Nine Stories

by Jerome David Salinger

  «My arm? Why?»

  «Just do it. Just do it a second.»

  Nicholson raised his forearm an inch or two above the level of the armrest. «This one?»

  he asked.

  Teddy nodded. «What do you call that?» he asked.

  «What do you mean? It’s my arm. It’s an arm.»

  «How do you know it is?» Teddy asked. «You know it’s called an arm, but how do you know it is one? Do you have any proof that it’s an arm?»

  Nicholson took a cigarette out of his pack, and lit it. «I think that smacks of the worst kind of sophistry, frankly,” he said, exhaling smoke. «It’s an arm, for heaven’s sake, because it’s an arm. In the first place, it has to have a name to distinguish it from other objects. I mean you can’t simply—»

  «You’re just being logical,” Teddy said to him impassively.

  «I’m just being what?» Nicholson asked, with a little excess of politeness.

  «Logical. You’re just giving me a regular, intelligent answer,” Teddy said. «I was trying to help you. You asked me how I get out of the finite dimensions when I feel like it. I certainly don’t use logic when I do it. Logic’s the first thing you have to get rid of.»

  Nicholson removed a flake of tobacco from his tongue with his fingers.

  «You know Adam?» Teddy asked him.

  «Do I know who?»

  «Adam. In the Bible.»

  Nicholson smiled. «Not personally,” he said dryly.

  Teddy hesitated. «Don’t be angry with me,” he said. «You asked me a question, and I’m—»

  «I’m not angry with you, for heaven’s sake.»

  «Okay,” Teddy said. He was sitting back in his chair, but his head was turned toward Nicholson. «You know that apple Adam ate in the Garden of Eden, referred to in the Bible?» he asked. «You know what was in that apple? Logic. Logic and intellectual stuff.

  That was all that was in it. So—this is my point—what you have to do is vomit it up if you want to see things as they really are. I mean if you vomit it up, then you won’t have any more trouble with blocks of wood and stuff. You won’t see everything stopping off all the time. And you’ll know what your arm really is, if you’re interested. Do you know what I mean? Do you follow me?»

  «I follow you,” Nicholson said, rather shortly.

  «The trouble is,” Teddy said, «most people don’t want to see things the way they are.

  They don’t even want to stop getting born and dying all the time. They just want new bodies all the time, instead of stopping and staying with God, where it’s really nice.» He reflected. «I never saw such a bunch of apple‑eaters,” he said. He shook his head.

  At that moment, a white‑coated deck steward, who was making his rounds within the area, stopped in front of Teddy and Nicholson and asked them if they would care to have morning broth. Nicholson didn’t respond to the question at all. Teddy said, «No, thank you,” and the deck steward passed them by.

  «If you’d rather not discuss this, you don’t have to,” Nicholson said abruptly, and rather brusquely. He flicked his cigarette ash. «But is it true, or isn’t it, that you informed the whole Leidekker examining bunch—Walton, Peet, Larsen, Samuels, and that bunch—when and where and how they would eventually die? Is that true, or isn’t it? You don’t have to discuss it if you don’t want to, but the way the rumor around Boston—»

  «No, it is not true,” Teddy said with emphasis. «I told them places, and times, when they should be very, very careful. And I told them certain things it might be a good idea for them to do… But I didn’t say anything like that. I didn’t say anything was inevitable, that way.» He took out his handkerchief again and used it. Nicholson waited, watching him. «And I didn’t tell Professor Peet anything like that at all. Firstly, he wasn’t one of the ones who were kidding around and asking me a bunch of questions. I mean all I told Professor Peet was that he shouldn’t be a teacher any more after January—that’s all I told him.» Teddy, sitting back, was silent a moment. «All those other professors, they practically forced me to tell them all that stuff. It was after we were all finished with the interview and making that tape, and it was quite late, and they all kept sitting around smoking cigarettes and getting very kittenish.»

  «But you didn’t tell Walton, or Larsen, for example, when or where or how death would eventually come?» Nicholson pressed.

