the station wagon we had that summer, but my hand was
already broken and everything by that time, and I couldn't do it. It was a
very stupid thing to do, I'll admit, but I hardly didn't even know I was
doing it, and you didn't know Allie. My hand still hurts me once in a while
when it rains and all, and I can't make a real fist any more--not a tight
one, I mean--but outside of that I don't care much. I mean I'm not going to
be a goddam surgeon or a violinist or anything anyway. Anyway, that's what I
wrote Stradlater's composition about. Old Allie's baseball mitt. I happened
to have it with me, in my suitcase, so I got it out and copied down the
poems that were written on it. All I had to do was change Allie's name so
that nobody would know it was my brother and not Stradlater's. I wasn't too
crazy about doing it, but I couldn't think of anything else descriptive.
Besides, I sort of liked writing about it. It took me about an hour, because
I had to use Stradlater's lousy typewriter, and it kept jamming on me. The
reason I didn't use my own was because I'd lent it to a guy down the hall.
It was around ten-thirty, I guess, when I finished it. I wasn't tired,
though, so I looked out the window for a while. It wasn't snowing out any
more, but every once in a while you could hear a car somewhere not being
able to get started. You could also hear old Ackley snoring. Right through
the goddam shower curtains you could hear him. He had sinus trouble and he
couldn't breathe too hot when he was asleep. That guy had just about
everything. Sinus trouble, pimples, lousy teeth, halitosis, crumby
fingernails. You had to feel a little sorry for the crazy sonuvabitch.
6
Some things are hard to remember. I'm thinking now of when Stradlater
got back from his date with Jane. I mean I can't remember exactly what I was
doing when I heard his goddam stupid footsteps coming down the corridor. I
probably was still looking out the window, but I swear I can't remember. I
was so damn worried, that's why. When I really worry about something, I
don't just fool around. I even have to go to the bathroom when I worry about
something. Only, I don't go. I'm too worried to go. I don't want to
interrupt my worrying to go. If you knew Stradlater, you'd have been
worried, too. I'd double-dated with that bastard a couple of times, and I
know what I'm talking about. He was unscrupulous. He really was. Anyway, the
corridor was all linoleum and all, and you could hear his goddam footsteps
coming right towards the room. I don't even remember where I was sitting
when he came in--at the window, or in my chair or his. I swear I can't
remember. He came in griping about how cold it was out. Then he said, "Where
the hell is everybody? It's like a goddam morgue around here." I didn't even
bother to answer him. If he was so goddam stupid not to realize it was
Saturday night and everybody was out or asleep or home for the week end, I
wasn't going to break my neck telling him. He started getting undressed. He
didn't say one goddam word about Jane. Not one. Neither did I. I just
watched him. All he did was thank me for letting him wear my hound's-tooth.
He hung it up on a hanger and put it in the closet. Then when he was taking
off his tie, he asked me if I'd written his goddam composition for him. I
told him it was over on his goddam bed. He walked over and read it while he
was unbuttoning his shirt. He stood there, reading it, and sort of stroking
his bare chest and stomach, with this very stupid expression on his face. He
was always stroking his stomach or his chest. He was mad about himself. All
of a sudden, he said, "For Chrissake, Holden. This is about a goddam
baseball glove." "So what?" I said. Cold as hell. "Wuddaya mean so what? I
told ya it had to be about a goddam room or a house or something." "You said
it had to be descriptive. What the hell's the difference if it's about a
baseball glove?" "God damn it." He was sore as hell. He was really furious.
