In this chap­ter from “The Catch­er in the Rye,” Hold­en Caulfield describes a night spent at a bar, wait­ing for per­form­ers Tina and Janine, but instead, he ends up watch­ing a less impres­sive singer named Valen­cia. As he drinks heav­i­ly, he grap­ples with a sense of invis­i­bil­i­ty and attempts to make con­tact with peo­ple from his past, par­tic­u­lar­ly his old acquain­tance Jane. While at the bar, he feels he must con­ceal a sym­bol­ic “bul­let” in his stom­ach, rep­re­sent­ing his inner tur­moil and pain—a phys­i­cal man­i­fes­ta­tion of his emo­tion­al wounds.

Through­out the night, he becomes increas­ing­ly ine­bri­at­ed, lead­ing to a phone call with Sal­ly Hayes, who answers the call but is met with Hold­en’s drunk­en ram­blings. Their con­ver­sa­tion is frag­ment­ed and reflects his lone­li­ness; Sal­ly is clear­ly irri­tat­ed, but Holden’s des­per­ate need for con­nec­tion leads him to per­sist in his drunk­en ban­ter about vis­it­ing her to trim a Christ­mas tree.

After unsuc­cess­ful­ly try­ing to engage with the peo­ple around him, includ­ing a piano play­er who dis­miss­es his advances, Hold­en exits the bar and expe­ri­ences a down­ward spi­ral into despair. He wan­ders through Cen­tral Park, reflect­ing on his broth­er Allie, who has passed away. Hold­en’s thoughts turn dark as he imag­ines his own funer­al, show­ing a pro­found sense of loss and sad­ness as he recounts his fam­i­ly’s reac­tions to Allie’s death.

As he explores the park, he min­gles feel­ings of nos­tal­gia and regret, think­ing of the ducks and feel­ing lost. When he acci­den­tal­ly breaks a record belong­ing to his sis­ter Phoebe, it sym­bol­izes his ongo­ing strug­gle, rein­forc­ing his sense of loss. Despite being famil­iar with Chicago’s streets, his intox­i­ca­tion makes it hard for him to nav­i­gate. He also strug­gles with the cold, bat­tling thoughts of pneu­mo­nia and death. In a moment of reflec­tion, he con­sid­ers sneak­ing home to see Phoebe, demon­strat­ing his deep attach­ment to her and a desire to con­nect with some­one inno­cent amidst his chaos.

Ulti­mate­ly, this chap­ter cap­tures Holden’s dis­con­nec­tion from the world around him, his strug­gle with alco­hol as a cop­ing mech­a­nism, and his yearn­ing for mean­ing­ful rela­tion­ships. It serves as a poignant com­men­tary on his men­tal state, filled with con­fu­sion, iso­la­tion, and a desire for solace.