The Catcher in the Rye | Page 3

I practically got t.b. and came out here for all these goddam
checkups and stuff. I'm pretty healthy, though.
Anyway, as soon as I got my breath back I ran across Route 204. It was icy as hell
and I damn near fell down. I don't even know what I was running for--I guess I just felt
like it. After I got across the road, I felt like I was sort of disappea\
ring. It was that kind of
a crazy afternoon, terrifically cold, and no sun out or anything, and yo\
u felt like you were
disappearing every time you crossed a road.
Boy, I rang that doorbell fast when I got to old Spencer's house. I was really
frozen. My ears were hurting and I could hardly move my fingers at all. "C'mon, c'mon,"
I said right out loud, almost, "somebody open the door." Finally old Mrs. Spencer
opened. it. They didn't have a maid or anything, and they always opened the door
themselves. They didn't have too much dough.
"Holden!" Mrs. Spencer said. "How lovely to see you! Come in, dear! Are you
frozen to death?" I think she was glad to see me. She liked me. At least, I think she did.
Boy, did I get in that house fast. "How are you, Mrs. Spencer?" I said. "How's Mr.
Spencer?"
"Let me take your coat, dear," she said. She didn't hear me ask her how Mr.
Spencer was. She was sort of deaf.
She hung up my coat in the hall closet, and I sort of brushed my hair back with
my hand. I wear a crew cut quite frequently and I never have to comb it much. "How've
you been, Mrs. Spencer?" I said again, only louder, so she'd hear me.
"I've been just fine, Holden." She closed the closet door. "How have you bee\
n?"
The way she asked me, I knew right away old Spencer'd told her I'd been kicked out.
"Fine," I said. "How's Mr. Spencer? He over his grippe yet?"
"Over it! Holden, he's behaving like a perfect--I don't know what. . . He's in his
room, dear. Go right in."

2

They each had their own room and all. They were both around seventy years old,
or even more than that. They got a bang out of things, though--in a haif-assed way\
, of
course. I know that sounds mean to say, but I don't mean it mean. I just mean that I used
to think about old Spencer quite a lot, and if you thought about him too much, you
wondered what the heck he was still living for. I mean he was all stooped over, and he
had very terrible posture, and in class, whenever he dropped a piece of \
chalk at the
blackboard, some guy in the first row always had to get up and pick it up and hand it to\

him. That's awful, in my opinion. But if you thought about him just enough and not too
much, you could figure it out that he wasn't doing too bad for himself. For instance, one
Sunday when some other guys and I were over there for hot chocolate, he showed us this
old beat-up Navajo blanket that he and Mrs. Spencer'd bought off some Indian in
Yellowstone Park. You could tell old Spencer 'd got a big bang out of buying it. That's
what I mean. You take somebody old as hell, like old Spencer, and they can get a big
bang out of buying a blanket.
His door was open, but I sort of knocked on it anyway, just to be polite\
and all. I
could see where he was sitting. He was sitting in a big leather chair, a\
ll wrapped up in
that blanket I just told you about. He looked over at me when I knocked. "Who's that?" he
yelled. "Caulfield? Come in, boy." He was al ways yelling, outside class. It got on your
nerves sometimes.
The minute I went in, I was sort of sorry I'd come. He was reading the Atlantic
Monthly, and there were pills and medicine all over the place, and everything smelled
like Vicks Nose Drops. It was pretty depressing. I'm not too crazy about sick people,
anyway. What made it even more depressing, old Spencer had on this very sad, ratty old
bathrobe that he was probably born in or something. I don't much like to see old guys in
their pajamas and bathrobes anyway. Their bumpy old chests are always showing. And
their legs. Old guys' legs, at beaches and places, always look so white and unhairy.
"Hello, sir," I said. "I got your