The Catcher in the Rye | Page 8

them in the river. Anyway, he gave Pencey a pile of
dough, and they named our wing alter him. The first football game of the year, he came
up to school in this big goddam Cadillac, and we all had to stand up in the grandstand and
give him a locomotive--that's a cheer. Then, the next morning, in chapel, be made a
speech that lasted about ten hours. He started off with about fifty corny jokes, just to
show us what a regular guy he was. Very big deal. Then he started telling us how he was
never ashamed, when he was in some kind of trouble or something, to get right down his
knees and pray to God. He told us we should always pray to God--talk to \
Him and all--
wherever we were. He told us we ought to think of Jesus as our buddy and\
all. He said he
talked to Jesus all the time. Even when he was driving his car. That killed me. I just see
the big phony bastard shifting into first gear and asking Jesus to send \
him a few more
stiffs. The only good part of his speech was right in the middle of it. He was telling us all
about what a swell guy he was, what a hot-shot and all, then all of a su\
dden this guy
sitting in the row in front of me, Edgar Marsalla, laid this terrific fart. It was a very crude
thing to do, in chapel and all, but it was also quite amusing. Old Marsalla. He damn near
blew the roof off. Hardly anybody laughed out loud, and old Ossenburger \
made out like
he didn't even hear it, but old Thurmer, the headmaster, was sitting right next to him on
the rostrum and all, and you could tell he heard it. Boy, was he sore. He didn't say
anything then, but the next night he made us have compulsory study hall in the academic
building and he came up and made a speech. He said that the boy that had created the

disturbance in chapel wasn't fit to go to Pencey. We tried to get old Marsalla to rip off
another one, right while old Thurmer was making his speech, but be wasn't in the right
mood. Anyway, that's where I lived at Pencey. Old Ossenburger Memorial Wing, in the
new dorms.
It was pretty nice to get back to my room, after I left old Spencer, because
everybody was down at the game, and the heat was on in our room, for a change. It felt
sort of cosy. I took off my coat and my tie and unbuttoned my shirt collar; and then I put
on this hat that I'd bought in New York that morning. It was this red hunting hat, with one
of those very, very long peaks. I saw it in the window of this sports store when we got out
of the subway, just after I noticed I'd lost all the goddam foils. It only cost me a buck.
The way I wore it, I swung the old peak way around to the back--very cor\
ny, I'll admit,
but I liked it that way. I looked good in it that way. Then I got this b\
ook I was reading
and sat down in my chair. There were two chairs in every room. I had one and my
roommate, Ward Stradlater, had one. The arms were in sad shape, because everybody
was always sitting on them, but they were pretty comfortable chairs.
The book I was reading was this book I took out of the library by mistake. They
gave me the wrong book, and I didn't notice it till I got back to my room. They gave me
Out of Africa, by Isak Dinesen. I thought it was going to stink, but it \
didn't. It was a very
good book. I'm quite illiterate, but I read a lot. My favorite author is my brother D.B., and
my next favorite is Ring Lardner. My brother gave me a book by Ring Lardner for my
birthday, just before I went to Pencey. It had these very funny, crazy p\
lays in it, and then
it had this one story about a traffic cop that falls in love with this v\
ery cute girl that's
always speeding. Only, he's married, the cop, so be can't marry her or anything. Then this
girl gets killed, because she's always speeding. That story just about killed me. What I
like best is a book that's at least funny once in a while. I read a lot of classical books, like \
The Return of the Native and all, and I like them, and I read a lot of war books and
mysteries and all, but