22 Out-of-print J. D. Salinger Stories

by J. D. Salinger

  While I am quite frankly skimming over on the debit side, I ought to point out, regretfully, that the great percentage of your children, Bessie and Les, if you have not already repaired to the diversions of the lobby, have a fairly terrible capacity for experiencing pain that does not always properly belong to them. Sometimes this very pain has been shirked by a total stranger, perhaps a lazy chap in California or Louisiana, whom we have not even had the pleasure of meeting and exchanging words with. Speaking for your absent son Buddy as well as myself, I see no way to quit experiencing a little pain, here and there, till we have fulfilled our opportunities and obligations in the present, interesting, humorous bodies. Half the pain around, unfortunately, quite belongs to somebody else who either shirked it or did not know how to grasp it firmly by the handle! However, when we have fulfilled our opportunities and obligations. Dear Bessie and Les, I give you my word that we will depart in good conscience and humor for a change, which we have never entirely done in the past. Again speaking for your beloved son Buddy, who should be back any moment, I also give you my word of honor that one of us will be present at the other chap's departure for various reasons; it is quite in the cards, to the best of my knowledge. I am not painting a gloomy picture! This will not be tomorrow by a long shot! I personally will live at least as long as a well-preserved telephone pole, a generous matter of thirty (30) years or more, which is surely nothing to snicker at. Your son Buddy has even longer to go, you will freely rejoice to know. In the happy interim, Bessie, please ask Les to read these next remarks when or if he returns from the lobby or any other enjoyable place of his choice. Les, I beg you to be patient with us in your leisure time. Try your utmost not to mind too much and get very blue when we don't remind you very freely and movingly of other regular boys, perhaps boys from your own childhood. At frequent black moments, swiftly recall in your heart that we are exceedingly regular boys from the word go, merely ceasing to be very regular when something slightly important or crucial comes up. My God, I utterly refuse to wound you with further discussion of this kind, but I cannot honestly erase any of the previous, sweeping, tasteless remarks. I am afraid they must stand. Also, it would not be doing you a true favor if I did erase them. Largely through my own cheap softness and cowardice, you have twice before in previous appearances gently neglected to face up to similar issues; I have no idea if I could stand to see you repeat this pain. Postponed pain is among the most abominable kind to experience. For a pleasant change, here is a cheerful and quite uplifting bit of news to put under your belts. It quite takes my own personal breath away. Either this coming winter or the winter which briskly follows, you, Bessie, Les, Buddy, and the undersigned will all be going to one of the most pregnant and important parties that Buddy and I will ever attend, either in each other's harmonious company or quite alone. At this party, entirely in the night time, we will meet a man, very over weight, who will make us a slightly straightforward business and career offer at his leisure; it will involve our easy, charming prowess as singers and dancers, but this is very far from all it will involve. He, this corpulent man, will not too seriously change the regular, normal course of our childhood and early, amusing youth by this business offer, but I can assure you that the surface upheaval will be quite enormous. However, that is only half my glimpse. Personally speaking, quite from a full heart, the other half is more after my own heart and comfort. The other half presents a stunning glimpse of Buddy, at a later date by innumerable years, quite bereft of my dubious, loving company, writing about this very party on a very large, jet-black, very moving, gorgeous typewriter. He is smoking a cigarette, occasionally clasping his hands and placing them on the top of his head in a thoughtful, exhausted manner. His hair is gray; he is older than you arc now, Les! The veins in his hands are slightly prominent in the glimpse, so I have not mentioned the matter to him at all, partially considering his youthful prejudice against veins showing in poor adults' hands. So it goes. You would think this particular glimpse would pierce the casual witness's heart to the quick, disabling him utterly, so that he could not bring himself to discuss the glimpse in the least with his beloved, broadminded family. This is not exactly the case; it mostly makes me take an exceedingly deep breath as a simple, brisk measure against getting dizzy. It is his room that pierces me more than anything else. It is all his youthful