26. The Final Chapter To My God Damn Story!

That is all im going to tell you about. I could go into how I went home and how I got ill and all, but I don’t feel like it right now, I really don't. People keep asking me if im going to apply myself when I go back to school, especially this one psychoanalyst guy. But how do I know what I going to do until I actually do it, I just don't know.

D.B. isn’t as bad as the rest though. He asked me what I think about it all, about what I just told you. And the truth is, I don’t know what I think about it. I really don't. Im sorry that I told so many people about it, all I know is I sort of miss the people I told about it. Even old Stradlater and Ackley, I think I even miss that goddam Maurice.

Its funny. Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody!

25. "The Carousel" Boy Was I Happy, The Way Old Phoebe Kept Going Round And Round!

I didn’t no where to go when I left. I went down to Grand Central Station and spent the night on a bench. I didn’t sleep too hot because a million people kept coming in and out of the waiting room. I had a headache. I was really depressed and I think I was more depressed than I ever was in my whole life.

I thought I would take a walk down Fifth Avenue. All the stores were open so it wouldn’t be too bad. It looked all Christmassy. I wished old Phoebe was there, she really enjoys it. The Christmas before last I took her down to Bloomingdales with me. It was great, we had a helluva time.

I carried on walking all the way down and all of a sudden something spooky happened to me. Every time I came to the end of a block and stepped of the goddam curb, I had this feeling that I’d never get to the other side of the street. I thought I’d just go down, down, down, and nobody’d ever seen me again. I started begging Allie to help me to the other side of the street, I was shouting “Please Allie please! Don’t let me disappear.”

I decided I would leave New York forever. Start hitchhiking out West where it was very pretty and nobody would no me. I figured I could get a job at a filling station. I could pretend to be one of those deaf mutes. And if people wanted to speak to me, they would have to write it down on a piece of paper for me to read. I would marry another mute.

I got excited as hell about it all, but I would have to tell Phoebe. So I went to her school and wrote her a note for the teacher to give her, telling her to meet me at the Museum of Art so I could give her the money back that she lent me. I knew where her school was because I went there myself when I was young. I looked round I saw that some cold hearted bastard has wrote “Fuck you” on the walls in the school. It drove me crazy how Phoebe and all the other children would have to see that and wonder what the hell it meant.

I walked over to the Museum. I thought I might stop and give Jane a buzz before I started bumming my way west, but I wasn’t in the mood. I showed these two little kids around the mummies exhibition while I was waiting. When came out I had to go to the bathroom because I had diarrhoea. On the way out I sort of passed out, I was lucky really because I could have killed myself when I hit the floor.

Finally Phoebe arrived, I knew it was her because she had my hunting hat on. She had my old suitcase with her, I told her I wasn’t taking anything with me, but she told me it was for her. She begged me and begged me to let her come with me. I told her there was no way. She started getting really annoyed with me.

I told her I changed my mind about going and that I would stick around, I said I’d take her back to school but she wouldn’t go. She said she would go back to school the next day if I let her stay with me the rest of the afternoon so we went to the zoo.

We walked down to the zoo on opposite sides of the road because phoebe was still sulking. When we got to the zoo I shouted to her that I was going in. I started walking down the steps and I looked back and she was following me. She wasn’t talking to me, but was stood with me. We looked at a few animals then we came to the carousel. Old Phoebe loved them. It was playing “Oh, Marie.” I gave her some money to go on. She wanted me to go with her but I didn’t.I sat down a bench and watched her go round and round. When she got off she came over to me and asked me to go on. She said she wasn’t mad at me anymore. I still didn’t ride it, but I gave her some more money so she could go again.

It started to rain like a bastard. Everybody rushed under the roof of the carousel, but not me. I stuck around on the bench for a while. I got soaking wet. I had my hunting hat on, but I got soaked anyway. All of a sudden I started to feel really happy, the way old Phoebe kept going round and round. I was nearly bawling I was so goddam happy. God, I wish you could’ve been there.

24. Mr And Mrs Antolini!

When I got to Mr Antolinis he was surprised that it was just me at the door, he said "I thought I was going to have a day old infant in my arms". He’s a madman. I think they must of had a dinner party that night or something because there were highballs everywhere. They were always doing things like that the Antolinis, they’re real big entertainers. I could tell he was drunk, he’s quite a heavy drinker these days, and he’ll end up an alcoholic if he doesn’t watch his step.

Mr Antolini asked about Pencey and why I was kicked out and all. He was most interested in my English thought, understandably. I told him I passed, but that I failed in Oral Expression, that stuff drove me crazy.

