For Esmé, With Love and Squalor

by J. D. Salinger

  “I want that camera, young man.”

  “You can’t be very comfortable in that position. It isn’t possible,” Teddy said. “I’ll leave it right here.” He placed the pillow on the foot of the bed, clear of his father’s feet. He started out of the cabin.

  “Teddy,” his mother said, without turning over. “Tell Booper I want to see her before her swimming lesson.”

  “Why don’t you leave the kid alone?” Mr. McArdle asked. “You seem to resent her having a few lousy minutes’ freedom. You know how you treat her? I’ll tell you exactly how you treat her. You treat her like a bloomin’ criminal.”

  “Bloomin’! Oh, that’s cute! You’re getting so English, lover.”

  Teddy lingered for a moment at the door, reflectively experimenting with the door handle, turning it slowly left and right. “After I go out this door, I may only exist in the minds of all my acquaintances,” he said. “I may be an orange peel.”

  “What, darling?” Mrs. McArdle asked from across the cabin, still lying on her right side.

  “Let’s get on the ball, buddy. Let’s get that Leica down here.”

  “Come give Mother a kiss. A nice, big one.”

  “Not right now,” Teddy said absently. “I’m tired.” He closed the door behind him.

  The ship’s daily newspaper lay just outside the doorsill. It was a single sheet of glossy paper, with printing on just one side. Teddy picked it up and began to read it as he started slowly aft down the long passageway. From the opposite end, a huge, blond woman in a starched white uniform was coming toward him, carrying a vase of long-stemmed, red roses. As she passed Teddy, she put out her left hand and grazed the top of his head with it, saying, “Somebody needs a haircut!” Teddy passively looked up from his newspaper, but the woman had passed, and he didn’t look back. He went on reading. At the end of the passageway, before an enormous mural of Saint George and the Dragon over the staircase landing, he folded the ship’s newspaper into quarters and put it into his left hip pocket. He then climbed the broad, shallow, carpeted steps up to Main Deck, one flight up. He took two steps at a time, but slowly, holding on to the banister, putting his whole body into it, as if the act of climbing a flight of stairs was for him, as it is for many children, a moderately pleasurable end in itself. At the Main Deck landing, he went directly over to the Purser’s desk, where a good-looking girl in naval uniform was presiding at the moment. She was stapling some mimeographed sheets of paper together.

  “Can you tell me what time that game starts today, please?” Teddy asked her.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Can you tell me what time that game starts today?” The girl gave him a lipsticky smile. “What game, honey?” she asked.

  “You know. That word game they had yesterday and the day before, where you’re supposed to supply the missing words. It’s mostly that you have to put everything in context.”

  The girl held off fitting three sheets of paper between the planes of her stapler. “Oh,” she said. “Not till late afternoon, I believe. I believe it’s around four o’clock. Isn’t that a little over your head, dear?”

  “No, it isn’t . . . Thank you,” Teddy said, and started to leave.

  “Wait a minute, honey! What’s your name?”

  “Theodore McArdle,” Teddy said. “What’s yours?”

  “My name?” said the girl, smiling. “My name’s Ensign Mathewson.”

  Teddy watched her press down on her stapler. “I knew you were an ensign,” he said. “I’m not sure, but I believe when somebody asks your name you’re supposed to say your whole name. Jane Mathewson, or Phyllis Mathewson, or whatever the case may be.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “As I say, I think so,” Teddy said. “I’m not sure, though. It may be different if you’re in uniform. Anyway, thank you for the information. Goodbye!” He turned and took the stairs up to the Promenade Deck, again two at a time, but this time as if in rather a hurry.

  He found Booper, after some extensive looking, high up on the Sports Deck. She was in a sunny clearing—a glade, almost—between two deck-tennis courts that were not in use. In a squatting position, with the sun at her back and a light breeze riffling her silky, blond hair, she was busily piling twelve or fourteen shuffleboard discs into two tangent stacks, one for the black discs, one for the red. A very small boy, in a cotton sun suit, was standing close by, on her right, purely in an observer’s capacity. “Look!” Booper said commandingly to her brother as he approached. She sprawled forward and surrounded the two stacks of shuffleboard discs with her arms to show off her accomplishment, to isolate it from whatever else was aboard ship. “Myron,” she said hostilely, addressing her companion, “you’re making it all shadowy, so my brother can’t see. Move your carcass.” She shut her eyes and waited, with a cross-bearing grimace, till Myron moved.

  Teddy stood over the two stacks of discs and looked down appraisingly at them. “That’s very nice,” he said. “Very symmetrical.”

  “This guy,” Booper said, indicating Myron, “never even heard of backgammon. They don’t even have one.”

  Teddy glanced briefly, objectively, at Myron. “Listen,” he said to Booper. “Where’s the camera? Daddy wants it right away.”

  “He doesn’t even live in New York,” Booper informed Teddy. “And his father’s dead. He was killed in Korea.” She turned to Myron. “Wasn’t he?” she demanded, but without waiting for a response. “Now if his mother dies, he’ll be an orphan. He didn’t even know that.” She looked at Myron. “Did you?”

  Myron, non-committal, folded his arms.

