Salinger (4 page)

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In 1932, Sol Salinger set up an interview for his son at the McBurney School, an exclusive private school located on West Sixty-fourth Street.
Records suggest that at that interview Sonny was anything but impressive. Awkward and ambivalent, he created the impression of being what he was—a distracted, unfocused, smart-alecky teenager
who had no idea of what he wanted to do with his life. When the interviewer asked him what subjects he was interested in, Sonny offered two: drama and tropical fish. This was hardly the kind of
answer that would make an interviewer open up his academically rigorous school’s doors to a potential star student. Still, Sol must have made an effort to lobby for his son, or the
interviewer must have seen in Sonny something that was not readily apparent on the surface,
for, despite Sonny’s generally flippant attitude at the meeting, McBurney
created a place for him starting in the fall of 1932.

At McBurney, Salinger participated in several extracurricular activities. He reported for the school newspaper, managed the fencing team, and performed in two school plays, each time taking a
female part. In
Mary’s Ankle,
he portrayed Mrs. Burns; in
Jonesy,
the title character’s mother. Despite his apparent interest in school activities, Sonny did not
engage in his academic pursuits with any zeal or intensity. As a result, his scholastic performance was modest at best; about the only activity, scholastic or otherwise, in which he excelled was
dramatics. School records reveal that while his performance in the classroom was well below school standards, his work in the school plays showed he definitely had potential as an actor. Perhaps
Sonny’s failure to be engaged by his academics grew out of what one friend later described as his desire “to do unconventional things.” “For hours,” the friend
reported, “no one in the family knew where he was or what he was doing. He just showed up for meals. He was a nice boy, but he was the kind of kid who, if you wanted to have a card game,
wouldn’t join in.” In short, Sonny liked being alone—he seemed to crave it—and could spend more time than was normal being by himself.

There was only one problem with Sonny’s nascent desire to act. Sol made it known in no uncertain terms that he was opposed to his son going into the field; he was even opposed to Sonny
performing onstage in prep school. As many fathers do, Sol wanted Sonny to go into the family business—in his case the meat-and-cheese
import-export business. So far,
however, Sonny’s main interests had been writing and the theatre. By the end of the spring term of 1934, Sonny had performed so badly in his classes that McBurney administrators asked him not
to return in the fall. In his first year there, Sonny earned these grades: algebra, 66 (15 in a class of 18); biology, 77 (5 out of 14); English, 80 (7 out of 12); and Latin, 66 (10 out of 12). In
his second year, he had not done any better: English and journalism, 72; geometry, 68; German, 70; and Latin, F. With these grades, Sonny was simply not McBurney material.

Sol engineered one last-ditch effort to try to find a way for his son to remain at McBurney by arranging for him to take classes during the summer of 1934 at the Manhasset School. That, too, was
a disaster, when Sonny performed as badly there as he had at McBurney. So McBurney made its decision final. Upon Sonny’s departure, a school official wrote the following note on his
transcript: “Character: Rather hard-hit by [adolescence] his last year with us. Ability: plenty. Industry: did not know the word.”

What Sonny needed, Sol decided, was to be toughened up a bit. With this in mind, Sol surveyed the schools in and around New York City until he found the Valley Forge Military
Academy. Located on a picturesque campus in rural Pennsylvania, the school had a reputation for whipping aimless young men into shape. Here is how one student later described the school: “As
for what life was like at Valley Forge, the discipline was tough. New cadets were hazed. The emphasis was
on the military and sports rather than on academics. Valley Forge
felt more proudly of a graduate who went to West Point than to Harvard.”

Maybe Valley Forge could accomplish what Sol had not been able to and turn Sonny into a young man full of drive and ambition. Hopeful, Sol placed telephone calls to the school until he had
arranged a spur-of-the-moment interview for Sonny. On that interview, Sonny was accompanied by his mother. It must have gone well, for on extremely short notice—school records suggest that
the notice was perhaps as brief as two days—Sonny was accepted into and enrolled at Valley Forge, where in 1934 the fall semester started on September 22. “I feel confident that Jerome
will conduct himself properly and I am sure you will find his school spirit excellent,” Sol Salinger wrote to Major Waldemar Ivan Rutan, Valley Forge’s chaplain, just after
Sonny’s enrollment. No doubt Sol expressed this same sentiment to Sonny.

Sonny got the point: He had better shape up and develop some noticeable school spirit, or else. In very fundamental ways, during the two academic years he stayed at Valley Forge, he did change
as a student and a person. One example of this change was evident even at the time. At Valley Forge, Sonny decided his name sounded too boyish, he had outgrown his. Still, he did not like the names
Jerome and David, and he certainly didn’t want to be called J. D., not as a nickname anyway. So he made up his mind. As his new nickname, and maybe even for his professional byline as well,
he wanted to use Jerry. He told his family and friends that would be his name: Jerry—Jerry Salinger.

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It was pitch-black as the two boys crept across the Valley Forge campus, heading for the estate of an heir to the
Campbell Soup fortune that was located next to the school. This was the fall of Jerry’s senior year, and for that year he had been assigned as his roommate a boy named Richard Gonder, whom he
liked a great deal. Intelligent and adventuresome, Richard was just the kind of boy who would go along with Jerry on the various outings he suggested. Sometimes, early in the morning, Jerry and
Richard would sneak into town to have breakfast and a hot chocolate at a local diner before they rushed back to campus in time for reveille. There were also the times they would sit around their
dorm room late at night and talk on and on about Merle Oberon—for their money,
the
sexiest star in Hollywood. Jerry liked to describe her as being “devastating,” “a
real doll.” Neither of them had a girlfriend, mostly because they were teenage boys attending an all-boys military academy, but, like so many of the other cadets, they sure could talk about
starlets like Merle Oberon. Visions of Merle may or may not have been on the minds of the boys as they sneaked across the campus that night. What was on their minds was tonight’s goal. If no
one was at home at the estate next door, the two planned on going swimming in the pool located on the property, something they had done in the past from time to time without ever getting
caught.

