"Bobby, I'm sorry . But you made me loose my temper, darling. Did I hurt your hand?"

"Never mind my hand," he said, keeping it ion his pocket.

"Bobby, I love Phil. On my word of honor. I don't want you to think I'm playing around, trying to hurt people?"

Bobby made no reply.

"My word of honor, Bob. You don't know Phil. He's really a grand person."

Bobby looked at her. "You and your grand persons. You know more god damn grand persons. The guy from Cleveland. What the hell was his name? Bothwell. Harry Bothwell. And how 'bout that blond kid used to sing at Bill Cassidy's? Two of the goddamndest grandest persons you ever met." He looked out the window again. "Oh for Christsake, Helen," he said finally.

"Bob," said Helen, "you know how old I was. I was terribly young. You know that. But Bob, this is the real thing. Honestly. I know it is. I've never felt this was before. Bob, you don't really in your heart think I'm taking all this from Phil just for the hell of it?"

Bobby looked at her again, lifted his eyebrows, thinned his lips. "You know what I hear in Chicago?" he asked her.

"What, Bob?" Helen asked gently, the tips of her fingers rubbing his ankle.

"I heard two guys talking. You don't know 'em. They were talking about you. You and this horsy-set guy, Hanson Carpenter. they crummied the thing inside and out." He paused. "You with him, too, Helen?"

"That's a goddamn lie, Bob," Helen told him softly. "Bob, I hardly know Hanson Carpenter well enough to say hello to him."

"Maybe so! But it's a wonderful thing for a brother to have to listen to, isn't it? Everybody in town gives me the horse-laugh when they see me comin' around the corner!"

"Bobby. If you believe that slop it's your own damn fault. What do you care what they say? You're bigger than they are. You don't have to pay any attention to their dirty minds."

"I didn't say I believed it. I said it was what I heard. That's bad enough, isn't it?"

"Well, it's not so," Helen told him. "Toss me a cigarette there, hmm?"

He flipped the package of cigarettes into her lap; then the matches. She lighted up, inhaled, and removed a piece of tobacco from her tongue with the tips of her fingers.

"You used to be such a swell kid," Bobby stated briefly.

"Oh! And I ain't no more?" Helen little-girl'd.

He was silent.

"Listen, Helen. I'll tell ya. I had lunch the other day, before I went to Chicago, with Phil's wife."

"Yeah?"

"She's a swell kid. Class," Bobby told her.

"Class, huh?" said Helen.

"Yeah. Listen go see Eddie this afternoon. It can't do any harm. Go see him."

Helen smoked. "I hate Eddie Jackson. he always makes a play for me."

"Listen," said Bobby, standing up. "You know how to turn on the ice when you want to." He stood over her. "I have to go. I haven't gone to the office yet."

"Helen stood up and watched him put on his polo coat.

"Go see Eddie," Bobby said, putting on his pigskin gloves. "hear me?" He buttoned his overcoat. "I'll give you a ring soon."

Helen chided, "Oh, you'll give me a ring soon! When? the Fourth of July?"

"No, soon. I've been busy as hell lately. Where's my hat? oh, I didn't have one."

She walked with him to the front door, stood in the doorway until the elevator came. Then she shut the door and walked quickly back to her room. She went to the telephone and dialed swiftly but precisely.

"Hello?" she said into the mouthpiece. "Let me speak to Mr. Stone, please. This is Miss Mason." In a moment his voice came through. "Phil?" she said. "Listen. My brother Bobby was just here. And do you know why? Because that adorable little Vassarfaced wife of yours told him about you and I. Yes! Listen, Phil. Listen to me. I don't like it. I don't care if you had anything to do with it or not. I don't like it. I don't care. No, I can't. I have a previous engagement. I can't tonight either. You can call me tomorrow, Phil. No. I said no, Phil. Goodbye."

She set down the receiver, crossed her legs, and bit thoughtfully at the cuticle of her thumb. then she turned and yelled loudly: "Elsie!"

Elsie moused into the room.

"Take away Mr. Bobby's tray."

