It was too late to call up for a cab or anything, so I walked the whole way to the
station. It wasn’t too far, but it was cold as hell, and the snow made it hard for walking,
and my Gladstones kept banging hell out of my legs. I sort of enjoyed the air and all,
though. The only trouble was, the cold made my nose hurt, and right under my upper lip,
where old Stradlater’d laid one on me. He’d smacked my lip right on my teeth, and it was
pretty sore. My ears were nice and warm, though. That hat I bought had earlaps in it, and
I put them on–I didn’t give a damn how I looked. Nobody was around anyway.
Everybody was in the sack.
I was quite lucky when I got to the station, because I only had to wait about ten
minutes for a train. While I waited, I got some snow in my hand and washed my face
with it. I still had quite a bit of blood on.
Usually I like riding on trains, especially at night, with the lights on and the
windows so black, and one of those guys coming up the aisle selling coffee and
sandwiches and magazines. I usually buy a ham sandwich and about four magazines. If
I’m on a train at night, I can usually even read one of those dumb stories in a magazine
without puking. You know. One of those stories with a lot of phony, lean-jawed guys
named David in it, and a lot of phony girls named Linda or Marcia that are always
lighting all the goddam Davids’ pipes for them. I can even read one of those lousy stories
on a train at night, usually. But this time, it was different. I just didn’t feel like it. I just
sort of sat and not did anything. All I did was take off my hunting hat and put it in my
pocket.
All of a sudden, this lady got on at Trenton and sat down next to me. Practically
the whole car was empty, because it was pretty late and all, but she sat down next to me,
instead of an empty seat, because she had this big bag with her and I was sitting in the
front seat. She stuck the bag right out in the middle of the aisle, where the conductor and
everybody could trip over it. She had these orchids on, like she’d just been to a big party
or something. She was around forty or forty-five, I guess, but she was very good looking.
Women kill me. They really do. I don’t mean I’m oversexed or anything like that–
although I am quite sexy. I just like them, I mean. They’re always leaving their goddam
bags out in the middle of the aisle. Anyway, we were sitting there, and all of a sudden she said to me, “Excuse me,
but isn’t that a Pencey Prep sticker?” She was looking up at my suitcases, up on the rack.
“Yes, it is,” I said. She was right. I did have a goddam Pencey sticker on one of
my Gladstones. Very corny, I’ll admit.
“Oh, do you go to Pencey?” she said. She had a nice voice. A nice telephone
voice, mostly. She should’ve carried a goddam telephone around with her.
“Yes, I do,” I said.
“Oh, how lovely! Perhaps you know my son, then, Ernest Morrow? He goes to
Pencey.”
“Yes, I do. He’s in my class.”
Her son was doubtless the biggest bastard that ever went to Pencey, in the whole
crumby history of the school. He was always going down the corridor, after he’d had a
shower, snapping his soggy old wet towel at people’s asses. That’s exactly the kind of a
guy he was.
“Oh, how nice!” the lady said. But not corny. She was just nice and all. “I must
tell Ernest we met,” she said. “May I ask your name, dear?”
“Rudolf Schmidt,” I told her. I didn’t feel like giving her my whole life history.
Rudolf Schmidt was the name of the janitor of our dorm.
“Do you like Pencey?” she asked me.
“Pencey? It’s not too bad. It’s not paradise or anything, but it’s as good as most
schools. Some of the faculty are pretty conscientious.”
“Ernest just adores it.”
“I know he does,” I said. Then I started shooting the old crap around a little bit.
“He adapts himself very well to things. He really does. I mean he really knows how to
adapt himself.”
“Do you think so?” she asked me. She sounded interested as hell.
“Ernest? Sure,” I said. Then I watched her take off her gloves. Boy, was she lousy
with rocks.
“I just broke a nail, getting out of a cab,” she said. She looked up at me and sort of
smiled. She had a terrifically nice smile. She really did. Most people have hardly any
smile at all, or a lousy one. “Ernest’s father and I sometimes worry about him,” she said.
“We sometimes feel he’s not a terribly good mixer.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well. He’s a very sensitive boy. He’s really never been a terribly good mixer with
other boys. Perhaps he takes things a little more seriously than he should at his age.”
Sensitive. That killed me. That guy Morrow was about as sensitive as a goddam
toilet seat.
I gave her a good look. She didn’t look like any dope to me. She looked like she
might have a pretty damn good idea what a bastard she was the mother of. But you can’t
always tell–with somebody’s mother, I mean. Mothers are all slightly insane. The thing
is, though, I liked old Morrow’s mother. She was all right. “Would you care for a
cigarette?” I asked her.
She looked all around. “I don’t believe this is a smoker, Rudolf,” she said. Rudolf.
That killed me.
