Catcher In the Rye Deleted Scenes: Holden's Conversation with Jane

[[[When Holden Caufield exited the Wicker Bar, he felt like calling up Jane Gallagher, the girl he, whether he realized it or not, loved deeply. However, as soon as he got outside to the phone booth, he chickened out and called Sally Hayes instead. What would have happened if Holden had actually called Jane? Would they have fought? Or would Jane have finally been able to calm Holden down; save him from his mental breakdown?]]]

It was really cold out. I'm not kidding. It was so cold I could see my goddam breath floatin' in the air in front of my face. Of course, I didn't much care at that moment 'cause I was drunk as hell. The wind blew against my wet skin. It felt freezing, but not just your average freezing. It was the sort of freezing that doesn't just make you so cold you wish you weren't staggering in the streets drunk and instead at home in bed sleeping, it was the sort of freezing that blows right through you. It doesn't even realize you have skin or muscle or anything. It just comes right in and about cuts your goddam bone in half. It goes right to the bone and doesn't even care. I hate that. It's the worst kind of wind.

So anyway, I was walkin' the streets looking for a phone booth to call up old Jane Gallagher. I had had enough of all these phonies. All these goddam phonies. All these people who think they're so cool because they fake everything about themselves so that the rest of the world won't criticize them or anything. It kills me. It really does.

I needed Jane to keep me sane. I needed to talk to her to get my head straight. I was so goddam depressed I needed someone I knew had a good head on her shoulders. That is if Jane was still, ya know, Jane. If I can be honest here for a moment, I was terrified as hell that Jane was no longer Jane. If that goddam Stradlater had given' her the time I was gonna wring his neck. If he had given' her the time it meant that Jane was no longer Jane, because the Jane I know would never let a phony like Stradlater come onto her. I don't know what I'm gonna do if old Jane isn't Jane anymore.

So I came up to a phone booth and took the phone off the hook. I took a quarter out of my pocket and put it in the slot. Well, I tried. I was so goddam drunk that it actually took me longer to find the slot than I'd care to admit.

Once I actually found the thing I dialed old Jane's number, which also took me a while, I put the phone up to my ear and waited in the phone booth, which wasn't much warmer than the air outside, for what must have been the longest few minutes of my whole goddam life.

Some lady I didn't know answered the phone.

"Hello?" she said "Who might I be speaking to?"

"Uh, Holden Caufield. I was gonna speak to old Jane. Put 'er on, put 'er on, please." The lady I didn't recognize didn't even pause. It was like she had gotten calls like this before and had a trained response.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Caufield, but Jane isn't here. She's visiting her mom's cousin in New York. I'm here looking over the house. Would you like the number? You can call her on her mom's cousin's phone."

"Sure, thanks."

So the lady I didn't recognize gave me the number to reach old Jane and I called that one. Once again, I waited a really long few minutes. Did I say the last time was the longest few minutes of my whole g*ddam life? I was wrong. These few minutes were.

"Hello? Who is this?"

It was so good to hear her voice again. I hadn't heard her voice in so long I had forgotten how good it felt to hear it.

"Hey, Jane. Old Jane. I've missed you, Jane. I really have. How about you come over here and have a drink with me, Jane? That'd be real nice."

There was a pause on her end; I think she might have been thinking. When she did speak, it was soft and gentle. It was the only voice I've ever known that didn't sound so goddam phony. I mean, you could tell she cared about my well-being and that she wasn't saying things to impress some phony friends who happened to be in the room with her.

"Holden, is that you? Do you know what time it is, Holden?"

"Yeah, I don't care, Jane, I don't care! I wanna be with you, Jane!"

You know, they say that when you're drunk you tend to blurt things you normally wouldn't. When you're under the influence you're more inclined to let out your true thoughts and feelings on certain things, even if you don't know that that's actually what you're thinking. The alcohol kind of dissolves the barrier between what you think, and what part of that thinking you want to reveal to everyone else. There was no moment in my life where that has been truer than this moment right now when I called up old Jane. There were emotional ties to Jane I didn't know I had until everything I drank at the Wicker Bar loosened me up. It was a funny thing. And normally that sort of thing kills me, but for some reason it didn't. For some reason this time it felt good. I felt like for once there was someone in the world who wasn't phony, someone I could like and not hate myself for liking them. It should have killed me, but it didn't. And maybe the part of this whole conversation that killed me the most was the fact that it didn't kill me.

