Teddy (Salinger)
from the Collection “Nine Stories”
Short Summary
Aboard a passenger ship on October 28, 1952, ten-year-old Teddy stood on his father's suitcase to look out the porthole. His father sternly told him to get down, worried about his expensive luggage. His mother playfully disagreed, causing tension between the parents. Teddy calmly mentioned passing the Queen Mary during the night, but his parents kept arguing.
Teddy explained that he met a man on the ship, Bob Nicholson, who was intrigued by Teddy's spiritual tapes from a Boston party. Teddy discussed the floating orange peels outside and philosophically pondered their existence. His father demanded he retrieve a camera from his younger sister, Booper. After cleaning his father's ashtray, Teddy left the cabin contemplating the nature of reality.
He found Booper with another small boy, imagining violent scenarios. Teddy got the camera from her, then reminded her of their swimming lesson. Sitting alone later, Teddy wrote thoughtfully in his diary, displaying maturity beyond his age. Nicholson approached and sat beside him, asking about his experiences and spiritual beliefs. Teddy spoke about non-emotional love and reincarnation. Nicholson asked about predictions Teddy had allegedly made, but Teddy corrected him, clarifying that he had only advised caution in certain circumstances.
I could go downstairs to the pool, and there might not be any water in it. This might be the day they change the water or something. What might happen, though, I might walk up to the edge of it... and my sister might come up and sort of push me in.
Philosophically explaining how death and existence should be perceived, Teddy moved toward his swimming lesson. After he left, Nicholson suddenly decided to follow him downstairs. Approaching the pool area, Nicholson heard a piercing scream from a young girl, echoing through the ship.
Detailed Summary
Division into chapters is editorial.
Morning in the McArdles' Cabin
On a cruise ship, ten-year-old Teddy McArdle stood on his father's new cowhide Gladstone bag to look out of the porthole in his parents' cabin. His father, irritated, repeatedly ordered him to get down, threatening to count to three. Teddy was wearing dirty white ankle-sneakers without socks, oversized seersucker shorts, a worn T-shirt with a hole in the shoulder, and a black alligator belt. He badly needed a haircut.
While Mr. McArdle continued to complain from his bed, Mrs. McArdle, still half-asleep and lying with her back to her husband, told Teddy to stay where he was and even encouraged him to jump on the bag. This sparked an argument between the parents, with Mr. McArdle threatening his wife and her sarcastically describing his eventual funeral where she would be the attractive woman in red flirting with the organist.
Ignoring their bickering, Teddy announced that they had passed the Queen Mary at 3:32 that morning. He then mentioned that a man sitting next to them in the dining room had spoken to him in the gym. This man had heard a tape Teddy made in May at a party in Boston and seemed very interested in it. Teddy explained that the man was a teacher from Trinity College in Dublin and a friend of Professor Babcock.
As Teddy continued looking out the porthole, he suddenly exclaimed that someone had dumped orange peels from a window. He found it interesting not that the peels floated, but that he knew they were there. He began to philosophize that if he hadn't seen them, he wouldn't know they existed, and soon they would only exist in his mind. Mrs. McArdle interrupted to ask about Booper, Teddy's six-year-old sister, concerned that she might be bothering people on deck.
Teddy's Encounters on the Ship
Before leaving the cabin, Teddy picked up his father's pillow and ashtray from the floor, carefully cleaned the night table, and placed the ashtray precisely in the center. At the door, he paused and made a philosophical observation.
After I go out this door, I may only exist in the minds of all my acquaintances. I may be an orange peel.
In the passageway, Teddy picked up the ship's newspaper and began reading it as he walked. A large blonde woman in a white uniform passed him, touched his head, and commented that he needed a haircut. At the Main Deck, Teddy approached the Purser's desk to ask about a word game scheduled for that day. The young woman officer at the desk told him it would be at four o'clock and suggested it might be too advanced for him.
When she introduced herself only as "Ensign Mathewson," Teddy politely suggested that when someone asks for a name, one should give their full name. After thanking her for the information, he headed up to the Promenade Deck.
Teddy and Booper on the Sports Deck
Teddy found his sister Booper on the Sports Deck, where she was stacking shuffleboard discs into two piles—one for black discs and one for red. A small boy named Myron stood watching her. Booper proudly showed Teddy her accomplishment, calling it "very symmetrical." She told Teddy that Myron had never heard of backgammon and that his father had been killed in Korea.
Teddy asked Booper for their father's camera, explaining that he needed it immediately. Booper was uncooperative, declaring that she was busy. Teddy informed her that their mother wanted to see her, which Booper dismissed as a lie. He hung the camera around her neck and asked her to take it to their father, reminding her about their swimming lesson at 10:30 on E Deck. As Teddy left, Booper shouted after him, "I hate you! I hate everybody in this ocean!"
Teddy's Diary and Reflections
Teddy went to the Sun Deck where rows of deck chairs were set up. He methodically checked the name placards on each chair until he found his family's four chairs in the second row from the front. Sitting down, he took out a small notebook from his hip pocket and began to read his previous entries with intense concentration.
The notebook contained entries written in a flowing manuscript style that seemed remarkably mature for a child. His most recent entry, dated October 27, 1952, included reminders to find his father's army dog tags, to answer Professor Mandell's letter and ask him not to send more poetry books, to get Sven's address in Elizabeth, New Jersey, to write a condolence letter to Dr. Wokawara about his nephritis, and to try meditating on the sports deck before breakfast.
