The Catcher in the Rye | Page 2

were all
bitten down and bleedy-looking and she had on those damn falsies that point all over the
place, but you felt sort of sorry for her. What I liked about her, she didn't give you a lot of
horse manure about what a great guy her fa ther was. She probably knew what a phony
slob he was.
The reason I was standing way up on Thomsen Hill, instead of down at the game,
was because I'd just got back from New York with the fencing team. I was the goddam
manager of the fencing team. Very big deal. We'd gone in to New York that morning for
this fencing meet with McBurney School. Only, we didn't have the meet. I left all the
foils and equipment and stuff on the goddam subway. It wasn't all my fault. I had to keep
getting up to look at this map, so we'd know where to get off. So we got back to Pencey
around two-thirty instead of around dinnertime. The whole team ostracized me the whole
way back on the train. It was pretty funny, in a way.
The other reason I wasn't down at the game was because I was on my way to say
good-by to old Spencer, my history teacher. He had the grippe, and I figured I probably
wouldn't see him again till Christmas vacation started. He wrote me this note saying he
wanted to see me before I went home. He knew I wasn't coming back to Pencey.
I forgot to tell you about that. They kicked me out. I wasn't supposed to come
back after Christmas vacation on account of I was flunking four subjects and not applying
myself and all. They gave me frequent warning to start applying myself--especially
around midterms, when my parents came up for a conference with old Thurmer--but I
didn't do it. So I got the ax. They give guys the ax quite frequently at Penc\
ey. It has a
very good academic rating, Pencey. It really does.
Anyway, it was December and all, and it was cold as a witch's teat, especially on
top of that stupid hill. I only had on my reversible and no gloves or anything. The week
before that, somebody'd stolen my camel's-hair coat right out of my room, with my fur-
lined gloves right in the pocket and all. Pencey was full of crooks. Qui\
te a few guys came
from these very wealthy families, but it was full of crooks anyway. The more expensive a
school is, the more crooks it has--I'm not kidding. Anyway, I kept standing next to that
crazy cannon, looking down at the game and freezing my ass off. Only, I wasn't watching
the game too much. What I was really hanging around for, I was trying to feel some kind

of a good-by. I mean I've left schools and places I didn't even know I was leaving them. I
hate that. I don't care if it's a sad good-by or a bad goodby, but when I leave a place I like
to know I'm leaving it. If you don't, you feel even worse.
I was lucky. All of a sudden I thought of something that helped make me know I
was getting the hell out. I suddenly remembered this time, in around October, that I and
Robert Tichener and Paul Campbell were chucking a football around, in front of the
academic building. They were nice guys, especially Tichener. It was just befor\
e dinner
and it was getting pretty dark out, but we kept chucking the ball around\
anyway. It kept
getting darker and darker, and we could hardly see the ball any more, but we didn't want
to stop doing what we were doing. Finally we had to. This teacher that taught biology,
Mr. Zambesi, stuck his head out of this window in the academic building and told us to
go back to the dorm and get ready for dinner. If I get a chance to remember that kind of
stuff, I can get a good-by when I need one--at least, most of the time I can. As soon as I
got it, I turned around and started running down the other side of the h\
ill, toward old
Spencer's house. He didn't live on the campus. He lived on Anthony Wayne Avenue.
I ran all the way to the main gate, and then I waited a second till I got my breath. I
have no wind, if you want to know the truth. I'm quite a heavy smoker, for one thing--that
is, I used to be. They made me cut it out. Another thing, I grew six and a half inches last
year. That's also how