  “You’re the stupidest person I ever met,” Booper said to him. “You’re the stupidest person in this ocean. Did you know that?”

  “He is not,” Teddy said. “You are not, Myron.” He addressed his sister: “Give me your attention a second. Where’s the camera? I have to have it immediately. Where is it?”

  “Over there,” Booper said, indicating no direction at all. She drew her two stacks of shuffleboard discs in closer to her. “All I need now is two giants,” she said. “They could play backgammon till they got all tired and then they could climb up on that smokestack and throw these at everybody and kill them.” She looked at Myron. “They could kill your parents,” she said to him knowledgeably. “And if that didn’t kill them, you know what you could do? You could put some poison on some marshmellows and make them eat it.”

  The Leica was about ten feet away, next to the white railing that surrounded the Sports Deck. It lay in the drain gully, on its side. Teddy went over and picked it up by its strap and hung it around his neck. Then, immediately, he took it off. He took it over to Booper. “Booper, do me a favor. You take it down, please,” he said. “It’s ten o’clock. I have to write in my diary.”

  “I’m busy.”

  “Mother wants to see you right away, anyway,” Teddy said.

  “You’re a liar.”

  “I’m not a liar. She does,” Teddy said. “So please take this down with you when you go . . . C’mon, Booper.”

  “What’s she want to see me for?” Booper demanded. “I don’t want to see her.” She suddenly struck Myron’s hand, which was in the act of picking off the top shuffleboard disc from the red stack. “Hands off,” she said.

  Teddy hung the strap attached to the Leica around her neck. “I’m serious, now. Take this down to Daddy right away, and then I’ll see you at the pool later on,” he said. “I’ll meet you right at the pool at ten-thirty. Or right outside that place where you change your clothes. Be on time, now. It’s way down on E Deck, don’t forget, so leave yourself plenty of time.” He turned, and left.

  “I hate you! I hate everybody in this ocean!” Booper called after him.

  Below the Sports Deck, on the broad, after end of the Sun Deck, uncompromisingly alfresco, were some seventy-five or more deck chairs, set up and aligned seven or eight rows deep, with a
isles just wide enough for the deck steward to use without unavoidably tripping over the sunning passengers’ paraphernalia knitting bags, dust-jacketed novels, bottles of sun-tan lotion, cameras. The area was crowded when Teddy arrived. He started at the rearmost row and moved methodically, from row to row, stopping at each chair, whether or not it was occupied, to read the name placard on its arm. Only one or two of the reclining passengers spoke to him—that is, made any of the commonplace pleasantries adults are sometimes prone to make to a ten-year-old boy who is single-mindedly looking for the chair that belongs to him. His youngness and single-mindedness were obvious enough, but perhaps his general demeanor altogether lacked, or had too little of, that sort of cute solemnity that many adults readily speak up, or down, to. His clothes may have had something to do with it, too. The hole in the shoulder of his T shirt was not a cute hole. The excess material in the seat of his seersucker shorts, the excess length of the shorts themselves, were not cute excesses.

  The McArdles’ four deck chairs, cushioned and ready for occupancy, were situated in the middle of the second row from the front. Teddy sat down in one of them so that—whether or not it was his intention—no one was sitting directly on either side of him. He stretched out his bare, unsuntanned legs, feet together, on the leg rest, and, almost simultaneously, took a small, ten-cent notebook out of his right hip pocket. Then, with instantly one-pointed concentration, as if only he and the notebook existed—no sunshine, no fellow passengers, no ship—he began to turn the pages.

  With the exception of a very few pencil notations, the entries in the notebook had apparently all been made with a ball-point pen. The handwriting itself was manuscript style, such as is currently being taught in American schools, instead of the old, Palmer method. It was legible without being pretty-pretty. The flow was what was remarkable about the handwriting. In no sense—no mechanical sense, at any rate—did the words and sentences look as though they had been written by a child.

  Teddy gave considerable reading time to what looked like his most recent entry. It covered a little more than three pages:

  Diary for October 27, 1952

  Property of Theodore McArdle

  412 A Deck

  Appropriate and pleasant reward if finder promptly returns to Theodore McArdle.

  See if you can find daddy’s army dog tags and wear them whenever possible. It won’t kill you and he will like it.

  Answer Professor Mandell’s letter when you get a chance and the patience. Ask him not to send me any more poetry books. I already have enough for 1 year anyway. I am quite sick of it anyway. A man walks along the beach and unfortunately gets hit in the head by a cocoanut. His head unfortunately cracks open in two halves. Then his wife comes along the beach singing a song and sees the 2 halves and recognizes them and picks them up. She gets very sad of course and cries heart breakingly. That is exactly where I am tired of poetry. Supposing the lady just picks up the 2 halves and shouts into them very angrily “Stop that!” Do not mention this when you answer his letter, however. It is quite controversial and Mrs. Mandell is a poet besides.

  Get Sven’s address in Elizabeth, New Jersey. It would be interesting to meet his wife, also his dog Lindy. However, I would not like to own a dog myself.

  Write condolence letter to Dr. Wokawara about his nephritis. Get his new address from mother.

