《麦田里的守望者》(5)

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       We always had the same meal on Saturday nights at Pencey. It was supposed to

　　be a big deal, because they gave you steak. I'll bet a thousand bucks the reason they did

　　that was because a lot of guys' parents came up to school on Sunday, and old Thurmer

　　probably figured everybody's mother would ask their darling boy what he had for dinner

　　last night, and he'd say, "Steak." What a racket. You should've seen the steaks. They were

　　these little hard, dry jobs that you could hardly even cut. You always got these very

　　lumpy mashed potatoes on steak night, and for dessert you got Brown Betty, which

　　nobody ate, except maybe the little kids in the lower school that didn't know any better--

　　and guys like Ackley that ate everything.

　　It was nice, though, when we got out of the dining room. There were about three

　　inches of snow on the ground, and it was still coming down like a madman. It looked

　　pretty as hell, and we all started throwing snowballs and horsing around all over the

　　place. It was very childish, but everybody was really enjoying themselves.

　　I didn't have a date or anything, so I and this friend of mine, Mal Brossard, that

　　was on the wrestling team, decided we'd take a bus into Agerstown and have a hamburger

　　and maybe see a lousy movie. Neither of us felt like sitting around on our ass all night. I

　　asked Mal if he minded if Ackley came along with us. The reason I asked was because

　　Ackley never did anything on Saturday night, except stay in his room and squeeze his

　　pimples or something. Mal said he didn't mind but that he wasn't too crazy about the idea.

　　He didn't like Ackley much. Anyway, we both went to our rooms to get ready and all,

　　and while I was putting on my galoshes and crap, I yelled over and asked old Ackley if

　　he wanted to go to the movies. He could hear me all right through the shower curtains,

　　but he didn't answer me right away. He was the kind of a guy that hates to answer you

　　right away. Finally he came over, through the goddam curtains, and stood on the shower

　　ledge and asked who was going besides me. He always had to know who was going. I

　　swear, if that guy was shipwrecked somewhere, and you rescued him in a goddam boat,

　　he'd want to know who the guy was that was rowing it before he'd even get in. I told him

　　Mal Brossard was going. He said, "That bastard . . . All right. Wait a second." You'd

　　think he was doing you a big favor.

　　It took him about five hours to get ready. While he was doing it, I went over to

　　my window and opened it and packed a snowball with my bare hands. The snow was

　　very good for packing. I didn't throw it at anything, though. I started to throw it. At a car

　　that was parked across the street. But I changed my mind. The car looked so nice and

　　white. Then I started to throw it at a hydrant, but that looked too nice and white, too.

　　Finally I didn't throw it at anything. All I did was close the window and walk around the

　　room with the snowball, packing it harder. A little while later, I still had it with me when

　　I and Brossnad and Ackley got on the bus. The bus driver opened the doors and made me

　　throw it out. I told him I wasn't going to chuck it at anybody, but he wouldn't believe me.

　　People never believe you.

　　Brossard and Ackley both had seen the picture that was playing, so all we did, we

　　just had a couple of hamburgers and played the pinball machine for a little while, then

　　took the bus back to Pencey. I didn't care about not seeing the movie, anyway. It was

　　supposed to be a comedy, with Cary Grant in it, and all that crap. Besides, I'd been to the

　　movies with Brossard and Ackley before. They both laughed like hyenas at stuff that

　　wasn't even funny. I didn't even enjoy sitting next to them in the movies.

　　It was only about a quarter to nine when we got back to the dorm. Old Brossard

　　was a bridge fiend, and he started looking around the dorm for a game. Old Ackley

　　parked himself in my room, just for a change. Only, instead of sitting on the arm of

　　Stradlater's chair, he laid down on my bed, with his face right on my pillow and all. He

　　started talking in this very monotonous voice, and picking at all his pimples. I dropped

　　about a thousand hints, but I couldn't get rid of him. All he did was keep talking in this

　　very monotonous voice about some babe he was supposed to have had sexual intercourse

　　with the summer before. He'd already told me about it about a hundred times. Every time

　　he told it, it was different. One minute he'd be giving it to her in his cousin's Buick, the

　　next minute he'd be giving it to her under some boardwalk. It was all a lot of crap,

　　naturally. He was a virgin if ever I saw one. I doubt if he ever even gave anybody a feel.

