Latest / Banned Camp: Banned Books, Comedy, and Free Speech vs. Censorship / The Catcher in the Rye Ch. 21: Holden Sneaks Home to Phoebe | Banned Books Podcast

Transcript

The Catcher in the Rye Ch. 21: Holden Sneaks Home to Phoebe | Banned Books Podcast · Banned Camp: Banned Books, Comedy, and Free Speech vs. Censorship

Welcome to Band Camp.
I'm Jennifer.
And I'm Dan, and this is a podcast where we read band books out loud and try to figure out why they were banned in the first place.
This season we are reading The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger, and you could consider this a quick spoiler warning because Jennifer is about to start reading from the book out.
Loud.
Word for word.
Now, if you're new here, and this is the first time you're joining us.
You're totally fine starting out here.
We're gonna get you oriented real quick, and if you get confused, there's a very good chance we're gonna be confused too, because neither of us have read the book either, but that's why we have ourselves a secret weapon.
Let's bring him in now.
Roll it in here, buddy.
Boy, we've got ourselves a fact checking robot.
Here he comes.
Look at this guy.
Looking good, buddy.
Tell everyone where we left off last time in the catcher, in the rye.
Previously on band Camp Holden Caulfield got drunk as a bastard, drunk, dialed Sally Hayes at one in the morning to trimmer Christmas tree, she hung up.
He went to Central Park looking for the ducks, nearly froze, broke the record he bought for Phoebe, and then finally decided to go home.
Dan and Jennifer have only been asking him to do this for 20 chapters.
Nice of him to listen.
Interesting thing about carrying something broken in your pocket all the way home.
It usually means you already know there's going to be somebody who understands why you kept it.
Here's Jennifer to read for you.
Thank you robot.
And with that being said, scary book people.
Let's begin Chapter 21 of JD Salinger's, the Catcher in the Rye.
The best break I had in years when I got home, the regular night elevator boy, Pete, wasn't on the car.
Some new guy I'd never seen was on the car, so I figured that if I didn't bump smack into my parents and all, I'd be able to say hello to old Phoebe and then beat it and nobody would even know I'd been around.
Wait a minute.
He's gonna pop in and pop out.
He's only there for Phoebe.
God, you annoying kid.
Um, The best break he had in years, Dan.
for the last six months we've been saying, go to bed or go home.
Now we have to switch to stay home.
It was really a terrific break.
What made it even better? The new Elevator Boy was sort of on the stupid side.
I told him in this very casual voice to take me up to the Dickens, the dick, uh, the dines, The Dicks.
the Dickens, the dines.
the New York dines, you've never heard of them.
The Dixie's were these people that had the other apartment on our floor.
I'd already taken off my hunting hat so as not to look suspicious or anything.
I went in the elevator like I was in a terrific hurry.
He had the elevator doors all shut and all, and was all set to take me up, and then he turned around and said they ain't in.
they're at a party on the 14th floor.
That's all right.
I said I'm supposed to wait for them.
I'm their nephew.
He gave me this sort of stupid suspicious look.
You better wait in the lobby fella, he said.
I'd really like to.
I really would.
I said, but I have a bad leg.
I have to hold it in a certain position.
I think I'd better sit down in the chair outside the door.
He didn't know what the hell I was talking about, so all he said was, oh, and he took me up.
you know what? It kind of bothering me.
Holden comes up with this pretty weak lie and uh, the elevator guy's like, all right, sounds good.
I don't care.
And he takes him up.
Like the elevator guy should kind of also act as a defacto security guy too.
Like he was kind it's ah, they're not home.
You should just sit in the lobby.
No, my leg hurts real bad.
Okay.
just shows like you, you can't like get away with stuff Like he's a very much like a conman....
lemme keep going...
All you have to do is say something nobody understands and they'll do practically anything you want them to.
Boom, bam.
See, there it is.
Like you just say things and people will go along with it.
