Chapter 5

On a Sauturday night at Pencey we always had steak. It was supposed to be some big deal. You should have seen them. They were these little hard jobs that were dry as hell. You could hardly even cut the goddamn things. After dinner Mal Brossard and I decided to go for a hamburger and go see a movie. I invited Ackley along with us because he never goes out on a Saturday. It took him about five goddamn hours to get ready. Ackley and Mal had already seen the movie that was showing, so we got back to the dorm at about quarter to nine. Ackley came back to my room and started talking about some girl that he was supposed to have had sexual intercourse with the summer before. He'd already told me about a thousand times. He was a virgin if I ever saw one. Finally I told him he had to clear the hell out because I had to do that goddamn composition for Stradlater.
When I was ready I couldn't think of a thing to write. I'm not too crazy about describing houses and rooms or anything anyway. So finally I decided to write about my brother Allie's baseball mitt. The thing that was descriptive about it was that it had poems written all over the fingers and the pocket and everywhere. He did it so he would have something to read when he was in the field and nobody was up at bat. He's dead now. He got leukemia and died on July 18th 1946. He was terrifically intelligent. People with red hair are supposed to get really mad, but Allie didn't, and he had very red hair. He really did. God, he was a nice kid. I slept in the garage the night he died and broke all the goddamn windows with my fists, just for the hell of it. My hand still hurts once in a while, when it rains and all, and I can't really make a fist anymore. I mean, it's not like i'm going to be a goddamn surgeon or a violinist or anything like that anyway.
Anyway, old Allie's baseball mitt, that's what I wrote Stradlaters composition about. I had it with me in my suitcase so I copied the poems out and all. I sort of liked writing about it.
It was around ten-thrity when I finished. I wasn't even that tired. I looked out of the window and every now and again you could hear a car not being able to get started. And right through the goddamn shower curtains you could hear old Ackley snoring. He had sinus trouble and couldn't breathe too hot. That guy had just about everything that nobody else wanted. You had to feel a little sorry for the crazy sonuvabitch.