  «No. I did not,” Teddy said firmly. «I wouldn’t have told them any of that stuff, but they kept talking about it. Professor Walton sort of started it. He said he really wished he knew when he was going to die, because then he’d know what work he should do and what work he shouldn’t do, and how to use his time to his best advantage, and all like that. And then they all said that… So I told them a little bit.»

  Nicholson didn’t say anything.

  «I didn’t tell them when they were actually going to die, though. That’s a very false rumor,” Teddy said. «I could have, but I knew that in their hearts they really didn’t want to know. I mean I knew that even though they teach Religion and Philosophy and all, they’re still pretty afraid to die.» Teddy sat, or reclined, in silence for a minute. «It’s so silly,” he said. «All you do is get the heck out of your body when you die. My gosh, everybody’s done it thousands and thousands of times. Just because they don’t remember it doesn’t mean they haven’t done it. It’s so silly.»

  «That may be. That may be,” Nicholson said. «But the logical fact remains that no matter how intelligently—»

  «It’s so silly,” Teddy said again. «For example, I have a swimming lesson in about five minutes. I could go downstairs to the pool, and there might not be any water in it. This might be the day they change the water or something. What might happen, though, I might walk up to the edge of it, just to have a look at the bottom, for instance, and my sister might come up and sort of push me in. I could fracture my skull and die instantaneously.» Teddy looked at Nicholson. «That could happen,” he said. «My sister’s only six, and she hasn’t been a human being for very many lives, and she doesn’t like me very much. That could happen, all right. What would be so tragic about it, though?

  What’s there to be afraid of, I mean? I’d just be doing what I was supposed to do, that’s all, wouldn’t I?»

  Nicholson snorted mildly. «It might not be a tragedy from your point of view, but it would certainly be a sad event for your mother and dad,” he said «Ever consider that?»

  «Yes, of course, I have,” Teddy said. «But that’s only because they have names and emotions for everything that happens.» He had been keeping his hands tucked under his legs again. He took them out now, put his arms up on the armrests, and looked at Nicholson. «You know Sven? The man that takes care of the gym?» he asked. He waited till he got a nod from Nicholson. «Well, if Sven dreamed tonight that his dog died, he’d have a very, very bad night’s sleep, because he’s very fond of that dog. But when he woke up in the morning, everything would be all right. He’d know it was only a dream.»

  Nicholson nodded. «What’s the point, exactly?»

  «The point is if his dog really died, it would be exactly the same thing. Only, he wouldn’t know it. I mean he wouldn’t wake up till he died himself.» Nicholson, looking detached, was using his right hand to give himself a slow, sensuous massage at the back of the neck. His left hand, motionless on the armrest, with a fresh, unlighted cigarette between the fingers, looked oddly white and inorganic in the brilliant sunlight.

  Teddy suddenly got up. «I really have to go now, I’m afraid,” he said. He sat down, tentatively, on the extended leg attachment of his chair, facing Nicholson, and tucked in his T shirt. «I have about one and a half minutes, I guess, to get to my swimming lesson,” he said. «It’s all the way down on E Deck.»

  «May I ask why you told Professor Peet he should stop teaching after the first of the year?» Nicholson asked, rather bluntly. «I know Bob Peet. That’s why I ask.»

  Teddy tightened his alligator belt. «Only becaus
e he’s quite spiritual, and he’s teaching a lot of stuff right now that isn’t very good for him if he wants to make any real spiritual advancement. It stimulates him too much. It’s time for him to take everything out of his head, instead of putting more stuff in. He could get rid of a lot of the apple in just this one life if he wanted to. He’s very good at meditating.» Teddy got up. «I better go now. I don’t want to be too late.»

  Nicholson looked up at him, and sustained the look—detaining him. «What would you do if you could change the educational system?» he asked ambiguously. «Ever think about that at all?»

  «I really have to go,” Teddy said.

  «Just answer that one question,” Nicholson said. «Education’s my baby, actually—that’s what I teach. That’s why I ask.»