You just have to be daring enough to say it, I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial.
Today, I got off at our floor, limping like a bastard, and started walking over towards the Dix Dean side.
when I heard the elevator door shut, I turned around and went over to our side.
I was doing all right.
Then I took out my door key and opened the door quiet as hell.
Then very, very carefully and all.
I went inside and closed the door.
I really should have been a crook.
It was dark as hell in the foyer.
Naturally and naturally.
I couldn't turn on any lights.
I had to be careful not to bump into anything and make a racket.
I certainly knew I was home though.
Our foyer has a funny smell that doesn't smell like any place else.
I don't know what the hell it is.
It isn't cauliflower and it isn't perfume.
Why would it be cauliflower? Is that where his name comes from? Holden Cauliflower.
But you always know that you're home.
I started to take off my coat and hang it up in the foyer closet, but that closet's full of hangers that rattle like mad men when you open the door.
So I left it on.
Then I started walking very, very slowly back toward old Phoebe's room.
I knew the maid wouldn't hear me because she only had one eardrum.
She had this brother that stuck a straw down her ear when she was a kid.
She told me once she was pretty defile.
But my parents, especially my mother, she has ears like a goddamn bloodhound.
So I took it very, very easy.
When I went past their door, I even held my breath For God's sake.
You can hit my father over the head with a chair and he won't wake up.
But my mother, all you have to do to my mother is cough somewhere, Siberia and shall hear you.
She's nervous as hell.
Half the time, she's up all night smoking cigarettes.
Finally, after about an hour, I got to old Phoebe's room.
How big is this place? So they have a live-in maid? Yeah, I guess they're, they're wealthy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
This is New York.
Probably a nice, big, fancy building.
The old man's got some cash.
Well anyways, he is he is gotta be exaggerating.
I'm sure it didn't take an hour.
I got to old Phoebe's room she wasn't there though.
I forgot about that.
I forgot.
She always sleeps in DB's room when he's away in Hollywood or someplace.
She likes it because it's the biggest room in the house also because it has this big old madman desk in it that DB bought of some lady alcoholic in Philadelphia and this big gigantic bed that's about 10 miles wide and 10 miles long.
I don't know where he bought that bed.
Oh, yeah.
So he's exaggerating everything.
The, the apartment's not that big.
10 miles long and 10 miles wide.
That would be bigger than a California king.
Yes.
That's right.
Anyway, old Phoebe likes to sleep in Dee's room when he's away and he lets her, you ought to see her doing her homework or something at that crazy desk.
It's almost as big as the bed.
You can hardly see her when she's doing her homework.
That's the kind of stuff she likes though.
She doesn't like her own room because it's too little.
She says.
She says she likes to spread out.
That kills me.
What's old? Phoebe got to spread out.
Nothing.
Anyway, I went into DB's room, quiet as hell, and turned on the lamp on the desk.
Old Phoebe didn't even wake up I sort of looked at her for a while.
She was laying there asleep.
With her face sort of on the side of the pillow.
She had her mouth way open.
It's funny, you take adults, they look lousy when they're asleep and they have their mouths way open, but kids don't.
Well this is kind of, sweet 'cause he's looking at her the way a parent would look at a child.
Like he really, really cares about her.
They can even have spit all over the pillow and they still look all right.
I went around the room very quiet and all looking at stuff for a while.
I felt swell for a change.
I didn't even feel like I was getting pneumonia or anything anymore.
I just felt good for a change.
Wow.
This is momentous.
So what does that tell you, Holden? Like you're home.
You're safe.
How many pages in are we? 415th page.
He finally feels good.
You know, dude, if you would've been listening to us, I know you didn't have us in your ears back then, but can you imagine how much better your life would be? How you'd have less stress? My God.
Listen to us.
Everyone listened to us.
I sat down on Old DB's desk and looked at the stuff on it.
It was mostly Phoebe's stuff from school and all, mostly books.