Teddy then began writing a new entry for October 28, listing the letters he had written that morning after meditation. He noted that he could have asked his mother about his father's dog tags but she would probably say he didn't need to wear them. He wrote that "Life is a gift horse" in his opinion and that he found it "tasteless of Professor Walton to criticize my parents." His final cryptic note stated: "It will either happen today or February 14, 1955 when I am sixteen. It is ridiculous to mention even."
As Teddy sat with his pen poised over the notebook, he was unaware that a young man had been watching him from the Sports Deck railing for about ten minutes. The man finally made his way down to Teddy's chair and asked if he could sit down. Teddy explained that the chairs belonged to his family but his parents weren't up yet.
Discussion on Logic and Emotions with Nicholson
The young man, who introduced himself as Bob Nicholson, sat down and began a conversation with Teddy. He mentioned that he had been watching Teddy write from above and asked about his trip to Europe. Teddy explained that he had been interviewed at the University of Edinburgh and Oxford, and that people had come from Stockholm and Innsbruck to meet him.
Teddy suddenly asked Nicholson if he was a poet, explaining that poets always take the weather personally and put emotions into things that have no emotions. When Nicholson began to ask about the "disturbed bunch of pedants" Teddy had left in Boston, Teddy recited two Japanese poems instead, noting they weren't "full of emotional stuff."
Nicholson persisted, mentioning that he had spoken with Al Babcock and heard a tape Teddy had made. He asked about predictions Teddy had made that disturbed the Leidekker examining group. Teddy responded by questioning why people think it's so important to be emotional, saying his parents don't think a person is human unless they find things sad or annoying or unjust. He stated that he himself had no use for emotions.
When Nicholson asked if Teddy loved God, Teddy replied that he did, but not sentimentally, as that would be unreliable. Asked if he loved his parents, Teddy explained that he had a strong affinity for them and wanted them to have a nice time, but they seemed unable to love him and Booper just as they were.
They don't seem able to love us just the way we are. They don't seem able to love us unless they can keep changing us a little bit. They love their reasons for loving us almost as much as they love us, and most of the time more.
Checking the time, Teddy noted they had about ten more minutes to talk before his swimming lesson. Nicholson then brought up Teddy's belief in reincarnation, saying he understood that Teddy believed in his previous incarnation he had been a holy man in India who fell from grace. Teddy corrected him, saying he wasn't a holy man but "just a person making very nice spiritual advancement" who met a lady and stopped meditating.
I wasn't a holy man. I was just a person making very nice spiritual advancement... I met a lady, and I sort of stopped meditating.
Spiritual Philosophy and Views on Death
Teddy explained that because of this, he had to be reincarnated in an American body, making it difficult to meditate and live a spiritual life because people think you're a freak. He mentioned that he was six when he first had a mystical experience, seeing that everything was God, including his sister drinking milk—"she was pouring God into God." He added that he could get out of the finite dimensions fairly often when he was four.
I was six when I saw that everything was God, and my hair stood up, and all that... My sister was only a very tiny child then, and she was drinking her milk, and all of a sudden I saw that she was God and the milk was God.
When Nicholson asked how one gets out of finite dimensions, arguing that a block of wood has definite dimensions, Teddy disagreed. He asked Nicholson to hold up his arm and questioned how he knew it was an arm, suggesting that logic was the obstacle to seeing things as they really are.
You know that apple Adam ate in the Garden of Eden, referred to in the Bible? You know what was in that apple? Logic. Logic and intellectual stuff. That was all that was in it. So what you have to do is vomit it up if you want to see things as they really are.
Teddy continued his critique of conventional thinking, saying most people don't want to see things as they are or stop the cycle of birth and death. After a deck steward offered them morning broth, which they declined, Nicholson asked if Teddy had told the Leidekker examining group when and where they would die. Teddy firmly denied this, saying he had only told them when to be very careful and certain things they might do. He explained that he wouldn't have told them anything if they hadn't kept asking.
Teddy then reflected on death, describing it as simply getting out of one's body, something everyone has done thousands of times before. He speculated that he might die that very day if he went to the pool and his sister pushed him in, causing him to fracture his skull. When Nicholson pointed out that would be tragic for his parents, Teddy explained that would only be because they have names and emotions for everything.
All you do is get the heck out of your body when you die. My gosh, everybody's done it thousands and thousands of times. Just because they don't remember it doesn't mean they haven't done it. It's so silly.
Before leaving for his swimming lesson, Teddy mentioned that he had told Professor Peet to stop teaching after January because he was quite spiritual and teaching stimulated him too much. When asked what he would do to change the educational system, Teddy said he would first teach children to meditate and find out who they are, emptying out everything their parents told them.
I'd just make them vomit up every bit of the apple their parents and everybody made them take a bite out of.
The Pool and the Final Scream
When Nicholson asked if Teddy might like to do medical research when he grew up, Teddy said that wouldn't interest him because doctors focus too much on cells as if they were separate from the person. He explained his view that since he grew his own body, he must have known how to do it, even if only unconsciously.
I grew my own body. Nobody else did it for me. So if I grew it, I must have known how to grow it. Unconsciously, at least. I may have lost the conscious knowledge of how to grow it sometime in the last few hundred thousand years.
Teddy then shook Nicholson's hand and left quickly for his swimming lesson. Nicholson remained seated for a few minutes, then got up and began descending through the ship's decks: Promenade Deck, Main Deck, A Deck, B Deck, C Deck, and finally D Deck. There, he asked a stewardess for directions and opened a door marked "to the pool."
As Nicholson descended the staircase toward the pool, he suddenly heard "an all-piercing, sustained scream—clearly coming from a small, female child." The scream had an acoustical quality, as if reverberating within tiled walls.