Mrs Antolini came in with coffee for me; she brought everything, biscuits and all. Then Mr Antolini started to get all serious. He said he was really worried about me. He said “This fall I think you’re riding for – it’s a special kind of fall, a horrible kind.” I had no idea what he was going on about at first, I thought he had got me all wrong, but then I realised what he meant. I think what he was trying to get across was I shouldn’t give everything up before my life even starts, I mean after all im only 16, but its hard.

I like the way Mr Antolini understands me like nobody does, he tells me what to do, without actually telling me what to do. Not like my father, or old Phoebe, or D.B infact. He really has a thing for helping me.


He went over to his desk on the other side of the room. He said he didn’t want to scare me or anything, and he wrote me something on a piece of paper. It said “The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one”. I thanked him and all and put it in my pocket.

I was getting really tired but Mr Antolini wasn’t, probably because he was so oiled up. I could hardly even concentrate anymore and I had to yawn, I know is rude and all but I couldn’t help it. He carried on talking on and on about how I should apply myself at the next school I go to, I really didn’t want to listen so I sort of tuned out. After a while of me not saying anything Mr Antolini realised that I want to interest so he went and got some sheets and blankets and stuff to make a bed for me. We both made the bed together, it wasn’t great but it was ok just for the night. He asked about Sally Hayes. We didn’t talk for long I was too tired. So he left me to go to sleep.

Then all of a sudden I woke up and I could feel something on my head, a guy’s hand. It scared the hell outta me. Mr Antolini was sat on the floor right next to the couch, in the sake and all, and he was sort of petting me or patting me on the goddam head. I jumped about a thousand feet. I got so nervous and I had to get away from him, I mean what the hell was he doing. So what I did was, it told him I was going to get my bags from the station and that I would go right back, he said my bags would be fine and that I should stay. I didn’t though. I never waited so long for a goddam elevator in my life.

When something perverty like that happens, I start sweating like a bastard. That kind of stuff’s happened to me about twenty times since I was a kid. I can’t stand it.

23. "The Front Door!" That Was Close!

I had to be very quick on the phone because I didn’t want my parents to walk in on me. I don't like to think what my Dad would have said! Mr Antolini was very nice. He was about the best teacher I ever had.

When I got back to D.B’s room, Phoebe turned on the radio and we danced for a little while. We danced to about four tracks.

“The front door!” I quickly ran and turned off the desk light. Then I grabbed my shoes and hid in the closet.

My mum thought Phoebe had been smoking, mostly because I had been smoking in the house, which I should not have been. But she just said she lit one and put it out. Good old Phoebe. When my mum finally left, I said my goodbyes and started to cry when she borrowed me her Christmas money. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t stop. I really couldn't.


I walked all the way downstairs and nearly broke my goddam neck on garbage pails. I had to be quick, Mr Antolini was waiting for me, and I didn't want my Mum and Dad to catch me me. In a way, I wish they did catch me...

22. "If A Body Catch...", No, It's "Meet A Body", Not Catch!

When I got back Phoebe had took the pillow of the head alright but she still wouldn’t look at me. I started to explain why I had been kicked out again and why I was failing in all my subjects. She said it was because I hate everything. I told her I didn’t hate everything so she told me to name one thing that I do like. I couldn’t concentrate though, all kept thinking about was the nuns I had seen at breakfast, and a boy at Elkton Hills called James Castle. He jumped out of the window because bullies were forcing him to take back something he had said and he wouldn’t, so they did something terrible to him which forced him to plummet to his own death.

Anyway I told Phoebe that I liked Allie. She reminded me that he was dead thought, and she really started to get sore about it. Phoebe then started to talk about what I want to do with my life. I asked her if she knew the song ‘If a Body Catch a Body Comin’ Through the Rye’. She corrected me and told me that it was ‘If a Body Meet a Body’, a poem by Robert Burns.

I kept picturing little kids playing a game in a big field of rye. Thousands of kids, and nobody else around except me, and my job is to save them all from falling of the edge of the cliff. That’s all I’d do all day. I know its crazy, but it’s what I’d really like to be. Phoebe didn’t say anything for a while and then when she did it was “Daddy’s going to kill you”. I told her I didn’t give a damn. Then I got up to make a phone call to Mr Antolini, my English teacher at Elkton Hills. He lived in New York now because he took a new job at N.Y.U. As I left the room she shouted me back to tell me that she was having belching lessons from this girl at school.

21. "Phoebe Weatherfield Caulfield", Her Middle Name Is Josephine!