If they did get caught, they would have to face Colonel Milton S. Baker, the school’s founder who still served as its headmaster. An industrious entrepreneur with a natural talent for
self-promotion, he presided over the academy using a strict but compassionate
administrative style. For his part, Baker was also a character in his own right. “He was
very pro-British,” one cadet recalled. “He wore a greatcoat like the ones worn by British officers. When he changed the cadet uniform in the fall of 1936, he used British Army
officers’ ‘stars’ for cadet officer insignia on the shoulder straps. Once Baker spoke in chapel and denounced Edward VIII for giving up the throne for Mrs. Simpson. Baker’s
concern was that Edward was shirking his duty, which, of course, he
was.
Some years later, Baker was awarded the OBE [Order of the British Empire] which must have been the proudest moment
of his life.” Another cadet, Franklin Hill, remembers Baker: “He was impressive. He posed a good image to everyone. He was someone to be looked up to. Most students liked him but he
wasn’t someone you’d walk up to and say, ‘Hi, Colonel. How are you?’ He was a good leader.”

Things had begun to go well for Jerry at Valley Forge, where, besides being a member of First Class and Company B, he joined the Glee Club, the Aviation Club, the French Club, and the
Non-Commissioned Officers Club. For this year, he had even been appointed literary editor of
Crossed Sabres,
the school’s yearbook. In addition to these activities, he was also a
devoted member of the Mask and Spur Dramatic Club.

As it happened, nobody spotted the boys as they left the school campus and entered the adjoining estate. When they realized no one was at home, they sneaked over to the swimming pool, stripped
down to their underwear, and dove into the pool’s cold water. It shows just how ordinary the boys’ lives were at this point—two teenage boys,
swimming
playfully in the waters of a pool that belonged to neither of them, hoping all the while that the owner did not happen upon them as they swam.

In the handful of times they secretly swam in the pool during Jerry’s senior year, the boys were never caught. In fact, at Valley Forge, Jerry’s luck seemed to have changed
completely. Maybe he
did
only need some discipline to help him mature into a more responsible and productive young man. During his senior year, he even did comparatively well in his
academic classes. His final grades for that year were English, 88; French, 88; German, 76; history, 79; and dramatics, 88—certainly a much better showing than the performance he had turned in
at McBurney. He seemed brighter, in general, in this environment. At Valley Forge his IQ was tested at 115, which was significantly higher than the 104 he had scored at McBurney.

As an outgrowth of his drama course, Jerry appeared in R. C. Sheriff’s
Journey’s End,
playing the part of Young Raleigh. However, at Valley Forge, Jerry began to experiment
with another creative activity. “At night,” William Maxwell later reported, “in bed, under the covers, with the aid of a flashlight, [Salinger] began writing stories.” Over
the coming months, Salinger’s interest in writing became so strong he could no longer confine his writing to late-night episodes lit by flashlight. Instead, he started working on stories
whenever and wherever he could.

Sol Salinger must have been proud of his son on that beautiful June day in 1936 when he sat at the school’s graduation and watched Colonel Baker hand his son a diploma from Valley Forge.
Sol also
must have felt some sense of pride when he flipped through Jerry’s yearbook. Next to his son’s picture, an attractive black-and-white shot in which he
looked youthful and handsome, this caption appeared: “Jerome David Salinger, Corporal B Company, January 1, 1919, New York, New York. Activities: Private, ’34; Intramural Athletics;
Mask and Spur, ’34 and ’35; Glee Club, ’34 and ’35; Plebe Club, ’35; Aviation Club; French Club; Non-Commissioned Officers Club; Literary Editor, 1936
Crossed
Sabres.
” Then, in a section called Class Prophecy, the editors predicted Salinger’s future: “Jerry Salinger, writing four-act melodramas for the Boston Philharmonic
Orchestra.” Finally, the yearbook contained an untitled poem about Valley Forge written by Salinger—a three-stanza, songlike piece meant to commemorate Salinger’s last day at the
academy by reflecting back on the previous two years. The poem is flagrantly sentimental but full of the kind of reflections that suggest Salinger had genuinely enjoyed his experience at the
school.

Without a doubt, Salinger made a lasting impression on his senior-year roommate. “Jerry’s conversation was frequently laced with sarcasm about others and the silly
routines we had to obey and follow at school,” Richard Gonder says. “The school in those days was run on a strictly military basis—up at six, endless formations, marching from one
activity to another, meals and classes at set hours, and taps at ten. Jerry did everything he could do not to earn a cadet promotion, which he considered childish and absurd. His favorite
expression for
someone he did not care for was, ‘John, you really are a prince of a guy.’ What he meant by this, of course, was ‘John, you really are an
SOB.’ Jerry and I hated the cool military aspects of the school. Everything was done in a row and at fifteen you don’t want to do things in a row, but Jerry’s father felt he
needed to go to a military academy, so that’s where he was. Jerry was the delight of the English teacher, but he got only passing marks in his other subjects. He had a great sense of humor
and was more sophisticated than the rest of us. He would read the letters he sent home to his mother, whom he was very close to, and we were all astonished. He was very slight in build because he
hadn’t shot up yet, and he was worldly as far as his mind was concerned. He was a rather nice-looking guy. I liked him immensely. I enjoyed his wit and humor. He was so sure of himself as far
as his writing went. He knew he was good.”