In this chap­ter of “The Catch­er in the Rye,” the nar­ra­tor, Hold­en Caulfield, recounts his expe­ri­ences after arriv­ing in New York City. Imme­di­ate­ly after step­ping off the train at Penn Sta­tion, he feels the urge to reach out to some­one but finds him­self unable to decide who to call. He con­sid­ers his broth­er D.B. in Hol­ly­wood, his younger sis­ter Phoebe, and old acquain­tances like Sal­ly Hayes. How­ev­er, he ulti­mate­ly refrains from call­ing any­one, feel­ing dis­in­clined to engage with the peo­ple he knows. He heads to a cab, inad­ver­tent­ly giv­ing the dri­ver his home address instead of the hotel where he plans to stay, only real­iz­ing his mis­take halfway through the jour­ney.

Dur­ing the ride, Hold­en asks the cab dri­ver about the local ducks, show­ing his curios­i­ty about where they go when the lagoon freezes. The dri­ver dis­miss­es him, but this ques­tion reflects Hold­en’s deep­er con­tem­pla­tion of change and loss, themes preva­lent in his life. Upon arriv­ing at the Edmont Hotel, Hold­en checks in after remov­ing his red hunt­ing cap, want­i­ng to avoid appear­ing eccen­tric. The hotel turns out to be filled with dubi­ous char­ac­ters, and he describes his unim­pres­sive room and the strange activ­i­ties he observes out of the win­dow.

Through his obser­va­tions, Hold­en reveals his con­flict­ing feel­ings about sex­u­al­i­ty and con­nec­tion. He notes the bizarre behav­ior of fel­low guests, reflect­ing his dis­com­fort with the sex­u­al norms of adult­hood. He grap­ples with his desires and the rules he tries, often unsuc­cess­ful­ly, to impose on him­self regard­ing rela­tion­ships with women.

Hold­en then con­tem­plates con­tact­ing a girl named Faith Cavendish, whom he learned about from a friend, con­sid­er­ing the poten­tial for a casu­al encounter. He even­tu­al­ly calls her but strug­gles to main­tain the facade of matu­ri­ty, reveal­ing his youth and inex­pe­ri­ence. Their con­ver­sa­tion is fraught with mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tion and missed oppor­tu­ni­ties, cul­mi­nat­ing in a sense of dis­ap­point­ment when she declines to meet him. The chap­ter high­lights Hold­en’s lone­li­ness, con­fu­sion about adult rela­tion­ships, and the per­va­sive feel­ing of alien­ation that defines his char­ac­ter through­out the nov­el.