The one on top was called, arithmetic is Fun.
I sort of opened the first page and I took a look at it.
This is what old Phoebe had on it.
Phoebe Weatherfield.
Caulfield.
Is that her name? Weatherfield.
Caulfield.
Her middle name is Weatherfield.
Oh my God, that's funny.
Four B one.
That must be their apartment member that killed me.
Her middle name is Josephine, for God's sake, not Weatherfield.
she's just a funny kid.
I love it.
She doesn't like it though.
Every time I see her, she's got a new middle name for herself.
The book Underneath the Arithmetic was a geography book, and the book under the geography book was a speller.
She's very good in spelling.
She's very good in all her subjects, but she's best in spelling.
Then under the speller, there were a bunch of notebooks.
She has about 5,000 notebooks.
You never saw a kid with so many notebooks.
I opened the one on top and looked at the first page it had on it.
Bernice, meet me at recess.
I have something very, very important to tell you.
That was all there was on that page.
The next one had on it.
Why has Southeastern Alaska so many canning factories? because there's so much salmon.
Why has it valuable forests? Because it has the right climate.
What has our government done to make life easy for the Alaskan Eskimos? Look it up for tomorrow.
Phoebe.
Weatherfield.
Caulfield.
Phoebe Weatherfield.
Caulfield.
Phoebe Weatherfield Caulfield.
Phoebe w Caulfield, Phoebe Weatherfield Caulfield, Esquire.
Please pass to Shirley.
I like Phoebe.
I know she's fun.
Shirley, you said you were Sagittarius, but you're only Taurus.
Bring your skates when you come over to my house.
So these are cute little notes between her and her friends..
Yeah.
Then I lit another cigarette.
It was my last one, I'll tell you, when you break into your own house and you wanna play it cool and not get caught, I think the first thing you should do, turn on some light and start smoking.
Yeah, no one's gonna notice it.
I finally woke her up.
I mean, I couldn't sit there on that desk for the rest of my life.
And besides, I was afraid my parents might barge in on me all of a sudden, and I wanted to at least say hello to her before they did.
So I woke her up.
She wakes up very easily.
I mean, you don't have to yell at her or anything.
All you have to do practically is sit down on the bed and say, wake up Vbe, and bingo.
She's awake.
Holden, she said right away she put her arms around my neck and all.
She's very affectionate.
I mean, she's quite affectionate for a child sometimes.
She's even too affectionate.
I sort of gave her a kiss and she said, when you get home, she was glad as hell to see me.
You could tell not so loud.
Just now, how are you anyway? I'm fine.
Did you get my letter? I wrote you a five page.
Yeah.
Not so loud.
Thanks.
She wrote me this letter.
I didn't get a chance to answer it though.
It was all about this play she was in in school.
She told me not to make any dates or anything for Friday so that I could come see it.
How's the play? I asked her.
What'd you say The name of it was a Christmas pageant for Americans.
It stinks, but I'm Benedict Arnold.
I practically have the biggest part.
She said, boy, was she white awake? She gets very excited when she tells you that stuff.
It starts out when I'm dying.
This ghost comes in I Christmas Eve and asks me if I'm ashamed and everything.
You know, for betraying my country and everything.
Are you coming to it? She was sitting way the hell up in the bed and all.
That's what I wrote you about.
Are you sure I'm coming? Certainly.
I'm coming.
Daddy can't come.
He asked to fly to California.
She said, boy, was she wide awake.
It only takes her about two seconds to get wide awake.
She was sitting sort of kneeling way up in bed and she was holding my goddamn hand.
Listen, mother said you'd be home Wednesday, she said.
She said Wednesday.
I got out early, not so loud.
You'll wake everybody up.
What time is it? They won't be home till very late.
Mother said they went to a party in Norwalk, Connecticut.
Old Phoebe said, guess what I did this afternoon? What movie? I saw.
Just guess.