dreams realized to the full! It has one of those beautiful windows in the ceiling that he has always, to my absolute knowledge, fervently admired from a splendid reader's distance! All round about him, in addition, are exquisite shelves to hold his books, equipment, tablets, sharp pencils, ebony, costly typewriter, and other stirring, personal effects. Oh, my God, he will be overjoyed when he sees that room, mark my words! It is one of the most smiling, comforting glimpses of my entire life and quite possibly with the least strings attached. In a reckless manner of speaking, I would far from object if that were practically the last glimpse of my life. However, those two, tantalizing, tiny portals in my mind I mentioned last year are still far from closed; another brisk year or so will probably turn the tide. If it were up to me, I would gladly shut the portals myself; in only three or four cases, such as the present one, is the nature of the glimpse worth the wear and tear on one's normalness and blessed peace of mind, as well as the unembarrassment of one's parents. I quite ask you, though, to imagine how marvelous it is to see this chap, your son Buddy, spring in a trice from a lad of five, who has already lost his heart to every pencil in the universe, into a mature, swarthy author! How I wish I could lie on a pleasant cloud in the distant future, perhaps with a good, firm, Northern Spy apple, and read every single word he writes about this eventful, pregnant party in the offing! The first thing I hope this gifted chap describes, as a quite mature, swarthy author, is the beautiful positions of the bodies in the living room before we leave the house on the night in question. The most beautiful thing in the world, in a fairly large family g6ing out to a party or even a casual restaurant, is the easy going, impatient positions of all the bodies in the living room while everybody is waiting for some slowpoke to get ready! I mentally implore the touching, gray-haired author of the distant future to begin with the beautiful positions of the bodies in the living room; in my opinion, it is the most beautiful place to begin! I give you my word of honor that I find the entire glimpse of the evening quite a sober joy to behold, from start to finish. I find it magnificent how beautiful, loose ends find each other in the world if one only waits with decent patience, resilience, and quite blind strength. Les, if you have returned from the lobby, I know you toy honorably with disbelief in God or Providence, or which ever word you find less maddening or embarrassing, but I give you my word of honor, on this sultry, memorable day of my life, that one cannot even light a casual cigarette unless the artistic permission of the universe is freely given! Permission is too broad, but somebody's head must freely nod before the cigarette can be touched to the flame of the match. This is also too broad, I regret with my entire body to say. I am convinced God will kindly wear a human head, quite capable of nodding, for the benefit of some admirer who enjoys picturing Him that way, but I personally am not partial to His wearing a human head and would perhaps turn on my heel and walk away if He put one on for my dubious benefit. This is an exaggeration, to be sure; I would be powerless to walk away from Him, of all people, even if my life depended on it. To my amusement, I am sitting here, quite suddenly, alone in the abandoned bungalow, crying or weeping, which ever you prefer to say. It will pass in a trice, I don't doubt but it is saddening and exhausting to realize in unguarded interludes what a young bore I am, seventy-five to eighty per cent of my life so far. I am freely saddling you, one and all, parent and child, with a very long, boring letter, quite filled to the brim with my stilted flow of words and thoughts. Speaking in my own behalf, it is less my fault than quickly meets the eye; among many, onerous things, it is all too easy for a boy of my dubious age and experience to fall easy prey to fustian, poor taste, and unwanted spurts of showing off. As God is m
y judge I am working on it, but it is a taxing struggle without a magnificent teacher I can turn to with absolute abandon and trust. If one has no magnificent teacher, one is obliged to install one in one's mind; it is a perilous thing to do if you were born cravenhearted, as I was. In my own, transparent defense, however, I have been lying here all day picturing your faces, Bessie and Les, combined with the haunting, fresh faces of the children, so the need to be in excessive touch with you is circumstantial. "Damn braces, bless relaxes!" cried the splendid William Blake. This is quite right, but it is not very easy on splendid families and nice people who get a little nervous or worn to a frazzle when their loving, eldest son and brother is damning braces all over the place.

