27. The Hunting Cap
TWENTY-SEVEN
The Hunting Cap
SHANNON
Hayden pissed Shannon off simply existing in her mind, and he was everywhere when she tried not to think about Caleb. He was back on campus like everyone else, bailed out by his father, no doubt, and almost certainly had lawyers hard at work to cover his tracks. If she thought about him a moment longer, she’d scream. Ruminating on Caleb’s absence wasn’t much easier.
“You’re sick,” she whispered in the bathroom mirror. “Think about something besides boys. Any boys. Think about feminist literature. Sapphic romance. Female rulers of Russia. Anything but men. You’re too smart for this, and you have work to do.”
Economics required a few chapters of reading. Her class on World War I and Eastern Europe called for several writing prompt responses. And of course, she was behind on Transitional Japanese Politics because she skipped it to go swimming.
Instead of attacking academics, she picked up The Teahouse Fire , a favorite re-read that included some transitional Japanese politics, and lost herself in nineteenth-century Japan, in the story of women whose world was on the brink of change between the Edo and Meiji periods, and whose quiet manipulations saved family traditions like the tea ceremony and fine lettering.
Lettering.
Shannon sat upright in her bunk and hit her healing bruise on the ceiling again. She didn’t check for blood before she climbed down her ladder and reached for the folder with Caleb’s papers and her new fountain pen.
She skimmed the pages for clarity, pacing, and consistency—and listened.
The symbolism of the Central Park ducks as a representation of the innocence of childhood and Holden’s incessant questions about sex as a representation of the unknown state of adulthood can be extended to an overarching theme of connection, which is Holden’s ultimate goal.
Smiling, she marked some repetitive phrases, and sketched a little duck.
When considering Holden’s hunting cap as the prompt to ask the reader what he is hunting, connection trumps the argument for innocence or a return to the security of his childhood. As shown by his actions with Sally, Jane, and others, Holden believes sex is an important part of maturity, and he wants to mature but doesn’t know how. He already had childhood and innocence, as represented by the ducks and his relationship with his sister, and he wants to preserve those things, not return to those times .
When he has opportunities for sexual encounters and taking a step toward maturity, he declines even though it seems he can finally get what he wants. This is a parallel to getting answers about the ducks in Central Park and refusing to believe them.
Some argue that Holden’s frequent use of the term ‘phony’ and other derogatory talk about his classmates who are more obviously mature means he does not want to grow up. However, it can also be said that all of it seems phony to Holden simply because he doesn’t know how to grow up himself. He’s stuck with the ducks and Phoebe, not clinging to them, as an appropriate metaphor for postwar America where adolescence and maturity took on new meanings in life as in literature.
In red ink, she made a note. Clunky & a little vague… but let’s work on this idea.
Holden is looking for a connection in two places. He wants to connect phases of his life, his childhood with his adulthood, and finds himself suspended between them. Also, while it is certainly not the only step that will move him toward adulthood, Holden’s questions and search for a sexual encounter are the symbol for this forward progress, and his lack of movement stems from a lack of connection to another person. The women he has the opportunity to engage with do not attract him on a physical, emotional, or cognitive level, and that’s why he ultimately doesn’t follow through on what he said he wanted. Only when he finds a genuine connection with someone on the journey with him can Holden take the next steps.
She put down the pen for a minute and stared, biting her quivering lower lip as she scanned the words over and over again, searing them into her eyelids, reading them in his halting voice.
The hunting cap is Holden’s weirdness. It’s his embrace of everything he sees as strange, unique, undesirable, and real about himself. Here is another connection to timely cultural changes, to the emergence of the American adolescent as a distinct demographic, instead of blurring the lines between childhood and adulthood as generations before did. He’s only sixteen, and has been through so many things that cause him to feel like he doesn’t fit in the world where he lives.
Maybe Holden is brave and challenging the status quo, but maybe he’s also a fool who needs to learn that a little conformity and acceptance can be tools to build connections with friends, and it’s not being fake or phony to make a space for respecting others’ choices or experiences. Like most teenagers, he would benefit from an understanding of nuance. A lot of his pushback against ‘phony’ people and others he doesn’t like is because he doesn’t feel okay being different, even though he tries to embrace it and say he’s fine. He doesn’t see a middle ground even though he’s the new American adolescent and the embodiment of a middle ground.
Shannon blinked back tears as she bracketed the last sentence and marked it with a star.
He wants growth and maturity in a way that makes sense to him, not necessarily in the experiences of his classmates, but more in their mindset and acceptance of change. He wants to protect the safety of the ducks and therefore the innocence of childhood for Phoebe, so she doesn’t struggle the way he does. To make all that happen, Holden Caulfield goes hunting for connection.
Based on the beginning of the book and the widely accepted understanding that the whole story is told by Holden speaking from a mental hospital, it is safe to assume Holden was unsuccessful, at least long-term, in finding the connection he needed. His problems and mental health were always complex, and one romantic relationship or solid friendship might never be enough to turn everything around for him.