　　Anyway, finally I had to come right out and tell him that I had to write a composition for

　　Stradlater, and that he had to clear the hell out, so I could concentrate. He finally did, but

　　he took his time about it, as usual. After he left, I put on my pajamas and bathrobe and

　　my old hunting hat, and started writing the composition.

　　The thing was, I couldn't think of a room or a house or anything to describe the

　　way Stradlater said he had to have. I'm not too crazy about describing rooms and houses

　　anyway. So what I did, I wrote about my brother Allie's baseball mitt. It was a very

　　descriptive subject. It really was. My brother Allie had this left-handed fielder's mitt. He

　　was left-handed. The thing that was descriptive about it, though, was that he had poems

　　written all over the fingers and the pocket and everywhere. In green ink. He wrote them

　　on it so that he'd have something to read when he was in the field and nobody was up at

　　bat. He's dead now. He got leukemia and died when we were up in Maine, on July 18,

　　1946. You'd have liked him. He was two years younger than I was, but he was about fifty

　　times as intelligent. He was terrifically intelligent. His teachers were always writing

　　letters to my mother, telling her what a pleasure it was having a boy like Allie in their

　　class. And they weren't just shooting the crap. They really meant it. But it wasn't just that

　　he was the most intelligent member in the family. He was also the nicest, in lots of ways.

　　He never got mad at anybody. People with red hair are supposed to get mad very easily,

　　but Allie never did, and he had very red hair. I'll tell you what kind of red hair he had. I

　　started playing golf when I was only ten years old. I remember once, the summer I was

　　around twelve, teeing off and all, and having a hunch that if I turned around all of a

　　sudden, I'd see Allie. So I did, and sure enough, he was sitting on his bike outside the

　　fence--there was this fence that went all around the course--and he was sitting there,

　　about a hundred and fifty yards behind me, watching me tee off. That's the kind of red

　　hair he had. God, he was a nice kid, though. He used to laugh so hard at something he

　　thought of at the dinner table that he just about fell off his chair. I was only thirteen, and

　　they were going to have me psychoanalyzed and all, because I broke all the windows in

　　the garage. I don't blame them. I really don't. I slept in the garage the night he died, and I

　　broke all the goddam windows with my fist, just for the hell of it. I even tried to break all

　　the windows on the station wagon we had that summer, but my hand was already broken

　　and everything by that time, and I couldn't do it. It was a very stupid thing to do, I'll

　　admit, but I hardly didn't even know I was doing it, and you didn't know Allie. My hand

　　still hurts me once in a while when it rains and all, and I can't make a real fist any more--

　　not a tight one, I mean--but outside of that I don't care much. I mean I'm not going to be a

　　goddam surgeon or a violinist or anything anyway.

　　Anyway, that's what I wrote Stradlater's composition about. Old Allie's baseball

　　mitt. I happened to have it with me, in my suitcase, so I got it out and copied down the

　　poems that were written on it. All I had to do was change Allie's name so that nobody

　　would know it was my brother and not Stradlater's. I wasn't too crazy about doing it, but I

　　couldn't think of anything else descriptive. Besides, I sort of liked writing about it. It took

　　me about an hour, because I had to use Stradlater's lousy typewriter, and it kept jamming

　　on me. The reason I didn't use my own was because I'd lent it to a guy down the hall.

　　It was around ten-thirty, I guess, when I finished it. I wasn't tired, though, so I

　　looked out the window for a while. It wasn't snowing out any more, but every once in a

　　while you could hear a car somewhere not being able to get started. You could also hear

　　old Ackley snoring. Right through the goddam shower curtains you could hear him. He

　　had sinus trouble and he couldn't breathe too hot when he was asleep. That guy had just

　　about everything. Sinus trouble, pimples, lousy teeth, halitosis, crumby fingernails. You

　　had to feel a little sorry for the crazy sonuvabitch.