  The reason I am in bed is fairly amusing, and I have delayed all too long in mentioning it, but it does not consume my personal interest as much as it might. Yesterday was rife with one trivial misfortune after another. After breakfast, every Midget and Intermediate in the entire camp was obliged to go strawberrying, possibly the last dubious opportunity of the season. In the course of the morning, I wounded my damned leg. We drove miles and miles to where the strawberry patches were in a little, ramshackle, old-fashioned, maddening cart, quite fake, drawn by two horses where at least four were required. The cart had a ridiculous piece of iron sticking out of the hub of one of the wooden wheels, penetrating my thigh or femur a good inch and three-quarters or two inches as we were pushing the God forsaken cart out of the mud; it had rained cats and dogs previously, on the day before, making the road entirely crappy for a strawberry expedition. With a dash of maddening melodrama, I was rushed to the infirmary, possibly three miles to the rear, on the back of Mr. Happy's also God forsaken motorcycle. It had several fleeting, humorous moments. Quite in the first place, `it is very hard for me, I regret to say, to be less than contemptuous and scathing around Mr. Happy personally. I am working on it, but that man brings to the fore supplies of hidden malice I thought I had worked out of my system years ago. In my own, flimsy defense, let me suggest that a man thirty years of age has no earthly business forcing small, useless boys to push a damnable, fake cart out of the mud where a veritable team of four or six, young, stalwart horses was really required. My malice shot forward like a snake. I told him on the motorcycle before we started back that Buddy and I, as he well knew, were experienced, fairly talented singers and dancers, like our parents, though still amateurs. I suggested that you would probably sue him, Les, for every dime he had in the event that I lost my ridiculous leg from infection, loss of blood, or gangrene. He pretended not to mind or heed this utter nonsense, which it was; nevertheless, it didn't do his driving any good, twice nearly killing us before we reached our destination. Although, from my point of view entirely, it was risible situation from the word go. Fortunately, I find that if a situation is funny or risible enough, I tend to bleed less profusely. On the other hand, while I personally enjoy attributing the stopping of the bleeding to the humor of the situation, it is possible that the damnable motorcycle seat was resting against a pressure point; my pressure points are usually quite springy, with a pleasant pulse. What is beyond debate is that Mr. Happy was far from delighted to see the blood of a young camper, connected with him merely by enrollment and money, distributed on the back of his new motorcycle, seat, wheel, fender, and tire sides. There was no question of regarding it as his own; he would not even regard Mrs. Happy's blood as his own, so how would he feel a human connection with the blood of a strange child with prominent, quite ugly, ludicrous features?

  At the infirmary, a comical shambles, though possibly clean as a whistle in the last analysis, Miss Culgerry cleaned the wound and bandaged me. She is a young girl and registered nurse, age unknown to me, far from gorgeous or lovely, but with a trim, superb body, which most of the counselors and one or two of the Seniors are trying very hard to make physical love to before they have to go back to college. It is the old story, I am afraid. She is a quiet person without any private resources or ability to make sound, first-hand decisions. Under the countless surfaces, she is confused and disastrously excited to be the only available, female beauty in the camp, Mrs. Happy being out of the picture. A sober, passive girl with a voice that sounds very competent in the infirmary, she gives the impression of always keeping her head in a ticklish situation, but it is merely a heartrending pose. In a cruel manner of speaking, this young woman may well have lost her head before she was born; it is certainly not on her shoulders at this stage of the game. Only her deceptive voice, which sounds quite cool and competent, in the mess hall as well as the infirmary, is keeping her out of the complete clutches of the counselors and Seniors mentioned above, who are all young, very healthy, very gross in safe numbers, and quite cruelly attentive to susceptible girls, particularly if they are not of classic beauty. The situation is alarming and worrisome, but my hands are tied. One knows at first glance that she has never discussed anything quite frankly with either child or adult acquaintances, so there is no approaching her in this matter; however, with another full month of camp life to go, I personally would not answer for her safety if she were my child. The question of virginity, to be sure, is a ticklish one; what criteria I have carefully read on the subject are quite open to question and heated debate, but that is not the point in question here. The point in question here is that this lass, Miss Culgerry, perhaps twenty-five years old, with no true, private head on her shoulders, coupled with a voice that deceptively sounds competent and full of excellent horse sense, is in no position to decide with intensive, personal honor and forethought about such an important matter as her own pretty maidenhead; this is my forward opinion. It is, of course, no better or more final, to my regret, than the forward opinion of any other person on the face of the earth. Without keeping up a merciless guard, day and night, the variety of forward opinions in this world could easily destroy one's sanity; I am not exaggerating; in the last analysis, how long can one carry on with rotten, unreliable criteria, very touching and human to examine, respect, and uphold, but entirely liable to go to pieces with a sharp change of company or passing scenery? You ask me many times in the course of my life, Bessie dear, why I drive myself like a humorous dog; in a fragmentary sense, that is exactly why I drive myself. Quite in the first place, I am the eldest boy in our personal family. Think how practical, pleasant, and thrilling it would be if one could open one's mouth, from time to time, and something