I got to the elevator, and their was a new operator who I didn’t know, so I convinced him I was visiting the Dicksteins who lived across the corridor to us. When I got to our place it was dark as hell, and I couldn’t turn any light on naturally. I had to be careful not to make a noise else I was busted. Phoebe wasn’t in her room. Then I remembered that she likes to stay in D.Bs room when he was away in Hollywood. She was fast asleep in his bed; kids always look nice when there sleeping, unlike adults. I read through some of her school books, they had “Phoebe Weatherfield Caulfield” written all over them, even though her middle name is Josephine.

Anyway, I woke her up and she was very pleased to see me. We started chewing the fat for a bit. I gave her the pieces of the record I bough for her. She kept them; she’s not ungrateful at all. She’s not a stupid kid old Phoeb and she knew I was home early. I told her they let us out early, but she wasn’t having any of it. She realized that I’d been kicked out again and kept saying dad was going to kill me. She wouldn’t listen when I was trying to tell her bout getting kicked out, and she put her head under a pillow and wouldn’t come out.

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.

20. Time To Go Home!

I stayed in the bar and got drunk. I sat there till about one o’clock or so, getting drunk as a bastard. I started that stupid business with the bullet in my guts again. I left and stumbled over to a phone booth. I thought I would give Jane a buzz, but by the time I got there I didn’t feel like ringing Jane, I was to drunk I guess. So what I did was, I gave old Sally Hayes a buzz. We didn’t have much of a conversation, my fault; I was to drunk to even understand. After a bit we both hung up and I stayed in the booth for a while holding onto he phone so I wouldn’t pass out, I wasn’t feeling too good.

So, I thought I’d walk to the duck pond in Central Park to see if the ducks were still around. As I just got into the park I dropped Phoebes goddam record, it broke into about 50 pieces. I damn near cried, it made me feel so terrible. I didn’t jus leave the pieces though, I picked them all up and put them in my pocket. They wasn’t any good but I didn’t want to just leave them.

I must have been drunker than I thought because I couldn’t find the lagoon. When I finally found it, it was half frozen and half not and there were no ducks in sight. I was shivering like hell, I had little chunks of ice on the back of my head. I thought I might get pneumonia and die. I started to imagine the mob that would come to my funeral. It’d be just like Allies funeral with all the aunts and what not coming over. I wasn’t at Allies funeral though, just like he wont be at mine, because I was still at the hospital because of my hand.


Anyway, when the weathers nice my parents go and put a bunch of flowers on Allies grave. I used to go but I cut it out. It wasn’t too bad when the weather was nice but when it rained and everybody rushed to their cars to put the radio and heater on to got somewhere nice for dinner. Goddam crappy people.

I wanted to speak to Phoebe, so I decided to risk going home. My parents would be asleep so I could sneak in and out without them knowing. So I got the hell out of the park, and went home. I walked all the way. It wasn’t too far and I wasn’t tires or even drunk anymore. It was just very cold and nobody around anywhere.

19. Old Carl Luce! I Didn't Even Like Him That Much!

I used to go the Wicker Bar quite a lot, but I don’t anymore. I cut it out. Gradually. I got there pretty early so I just sat down at the bar. It was pretty crowded. It was mostly full with phoneys, so I just sat and watched them for a while. Boy were they phoneys!

Old Luce was supposed to be my student advisor at Whooton, but all he did was give these sex talks and all. I asked him these questions about this girl he said he was seeing, but he got really sore about it. The thing is, he used to make you describe really personal stuff, but if you ask him he gets really sore about it. Thats the problem with those guys, they get really sore about when you ask them personal questions!

18. I Went To See A Phony Film...Radio City!

I felt sort of hungry so I went and got a Swiss cheese and malted milk. I thought about giving Jane a buzz, so I did. But she didn’t answer. So I hung up. I gave old Carl Luce a buzz, he was 3 years older than me, I didn’t like him much, but I wanted to speak to somebody. We made plans to meet for a drink at around 10. I had a lot of time to kill so I went to see a movie at Radio City. It was probably the worst thing I could have done. The Rockettes’ Christmas stage show was on. It was so phoney.

Then the picture started. It was another phoney thing about love and all things like that. Boring as hell. I would tell you about it, but I might puke. The lady sat next to me cried al the way through the goddam lousy picture. The phonier it got…the more she cried. She had a little kid with her who was bored as hell and he wanted to go to the bathroom, but she just ignored him. It kills me when you see someone cry there eyes out over something as phoney as that and 9 times out of 10 their heartless bastards.

After it had finished I started to walk over to the Wicker Bar, where I was meeting Carl Luce. I started to think about the war. I couldn’t go to war, id rather be shot or sit on top of an atom bomb. Im sort of glad they’ve got the atomic bomb invented. If there’s ever another war, im going to sit right the hell on top of it. Ill volunteer for it, I swear I will.