18

Leaving the skating rink, Holden eats at a drugstore and tries calling Jane Gallagher again, hoping to take her dancing. With no answer, he scans his thin address book—Jane, Mr. Antolini, and his father’s office—and instead calls Carl Luce, an older, intellectual former schoolmate, who agrees to meet him for a 10 p.m. drink at the Wicker Bar.

With hours to fill, Holden goes to Radio City. He watches the Rockettes and a holiday pageant with irritated detachment, picturing performers’ empty routines and dismissing the show’s religiosity as phony. A memory of watching the kettle drummer with Allie briefly warms him, admiring the drummer’s focused sincerity.

Holden then endures a sentimental British amnesia film, mocking its contrived plot and happy ending. A woman beside him cries throughout yet refuses to take her bored child to the bathroom, convincing Holden that people who weep at phony movies are often cruel in real life.

Walking to meet Carl Luce, Holden’s thoughts turn to war. He recalls D.B.’s Army years, hating the military more than combat, and their conversations about books. Holden rejects D.B.’s praise of A Farewell to Arms while admiring The Great Gatsby, and he imagines preferring to sit on an atomic bomb rather than endure another war or military life.