When Elsie was out of the room, Helen dialed again.

"Hanson?" she said. "This is me. Us. We. You dog."

I'm Crazy.

J. D. Salinger.

It was about eight o'clock at night, and dark, and raining, and freezing, and the wind was noisy the way it is in spooky movies on the night the old slob with the will gets murdered. I stood by the cannon on the top of Thomsen Hill, freezing to death, watching the big south windows of the gym--shining big and bright and dumb, like the windows of a gymnasium, and nothing else (but maybe you never went to a boarding school).

I just had on my reversible and no gloves. Somebody had swiped my camel's hair the week before, and my gloves were in the pocket. Boy, I was cold. Only a crazy guy would have stood there. That's me. Crazy. No kidding, I have a screw loose. But I had to stand there to feel the goodbye to the youngness of the lace, as though I were an old man. The whole school was down below in the gym for the basketball game with the Saxon Charter slobs, and I was standing there to feel the goodbye.

I stood there--boy, I was freezing to death--and I kept saying goodbye to myself. "Goodbye, Caulfield. Goodbye, you slob."" I kept seeing myself throwing a football around, with Buhler and Jackson, just before it got dark on the September evenings, and I knew I'd never throw a football around ever again with the same guys at the same time. It was as though Buhler and Jackson and I had done something that had died and been buried, and only I knew about it, and no one was at the funeral but me. So I stood there, freezing.

The game with the Saxon Charter slobs was in the second half, and you could hear everybody yelling: deep and terrific on the Pentey side of the gym, and scrawny and faggoty on the Saxon Charter side, because the Saxon bunch never brought more than the team with them and a few substitutes and managers. You could tell all right when Schutz or Kinsella or Tuttle had sunk one on the slobs, because then the Pentey side of the gym went crazy. But I only half cared who was winning. I was freezing and I was only there anyway to feel the goodbye, to be at the funeral of me and Buhler and Jackson throwing a football around in the September evenings--and finally on one of the cheers I felt the goodbye like a real knife. I was strictly at the funeral.

So all of a sudden, after it happened, I started running down Thomsen Hill, with my suitcases banging the devil out of my legs. I ran all the way down to the Gate; then I stopped and got my breath; then I ran across Route 202--it was icy and I fell and nearly broke my knee--and then I disappeared into Hessey Avenue. Disappeared. You disappeared every time you crossed a street that night. No kidding.

When I got to old Spencer's house--that's where I was going--I put down my bags on the porch, rang the bell hard and fast and put my hands on my ears--boy, they hurt. I started talking to the door. "C'mon, c'mon!" I said. "Open up. I'm freezing." Finally Mrs. Spencer came.

"Holden!" she said. "Come in, dear!" She was a nice woman. Her hot chocolate on Sundays was strictly lousy, but you never minded.

I got inside the house fast.

"Are you frozen to death? You must be soaking wet," Mrs. Spencer said. She wasn't the kind of woman that you could just be a little wet around: you were either real dry or soaking. But she didn't ask me what I was doing out of bounds, so I figured old Spencer had told her what happened.

I put down my bags in the hall and took off my hat--boy, I could hardly work my fingers enough to grab my hat. I said, "How are you, Mrs. Spencer? How's Mr. Spencer's grippe? He over it okay?"

"Over it!" Mrs. Spencer said. "Let me take your coat, dear. Holden he's behaving like a perfect I-don't-know-what. Go right in, dear. He's in his room."

Old Spencer had his own room next to the kitchen. He was about sixty years old, maybe even older, but he got a kick out of things in a half-shot way. If you though about old Spencer you wondered what he was living for, everything about over for him and all. But if you though about him that way, you were thinking about him the wrong way: you were thinking too much. If you thought about him just enough, not too much, you knew he was doing all right for himself. In a half-shot was he enjoyed almost everything all the time. I enjoy thing terrifically, but just once in a while. Sometimes it makes you think maybe old people get a better deal. But I wouldn't trade places. I wouldn't want to enjoy almost everything all the time if it had to be in just a half-shot way.