  «Well… I’m not too sure what I’d do,” Teddy said. «I know I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t start with the things schools usually start with.» He folded his arms, and reflected briefly. «I think I’d first just assemble all the children together and show them how to meditate. I’d try to show them how to find out who they are, not just what their names are and things like that… I guess, even before that, I’d get them to empty out everything their parents and everybody ever told them. I mean even if their parents just told them an elephant’s big, I’d make them empty that out. An elephant’s only big when it’s next to something else—a dog or a lady, for example.» Teddy thought another moment. «I wouldn’t even tell them an elephant has a trunk. I might show them an elephant, if I had one handy, but I’d let them just walk up to the elephant not knowing anything more about it than the elephant knew about them. The same thing with grass, and other things. I wouldn’t even tell them grass is green. Colors are only names. I mean if you tell them the grass is green, it makes them start expecting the grass to look a certain way—your way—instead of some other way that may be just as good, and may be much better… I don’t know. I’d just make them vomit up every bit of the apple their parents and everybody made them take a bite out of.»

  «There’s no risk you’d be raising a little generation of ignoramuses?»

  «Why? They wouldn’t any more be ignoramuses than an elephant is. Or a bird is. Or a tree is,” Teddy said. «Just because something is a certain way, instead of just behaves a certain way, doesn’t mean it’s an ignoramus.»

  «No?»

  «No!» Teddy said. «Besides, if they wanted to learn all that other stuff—names and colors and things—they could do it, if they felt like it, later on when they were older. But I’d want them to begin with all the real ways of looking at things, not just the way all the other apple‑eaters look at things—that’s what I mean.» He came closer to Nicholson, and extended his hand down to him. «I have to go now. Honestly. I’ve enjoyed—»

  «Just one second‑sit down a minute,” Nicholson said. «Ever think you might like to do something in research when you grow up? Medical research, or something of that kind?

  It seems to me, with your mind, you might eventually—»

  Teddy answered, but without sitting down. «I thought about that once, a couple of years ago,” he said. «I’ve talked to quite a few doctors.» He shook his head. «That wouldn’t interest me very much. Doctors stay too right on the surface. They’re always talking about cells and things.»

  «Oh? You don’t attach any importance to cell structure?»

  «Yes, sure, I do. But doctors talk about cells as if they had such unlimited importance all by themselves. As if they didn’t really belong to the person that has them.» Teddy brushed back his hair from his forehead with one hand. «I grew my own body,” he said.

  «Nobody else did it for me. So if I grew it, I must have known how to grow it.

  Unconsciously, at least. I may have lost the conscious knowledge of how to grow it sometime in the last few hundred thousand years, but the knowledge is still there, because—obviously—I’ve used it… . It would take quite a lot of meditation and emptying out to get the whole thing back—I mean the conscious knowledge—but you could do it if you wanted to. If you opened up wide enough.» He suddenly reached down and picked up Nicholson’s right hand from the armrest. He shook it just once, cordially, and said, «Goodbye. I have to go.» And this time, Nicholson wasn’t able to detain him, he started so quickly to make his way through the aisle.

  Nicholson sat motionless for some few minutes after he left, his hands on the armrests of the chair, his unlighted cigarette still between the fingers of his left hand.

  Finally, he raised his right hand and used it as if to check whether his collar was still open. Then he lit his cigarette, and sat quite still again.

  He smoked the cigarette down to its end, then abruptly let one foot over the side of the chair, stepped on the cigarette, got to his feet, and made his way, rather quickly, out of the aisle.

  Using the forwardship stairway, he descended fairly briskly to the Promenade Deck.

  Without stopping there, he continued on down, still quite rapidly, to Main Deck. Then to A Deck. Then to B Deck. Then to C Deck. Then to D Deck.

  At D Deck the forwardship stairway ended, and Nicholson stood for a moment, apparently at some loss for direction. However, he spotted someone who looked able to guide him. Halfway down the passageway, a stewardess was sitting on a chair outside a galleyway, reading a magazine and smoking a cigarette. Nicholson went down to her, consulted her briefly, thanked her, then took a few additional steps forwardship and opened a heavy metal door that read: TO THE POOL. It opened onto a narrow, uncarpeted staircase.

  He was little more than halfway down the staircase when he heard an all‑piercing, sustained scream—clearly coming from a small, female child. It was highly acoustical, as though it were reverberating within four tiled walls.

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