A Page from Holden Caulfield’s Diary

Hey,

I wish I was in a museum, you know, or maybe the woods somewhere, away from all the hot-shot doctors in this place, like the kind you see in movies who walk around big fancy hospitals and pull bullets out of people as if they were actually dying, which they’re not because they’re all phony actors. If they really did die, people would probably throw some sort of crummy funeral anyway with flowers and eulogies and all that crap that doesn’t really matter because they’re dead and they’re not coming back. Everyone dies eventually and those people that are crying are not really sad, they’re just crying because everyone else is crying and in a few weeks, they probably won’t be crying at all because they’ll forget, and at that point the flowers will even be dead and it won’t even matter.

Why do they even write this crap anyway? It’s all about the money, I bet, those phonies spend all day making up stories about people that aren’t even real. My brother D.B. is one of them. He visited me yesterday and I told him, I said, “You know, you’re a real moron for writing that crap, you really are,” and he laughed at me because he’s a hot-shot too and then he asked if I had taken my meds and I said yes, even though I hadn’t, because I don’t care and I don’t want him to be my brother anymore. I just want to live with Phoebe because she understands about the hot-shots. She’s smart, she really is. If Allie were alive, I’d want to live with him, too. But he’s not. I hate that.

I bet Allie would look good in my red hunting hat but those phonies wouldn’t let me bring it in here. Said it might scare some of the sick people here, or something like that. Godd**n morons. They let me bring Allie’s baseball glove, though, with all his poems. He was smart too, Allie, maybe even smarter than Phoebe. The doctors said writing might help me too but I told them a drink might help me more because writing couldn’t help me unless I was gone like Allie, but they didn’t laugh at that, which left me blue. If you want to know the truth, I didn’t really want any drinks because they make me feel lousy and because those rich guys in suits sit around drinking and looking sharp and talking about how sharp they think they look when really they look like a bunch of phonies, talking about their money and girls and all.

Most girls are phony, anyway, especially Sally what’s-her-name. She tried to visit me yesterday, too. She felt bad, she said, about yelling at me at the skating rink because maybe if she hadn’t, I might not be in here, she said, and she started crying which should have made me feel crummy but Sally was a stupid girl, anyway, and I didn’t want to see her. I asked her though, just in case, if she had changed her mind about running away with me to the woods to escape the business suits and hot-shots and all but she said no and cried some more so I told her to go away. It made me feel lousy, if you want to know the truth, because Sally was a nice girl. I wondered if maybe she could dance because dancing is swell but then I remembered she couldn’t skate which makes me think she’d probably be a crummy dancer, too, so I started to feel lousy again. I even asked one of those hot-shot doctors for a cigarette but they said no and asked if I had taken my meds. I said yes again, even though I hadn’t because what do they care if I took them? They’re not sick so why do they care? Bunch of phonies.

I almost wish I was back at Pencey Prep, you know, with Ackley and Jane and maybe even Stradlater if he stopped being a secret slob and asking Jane for the time. That made me feel really crummy when he did that. Jane’s a nice girl, too. We almost necked once, you know, when we were kids. She was crying about her stepdad or something and she wouldn’t stop so I just started kissing her. Not on her mouth, just on her face because she didn’t want me to kiss her on the mouth. I don’t know why but it left me feeling blue when she didn’t. I bet Stradlater kissed her on the mouth though when he asked for the time. That kills me. It really does.

But mostly I want to be in the museum because everything stays the same there. Everything stays in those little glass cases and never moves, not even to ask if I’ve taken my meds yet or why I dropped out of school again. And I bet someone there knows where the ducks go and I can stop asking the taxi drivers that give me angry looks like I’m some kind of phony or something. Maybe when I’m not sick anymore, Phoebe and I can go and we can look in the glass cases and everything staying the same and we can be happy and I don’t have to go back to Pencey Prep or anywhere. I know that’s not possible but it’s too bad anyway.

The hot shots are saying it’s time to go now, but I told them “I ain’t going anywhere” like some sharp guy in a movie or something, but not really because I hate that, and now they’re saying they’ll cut out my visitor hours which would be fine but I really want to see Phoebe and maybe D.B. again if he stops being a phony, so I probably have to finish up.

Sleep tight, ya morons!

– Rudolf Schmidt (or Holden Caulfield, if you want to know the truth)

Image via MetaLifeStream.com