"Oh, Holden, you're such a sweet boy. Where are you? If it's not too far maybe I can stop by for a little bit. To tell you the truth I haven't really been able to get to sleep. I guess I'm under a lot of stress or something."

"I'm in New York. I just got out of the Wicker Bar, Jane. You know where that is? Huh? Do ya, Jane? Oh, Jane I'm glad you're comin' to see me. I'm real glad."

"In New York by the Wicker Bar? What a coincidence, Holden! I'm actually visiting my mom's cousin for Christmas and he lives in New York. His apartment isn't too far from the Wicker Bar. Here let me sneak out. Stay right where you are, Holden, I'm coming to see you."

The last part about sneaking out she said really quietly, so quietly I almost didn't understand what she said. For the first time I was excited about something. I thought of old Jane coming to see me and I didn't get all depressed and whatnot. I was excited. I haven't been excited in a long time. I thought about how long it's been since the last time I was excited and I got real depressed for a second or two. A second afterward I thought of Jane coming to see me and that depression disappeared.

The disappearance of the depression let me see that I felt something else for the first time in a long time: gratitude. I realized that my hatred of the world and everything about it had blocked the few things I was actually grateful for. Or maybe I wasn't grateful for anything until the depression left and made room for it inside me. Who knows for sure?

But anyway, it was the first time in possibly years I had felt gratitude and I was going to make sure that Jane knew that she was the one who gave that back to me.

"Thanks, Jane. You're a real pal. You are, I'm serious, Jane. I'm really grateful you're comin' to see me. I mean it. Thanks, Jane. Thanks."

"You're so welcome, Holden. Bye, Holden. I'll see you in a few minutes, okay?"

"Okay, Jane. See you, Jane. See you real soon."

Then I hung up the phone. I put it back on the hook and wondered out of the goddam phone booth. I stopped outside the booth and looked up at the sky. The snow was falling steadily to the concrete sidewalk the phone booth was near. It wasn't falling real hard like a snowstorm or a blizzard. It was just slowly but surely floating to the ground. It looked peaceful. But then, strangely, as I looked at the snow I felt an overwhelming sensation of inferiority; the sense that there was some larger power at work making the world a complete goddam living hell. It was depressing as hell. It really was.

I realized that nothing I ever did could make me feel better about this place called earth we all had to live in. Not even the thought of seeing Jane. There were all these goddam phonies like Stradlater and Ackley and everybody who thought they could get by just pleasing everyone else by being whatever everyone else wanted them to be, not what they themselves wanted to be. They all acted like they were so special because they thought they figured out the secret to life. They were all so goddam proud because they all thought the secret to life was twistin' and turnin' yourself so that you fit into everyone else's ideas but not your own. They all thought that was how you were supposed to get by. And you know what? They were so goddam proud of it. They were just tickled pink because they all thought they figured out something that no one had been able to figure out for as long as human life has been in existence. And you know what just kills me? The fact that they all think they figured it out all by themselves and they're the only one with the answer when in actuality, they all have the same answer. And it's the wrong answer.

Well, I'm not like these goddam phonies who parade around like they're the most important thing in the world. I may not know what the right answer is, but at least I know enough to know that changing who you are to fit somebody else's mold, being a phony, is one of the wrong ones. I can't believe that not one person in the whole goddam world believes that but me. It kills me. It really does.

Remembering I was waiting for old Jane, I turned my head towards the Wicker Bar and spotted a bench by the front entrance. It was a rather smaller one, not much room for more than two people. It was perfect for Jane and I to sit and talk.

Feeling a little more sober, I made my way over to the bench. I sat down and waited for what seemed like g*ddam years staring at the apartment building across the street. I was starting to think old Jane really had changed and she was lying about seeing me just so she could hang out with some phony friends. The more I thought about it, the more it depressed me.

Just when I was about to give up and walk around the city some more, I saw her. Jane Gallagher came walking toward me, her long brown hair flowing behind her, regardless of the snow outside. Jane was a thin girl, not tall, but not short either. She was a plain girl on the outside, but she was so much more on the inside. You could see that because when you looked into her eyes, a pretty pale blue, you could see all the benevolent emotions swirling around inside. I could tell. I was staring straight at them.

Old Jane came and sat down on the bench beside me. She looked out into the snow for a bit, then turned and looked at me. She smiled warmly, the first genuine, non-phony smile I've known in a long time. It made me feel better. I noticed that whenever I was talking to or around Jane I…changed. I no longer felt the need to swear. I didn't think about the phonies anymore. I became a different person. I realized that this was the person I was meant to be; the person I was before my innocence was corrupted by the evils of society and of the world. I realized that Jane brought my innocence back.

