Allie

I had to write a composition for Stradlater, where I was supposed to describe a house or a room or something. But I'm not too crazy about describing rooms and houses anyway. So what I did, I wrote about my brother Allie's baseball mitt.

He was left-handed. The thing that was descriptive about it, though, was that he had poems written all over the fingers and the pocket and everywhere. In green ink. He wrote them on it so that he'd have something to read when he was in the field and nobody was up to bat. He's dead now. He got leukemia and died when we were up in Maine, on July 18, 1946.

Stradlater read it while he was stroking his bare chest and stomach with this stupid expression. Then suddenly he said, "For Chrissake, Holden. This is about a goddamn baseball glove."

Then I said "So what?" Cold as hell.

Stradlater's a goddamn hot-shot, he is. He thinks he's all mighty and handsome and that everyone wants to do favors for him because he's so great. But what the hell's the difference if it's about a baseball glove? He asked me to do his goddamn composition for him, and that's what I did.

Then all of a sudden I imagined Allie there, watching Stradlater getting sore. But Allie wouldn't get mad, he never got mad at anyone. He'd just stand there with his red hair, all quiet, though. And I'd be really sorry I wrote about his baseball glove for someone who didn't give a damn about his poems.

So I just said, "All right, give it back to me, then." I went over and pulled it out of his goddamn hand. Then I tore it up.