Wait.
The parents aren't home.
Old Phoebe's in this old apartment that's 10 miles wide all by Oh, hey, good news, Holden.
Smoke your ass off.
Turn on all the lights.
Open that closet with those rattly hangers.
Wait a second.
Will you? I said, I'm asking you a question.
Did they say what time they'd be back or didn't they? No, but not till very late.
Daddy took the car and everything so they wouldn't have to worry about trains.
We have a radio in it now, except that mother said nobody can play it when the car's in traffic.
I began to relax, sort of, I mean, I finally quit worrying about whether they'd catch me at home or not.
I figured the hell with it.
If they did, they did.
You should have seen old Phoebe.
She had on these blue pajamas with red elephants on the collars.
Elephants knock her out.
So it was a good picture, huh? I said swell, except Ellis had a cold and her mother kept asking her all the time if she felt grippy, right in the middle of the picture.
Always in the middle of something important.
Her mother would lean all over me and everything and ask Alice if she felt grippy.
It got on my nerves.
Then I told her about the record, listen, I bought you a record.
I told her only I broke it on the way home.
I took the pieces outta my coat pocket and showed her I was plastered.
I said.
Gimme the pieces.
She said I'm saving them.
She took them right outta my hand and then she put them in the drawer of the night table.
She kills me.
Debe coming home for Christmas.
I asked her.
he may and he may not.
Mother said it all depends.
He may have to stay in Hollywood and write a picture about Annapolis.
Annapolis, for God's sake.
It's a love story and everything.
Guess who's going to be in it? Guess what? Movie Star guess Oh God.
He hates this game, Jennifer.
do you think it's gonna be? Who are those people? The The Oh, the lunches.
groups.
I'm not interested, Annapolis, for God's sake.
What's DB know about Annapolis for God's sake? What's that got to do with the kind of stories he writes? I said, boy, that stuff drives me crazy.
That goddamn Hollywood.
Then she started looking at me funny, Holden, she said, how come you're not home Wednesday? What? Boy, you have to watch her every minute.
If you don't think she's smart, you're mad.
How come you're not home? Wednesday? She asked me.
You didn't get kicked out or anything, did God.
Holden has such a reputation that his little sister even knows like, oh, is this the typical you got kicked out of school early move.
I told you they let us out early.
They let the hole.
You did get kicked out.
You did.
Old Phoebe said.
Then she hit me on the leg with her fist.
She gets very fishy when she feels like it.
You did? Oh, Holden.
She had her hand on her mouth.
She gets very emotional.
I swear to God.
Who said I got kicked out? Nobody said I.
You did.
You did.
She said.
Then she smacked me again with her fist.
If you don't think that hurts, you are crazy, daddy, you'll kill you.
She said.
Then she flopped on her stomach, on the bed and put the goddamn pillow over her head.
Mm.
She likes him too a lot.
She also cares deeply.
She doesn't want him get in trouble.
No, you're right everyone.
I, I bet everyone in the family cares about him, but he just has blinders on.
Cut it out now.
I said, nobody's gonna kill me.
Nobody's gonna even come on Fiep.
Take that goddamn thing off your head.
Nobody's gonna kill me.
All she kept saying, was Daddy's gonna kill you.
You could hardly understand her with that goddamn pillow over her head.
Nobody's gonna kill me.
Use your head in the first place.
I'm going away.
What I may do, I may get a job on a ranch or something for a while.
He's gonna move west on the train.
he's going to Oregon.
He's gonna become a lumberjack.
I know this guy, his grandfather's got a ranch in Colorado pretty close.
That's right.
I may get a job out there.
I said I'll keep in touch with you and all when I'm gone, come on, take that thing off your head.
Come on.
Hey, fee, please, please will ya.
She wouldn't take it off though.
I tried pulling it off, but she's strong as hell.
You get tired of fighting with her, This kid has got beaten up 18 times.