Old Spencer was sitting in the big easy chair in his bedroom, all wrapped up in the Navajo blanket he and Mrs. Spencer bought in Yellowstone Park about eighty years ago. They probably got a big bang out of buying it off the Indians.

"Come in, Caulfield!" old Spencer yelled at me. "Come in, boy!"

I went in.

There was an opened copy of the Atlantic Monthly face down on his lap, and pills all over the place and bottles and a hot-water bottle. I hate seeing a hot-water bottle, especially an old guy's. That isn't nice, but that's the way I feel. . . . Old Spencer certainly looked beat out. He certainly didn't look like a guy who ever behaved like a perfect I-don't-know-what. Probably Mrs. Spencer just like to think he was acting that way, as if she wanted to think maybe the old guy was still full of beans.

"I got your note, sir," I told him. "I would have come over anyway before I left. How's your grippe?"

"If I felt any better, boy, I'd have to send for the doctor,," old Spencer said. That really knocked him out. "Sit down, boy," he said, still laughing. "Why in the name of Jupiter aren't you down at the game?"

I sat down on the edge of the bed. It sort of looked like an old guy's bed. I said, "Well, I was at the game a while, sir. But I'm going home tonight instead of tomorrow. Dr. Thurmer said I could go tonight if I really wanted to. So I'm going."

"Well, you certainly picked a honey of a night," old Spencer said. He really thought that over. "Going home tonight, eh?" he said.

"Yes, sir," I said.

He said to me, "What did Dr. Thurmer say to you, boy?"

"Well, he was pretty nice in his way, sir," I said. "He said about life being a game. You know. How you should play it by the rules and all. Stuff like that. He wished me a lot of luck. In the future and all. That kind of stuff."

I guess Thurmer really was pretty nice to me in his slobby way, so I told old Spencer a few other things Thurmer had said to me. About applying myself in life if I wanted to get ahead and all. I even made up some stuff, old Spencer was listening so hard and nodding all the while.

Then old Spencer asked me, "Have you communicated with your parents yet?"

"No, sir," I said. "I haven't communicated with them because I'll see them tonight."

Old Spencer nodded again. He asked me, "How will they take the news?"

"Well," I said, "they hate this kind of stuff. This is the third school I've been kicked out of. Boy! No kidding," I told him.

Old Spencer didn't nod this time. I was bothering him, poor guy. He suddenly lifted the Atlantic Monthly off his lap, as though it had got too heavy for him, and chucked it towards the bed. He missed. I got up and picked it up and laid it on the bed. All of a sudden I wanted to get the heck out of there.

Old Spencer said, "What's the matter with you, boy? How many subjects did you carry this term?"

"Four," I said.

"And how many did you flunk?" he said.

"Four," I said.

Old Spencer started staring at the spot on the rug where the Atlantic Monthly had fallen when he tried to chuck it on the bed. He said, "I flunked you in history because you knew absolutely nothing. You were never once prepared, either for examinations or for daily recitations. Not once. I doubt if you opened your textbook once during the term; did you?"

I told him I'd glanced through it a couple of times, so's not to hurt his feelings. He thought history was really hot. It was all right with me if he thought I was a real dumb guy, but I didn't want him to think I'd given his book the freeze.

"Your exam paper is on my chiffonier over there," he said. "Bring it over here."

I went over and got it and handed it to him and sat down on the edge of the bed again.

Old Spencer handled my exam paper as though it were something catching that he had to handle for the good of science or something, like Pasteur or one of those guys.

He said. "We studied the Egyptians from November 3d to December 4th. You chose to write about them for the essay question, from a selection of twenty-five topics. This is what you had to say: "' The Egyptians were an ancient race of people living in one of the northernmost sections of North Africa, which is one of the largest continents in the Eastern Hemisphere as we all know. The Egyptians are also interesting to us today for numerous reasons. Also, you read about them frequently in the Bible. The Bible is full of amusing anecdotes about the old Pharaohs. They were all Egyptians as we all know.'"

