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 Icame around the side of the bed and sat down again, she turned her crazy face the otherway. She was ostracizing the hell out of me. Just like the fencing team at Pencey when Ileft all the goddam foils on the subway.How’s old Hazel Weatherfield? I said. You write any new stories about her? Igot that one you sent me right in my suitcase. It’s down at the station. It’s very good.Daddy’ll kill you.Boy, she really gets something on her mind when she gets something on her mind.No, he won’t. The worst he’ll do, he’ll give me hell again, and then he’ll send meto that goddam military school. That’s all he’ll do to me. And in the first place, I won’teven be around. I’ll be away. I’ll be–I’ll probably be in Colorado on this ranch.Don’t make me laugh. You can’t even ride a horse.Who can’t? Sure I can. Certainly I can. They can teach you in about twominutes, I said. Stop picking at that. She was picking at that adhesive tape on her arm.Who gave you that haircut? I asked her. I just noticed what a stupid haircut somebodygave her. It was way too short.None of your business, she said. She can be very snotty sometimes. She can bequite snotty. I suppose you failed in every single subject again, she said–very snotty. Itwas sort of funny, too, in a way. She sounds like a goddam schoolteacher sometimes, andshe’s only a little child.No, I didn’t, I said. I passed English. Then, just for the hell of it, I gave her apinch on the behind. It was sticking way out in the breeze, the way she was laying on herside. She has hardly any behind. I didn’t do it hard, but she tried to hit my hand anyway,but she missed.Then all of a sudden, she said, Oh, why did you do it? She meant why did I getthe ax again. It made me sort of sad, the way she said it.Oh, God, Phoebe, don’t ask me. I’m sick of everybody asking me that, I said. Amillion reasons why. It was one of the worst schools I ever went to. It was full ofphonies. And mean guys. You never saw so many mean guys in your life. For instance, ifyou were having a bull session in somebody’s room, and somebody wanted to come in,nobody’d let them in if they were some dopey, pimply guy. Everybody was alwayslocking their door when somebody wanted to come in. And they had this goddam secretfraternity that I was too yellow not to join. There was this one pimply, boring guy, RobertAckley, that wanted to get in. He kept trying to join, and they wouldn’t let him. Justbecause he was boring and pimply. I don’t even feel like talking about it. It was a stinkingschool. Take my word.Old Phoebe didn’t say anything, but she was listen ing. I could tell by the back ofher neck that she was listening. She always listens when you tell her something. And thefunny part is she knows, half the time, what the hell you’re talking about. She really does.I kept talking about old Pencey. I sort of felt like it.Even the couple of nice teachers on the faculty, they were phonies, too, I said.There was this one old guy, Mr. Spencer. His wife was always giving you hot chocolateand all that stuff, and they were really pretty nice. But you should’ve seen him when theheadmaster, old Thurmer, came in the history class and sat down in the back of the room.He was always coming in and sitting down in the back of the room for about a half anhour. He was supposed to be incognito or something. After a while, he’d be sitting backthere and then he’d start interrupting what old Spencer was saying to crack a lot of cornyjokes. Old Spencer’d practically kill himself chuckling and smiling and all, like as ifThurmer was a goddam prince or something.Don’t swear so much.It would’ve made you puke, I swear it would, I said. Then, on Veterans’ Day.They have this day, Veterans’ Day, that all the jerks that graduated from Pencey around1776 come back and walk all over the place, with their wives and children andeverybody. You should’ve seen this one old guy that was about fifty. What he did was, hecame in our room and knocked on the door and asked us if we’d mind if he used thebathroom. The bathroom was at the end of the corridor–I don’t know why the hell heasked us. You know what he said? He said he wanted to see if his initials were still in oneof the can doors. What he did, he carved his goddam stupid sad old initials in one of thecan doors about ninety years ago, and he wanted to see if they were still there. So myroommate and I walked him down to the bathroom and all, and we had to stand therewhile he looked for his initials in all the can doors. He kept talking to us the whole time,telling us how when he was at Pencey they were the happiest days of his life, and givingus a lot of advice for the future and all. Boy, did he depress me! I don’t mean he was abad guy–he wasn’t. But you don’t have to be a bad guy to depress somebody–you can bea good guy and do it. All you have to do to depress somebody is give them a lot of phonyadvice while you’re looking for your initials in some can door–that’s all you have to do. Idon’t know. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if he hadn’t been all out of breath. Hewas all out of breath from just climbing up the stairs, and the whole time he was lookingfor his initials he kept breathing hard, with his nostrils all funny and sad, while he kepttelling Stradlater and I to get all we could out of Pencey. God, Phoebe! I can’t explain. Ijust didn’t like anything that was happening at Pencey. I can’t explain.Old Phoebe said something then, but I couldn’t hear her. She had the side of hermouth right smack on the pillow, and I couldn’t hear her.What? I said. Take your mouth away. I can’t hear you with your mouth thatway.You don’t like anything that’s happening.It made me even more depressed when she said that.Yes I do. Yes I do. Sure I do. Don’t say that. Why the hell do you say that?Because you don’t. You don’t like any schools. You don’t like a million things.You don’t.I do! That’s where you’re wrong–that’s exactly where you’re wrong! Why thehell do you have to say that? I said. Boy, was she depressing me.Because you don’t, she said. Name one thing.One thing? One thing I like? I said. Okay.The trouble was, I couldn’t concentrate too hot. Sometimes it’s hard toconcentrate.One thing I like a lot you mean? I asked her.She didn’t answer me, though. She was in a cockeyed position way the hell overthe other side of the bed. She was about a thousand miles away. C’mon answer me, Isaid. One thing I like a lot, or