final story

Sarah Ota
March 2, 2008

A Grown Man


It all started when the goddamn bird outside decided that it would chirp continuously to disturb my perfectly good sleep. I decided I couldn’t go back to sleep and I would have to wake up a couple hours later for work anyways. I stared at the ceiling and reminisced on the past. Getting married to Sally Hayes at the age of twenty was probably one of the biggest goddamn mistakes that I've ever made. Sure she was attractive and the first girl that I lost my virginity to but she had a real problem, she was the biggest phony that I'd ever met. I think the only way I ever fell for ol' Sally was because she had lots of sex appeal and once I gave up my virginity to her, it just seemed right for us to tie the knot. I thought about how my life was going now; there are still goddamn phonies that annoy the hell out of me, like my boss Richard. But still, I was doing good, a job as a bartender, I bought my own house, and my life seems a whole lot better, well better than how crappy it was before. 

I was working my daily shift at the bar; today I was working overtime for the whole goddamn night. There were the usual bastards that didn't leave their tips and the drunken men that tried to pick up the young girls. If you really want to know the truth, I used to be one of those bastards that knew nothing more than drinking and getting laid, but now I like to think that I've changed.
There was this one goddamn bastard that drank about ten shots of vodka and was literally puking out of his nostrils. He was getting touchy on this one girl who looked around my age. I must say she was pretty good-looking with a lot of sex appeal. Lots of girls in the bar were all attractive, but something about this one really turned me on. The same goddamn bastard was trying to pull her out of the bar, but she refused over and over again. He was wearing this crummy shirt all stained with puke and his breath probably smelled like crap. I jumped over the table with my fists clenched ready to knock this guy out. Already being at the bar for over four years, I'd say that I'm a pretty good fighter now. I grabbed the goddamn guy's shoulder and forcefully shoved him around to face me. Before he could even open his eyes, I got a good shot right square in the bastards nose. Just with that one punch, he was knocked out for good.
The girl standing there was sure a good catch. Her hair almost too beautiful to imagine, rode down the back of her neck like a river flowing down the mountains. Her eyes lit up the moment she saw me. Something about her. I knew her, but couldn't quite put my finger on it. Who was she? 

"Holden?" she asked. That voice rang through my mind. I'd heard it before, I knew I had. I'm not too sure why but her goddamn lovely voice triggered a sense of familiarity for me. I looked at her, and noticed her body. It was slender and curvy, and a body that I had once before seen.
It was Jane! God damnit, how could I have forgotten! Being a stupid moron I didn't know what to say. I froze up and stared at her with complete absence. Jane looked at me, smiling like she used to. She had become even more beautiful than she was as a kid. She had grown a lot, and now had even more appeal. 

"Holden, I've missed you." She gave me a hug, it felt so good to hold her in my arms again. I mean I had definitely missed her presence. We hung out and it seemed exactly like the good old days, the laughing, the jokes, never an awkward moment. I thought about what in the first place had stopped Jane and me from seeing each other around. 


"Jane, where have you been? I mean I haven't even seen you around and it's been ten years, what's new with you?" 

"I actually went to San Francisco State University for college and well…"

I could tell that she hesitated to tell me something as if she was a nurse telling me that my goddamn mother was dead. 

"…I sorta met someone and we've been kinda going out for 5 years now, and last week he actually proposed, so now we are living out here again, because it's where he got transferred for his job. He great, he really is a good guy, I really wish you could meet him." 

"Oh that's good then." I shot her the bull and tried to hide my huge longing for her to be mine, in some strange way it seemed like she wanted me just as much as I wanted her, but was scared to admit it. I mean I could see the way that she looked at me and how she talked to me, it was like she wanted to be with me but couldn’t. 

"Well I should go home then, I think Adam might be getting worried, uhh it was really nice talking to you, maybe we can do it again sometime." She hurried out. It seemed like just when our conversations were getting deep and we were just starting to make a goddamn connection she decided she should be leaving me with all the crappy other people in the bar. It took me only a goddamn second to realize that something needed to be done; I mean I guess I realized she was the one for me, and I didn't want to lose another important person in my life.
Okay, I know it sounds very bad and it makes me sound like a complete moron, but I couldn’t help it, my goddamn heart was racing, I was in love. I followed her home, I needed to see this Adam guy, could he be like my long ago roommate Sradlater? Or what was he like? Ideas floated around in my goddamn confused head. I thought it was odd that Jane stopped off at her old house, the little blue house that contained many of our childhood memories that seemed decades ago. She never came out of the house, did her and Adam now live with her parents or did she lie to me about this goddamn stupid husband of hers?
I didn’t understand, but you know what, I didn’t care. All I knew was that I loved her. 
After thirty of the longest goddamn minutes of my entire life of just staring at the house waiting for this bastard of a husband to come out of the goddamn house so I could get a look at him, I decided to go to the door and talk to Jane, I was desperate for her love. 

"Holden, what are you doing here? Did you follow me from the bar?" she looked shocked at my unexpected arrival. And to be completely honest, I didn’t even think what to say before confronting her, but whatever I was planning on saying, it had to be good. First I thought of using the whole "I wish you could meet him" crap she told me and tell her that I really wanted to meet him, which was complete bull. Then I thought about shooting the bull at her some more making up a story that led me to be there but I couldn’t do it, for once in my whole crappy life, I couldn’t lie, not to Jane at least.