I suddenly had this vision in my mind. It was the catcher in the rye, but I wasn't the only one there catching the children, saving them from their doom. Old Jane was there with me. Together with her completely genuine personality and my newly recovered innocence, we could save the rest of the world's children from ever going through the severe mental agony I did. When I was around Jane and we were talking, or maybe not even talking, maybe just being around each other, just so I could feel her there and know someone really cares, I felt stronger and…clearer. I felt like everything I was thinking and feeling about the phonies and about life was just ridiculous. It was wrong, sure, but it wasn't such a big deal anymore. Maybe that's why these people didn't think about the evils of the world so much, and maybe that's why their philosophies were working for them even though they were wrong. It was because they never thought about it that much. It was because it never bothered them. They had people in their lives to make them feel better. They all had people in their lives who could take away their pain and make room for the love and caring and all the good feelings again, like Jane did for me. I felt kind of stupid for never realizing it before. But I suppose that was because I never had anyone like that before.

"How are you doing, Holden?" Jane asked, staring at me, never breaking her gaze. I looked back up at her.

"I'm okay, Jane. I wasn't before, but I am now. But you can't leave, Jane. Because I know that if you do I'll just go back to the way I was. If you leave again, Jane I'll just go back to swearing and being depressed and hating everyone and I don't want to do that again! I can't, Jane. I've finally realized that I wasn't hating the phonies because of what they did. I was hating them because of what I did; what was happening to me. I hated them because they all seemed happy doing wrong and not being themselves and I was doing the right thing and being myself and I wasn't happy. It didn't make sense and that confused me and angered me to no end. But when I'm around you or even just on the phone with you I feel like all of that's lifted. Wanna know why? Because you make me happy, Jane. When you're with me I can do the right thing and be myself and not be phony and be happy. And that's all I've ever wanted all along. I figured it out, Jane. But if you leave me alone again it'll just become cloudy again."

Jane took my hands inside her own and continued to stare me straight in the eyes with the completely genuine look I loved so much.

"Holden, I can't be around you twenty-four seven. I wish I could, I really do because I love you, too, Holden, but with our lives and our homes so far apart, it's just impossible. I'm sorry, Holden." And she was, I could see it in her eyes. And then I got an idea.

"No, it's not impossible. I know how to make it work. I know a way for you to be around me all the time and we never have to part until we die. I want us both to finish school. I'll try my best this time. I won't get kicked out ever again. I'll get A's too, you'll see. I'll do it this time because I have motivation now. I have you. And then once we both finish school and we're ready to start our lives…"

I got up off the bench and stood in front of Jane. She looked at me with a look I knew as confusion, because she didn't know what I was getting at with this. She would soon find out.

I didn't have a ring, or anything, so I folded my hands in a praying stance instead. I got down on one knee, that particular knee freezing in the snow on the sidewalk.

"Jane, you and I can be together for the rest of our lives. I can see it in your eyes, Jane, you love me as much as, maybe more than, I love you. It's a pretty weird thing to base a relationship off of, but I know it's the right thing. Jane Gallagher, will you marry me?"

Jane's eyes went wide. She stared at my face for a few really long moments, completely dumbfounded. Then suddenly her face lit up and I realized that this day was about three seconds away from being the greatest day of my life.

"Oh, Holden, when we both finish school and are in a position to start our adult lives, of course I'll marry you!"

We both stood up and embraced, and it wasn't an ordinary hug, either. It was the best kind of hug. It was the kind where the two people practically melt into one another; where they almost combine into one person. And then the second best thing, other than getting technically engaged, happened. Jane and I separated just a little, enough to see each other's faces, and she got close to me again, slowly this time. The two of us slowly got closer and closer together until finally…

That night was the best night of my life. I don't know If I kissed Holden or if he kissed me, but it was really magical. It started something, something special. From that day forward Holden never flunked another class. We both finished school and not long later, we married. Holden meant good on his word when he said he loved me that night and wanted to be with me forever. Holden and I both got jobs as children's psychologists. Holden finally got his dream of being the catcher in the rye. As a child psychologist he helps children in the same mindset he was in. He finally got to save them from going off the edge of that cliff. He completely turned his life around and no one can imagine how happy I am for him.

Now we're around each other every day. Holden sleeps easy at night knowing that as long as I'm still here, he will never suffer another mental breakdown again. And I guess, that makes me sleep easier, too.

Signing off,

Jane Gallagher