"You always do everything backasswards." He looked at me. "No wonder you're
flunking the hell out of here," he said. "You don't do one damn thing the
way you're supposed to. I mean it. Not one damn thing." "All right, give it
back to me, then," I said. I went over and pulled it right out of his goddam
hand. Then I tore it up. "What the hellja do that for?" he said. I didn't
even answer him. I just threw the pieces in the wastebasket. Then I lay down
on my bed, and we both didn't say anything for a long time. He got all
undressed, down to his shorts, and I lay on my bed and lit a cigarette. You
weren't allowed to smoke in the dorm, but you could do it late at night when
everybody was asleep or out and nobody could smell the smoke. Besides, I did
it to annoy Stradlater. It drove him crazy when you broke any rules. He
never smoked in the dorm. It was only me. He still didn't say one single
solitary word about Jane. So finally I said, "You're back pretty goddam late
if she only signed out for nine-thirty. Did you make her be late signing
in?" He was sitting on the edge of his bed, cutting his goddam toenails,
when I asked him that. "Coupla minutes," he said. "Who the hell signs out
for nine-thirty on a Saturday night?" God, how I hated him. "Did you go to
New York?" I said. "Ya crazy? How the hell could we go to New York if she
only signed out for nine-thirty?" "That's tough." He looked up at me.
"Listen," he said, "if you're gonna smoke in the room, how 'bout going down
to the can and do it? You may be getting the hell out of here, but I have to
stick around long enough to graduate." I ignored him. I really did. I went
right on smoking like a madman. All I did was sort of turn over on my side
and watched him cut his damn toenails. What a school. You were always
watching somebody cut their damn toenails or squeeze their pimples or
something. "Did you give her my regards?" I asked him. "Yeah." The hell he
did, the bastard. "What'd she say?" I said. "Did you ask her if she still
keeps all her kings in the back row?" "No, I didn't ask her. What the hell
ya think we did all night--play checkers, for Chrissake?" I didn't even
answer him. God, how I hated him. "If you didn't go to New York, where'd ya
go with her?" I asked him, after a little while. I could hardly keep my
voice from shaking all over the place. Boy, was I getting nervous. I just
had a feeling something had gone funny. He was finished cutting his damn
toenails. So he got up from the bed, in just his damn shorts and all, and
started getting very damn playful. He came over to my bed and started
leaning over me and taking these playful as hell socks at my shoulder. "Cut
it out," I said. "Where'd you go with her if you didn't go to New York?"
"Nowhere. We just sat in the goddam car." He gave me another one of those
playtul stupid little socks on the shoulder. "Cut it out," I said. "Whose
car?" "Ed Banky's." Ed Banky was the basketball coach at Pencey. Old
Stradlater was one of his pets, because he was the center on the team, and
Ed Banky always let him borrow his car when he wanted it. It wasn't allowed
for students to borrow faculty guys' cars, but all the athletic bastards
stuck together. In every school I've gone to, all the athletic bastards
stick together. Stradlater kept taking these shadow punches down at my
shoulder. He had his toothbrush in his hand, and he put it in his mouth.
"What'd you do?" I said. "Give her the time in Ed Banky's goddam car?" My
voice was shaking something awful. "What a thing to say. Want me to wash
your mouth out with soap?" "Did you?" "That's a professional secret, buddy."
This next part I don't remember so hot. All I know is I got up from the bed,
like I was going down to the can or something, and then I tried to sock him,
with all my might, right smack in the toothbrush, so it would split his
goddam throat open. Only, I missed. I didn't connect. All I did was sort of
get him on the side of the head or something. It probably hurt him a little
bit, but not as much as I wanted. It probably would've hurt him a lot, but I
did it with my right hand, and I can't make a good fist with that hand. On
account of that injury I told you about. Anyway, the next thing I knew, I
was on the goddam floor and he was sitting on my chest, with his face all
red. That is, he had his goddam knees on my chest, and he weighed about a
ton. He had hold of my wrists, too, so I couldn't take another sock at him.
I'd've killed him. "What the hell's the matter with you?" he kept saying,
and his stupid race kept getting redder and redder. "Get your lousy knees
off my chest," I told him. I was almost bawling. I really was. "Go on, get
off a me, ya crumby bastard." He wouldn't do it, though. He kept holding
onto my wrists and I kept calling him a sonuvabitch and all, for around ten