one thing I just like?You like a lot.All right, I said. But the trouble was, I couldn’t concentrate. About all I couldthink of were those two nuns that went around collecting dough in those beatup old strawbaskets. Especially the one with the glasses with those iron rims. And this boy I knew atElkton Hills. There was this one boy at Elkton Hills, named James Castle, that wouldn’ttake back something he said about this very conceited boy, Phil Stabile. James Castlecalled him a very conceited guy, and one of Stabile’s lousy friends went and squealed onhim to Stabile. So Stabile, with about six other dirty bastards, went down to JamesCastle’s room and went in and locked the goddam door and tried to make him take backwhat he said, but he wouldn’t do it. So they started in on him. I won’t even tell you whatthey did to him–it’s too repulsive–but he still wouldn’t take it back, old James Castle.And you should’ve seen him. He was a skinny little weak-looking guy, with wrists aboutas big as pencils. Finally, what he did, instead of taking back what he said, he jumped outthe window. I was in the shower and all, and even I could hear him land outside. But Ijust thought something fell out the window, a radio or a desk or something, not a boy oranything. Then I heard everybody running through the corridor and down the stairs, so Iput on my bathrobe and I ran downstairs too, and there was old James Castle laying righton the stone steps and all. He was dead, and his teeth, and blood, were all over the place,and nobody would even go near him. He had on this turtleneck sweater I’d lent him. Allthey did with the guys that were in the room with him was expel them. They didn’t evengo to jail.That was about all I could think of, though. Those two nuns I saw at breakfast andthis boy James Castle I knew at Elkton Hills. The funny part is, I hardly even knowJames Castle, if you want to know the truth. He was one of these very quiet guys. He wasin my math class, but he was way over on the other side of the room, and he hardly evergot up to recite or go to the blackboard or anything. Some guys in school hardly ever getup to recite or go to the blackboard. I think the only time I ever even had a conversationwith him was that time he asked me if he could borrow this turtleneck sweater I had. Idamn near dropped dead when he asked me, I was so surprised and all. I remember I wasbrushing my teeth, in the can, when he asked me. He said his cousin was coming in totake him for a drive and all. I didn’t even know he knew I had a turtleneck sweater. All Iknew about him was that his name was always right ahead of me at roll call. Cabel, R.,Cabel, W., Castle, Caulfield–I can still remember it. If you want to know the truth, Ialmost didn’t lend him my sweater. Just because I didn’t know him too well.What? I said to old Phoebe. She said something to me, but I didn’t hear her.You can’t even think of one thing.Yes, I can. Yes, I can.Well, do it, then.I like Allie, I said. And I like doing what I’m doing right now. Sitting here withyou, and talking, and thinking about stuff, and–Allie’s dead–You always say that! If somebody’s dead and everything, and inHeaven, then it isn’t really–I know he’s dead! Don’t you think I know that? I can still like him, though, can’tI? Just because somebody’s dead, you don’t just stop liking them, for God’s sake–especially if they were about a thousand times nicer than the people you know that’realive and all.Old Phoebe didn’t say anything. When she can’t think of anything to say, shedoesn’t say a goddam word.Anyway, I like it now, I said. I mean right now. Sitting here with you and justchewing the fat and horsing–That isn’t anything really!It is so something really! Certainly it is! Why the hell isn’t it? People never thinkanything is anything really. I’m getting goddam sick of it,Stop swearing. All right, name something else. Name something you’d like to be.Like a scientist. Or a lawyer or something.I couldn’t be a scientist. I’m no good in science.Well, a lawyer–like Daddy and all.Lawyers are all right, I guess–but it doesn’t appeal to me, I said. I mean they’reall right if they go around saving innocent guys’ lives all the time, and like that, but youdon’t do that kind of stuff if you’re a lawyer. All you do is make a lot of dough and playgolf and play bridge and buy cars and drink Martinis and look like a hot-shot. Andbesides. Even if you did go around saving guys’ lives and all, how would you know if youdid it because you really wanted to save guys’ lives, or because you did it because whatyou really wanted to do was be a terrific lawyer, with everybody slapping you on theback and congratulating you in court when the goddam trial was over, the reporters andeverybody, the way it is in the dirty movies? How would you know you weren’t being aphony? The trouble is, you wouldn’t.I’m not too sure old Phoebe knew what the hell I was talking about. I mean she’sonly a little child and all. But she was listening, at least. If somebody at least listens, it’snot too bad.Daddy’s going to kill you. He’s going to kill you, she said.I wasn’t listening, though. I was thinking about something else–something crazy.You know what I’d like to be? I said. You know what I’d like to be? I mean if I had mygoddam choice?What? Stop swearing.You know that song ‘If a body catch a body comin’ through the rye’? I’d like–It’s ‘If a body meet a body coming through the rye’! old Phoebe said. It’s apoem. By Robert Burns.I know it’s a poem by Robert Burns.She was right, though. It is If a body meet a body coming through the rye. Ididn’t know it then, though.I thought it was ‘If a body catch a body,’ I said. Anyway, I keep picturing allthese little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of littlekids, and nobody’s around–nobody big, I mean–except me. And I’m standing on the edgeof some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go overthe cliff–I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to comeout from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in therye and all. I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be. I know it’scrazy.Old Phoebe didn’t say anything for a long time. Then, when she said something,all she said was, Daddy’s going to kill you.I don’t give a damn if he does, I said. I got up from the bed then, because what Iwanted to do, I wanted to phone up this guy that was my English teacher at Elkton Hills,Mr. Antolini. He lived in New York now.