"Okay, I have to tell you this before I don’t have the courage to say anything, I love you Jane, I've loved you since that summer and I never can stop thinking about you, I think about you everyday and for some reason, I feel like you feel the same way, but you are scared to show it."
Jane looked at me in awe, like she was watching a dog stand up and walk on only two of its goddamn legs.
"Holden, I…"
She paused, a long and awkward silence occurred and I was starting to regret telling her that I loved her thinking that I was a stupid moron who probably scared the crap out of her.
Then, I got ready for her rejection, I thought about all the bad things that have happened to me and realized that I didn't know if I could handle this one. She was looking real deep into my eyes with a nervous look, one that I had seen before when her stepfather asked her for cigarettes. Then she sort of snapped out of it and thought for a while.
When I was just getting ready to go back into the car and drive away to leave the embarrassing situation I had gotten myself in, she said the four most beautiful words I've ever heard. "I love you too."
From then on, my life changed, everything seemed different. I felt like there was no such thing as a phony and every person in the whole wide world that I had lied to or that I judged too quickly, I wanted to take it back. Life was now something that I enjoyed, something that I could look forward to. I ran back to her and looked at Jane, her beautiful eyes staring at me.
"Holden I owe you an apology, I am so sorry for making the guy Adam up and being scared of committing to you, but the truth is I've always loved you too. I thought that with you in my life, it would remind me of my horrible childhood, my stepfather. But you were always the one thing in my life that was incredible, the one great part that I never really appreciated."
I soaked up all this new information; now I actually have some who cares about me, someone who would miss me if I were to ever die, someone who has been through the same thing as me, someone to fill the big hole in my heart were Allie once was. 






Analysis 


When I got the assignment to write about where Holden would be in ten years, I decided to write about how he would have been immature and got married to Sally when he was still really young, but then realized that she was a big phony. He then meets Jane in a bar, and Holden immediately falls back in love with Jane and he finds out that she is in love with him also. My story relates to the book "The Catcher in the Rye" because it shares many similar themes. 

First of all, the theme of Childhood vs. Adulthood. In the book, Holden in very immature he is always wanting to have sex and talking big, then backing down and realizing that he doesn't know what he wants. For example on page 96, Holden shows an example of his immaturity.
Maurice's offers for Holden a girl to have sex with him for five dollars and Holden accepts. Then when the girl comes to his door and is getting ready to do it Holden stops her.
"Look," I said. "I don't feel very much like myself tonight. I've had a rough night. Honest to God I'll pay you and all, but do you mind very much if we don't do it? Do you mind very much?" The trouble was, I just didn't want to do it. I felt more depressed than sexy, if you want to know the truth. "
This really shows that Holden isn't ready to grow up. It seems that the one main things that is holding him back from growing up and living his life as a regular teenage boy is that he is sad, or "depressed" as he puts it. I think that his actions that seem odd all somehow relate back to the death of his brother. So instead he tries to put up such a big front, like he is so mature and is so experienced, but inside he is so insecure and very unsure of himself.
Its like he is in that stage of growing up and taking a big step into adulthood. In my story, Holden takes another step into adulthood. I made it so he lost his virginity to Sally and then thought that she was the one that he wanted to marry at age twenty.
When you look at that decision of wanting to marry her, you can see that it is very immature, he thinks that he is ready to share the whole rest of his life with Sally, someone that he barely is attracted to as a person, but rather much more attracted to her physically. By him realizing that the marriage wont work out and moving on with his life, I think that is one step of Adulthood.
After the failed marriage, Holden's life shapes up; he gets a good job, has his own house and has definitely matured, you can tell just by the way he was watching how the guys in the bar were acting and seeing how he admitted to being like that before but then realizing he changed. Another step of maturity for Holden is when he just comes out clean and tells Jane "I love you" its like he was breaking out of his insecure self and telling the truth. I think that shows maturity because it takes a mature person to not lie and to admit something that could be rejected.
There is also a sign of Childhood vs. Adulthood for Jane. Obviously, like Holden Jane didn’t have a very good childhood, with her mean stepfather, and hates to be reminded of him, but Jane matures and learns to accept Holden as a new part in her life, not as a reminder of how bad her life was before. 

Another theme that the book and my story share in common is Allies death or death in general. Holden has never actually gotten over Allie's death. He has always just been sort of walking around with a huge hole in his heart for where Allie used to be. But by giving and receiving love from Jane, he realizes that he can finally make peace with Allie's death. He realizes that people actually do care for him and that there is more to life then just being depressed all the time and moping around, and I think Jane shows him that by giving him love. I think that theme is important because it really affects how Holden acts, he was basically numb to all emotions, he didn’t know how to feel happiness or love, he didn’t feel pain, he just didn’t want to feel anything, but when Jane accepted his love like Allie had then he felt happy again and the large hole the Allie left in his heart, was now taken up with Jane.
In conclusion, I related my story to the themes that J.D Salinger incorporated into his book. The two main themes were childhood vs. adulthood for both Jane and Holden and coping with Allie's death, or death in general. I think both Jane and Holden were stuck in the middle of childhood and adulthood, but by them admitting their love for one another, they took another step into adulthood. They were insecure, depressed people since their childhoods were so scaring and so hard to get over, but sometimes all you need is that one person to say three little words to turn around and change your whole life and how you look at things for the better.