Central Park at Night — The Catcher in the Rye

Very drunk, Holden takes a cab to Central Park to see the ducks. It is late and dark. He drops Little Shirley Beans. The record shatters. He picks up the pieces and feels that everything he touches breaks, including a gift for the person he loves most. He cannot find the ducks. Near the lagoon he slips in the mud, soaks his hat, and imagines dying of pneumonia like a character.

On a bench he counts what money he has left and thinks of Phoebe handing over whatever she has. That generosity shames him and also aims him. He will sneak home to see her, not his parents. The cold makes sleep in the park dangerous. The ducks are gone, the record is in pieces in his pocket, and her face is the reason he walks towards the East Side apartment.

Sleeping on a bench would be a way of disappearing without deciding to. He knows the cold could finish what the weekend started. Her apartment is the warmer risk, and he takes it. The broken pieces in his pocket are the weekend, small enough to carry and impossible to mend. He turns towards home because of her, not because the park gave him an answer.