  Try the sports deck for meditation tomorrow morning before breakfast but do not lose consciousness. Also do not lose consciousness in the dining room if that waiter drops that big spoon again. Daddy was quite furious.

  Words and expressions to look up in library tomorrow when you return the books—

  Nephritis

  myriad

  gift horse

  cunning

  triumvirate

  Be nicer to librarian. Discuss some general things with him when he gets kittenish.

  Teddy abruptly took out a small, bullet-shaped, ballpoint pen from the side pocket of his shorts, uncapped it, and began to write. He used his right thigh as a desk, instead of the chair arm.

  Diary for October 28, 1952

  Same address and reward as written on October 26 and 27, 1952.

  I wrote letters to the following persons after meditation this morning.

  Dr. Wokawara

  Professor Mandell

  Professor Peet

  Burgess Hake, Jr.

  Roberta Hake

  Sanford Hake

  Grandma Hake

  Mr. Graham

  Professor Walton

  I could have asked mother where daddy’s dog tags are but she would probably say I don’t have to wear them. I know he has them with him because I saw him pack them.

  Life is a gift horse in my opinion.

  I think it is very tasteless of Professor Walton to criticize my parents. He wants people to be a certain way.

  It will either happen today or February 14, 1955 when I am sixteen. It is ridiculous to mention even.

  After making this last entry, Teddy continued to keep his attention on the page and his ball-point pen poised, as though there were more to come.

  He apparently was unaware that he had a lone interested observer. About fifteen feet forwardship from the first row of deck chairs, and eighteen or twenty rather sun-blinding feet overhead, a young man was steadily watching him from the Sports Deck railing. This had been going on for some ten minutes. It was evident that the young man was now reaching some sort of decision, for he abruptly took his foot down from the railing. He stood for a moment, still looking in Teddy’s direction, then walked away, out of sight. Not a minute later, though, he turned up, obtrusively vertical, among the deck-chair ranks. He was about thirty, or younger. He directly started to make his way down-aisle toward Teddy’s chair, casting distracting little shadows over the pages of people’s novels and stepping rather uninhibitedly (considering that his was the only standing, moving figure in sight) over knitting bags and other personal effects.

  Teddy seemed oblivious of the fact that someone was standing at the foot of his chair—or, for that matter, casting a shadow over his notebook. A few people in the row or two behind him, however, were more distractible. They looked up at the young man as, perhaps, only people in deck chairs can look up at someone. The young man had a kind of poise about him, though, that looked as though it might hold up indefinitely, with the very small proviso that he keep at least one hand in one pocket. “Hello, there!” he said to Teddy.

  Teddy looked up. “Hello,” he said. He partly closed his notebook, partly let it close by itself.

  “Mind if I sit down a minute?” the young man asked, with what seemed to be unlimited cordiality. “This anybody’s chair?”

  “Well, these four chairs belong to my family,” Teddy said. “But my parents aren’t up yet.”

  “Not up? On a day like this,” the young man said. He had already lowered himself into the chair at Teddy’s right. The chairs were placed so close together that the arms touched. “That’s sacrilege,” he said. “Absolute sacrilege.” He stretched out his legs, which were unusually heavy at the thighs, almost like human bodies in themselves. He was dressed, for the most part, in Eastern seaboard regimentals: a turf haircut on top, run-down brogues on the bottom, with a somewhat mixed uniform in between—buff-colored woolen socks, charcoal-gray trousers, a button-down-collar shirt, no necktie, and a herringbone jacket that looked as though it had been properly aged in some of the more popular postgraduate seminars at Yale, or Harvard, or Princeton. “Oh, God, what a divine day,” he said appreciatively, squinting up at the sun. “I’m an absolute pawn when it comes to the weather.” He crossed his heavy legs, at the ankles. “As a matter of fact, I’ve been known to take a perfectly normal rainy day as a personal insult. So this is absolute manna to me.” Though his speaking voice was, in the usual connotation, well bred, it carried considerably more than adequately, as though he had some sort of understanding with himself that
anything he had to say would sound pretty much all right—intelligent, literate, even amusing or stimulating—either from Teddy’s vantage point or from that of the people in the row behind, if they were listening. He looked obliquely down at Teddy, and smiled. “How are you and the weather?” he asked. His smile was not unpersonable, but it was social, or conversational, and related back, however indirectly, to his own ego. “The weather ever bother you out of all sensible proportion?” he asked, smiling.

  “I don’t take it too personal, if that’s what you mean,” Teddy said.

  The young man laughed, letting his head go back. “Wonderful,” he said. “My name, incidentally, is Bob Nicholson. I don’t know if we quite got around to that in the gym. I know your name, of course.”

  Teddy shifted his weight over to one hip and stashed his notebook in the side pocket of his shorts.

  “I was watching you write—from way up there,” Nicholson said, narratively, pointing. “Good Lord. You were working away like a little Trojan.”

  Teddy looked at him. “I was writing something in my notebook.”

  Nicholson nodded, smiling. “How was Europe?” he asked conversationally. “Did you enjoy it?”

  “Yes, very much, thank you.”

  “Where all did you go?”