“That’s all right. We can smoke till they start screaming at us,” I said. She took a
cigarette off me, and I gave her a light. She looked nice, smoking. She inhaled and all, but she didn’t wolf the smoke
down, the way most women around her age do. She had a lot of charm. She had quite a
lot of sex appeal, too, if you really want to know.
She was looking at me sort of funny. I may be wrong but I believe your nose is
bleeding, dear, she said, all of a sudden.
I nodded and took out my handkerchief. “I got hit with a snowball,” I said. “One
of those very icy ones.” I probably would’ve told her what really happened, but it
would’ve taken too long. I liked her, though. I was beginning to feel sort of sorry I’d told
her my name was Rudolf Schmidt. “Old Ernie,” I said. “He’s one of the most popular
boys at Pencey. Did you know that?”
“No, I didn’t.”
I nodded. “It really took everybody quite a long time to get to know him. He’s a
funny guy. A strange guy, in lots of ways–know what I mean? Like when I first met him.
When I first met him, I thought he was kind of a snobbish person. That’s what I thought.
But he isn’t. He’s just got this very original personality that takes you a little while to get
to know him.”
Old Mrs. Morrow didn’t say anything, but boy, you should’ve seen her. I had her
glued to her seat. You take somebody’s mother, all they want to hear about is what a hotshot their son is.
Then I really started chucking the old crap around. “Did he tell you about the
elections?” I asked her. “The class elections?”
She shook her head. I had her in a trance, like. I really did.
“Well, a bunch of us wanted old Ernie to be president of the class. I mean he was
the unanimous choice. I mean he was the only boy that could really handle the job,” I
said–boy, was I chucking it. “But this other boy–Harry Fencer–was elected. And the
reason he was elected, the simple and obvious reason, was because Ernie wouldn’t let us
nominate him. Because he’s so darn shy and modest and all. He refused. . . Boy, he’s
really shy. You oughta make him try to get over that.” I looked at her. “Didn’t he tell you
about it?”
“No, he didn’t.”
I nodded. “That’s Ernie. He wouldn’t. That’s the one fault with him–he’s too shy
and modest. You really oughta get him to try to relax occasionally.”
Right that minute, the conductor came around for old Mrs. Morrow’s ticket, and it
gave me a chance to quit shooting it. I’m glad I shot it for a while, though. You take a guy
like Morrow that’s always snapping their towel at people’s asses–really trying to hurt
somebody with it–they don’t just stay a rat while they’re a kid. They stay a rat their whole
life. But I’ll bet, after all the crap I shot, Mrs. Morrow’ll keep thinking of him now as this
very shy, modest guy that wouldn’t let us nominate him for president. She might. You
can’t tell. Mothers aren’t too sharp about that stuff.
“Would you care for a cocktail?” I asked her. I was feeling in the mood for one
myself. “We can go in the club car. All right?”
“Dear, are you allowed to order drinks?” she asked me. Not snotty, though. She
was too charming and all to be snotty.
“Well, no, not exactly, but I can usually get them on account of my heighth,” I
said. “And I have quite a bit of gray hair.” I turned sideways and showed her my gray hair. It fascinated hell out of her. “C’mon, join me, why don’t you?” I said. I’d’ve enjoyed
having her.
“I really don’t think I’d better. Thank you so much, though, dear,” she said.
“Anyway, the club car’s most likely closed. It’s quite late, you know.” She was right. I’d
forgotten all about what time it was.
Then she looked at me and asked me what I was afraid she was going to ask me.
“Ernest wrote that he’d be home on Wednesday, that Christmas vacation would start on
Wednesday,” she said. “I hope you weren’t called home suddenly because of illness in the
family.” She really looked worried about it. She wasn’t just being nosy, you could tell.
“No, everybody’s fine at home,” I said. “It’s me. I have to have this operation.”
“Oh! I’m so sorry,” she said. She really was, too. I was right away sorry I’d said it,
but it was too late.
“It isn’t very serious. I have this tiny little tumor on the brain.”
“Oh, no!” She put her hand up to her mouth and all. “Oh, I’ll be all right and
everything! It’s right near the outside. And it’s a very tiny one. They can take it out in
about two minutes.”
Then I started reading this timetable I had in my pocket. Just to stop lying. Once I
get started, I can go on for hours if I feel like it. No kidding. Hours.
We didn’t talk too much after that. She started reading this Vogue she had with
her, and I looked out the window for a while. She got off at Newark. She wished me a lot
of luck with the operation and all. She kept calling me Rudolf. Then she invited me to
visit Ernie during the summer, at Gloucester, Massachusetts. She said their house was
right on the beach, and they had a tennis court and all, but I just thanked her and told her I
was going to South America with my grandmother. Which was really a hot one, because
my grandmother hardly ever even goes out of the house, except maybe to go to a goddam
matinee or something. But I wouldn’t visit that sonuvabitch Morrow for all the dough in
the world, even if I was desperate.