other than sheer, forward, unreliable opinion came out! Unfortunately, a young jackass of the first water, I am weeping slightly as I make this remark. There is quite a bit of cause to weep, fortunately. If you jump to the conclusion that I regard one thing as personal opinion, such as the loss or preservation of a damsel's virginity, and some other thing as quite unassailable, respectable fact, you will be jumping to a very pleasant, easy going conclusion, but you will be bitterly wrong. Bitterly is too broad, but you will miss the terrible mark by a mile. I have never seen a quite unassailable, respectable fact that was not the first cousin, at least, if not closer, to personal opinion. Let us say, if you can stomach a small, passing explanation, that you leisurely come home from a matinee performance, dear Bessie, and soberly ask the person who opened the door for you, myself, your crazy son, Seymour Glass, if the twins have had their bath yet. I will heartily reply yes. My firm, personal opinion is that I have personally deposited their wiry, elusive bodies in the tub and have personally insisted that they use the soap and not just get water all over the floor and generally squirt around. My young hands are even still wet from my offices! One is tempted to say that this is unassailable, respectable fact that the twins have been bathed, as desired! It is not! It is not even unassailable respectable fact that the twins are home! There is even quite a question of pressing doubt, in the last analysis, I daresay that any marvelous twins, with snappy tongues and amusing ears, have ever joined our family at any time in the past! For the dubious satisfaction of calling anything in this beautiful, maddening world an unassailable, respectable fact, we are quite firmly oblige
d, like good-humored prisoners, to fall back on the flimsy information offered in excellent faith by our eves, hands, ears, and simple, heartrending brains. Do you call that a superb criterion? I do not! It is very touching, without a shadow of a doubt, but it is far, far from superb. It is utter, blind reliance on heartrending, personal agencies. You are familiar with the expression "go- between;" even the human brain is a charming go-between! I was born without any looming confidence in any go-between on the face of the earth, I am afraid, an unfortunate situation, to be sure, but I have no business failing to take a moment to tell you the cheerful truth of the matter. Here, however, we move quite closer to the crux of the constant turmoil in my ridiculous breast. While I have no confidence whatsoever in go-betweens, personal opinion, and unassailable, respectable facts, I am also, in my heart, exceedingly fond of them all; I am hopelessly touched to the quick at the bravery of every magnificent human being accepting this charming, flimsy information every heartrending moment of his life! My God, human beings are brave creatures! Every last, touching coward on the face of the earth is unspeakably, brave! Imagine accepting all these flimsy, personal agencies at charming, face value! Quite at the same time, to be sure, it is a vicious circle. I am sadly convinced that it would be a gentle, durable favor to everybody if someone broke through this vicious circle. One often wishes, however, there were not such a damn rush about it. One is never more separated from one's charming, loved ones than when one even ponders this delicate matter.

  Unfortunately, there is a great rush about it in my own case; I am quite referring to the shortness of this appearance. What I am seeking, with the very ample but in some ways quite scrawny amount of time left in this appearance, is a solution to the problem that is both honorable and unheartless. Here, however, I drop the subject like a hot potato; I have merely scratched one of its myriad surfaces. Upon bandaging my leg very badly and amusingly, as well as keeping up a cool, falsely competent conversation that could drive one to drink if unsupported by a little self-control, Miss Culgerry sent me back to my bungalow, with an amusing crutch, to wait for the doctor to come from the town of Hapworth, where he lives and has his dubious practice. He, the doctor, arrived shortly after third mess, transporting me back to the infirmary to take eleven (11) stitches in my leg. A disagreeable problem arose in this connection, quite damnable. I was offered a touch of anesthesia, which I politely declined. Quite in the first place, way back on Mr. Happy's damnable motorcycle, I had snapped the communication of pain between the leg and the brain, sheerly for my own convenience. I had not used the method since the little accident involving my jawbone and lips last summer. One sometimes despairs that anything peculiar one learns will ever come in handy more than once or even just once, but it surely does, with a little patience; I have even used the clove knot on two occasions since we got here, which I thought would surely go down the drain! When I politely declined the anesthesia, the doctor assumed I was showing off, Mr. Happy, at his side, sharing this maddening opinion. Like a born fool, which I can assure you I am, I foolishly demonstrated that I had snapped the communication of pain utterly. It would have been more foolish and quite offensive to tell them straight to their falsely patient faces that I prefer not to allow myself or any child in the family to give up his or her state of consciousness for flimsy reasons; until I get further word on the subject, the human state of consciousness is dubiously precious to me. After several minutes of heated, rotten debate with Mr. Happy, I exacted the doctor's consent to sew up the wound while I was pleasantly conscious. This is a ridiculously painful subject to you, dear Bessie, I know from previous experience, but I can assure you that it is a splendid convenience for me, from time to time, to have a face humorously speaking, that only a mother could love, with a foul nose and a chin as weak as water. If I had been a fairly handsome boy, with fairly charming features, I am quite convinced they would have made me take the anesthesia. This is nobody's fault, swiftly be assured; being human beings with personal opinions and brains, we are respondent to any shreds of beauty we can get; I myself am hopelessly respondent to it!