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Last time<\/a>, Holden \u00a0insulted Sally on their no good, very bad date and then got drinks with a sort-of old friend named Carl, whom he harasses about his sex life, as you’d expect from a teenage boy, but not from one like Holden, who sometimes acts like he’s 40. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n When we last left Holden (that is, if you could tear yourself away at the end of Chapter 19), he had just been left alone at a seedy bar, after begging not-a-friend-not-yet-a-frenemy Carl Luce to stay for another drink. Luce didn’t stay, but Holden does\u2014for another and another and another. He gets so drunk that he decides to drunk dial Sally. You read that right: Holden drunk dials Sally. \u00a0<\/em>[Informal poll: should I or should I not get an English PhD just to write a dissertation on the development of the drunk dial in American literature since the 1960s?] \u00a0And maybe the best part is that he does all this from a payphone\u2014you know, those weird-looking structures on the street you probably thought were part of a public art project until recently.<\/p>\n When Holden finally does get \u00a0Sally on the line, he tells her again, rather forcefully, that he \u00a0will \u00a0<\/em>trim her tree for her (is \u00a0that \u00a0<\/em>what the kids are calling it these days?) and she hangs up on him. Thus ends a seminal moment in world literature.<\/p>\n Afterward, Holden decides to go into Central Park to “see what the hell the ducks were doing.” Remember: It’s probably one or two AM \u00a0at this point, in the middle of winter, and all I’m thinking is that this story would end \u00a0very \u00a0<\/em>differently if Holden Caulfield had been Hilda Caulfield instead. \u00a0SPOILER ALERT: He doesn’t find any ducks. I think this is a bad sign.<\/p>\n Holden’s \u00a0freezing at this point\u2014quite literally, as his wet hair is freezing into chunks\u2014and he starts fantasizing about getting pneumonia and dying, about how everyone would act at his funeral\u2014such a drama queen! (Can you tell humor is my defense mechanism?) Luckily, at this point, which is maybe an all time low for Holden in the book, he decides to sneak home to talk to his little sister Phoebe.<\/p>\n Pretty much as soon as he gets home and sees Phoebe, who’s asleep in their older brother’s enormous bed, Holden starts feeling good<\/em>. Not just “not bad,” but actually good<\/em>. Hmm… just going on a hunch here, but *maybe* Holden’s suffering from a bit of a Peter Pan syndrome, maybe, despite all his bluster, he doesn’t want to grow up? Again, just a hunch…<\/p>\n When Holden does wake Phoebe up, she’s absolutely thrilled to see him and immediately begins telling him about everything that’s going on in her life. And then she realizes \u00a0he’s home early and that he got kicked out and she’s so furious she refuses to talk to him. So Holden launches into a long monologue about why he hated Pencey. He tells her about all the phonies and mean guys and corny jokes.<\/p>\n “I just didn’t like anything that was hap<\/em>pening at Pencey,” he concludes. “I can’t explain.”<\/p>\n “You don’t like \u00a0any<\/em>thing that’s happening,” Phoebe zings back.<\/p>\n And after she says that, Holden says, sure he does, but then can’t think of anything other than this guy named James Castle, from one of his old boarding schools, who jumped out of his dorm window when he was being bullied. He doesn’t say that to Phoebe, though. After a long silence, he says he likes \u00a0Allie and hanging out\u2014”talking and thinking about stuff.”<\/p>\n But Phoebe, who seems to be the voice of \u00a0capitalism, says hanging out “isn’t anything \u00a0real<\/em>ly!” She demands that \u00a0Holden name something he “like to \u00a0be<\/em>. Like a scientist. Or a \u00a0law<\/em>yer or something.”<\/p>\n Holden doesn’t want to \u00a0be \u00a0<\/em>any of those things, though. What he would like to be is a catcher in the rye, the person who, he imagines, \u00a0stands at the edge of a cliff, before a meadow filled with thousands of little kids running around and playing without watching where there going, and \u00a0so he, the catcher in the rye, would catch those who got too close to the edge, would save them from falling off…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Catcher’s \u00a0<\/em>Index:<\/strong><\/p>\n Pretty accurate description of my morning: \u00a0swimming around in a goddam pot of tea<\/p>\n Phrase that could’ve been copped from The Beatles: The sun only comes out when it feels like coming out.<\/p>\n The way home smells: It isn’t cauliflower and it isn’t perfume.<\/p>\n Grossest \u00a0adjective use: She gets very fisty when she feels like it.<\/p>\n Sweetest moment: I could tell by the back of her that she was listening<\/p>\n Moment that reminded me most of a Robert Frost poem: darker and darker and spookier and spookier<\/p>\n …And some Dr. Seuss rhymes on fleek: everything creaks<\/strong> and squeaks…<\/strong> I was afraid my parents might hear me sneaking<\/strong> in.<\/p>\n Sentence that best encapsulates the whole book: It was just very cold and nobody around anywhere.<\/p>\n What a few of my friends still haven’t learned: But she was listening, at least. If somebody listens, it’s not too bad.<\/p>\n Pseudo-philosophical moment that actually didn’t feel so pseudo: Even if you \u00a0did \u00a0<\/em>go around saving guys’ lives and all, how would you know if you did it because \u00a0you really \u00a0wanted \u00a0<\/em>to save guys’ lives, or because you did it because what you \u00a0really \u00a0<\/em>wanted to do was be a terrific lawyer, with everybody slapping you on the back and congratulating you in court when the goddam trial was over, the reporters and everybody, the way it is in the dirty movies? How would you know you weren’t being a phony?<\/p>\n If you’re following along at home, this post covers chapters 20, 21, and 22. Catch up here<\/a>!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last time, Holden \u00a0insulted Sally on their no good, very bad date and then got drinks with a sort-of old friend named Carl, whom he harasses about his sex life, as you’d expect from a continue reading<\/span>