Carl Luce at the Wicker Bar — The Catcher in the Rye

Holden meets Carl Luce at the Wicker Bar in the Seton Hotel. Carl is older, from Whooton, once his student adviser, late, and bored. Holden drinks Scotch and wants to talk about sex and how to live. Carl prefers Eastern philosophy and psychoanalysis, delivered from above. He says Holden is immature and should see a psychoanalyst. Holden is offended and also knows he is not well. Carl leaves early for a date.

Holden stays and drinks more. He thinks of Jane, Sally, his parents, and does not call. Couples in the bar look stylish and closed. He spills a drink, laughs in the wrong places, and pictures himself dying of pneumonia, then worries about Phoebe at a funeral. When he can barely walk he decides the ducks in Central Park are the next stop. Carl was supposed to be a lifeline. The bar is just another room that can spare him.

The Scotch he cannot afford is another way of staying in a room that has already dismissed him. Pneumonia, a funeral, Phoebe at the edge of that picture: the bar has run out of advice, so the park is next. He laughs in the wrong places because the room has no other use for him.