The Laughing Man (Salinger)
from the Collection “Nine Stories”
Short Summary
Manhattan, New York, 1928. A nine-year-old boy belonged to the Comanche Club, a boys' group led by a young man known as the Chief.
After school days, the Chief drove the boys in his bus for sports or museums, while narrating installments of his original story 'The Laughing Man,' about a kind-hearted yet grotesque criminal hero. One day, a photo of a girl, Mary Hudson, appeared in the Chief's bus. Soon after, she joined them unexpectedly at a baseball game, impressively outperforming expectations.
Mary often attended their activities, until a tense exchange between her and the Chief ended her involvement, leaving her upset. Later that afternoon, the Chief narrated the final, tragic installment of his story:
The Laughing Man's last act, before turning his face to the bloodstained ground, was to pull off his mask. The story ended there, of course. (Never to be revived.) The Chief started up the bus. Across the aisle from me, Billy Walsh... burst into tears.
Detailed Summary
Division into chapters is editorial.
The Comanche Club and the Chief
In 1928, when the narrator was nine years old, he belonged to an organization called the Comanche Club. Every school day afternoon, twenty-five Comanches were picked up by their Chief outside P.S. 165 on 109th Street near Amsterdam Avenue. The Chief drove them to Central Park in his reconverted commercial bus, where they played football, soccer, or baseball, depending on the season. On rainy days, the Chief took them to either the Museum of Natural History or the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
On Saturdays and holidays, the Chief picked up the boys at their apartment houses and drove them to Van Cortlandt Park or the Palisades. If they wanted athletics, they went to Van Cortlandt; if camping was on their minds, they headed to the Palisades. The Chief always found any Comanche who got lost during these outings.
When not with the Comanches, the Chief was John Gedsudski of Staten Island, a shy, gentle young man in his early twenties who studied law at N.Y.U. He had been an Eagle Scout, an almost-All-America tackle in 1926, and had been invited to try out for the New York Giants baseball team. He was an impartial umpire, skilled fire builder, and expert first-aid man. All the Comanches loved and respected him.
The Story of the Laughing Man Begins
Every afternoon when it got dark, the Comanches would gather in the bus, fighting for seats closest to the Chief. Once they settled down, the Chief would straddle his driver's seat backward and begin narrating the latest installment of "The Laughing Man." This story captivated all the Comanches, and they could take it home to reflect on later.
Every afternoon, when it got dark enough for a losing team to have an excuse for missing a number of infield popups or end-zone passes, we Comanches relied heavily and selfishly on the Chief's talent for storytelling.
The Laughing Man was the only son of wealthy missionaries who was kidnapped in infancy by Chinese bandits. When his parents refused to pay the ransom, the bandits placed the boy's head in a carpenter's vise and tightened it. This resulted in a deformed head and, instead of a mouth, an enormous cavity below his nose that expanded and contracted when he breathed. Strangers fainted at the sight of his face, and acquaintances avoided him.
The bandits allowed him to stay at their headquarters as long as he wore a mask made of poppy petals to hide his face. Every morning, the Laughing Man would go to the forest where he befriended animals of all kinds. He removed his mask and spoke to them in their own languages, and they did not find him ugly.
Strangers fainted dead away at the sight of the Laughing Man's horrible face. Acquaintances shunned him... Every morning, in his extreme loneliness, the Laughing Man stole off to the dense forest... There he befriended any number and species of animals.
The Comanches' Identification with the Laughing Man
Over time, the Laughing Man learned the bandits' trade secrets and established his own more effective criminal system. He began robbing and hijacking around the Chinese countryside, occasionally murdering when necessary. His ingenious methods and sense of fair play won him a place in the nation's heart. When his foster parents discovered his success, they became jealous and tried to kill him, but he locked them in a decorated mausoleum instead of killing them.
The Laughing Man was one for keeping an ear to the ground, and in no time at all he had picked up the bandits' most valuable trade secrets. He didn't think much of them, though, and briskly set up his own, more effective system.
The narrator strongly identified with the Laughing Man, viewing him as a distinguished ancestor. In 1928, he even believed he was the Laughing Man's only legitimate living descendant, not his parents' son but an impostor waiting to reveal his true identity. He planned to employ his mother in his underworld operations to avoid breaking her heart. His main task was to play along with the farce of normal life while stifling his "natural hideous laughter."
I was not even my parents' son in 1928 but a devilishly smooth impostor, awaiting their slightest blunder as an excuse to move in—preferably without violence, but not necessarily—to assert my true identity.
Mary Hudson's Arrival
One day, the narrator noticed a new fixture in the Chief's bus: a small framed photograph of a girl in academic cap and gown above the rear-view mirror. When questioned, the Chief reluctantly identified her as Mary Hudson, a former Wellesley College student. The Chief seemed to imply that the picture had been planted on him. Over the next few weeks, the Comanches grew accustomed to the photograph.
One day, the Chief drove past their usual stop in the park and parked on Fifth Avenue in the Sixties. He began telling a story when someone tapped on the bus door. The Chief flung himself around and opened the door, and a girl in a beaver coat climbed in. The narrator immediately recognized her as having "unclassifiably great beauty." She asked if she was late, and the Chief nervously made room for her to sit between the narrator and a boy named Edgar.