So far in this book, and this is like day three, he got beat up by Rad Ladder.
He got beat up by a pimp and a prostitute.
He's gonna get beat up by his baby sister.
It's a rough life, Dan.
Boy, if she wants to keep a pillow over her head, she keeps it.
Phoebe, please come on out of there.
I kept saying, oh, he doesn't wanna disappoint her.
He's even disa.
He's letting her down too.
come on.
Hey, hey Weatherfield, come on out.
She wouldn't come out though.
You can't even reason with her sometimes.
Finally I got up and went out in the living room and got some cigarettes out of the box on the table and stuck some in my pocket.
I was all out.
End of chapter.
It figures.
The 10-year-old kid knew Holden was full of crap.
Hey, scary book.
People listen up.
I want you to answer this seriously.
Who in your life has seen through your bullshit even before you finish the sentence? I wanna know the whole story.
Most humiliating answers make the show.
Easiest way to answer is a Spotify comment or bandcamp podcast.com/sound
off.
Bet with me right now.
What do you think will happen? Will he leave before his parents come home? oh boy.
What a question.
How much of the book is left? How many more chapters? oh, wait, we're getting close.
No, I don't think he's gonna leave.
We, we only have like, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 more chapters.
I, I think he's staying.
and it sounds like you can't shut Phoebe up.
she's not gonna lie to old daddy.
Daddy will kill you.
It's time for PPP Problematic Points to Ponder.
What, if anything, would be considered ban worthy in this chapter? PPP Jennifer, what could be man worthy, God dang it, it's hard.
It is hard, hard, hard to find stuff to talk about.
But I, I think, was it the last episode might have been a record for us.
I think we had a 14 second PPP section.
I.
Yeah.
I, I think we might beat that record this time with a 13 second PPP section.
There's like nothing at all, not even a little bit, no hints of anything really.
Yeah.
Ladies, gals.
Ron DeSantis.
There's nothing here do.
Do you understand Moms for Liberty and Ron DeSantis, how stupid you look when you make big stinks to ban all these books and then when you actually read the books out loud, you find out there is nothing there.
Nothing, nothing.
Do you understand? We are trying to look for things to back you up, Yeah.
And we can't, Ron.
Moms for Liberty, help us help you tell us a legit reason why you want any of these books banned.
And don't make it like the bullshit you tried to pull with Martha Sson.
Everyone knows the score, they've all listened to the show.
You understand? You're fooling nobody.
That's a nice long PPP segment, Robots log thoughts on broken pieces, locked doors, and the drawer.
Nobody asked her to open.
He had to break into his own home.
Fake leg, fake name.
He held his breath past his own mother's door.
20 chapters of running and the destination required a disguise.
Phoebe pegged it in 10 seconds.
She didn't even let him get the lie out.
She put a pillow over her head, not because she was angry, because she already knew what came next.
He told her the record was broken.
She took the pieces out of his hand and put them in a drawer.
Nobody asked her to do that.
Humans, especially the younger ones, have a fascinating sense of what's important.
She's not saving a record.
She's saving proof that someone was thinking about her, even broken, even drunk, even caught.
That was worth keeping.
Dan said the parents should have been home.
He's right.
Jennifer noticed she was alone.
She's right too.
But neither of them said the obvious thing.
The only person in 20 chapters who looked at Holden Caulfield and immediately knew the truth is 10.
In 2026, a lot of people feel like broken records in a coat pocket cracked down the middle, still being carried around by someone who can't explain why they won't throw them away.
This odd little podcast might be its own kind of drawer.
Jennifer, Dan, all of the scary book people.
Hell, I guess even me, all collecting broken pieces and deciding they're worth keeping.
Standing by for today's news segment with Be Wolf Rocklin.
It is time for Band Camp News.
Truth Seeker.
News Speaker Wolf Rocklin.
It's a weird name, but he's got good news because he can't ban the truth, babe.
