Well ladies and gentlemen this is where I conclude my story I refuse to discuss what happened after this day in the park with Phoebe, although I will say that I went home, got sick, and was sent to the rest home from which I now have told my story. I wished I hadn’t talked about my experiences so much in the first place, even to D. B. He still comes and visit me in the rest home. Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody. I miss everybody.

After leaving Mr. Antolini’s, I went to the Grand Central Station and spent the night sleeping on a bench in the waiting room. The next day, I walked up and down Fifth Avenue, watching the children and feeling more and more nervous and overwhelmed. Every time I crossed a street, I felt like I would disappear, so each time I reached a curb, I called to Allie, pleading with him to let me make it to the other side. I decided to leave New York, hitchhike west, and never go home or to school again. I imagined living as a mute, never talking to anybody, and marrying a deaf-mute girl.

I went to Phoebe’s school and wrote her a note telling her to meet me at the Museum of Art so I could give the money she lent him. As I wandered around my old school, I became even more depressed when I found the words “f**k you” scrawled on the walls.
While waiting at the museum, I showed two young kids where the mummies were. I lead them down the hallway to the tomb exhibit, but they got scared and ran off, leaving me alone in the dark, cramped passage. I liked it at first, but then I saw another “f**k you” written on the wall. When I die, I bet somebody will probably write the words “f**k you” on my tombstone. I left the exhibit to wait for Phoebe. On the way to the bathroom, I sort of passed out.

Phoebe arrived at the museum with a suitcase and begs me to take her with me. I felt dizzy and I worried that I would pass out again. I told her that she cannot possibly go with me and I felt even closer to fainting. She got really angry, and refused to look at me, and returned my hunting hat. I told her I wouldn’t go away and I asked her to go back to school. She angrily refuses, and I offered to take her to the zoo.

We walk to the zoo, I was on one side of the street, Phoebe following angrily on the other. After looking at some animals, we walk to the park, now on the same side of the street, although still not quite together. We came to the carousel, and I convinced Phoebe to ride it. I sat on a park bench, watching her go around and around. We seemed to be getting along again, she put my red hunting hat on my head, and suddenly I felt so happy I felt like crying.

When I arrived at Mr. Antolini’s, Mr. Antolini and his wife have just wrapped up a dinner party in their upscale Sutton Place apartment. Glasses and dishes were everywhere, and I could tell that Mr. Antolini had been drinking. As Mrs. Antolini prepares coffee, Mr. Antolini inquires about me getting kicked out from Pencey Prep. I just told him that I disliked the rules and regulations at Pencey Prep. for a example, my debate class in which students were penalized for digressing from their subject. Digressions are more interesting. Instead of offering complete sympathy, Mr. Antolini gently challenges me, pointing out that digressions are often distracting, and that sometimes it is more interesting and appropriate to stick to the topic. I began to see the weakness of his argument and I became uncomfortable. But Mrs. Antolini cut the tension, bringing coffee for us before going to bed.

“I have a feeling that you’re riding for some kind of terrible, terrible fall, he told me that he is worried about me because I parentally primed for a major fall, a fall that will leave me frustrated and embittered against the rest of the world, particularly against the sort of boys I hated at school. I became all defensive and argued that I actually, after a while, grown to semi-like guys like Ackley and Stradlater. After an awkward silence, Mr. Antolini further explains the “fall”, saying that it is experienced by men who cannot deal with the environment around them. But he told me that if I applied myself in school,I would learn that many men and women have been similarly disturbed and troubled by the human condition, and I will also learn a great deal about my own mind. I was interested in what Mr. Antolini had to say, but I was exhausted. I could no longer keep in it, I yawned. Mr. Antolini chuckled, and we both made up the couch, and, after some small talk about girls, I went to sleep.

Suddenly, I woke up; I felt Mr. Antolini’s hand stroking my head. Mr. Antolini claimed it was nothing, but I still believe Mr. Antolini was making a homosexual advance and I hurried out of the apartment.

I left Phoebe’s room to call Mr. Antolini, the English teacher at Elkton Hills. Mr. Antolini was shocked that I been kicked out of another school and invited me to stay the night at his house. Mr. Antolini was the only teacher who approached James Castle’s body after his death, the only one who demonstrated any kindness in the situation. I went back into Phoebe’s room and asked her to dance. After a few numbers, I heard the front door open— our parents had come home from the dinner party. I tried to fan away my lingering cigarette smoke and jumped in the closet. Mother came in to tuck Phoebe in, and I hid until she left. I said goodbye to Phoebe, letting her know of my plan to leave New York and move out west alone. She let me the Christmas money she’d been saving. I left for Mr. Antolini’s. On the way out I gave her my red hunting hat. My red hunting hat.

I returned to Phoebe’s room and eventually got her to listen. I tried to explain why i failed my classes and told her all the things I hated about school. She accused me of hating everything. She challenged me to name one thing I liked. All of a sudden I I got preoccupied, thinking about the nuns I had met at breakfast and about James Castle, a boy I knew at Elkton ,who jumped out of a window to his death while being tormented by the others.
I finally told her that I liked Allie, and she ‘reminded’ me angrily, may I add that Allie is dead. She asked what I wanted to do with my life, and my only answer is to mention the lyric, “If a body catch a body comin’ through the rye.” I imagine a gigantic field of rye on a cliff full of children playing. I want to stand at the edge of the cliff and catch the children when they come too close to falling off—to be “the catcher in the rye.” Phoebe points out that I misheard the words—the actual lyric, from the Robert Burns poem, “Coming Thro’ the Rye,” is “If a body meet a body coming through the rye.”