Old Spencer looked up at me. "New paragraph," he said. "'What is most interesting about the Egyptians was their habits. The Egyptians had many interesting ways of doing things. Their religion was also very interesting. They buried their dead in tombs in a very interesting way. The dead Pharaohs had their faces wrapped up in specially treated cloths to prevent their features from rotting. Even to this day physicians don't know what that chemical formula was, thus all our faces rot when we are dead for a certain length of time.'" Old Spencer looked over the paper at me again. I stopped looking at him. If he was going to look up at me every time he hit the end of a paragraph, I wasn't going to look at him.

"Do you blame me for flunking you, boy?" old Spencer asked me. "What would you have done in my place?"

"The same thing," I said. "Down with the morons." But I wasn't giving it much thought at the minute. I was sort of wondering if the lagoon in Central Park would be frozen over when I got home, and if it was frozen over would everybody be ice skating when you looked out the window in the morning, and where did the ducks go, what happened to the ducks when the lagoon was frozen over. But I couldn't have told all that to old Spencer.

He asked me, "How do you feel about all this, boy?"

"You mean my flunking out and all, sir?" I said.

"Yes," he said.

Well, I tried to give it some thought because he was a nice guy and because he kept missing the bed all the time when he shucked something at it.

"Well, I'm sorry I'm flunking out, for lots of reasons," I said. I knew I could never really get it over to him. Not about standing on Thomsen Hill and thinking about Buhler and Jackson and me. "Some of the reasons would be hard to explain right off, sir," I told him. "But tonight, for instance, "I said. "Tonight I had to pack my bags and put my ski boots in them. The ski boots made me sorry I'm leaving. I could see my mother chasing around stores, asking the salesmen a million dumb questions. Then she bought me the wrong kind anyway. Boy, she's nice, though. No kidding. That's mostly why I'm sorry I'm flunking out. On account of my mother and the wrong ski boots." That's all I said. I had to quit.

Old Spencer was nodding the whole time, as though he understood it all, but you couldn't tell whether he was nodding because he was going to understand anything I might tell him, or if he was only nodding because he was just a nice old guy with the grippe and a screwball on his hands.

"You'll miss the school, boy," he said to me.

He was a nice guy. No kidding. I tried to tell him some more. I said, "Not exactly, sir. I'll miss some stuff. I'll miss going and coming to Pentey on the train; going back to the dining car and ordering a chicken sandwich and a Coke, and reading five new magazines with all the pages slick and new. And I'll miss the Pentey stickers on my bag. Once a lady saw them and asked me if I knew Andrew Warbach. She was Warbach's mother, and you know Warbach, sir. Strictly a louse. He's the kind of a guy, when you were a little kid, that twisted your wrist to get the marbles out of your hand. But his mother was all right. She should have been in a nut house, like most mothers, but she loved Warbach. You could see in her nutty eyes that she thought he was hot stuff. So I spent nearly an hour on the train telling her what a hot shot Warbach is at school, how none of the guys ever make a move and all without going to Warbach first. It knocked Mrs. Warbach out. She nearly rolled in the aisle. She probably half knew he was a louse in her heart, but I changed her mind. I like mothers. They give me a terrific kick."

I stopped. Old Spencer wasn't following. Maybe he was a little bit, but not enough to make me want to get into it deep. Anyway, I wasn't saying much that I wanted to say. I never do. I'm crazy. No kidding.

Old Spencer said: "Do you plan to go to college, boy?"

"I have no plans, sir," I said. "I live from one day to the next." It sounded phony, but I was beginning to feel phony. I was sitting there on the edge of that bed too long. I got up suddenly.

"I guess I better go, sir,," I said. "I have to catch a train. You've been swell. No kidding."

Well, Old Spencer asked me if I didn't want a cup of hot chocolate before I left, but I said no thanks. I shook hands with him. He was sweating pretty much. I told him I'd write him a letter sometime, that he shouldn't worry about me, that he oughtn't to let me get him down. I told him that I knew I was crazy. He asked me if I were sure I didn't want any hot chocolate, that it wouldn't take long.