J. D. Salinger
Teddy
I'LL
EXQUISITE DAY you, buddy, if you don't get down off that bag this minute. And I
mean it," Mr. McArdle said. He was speaking from the inside twin bed--the
bed farther away from the porthole. Viciously, with more of a whimper than a
sigh, he foot-pushed his top sheet clear of his ankles, as though any kind of
coverlet was suddenly too much for his sunburned, debilitated-looking body to
bear. He was lying supine, in just the trousers of his pajamas, a lighted
cigarette in his right hand. His head was propped up just enough to rest
uncomfortably, almost masochistically, against the very base of the headboard.
His pillow and ashtray were both on the floor, between his and Mrs. McArdle's
bed. Without raising his body, he reached out a nude, inflamed-pink, right arm
and flicked his ashes in the general direction of the night table.
"October, for God's sake," he said. "If this is October weather,
gimme August." He turned his head to the right again, toward Teddy,
looking for trouble. "C'mon," he said. "What the hell do you
think I'm talking for? My health? Get down off there, please." Teddy was
standing on the broadside of a new looking cowhide Gladstone, the better to see
out of his parents' open porthole. He was wearing extremely dirty, white
ankle-sneakers, no socks, seersucker shorts that were both too long for him and
at least a size too large in the seat, an overly laundered T shirt that had a
hole the size of a dime in the right shoulder, and an incongruously handsome,
black alligator belt. He needed a haircut--especially at the nape of the
neck--the worst way, as only a small boy with an almost full-grown head and a
reedlike neck can need one.