Holden and Jane, take 2
Mattis Fishman (mattis@argos.argoscomp.com)
Mon, 18 Jan 1999 17:11:05 -0500 (EST)
Hello friends,
As I hinted at the time of its posting, the first transcript of
Holden and Jane's conversation was probably not authentic, having
been obtained from the presidential aarchives in Yorba Linda and
having a unexplained gap of some minutes. I hope to have finally
found a more authoritative version, whose tone clearly underscores
the forgery of the first version.
all the best,
Mattis
----- transcript ----
"Hello?"
"Hello, Jane?"
"Is this, is this Holden?"
"Yeah, sure it is, it's me Holden. It's been such a long time,
how did you know?
"I think I've just realized that every time I answered the phone I was
expecting to hear your voice. Isn't that funny, I mean every time the
the phone rang, with each wrong number for heaven's sake, I was
disappointed that it wasn't you, and I didn't even know it. Isn't that funny?
How *are* you?"
"I'm fine Jane, I really am. I think if I weren't I wouldn't deserve to
speak to you now. You don't know how many times I thought about calling
you."
"You don't have to tell me. I read your book, you know. It was part of
my introductory psych class."
"I think everyone has read it, if you want to know. Even old Stradlater read
it. Do you know what? He wrote me a long letter basically saying that he
thought that *he* was the only person who even went through that sort of thing."
"I thought I was the only one, too."
"That's just it, Jane. Everyone always thinks that they're the only one,
what conceit! Someone once asked me how to become humble and I told him,
first truly accept the fact that there are other people in the world, anything
after that will be easy."
"Holden?"
"Yes?"
"Would you mind telling me what happened after the book's ending, after you
went home?"
"Well, you probably figured out that I had some sort of break down. They
didn't know if it was exhaustion or some kind of nervous collapse, but they
ended up bringing me to one of those small private hospitals that used to
be called sanitariums. The doctor there was all for trying out his new
electroshock therapy equipment."
"Did they do that to you, Holden, did they?"
"No, no, do you know what happened? My father, bless his soul, came down
and made a big fuss. He said that the educational experts made a mess
of my education, and that he would be damned if the psychology experts
made a mess of my psychology. He told them that if they thought they
needed to cure his son, they had better apply the shocks to him,
he signed me out of there against medical advice and brought me to
this little place in Indianapolis."
"Was that better, I mean, what did they do there?"
"Well, after letting me sleep and getting some food into me at last, they
eventually got around to telling me that I was going to write my own
prescription."
"How did they expect you to do that?"
"Expect, that's just the right word, Jane. They gave me a desk
and told me that they had every reason to be confident that I could
see things clearly enough to write down the events that led up to my
ending up in the hospital. I managed to write for about four hours a
day, and after a year or so handed the pile of papers to the doctor."
"You mean you just sat down and pounded out that wonderful book?"
"Oh no, hardly. My brother, D. B., would come every month or so and
he did the editing. He gave me a lot of coaching, too.
But the style is almost all his, he says it took him years of writing
screenplays to learn how to handle his pen like a camera.
Most of that came later, though, when we published the book. It took me a
while to decide to do that."
"So what happened when you gave the manuscript to the doctor?"
"He read it, of course. He came back the next day and said that if I was
crazy, then so was he. He said that I was probably the sanest person he knew
and he gave me a certificate to prove it."
"That was it? A certificate, did that do any good?"
"Not directly, no, but.."
"But how?"
"Well, I don't think I looked at it much for about a year, but one day
I took it out and I noticed that up in the letterhead they had their
motto. You know, like on a little banner below the address."
"What'd it say?"
"It said, 'Pretend to be good, and even God will be fooled'.
Oh, one second, Jane"
"Not now, sweetheart, Daddy's on the telephone"
...
"All right, go ahead and ask, but just one"
...
"Who's there?"
...
"Banana who? Banana you glad I didn't say orange?"
...
"No?"
...
"Oh, orange you glad I didn't say banana! That's good, I never
heard that one."
...
"No, I said only one. You can ask me later, okay?"
"Okay, Jane."
"Was that your little girl?"
"Little boy. I have a baby girl too. Do you have any?"
"A teenage son. He reminds me of you, Holden, sometimes."
"Isn't that the best thing about children? I mean they remind us of
everything."
You know I work with children."
"Really, what do you do?"
"I am a teacher, a sort of camp counsellor, and surrogate big brother in a
school for children with Down Syndrome, you know, what they call mongolism.
I started not long after I came out of the hospital. I've been doing it
for a long time now."
"Oh."
"That's okay, it leaves me speechless too. There is only so many times
you can describe what it's like to do something that can only be
understood by doing it, so I don't even try."
"I was only thinking that you got your wish, you know, to be a catcher
in the rye, only in reverse. I bet you are proudest when they are ready
to graduate."
"Not all of them do, you understand. But I make sure to teach them all one
thing."
"What's that?"
"I teach them a little prayer I saw written on the inside cover of one of
the books in the doctor's library, back when I was in Indianapolis.
It goes: 'God, let me be kind to myself, so that I may be kind to others'."
"That's a nice prayer, Holden."
"Isn't it, Jane?
I have to go now, good bye."
"Good bye, Holden, thanks for calling."