The Books: “Nine Stories”- ‘The Laughing Man’ (J.D. Salinger)

One of Salinger’s perfect blends of comedy and pathos – another great example (if I could only follow it) of not saying too much. Saying just enough … but leaving some of the meaning and interpretation outside the lines… f you weren’t a careful reader, you would think that the Chief and Mary, in this story, were just having a fight. Maybe breaking up. But you need to read carefully.

Take ‘The Laughing Man’. A simple story, on its surface: A man looks back on 1928, when he was nine years old, and part of an after-school program called The Comanches. They would all pile onto a bus after school and be transported to Central Park where they would play baseball, basketball … If it was raining, they would be taken to a museum. On the weekends, they were driven out to a baseball field in Jersey to play games. The head of this club is Joe Gedsudski, a 23 year old guy from Staten Island. They all call him “The Chief”. Words cannot express how much I love “the Chief”. And how much all the boys love “The Chief”. As their bus takes them to whatever destination they are headed for, The Chief tells an ongoing story about a horrifying and yet heroic creature called The Laughing Man. He is obviously making it up as he goes along, and he’s an awesome storyteller.The Laughing Man’s influence spans the entire world. He has enemies who want to get him. The story is quite violent at times. And The Laughing Man is ruthless when he needs to be.

And one day – it is noticed that a snapshot of a girl is taped up on the windshield. A girl? The Chief kind of evades the question. But then – horrors – the next Saturday, they make a pitstop on the Upper West Side – and a GIRL gets on the bus!! The boys are furious. No girls allowed should be the rule. Now they don’t know how to act, how to be, they resent Mary’s presence, they also resent that The Chief’s focus is now split – he’s obviously way more aware of HER than he is of THEM and that is NOT. RIGHT. He’s nervous, too. Mary just babbles on to him about her train ride, and the boys sit in scowling silence, and nobody gets to hear the next installment of The Laughing Man … because she has wrecked everything just by being there.

They get to the baseball field and are getting ready to play, when Mary asks if she can play, too. The boys are HORRIFIED. Girls should know when to go away!

EXCERPT FROM Nine Stories, by J.D. Salinger – excerpt from the third story ‘The Laughing Man’

Mary Hudson batted ninth on the Warriors’ lineup. When I informed her of this arrangement, she made a little face and said, “Well, hurry up, then.” And as a matter of fact we did seem to hurry up. She got to bat in the first inning. She took off her beaver coat – and her catcher’s mitt – for the occasion and advanced to the plate in a dark-brown dress. When I gave her a bat, she asked me why it was so heavy. The Chief left his umpire’s position behind the pitcher and came forward anxiously. He told Mary Hudson to rest the end of her bat on her right shoulder. “I am,” she said. He told her not to choke bat too tightly. “I’m not,” she said. He told her to keep her eye right on the ball. “I will,” she said. “Get outa the way.” She swung mightily at the first ball pitched to her and hit it over the left fielder’s head. It was good for an ordinary double, but Mary Hudson got to third on it – standing up.

When my astonishment had worn off, and then my awe, and then my delight, I looked over at the Chief. He didn’t so much seem to be standing behind the pitcher as floating over him. He was a completely happy man. Over on third base, Mary Hudson waved to me. I waved back. I couldn’t have stopped myself, even if I’d wanted to. Her stickwork aside, she happened to be a girl who knew how to wave to somebody from third base.

The rest of the game, she got on base every time she came to bat. For some reason, she seemed to hate first base; there was no holding her there. At least three times, she stole second.

Her fielding couldn’t have been worse, but we were piling up too many runs to take serious notice of it. I think it would have improved if she’d gone after flies with almost anything except a catcher’s mitt. She wouldn’t take it off, though. She said it was cute.

The next month or so, she played baseball with the Comanches a couple of times a week (whenever she had an appointment with her dentist, apparently). Some afternoons she met the bus on time, some afternoons she was late. Sometimes she talked a blue streak in the bus, sometimes she just sat and smoked her Herbert Tareyton cigarettes (cork-tipped). When you sat next to her in the bus, she smelled of a wonderful perfume.