Critics of ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ write it off as depressing, disgusting, heretical, even pornographic, and disdain the fact that these are all very real states of being and don’t cease to exist in literature simply because they are not liked. What critics miss is that sometimes the story doesn’t have a hero. In the 1950s, in the age of Captain America, this didn’t sit well with audiences for popular literature.
Sometimes a story just has a character who struggles in order to give real people struggling some connection with him that says they are not alone. His heroism is only realized outside of the book. Holden isn’t real, but two struggling people who feel out of place in their world can connect over a story like his and change everything.
Three hours later, she inspected the edges of the papers for curls and bleed.
“Are you almost done?” Elouise asked.
Shannon didn’t look up, and retrieved a thin stack of sheet protectors from the drawer of her desk. “I’ve over-thought it already.”
“It looks pretty.”
“I hope he understands,” Shannon said in a near-whisper. She tucked the sheets into the plastic sleeves, then inside a folder.
“Honey, he has to,” Elouise said. “He paid your bond after he said the thing about loving you enough to do it. He sent his buddy to find you with a very thoughtful gift. And he did those things with no explanation about Hayden. You’ll have time to do that when he comes back, and in the meantime, I think this is a very sweet gesture. It opens the door for the conversation, now that you’re finally ready to have it.”
Shannon stared at the folder. “Should I wait until he comes back to the writing group and just give it to him then? Do I look too desperate hunting down Jags to give it to him privately? I still don’t know when he’ll be back. It could be any day now if an internet search of ‘kidney donation recovery time’ is to be believed.”
“Send it with the friend,” Elouise decided. “Caleb opened that channel, so use it. And for God’s sake, unless you two are still getting off on this stupid no-contact game, put your phone number on there someplace.”
Shannon sat on a bench outside the training and conditioning facility and glanced at her watch. She scanned the parking lot and the three entrances, hoping she hadn’t missed him. He said he had to get to the gym on Tuesday at four o’clock, which meant he would almost certainly be going with the group on Thursday at four o’clock as well. They didn’t get there at the start time, she recalled, they started at the start time, dressed out and signed in. It was three forty-five.
She pulled a knit hat tight around her ears even though the evening was unexpectedly balmy for late March. Jags darted up the sidewalk from the parking lot and turned to the entrance, then doubled back when he saw her wave, checking his watch as he jogged to her.
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” he said, smiling broadly. “What have you got?”
“One quick thing,” she said, opening her bag for the folder. “I don’t want to make you late.”
“I’m impressed with your detective skills,” Jags said. “Unless you’ve been here all day.”
“I know how the schedules work.”
He accepted the folder and didn’t open it. “Is this for class?”
“Sort of. It’s… I guess it’s a gift. You don’t need to scan and send it,” she said. “It can wait until he gets back.”
“I’ll make sure he gets it.”
“Do you know when he’s coming back? If he’s doing all right?”
Jags smiled. “He’s doing fine, Shannon. Crabby as all hell because mama’s trying to keep him home the rest of the semester.”
“That sounds about like him,” she said. “Maybe you could tell him to call me. My number’s in the folder.”
“Oh, thank God.”
“Very funny.”
“He texted me a few hours ago and said he’s on his way,” Jags said. “Mama didn’t get her way. No word about what time or anything, but I’ll text him again after I get out of here and let him know we need to hook up.” He tapped the folder. “I’ll be sure he gets it.”
She tried to smile. “I appreciate it. Thank you.”
“I could give you his number,” Jags said.
Shannon reached in her pocket, then pulled back her hand. “I want to see what he does with mine,” she said, her voice wobbling. “He might not want to talk to me until he gets this. Maybe not even then.”
“You know he wants to talk to you,” he said, squinting as he watched her face. “What are you nervous about?”
“Girl likes boy,” she said, shrugging like it didn’t matter. “And there’s the question of whether boy likes girl.”
“It doesn’t seem like a question anymore, if you ask me. And you didn’t. But I’ve never known that boy to like a girl until you showed up,” Jags said. “He’s a great guy. Solid friend. But he keeps his stuff to himself and gets a little pissy if he thinks anyone’s trying to pry. That’s why he was kind of a dick to me that night he met you, but he knew I’d get over it and be happy for him. I played along because I knew you had to be a big deal if you could break him down so fast.”
Shannon covered her mouth with both hands and flushed bright pink. “That was your room,” she croaked, eyes wide.
“I told you, I’d let him date my sister if I had one.” He poked her shoulder and laughed. “He’d do the same for me.”
“Do you know everything that’s gone on since then? Like why you’re playing messenger for us?”
“Not all of it,” he said. “But what I got was things went right the first night, then wrong, then maybe right, definitely right, definitely wrong…” He trailed off and pretended to co unt on his fingers. “After that, it’s a maybe right, maybe wrong, and then spring break.”
“That actually sounds like the timeline.”
“Y’all need to get it right this time, because your boy here is exhausted.” He glanced at the door. “And about to get more exhausted. I’ll get him this as soon as he’s back.”