Summary
While in the cab, Holden starts a conversation with the driver about the migration of ducks and fish in the pond. The driver starts getting irritated and Holden stops talking about it fearing he would drive the taxi into pole. When Holden gets to Ernie's, he has to wait to be seated and sees Ernie playing the piano and people trying to get a glimpse of Ernie of playing. Holden thought the entire place was phony from Ernie's playing to the people going crazy over it. He knew Ernie is a good piano player but thought adding the extra ripples was phony. When he is finally seated, he is given this small table behind a pole, next to a couple he thought were having a boring conversation. Then Lillian Simmons, whom Holden knows since she is friends with his brother, sees Holden and starts talking with him. She invites him to go with her and her date, a Navy guy, to go with them somewhere. Holden lies and tells them he has other things to do, and leaves.
Instead of taking another taxi, Holden walks 41 blocks to his hotel, and starts fantasizing the situation he would have with he guy who stole his gloves and says he does not really care when he loses stuff as much as other people. The more he thought about it, the more depressed he got and considered getting a drink. He is supposed to be a really good drinker and can hide it like this one situation where he and Raymond Goldfarb drank a pint of Scotch and he gets wasted while Holden had to force himself to puke. He goes back to his hotel and in the elevator, some guy is offering him sex from a prostitute. He agrees to a "throw" for 5 dollars and waits in his room for the prostitute. Then he tells us, he has never had sex before even though he had multiple opportunities too because he never knew when a girl wanted him to stop. He gets dressed up waiting for her, and when she finally comes, he does not know what to do. Her name is Sunny and makes herself comfortable and starts asking Holden how old he was. Holden wants to talk instead and tells her about his fake operation. Sunny thinks Holden won't pay her so Holden gives her 5 dollars and she tells him it was 10 and leaves to get Maurice, the guy who offered Holden sex.
After she leaves, Holden starts thinking about Allie again and how never got sore over Holden not letting him go with him to play. Then he starts telling us about how he's an Atheist and how he never liked the Disciples.
A few moments later, Maurice confronts Holden about the 5 dollars he owed him. Holden refuses to give Maurice the $5 and Maurice continues to pressure him. Then Holden insults him and Maurice finally hits him and Sunny takes the $5 from his wallet and they leave. After they left, Holden had another fantasy of him finding Maurice in the elevator again and he shoots him 6 times in the stomach.
Next morning he arranges a date with Sally Hayes who he got a letter from couple years ago. She is interested in theater and knew a lot about it, and Holden still thought she was stupid. He checked out of his hotel and went to Grand Central Station where he checked his bag into a safe box. He meets these nuns while he's eating his breakfast. They are carrying these cheap suitcases because it reminded him of Dick Slagle who had cheap suitcases compared to Holden's sophisticated ones, and did not want to get a "goddamn inferiority complex" about it. He found out they were English and history teachers who were nice but kept on reminding him of some kind of superiority, like how he ate bacon and eggs while they had toast and coffee. They started talking about Holden's English curriculum. Holden contributes $10 to them and they all go their own ways.
After breakfast Holden still had a few hours to burn. So he decided to go the park for a little bit. He stops by a record store and buys "Little Shirley Beans" for Phoebe. Then he sees this family coming from church and a little boy who Holden thought was very innocent humming the song "If a body catch a body through the rye". He buys the tickets for the shows that Sally would like because they seemed to be sophisticated and dry. He thought actors were phonies and never really liked the shows either. After that, he goes to the park and hopefully find Phoebe there. He finds one of Phoebe's schoolmates and tells him she would probably be at the museum. Holden starts reminiscing about his childhood and how he used to the museum with the school. As soon he passes by it, feels like going in, but remembers his date with Sally.
Quote
"The best thing, though, in that museum was that everybody always stayed right where it was. No body'd move. ...Nobody's be different. the only thing different would be you. Not that'd you'd be older or anything. ... You'd have an overcoat on this time" (Salinger 121)
Reaction
I thought this quote was another reflection of his views on retaining childish elements and being who you are. He thought the sculptures represented his views on change, which he didn't like. Also, not mentioned in my quote, but in the summary, was how he felt about the boy who was humming "If a body catch a body through the rye". Salinger has an innocent child just being himself sing this song to also show Holden trying to preserve child-like behaviors. It's also a cool reference to the title.
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