On the way back to their regular parking place, Mary leaned forward and enthusiastically told the Chief about the trains she had missed and caught from Douglaston, Long Island. The Chief was very nervous, barely able to listen. When they reached the baseball field, Mary Hudson stayed with them, much to the Comanches' dismay.
Baseball Games and Mary Hudson's Participation
As the Comanches prepared to play baseball, Mary Hudson expressed a desire to join the game. The boys glared at her, but she smiled back. The Chief took her aside and tried to dissuade her, pointing out the soggy field and heavy bat. Mary insisted she wanted to play, saying she had come all the way to New York to see the dentist and was determined to participate. The Chief reluctantly suggested to the narrator, who was captain of the Warriors team, that Mary could replace his absent center fielder. The narrator claimed he didn't need a center fielder, which angered the Chief.
The Warriors took the field first, with Mary Hudson in center field wearing a catcher's mitt of her own choosing. When Mary came to bat ninth in the lineup, she removed her beaver coat and approached the plate in a dark-brown dress. She asked why the bat was so heavy, and the Chief gave her instructions on how to hold it. To everyone's astonishment, she hit the first pitch over the left fielder's head for a double, but ran to third base instead.
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.
For the next month or so, Mary Hudson played baseball with the Comanches a couple of times a week, whenever she had a dentist appointment. Sometimes she was on time, sometimes late. Sometimes she talked constantly on the bus, other times she just sat smoking her Herbert Tareyton cigarettes. She wore a wonderful perfume that the narrator noticed when sitting next to her.
The Changing Relationship Between the Chief and Mary
One wintry day in April, the Chief picked up the Comanches as usual, but his hair was combed wet and he wore his overcoat instead of his leather windbreaker. He drove past their usual park entrance and parked in the Sixties, where Mary Hudson typically joined them. To keep the boys entertained, he began a new installment of "The Laughing Man."
In this installment, the Laughing Man's best friend, a timber wolf named Black Wing, was captured by the Dufarges, the Laughing Man's enemies. The Dufarges offered to exchange Black Wing for the Laughing Man himself. The Laughing Man agreed, but the Dufarges planned to trick him by substituting another wolf for Black Wing. When the Laughing Man spoke to the substitute wolf in timber-wolf language, the wolf revealed the deception. Enraged, the Laughing Man removed his mask, causing Mlle. Dufarge to faint and her father to fire blindly at the Laughing Man.
The Chief checked his watch and started the bus without waiting for Mary Hudson. When the narrator asked if they were waiting for her, the Chief demanded quiet. During their baseball game that afternoon, the narrator spotted Mary Hudson sitting on a bench with two nursemaids. He told the Chief, who went over to speak with her. After their conversation, Mary followed the Chief back to the field but didn't play. Instead, she sat on a bench beyond third base, smoking cigarettes.
When the narrator asked if she wanted to play left field, she refused and told him to leave her alone. Later, he saw her crying near third base. The Chief had hold of her beaver coat sleeve, but she broke away and ran off the field onto the cement path until she was out of sight. The Chief didn't follow her but instead picked up the bats and prepared to leave.
The last good look I had at Mary Hudson, she was over near third base crying. The Chief had hold of the sleeve of her beaver coat, but she got away from him. She ran off the field onto the cement path and kept running till I couldn't see her any more.
The Final Installment of the Laughing Man
When the Comanches returned to the bus, they were unusually quiet, still thinking about the Laughing Man's predicament. The Chief climbed in with his coat collar up and the bats under his arm. Despite the silence, he demanded quiet before beginning the final installment of "The Laughing Man." He methodically blew his nose, folded his handkerchief, and then delivered a brief, five-minute conclusion to the story.
In this final installment, four of Dufarge's bullets struck the Laughing Man, two through the heart. When Dufarge and his daughter approached to inspect what they thought was his corpse, the Laughing Man suddenly raised his face, laughed terribly, and regurgitated all four bullets. The shock caused the Dufarges' hearts to burst, and they dropped dead at his feet.
However, the Laughing Man remained tied to the tree with barbed wire, bleeding profusely and cut off from his supply of eagles' blood. He summoned the forest animals to fetch his loyal dwarf companion, Omba. By the time Omba arrived with medical supplies and fresh eagles' blood, the Laughing Man was in a coma. Omba's first act was to retrieve his master's mask from Mlle. Dufarge's body and place it over the Laughing Man's face.
When the Laughing Man awoke, he didn't drink the eagles' blood Omba offered. Instead, he asked about Black Wing and learned that the Dufarges had killed him. With a final gasp of sorrow, the Laughing Man crushed the vial of eagles' blood in his hand. He ordered Omba to look away, and his last act before turning his face to the ground was to pull off his mask. The story ended there, never to be revived.
The Chief started the bus. Across the aisle from the narrator, the youngest Comanche, Billy Walsh, burst into tears, and no one told him to be quiet. The narrator's knees were shaking. When he stepped out of the bus, he noticed a piece of red tissue paper flapping against a lamppost that reminded him of the Laughing Man's poppy-petal mask. He arrived home with chattering teeth and was sent straight to bed.
A few minutes later, when I stepped out of the Chief's bus, the first thing I chanced to see was a piece of red tissue paper flapping in the wind against the base of a lamppost. It looked like someone's poppy-petal mask.