Holden's Goodbye — The Catcher in the Rye

Holden needs a bed. He remembers Mr. Antolini, his English teacher at Elkton Hills, kind about a boy who jumped from a window rather than take back what he had said. From a pay phone Antolini tells him to come over at once, no hesitation. The welcome is so plain that Holden hopes again.

He stores his bags at Grand Central and watches travellers who seem to have destinations. He pictures going west and working at a petrol station as a deaf-mute, so he would never have to talk. In the morning he leaves a note at Phoebe's school: meet at the museum, he will return her money, he may be saying goodbye. On a wall he sees a scrawled obscenity and is horrified that children, Phoebe included, will read it. Phoebe finds him with his suitcase and wants to run away too. He refuses and sends her back. Then he heads for the Antolinis' apartment, exhausted and still treating the teacher as the last adult who might know how to live.

Between the locker and the school wall he is never in a place he can keep. Antolini's yes is the last door that opens without a test he has already failed.