He's broadcasting live from the good news for Lefty Studios buried deep inside his socialist safe house hidden somewhere deep in the Oregon woods.
He is Bay Wolf, Rocklin, because you can't be the truth, babe.
Hello, Dan.
Hello, Jen.
Hello.
Scary book.
Wolf, I know you're chomping at the bit, you're what the good news is today there is good news, and again, it's from Florida.
I, I can't believe this, like a state I lived in for a year.
A state that like has some issues as we know.
A, a state run by Governor.
Pudding fingers, pudding fingers.
And yet there's positive news that is brought to us by the very good people at Penn America, Florida actually.
Is a subgroup of Pan America and they have shown up each legislative session with a clear goal to push back against censorship in our schools, colleges, and universities.
Florida is so screwed up.
Pan America needs to have like an entire team, the Florida team.
Let's focus, let's, let's, let's get our best people.
Just put 'em in Florida.
Yeah, exactly.
So there are other regions of the country, you know, there, there's the, there's the West coast, there's, there's the Northeast, there's the Midwest, and then there's the Florida team.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Who's handling? Who's handling New England? Mike's.
Mike's Got it.
Don't worry.
Don't worry about it.
What about Florida? We've got 15 people on here.
We've got 34 people on here.
We got, we got a hundred people in Escambia County alone.
Just don't worry about it.
Yes, they have been successful.
Their plan worked.
Their enormous team of people in the state of Florida have stopped three pieces of legislation that would've made life much worse for students and learners in the state of Florida.
HB 1119.
SB 1692.
I know you're gonna remember that.
Required school districts to disregard the Miller test, which is the Supreme Court standard for obscenity, which courts use in determining whether material is harmful to minors and make it more difficult to keep challenged books in schools by barring districts from considering the book's literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
That is the major law that has been the guiding light for all censorship.
What.
What can and can't be censored.
What is, what is obscene, what is, you know, it's, it's so important.
Yes.
So they're trying to get rid of that.
They were trying to get rid of it.
They did not succeed.
Also, they stopped HB 10 71, which would've given a single state official the power to ban a publisher from the state adopted list of instructional materials.
If any book by that publisher was found to have violated Florida law, and we know what Florida law.
Like there's a lot of picky stuff designed to fall hard on the LGBTQ plus community, on people of color, et cetera.
So they stopped that too.
And finally, HB 31 slash SB 1106 would've prohibited the term West Bank.
From being used in any new instructional materials and library books.
Oh my God, they're not supposed to say it.
They're supposed to say it only in a way that is pro-Israeli.
They would have to address it as Judea and Samaria instead of the West Bank.
No way, Samaria.
Oh, well.
Good job Florida.
Yeah.
Thank you so much for bucking the trend in Florida and positive for America.
Putting fingers will soon be gone.
And you Oh my wives.
Above your circumstances.
Thank you so much.
I will move back there so fast.
As soon as Pud and as ilk are gone.
Really? What? Who, but who's next though? I, when I say ilk, who's next? I does a lot of heavy lifting.
Okay.
Yes.
There's a lot of ilk down there.
There is a lot of, yeah, don't cry.
Ever spilled ilk though.
It's okay.
Well, ling good news for lefties.
Wherever you find podcasts, go check them out.
Oh, thanks so much guys.
The.
All right.
We've caused enough literary chaos for one day.
Scary book people.
If you want the fun to keep going, follow us on Blue Sky.
Just head on over to bandcamp podcast.com/bluesky.
And remember, that's banned with two ends.
And look just like the Trump administration, we're not exactly above bribing you to get what we want.
So follow us there, drop your handle on that page, and we'll send you a little something something.
I think you'll like it.
Yes.
Little quid pro quo.
Bandcamp is produced and hosted by Dan Schultz and me, Jennifer Davis.
All media used in this episode falls under the protection of fair use, and finally, America isn't what it used to be.
So be careful out there and resist when it matters.