Captain America in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

The Captain in the Rye

by J.D. Salinger

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is how I got to be this way, not what my lousy childhood was like and all that other David Copperfield crap. That stuff bores me. The truth is I wasn’t much of a fighter and maybe I was more that a little yellow. It’s not my fault, I didn’t want to be yellow, but I had arms like pencils. It’s hard not to be a little yellow when you have arms like pencils. I wasn’t yellow when it came to the Nazis though. I was ready to fight. You got to give it to anybody, even old Hitler, if they can make you feel like fighting for what’s right. He did too. I have to admit.

Stradlater, he’s my roommate at school, he’s a good enough guy except he knows it, he was going down to the Army recruiter to volunteer. I told him was going along. I thought he'd get a bang out of it.

“What for?” he says.
“To sign up.”
“You can’t. You’re only seventeen.”

He was eighteen, just barely, and exactly the kind sonofabitch to lord it over you if you were seventeen. “Stradlater kid, I’ll lie.” He hates when I call him kid ‘cause he thinks he’s old enough to be my father.It killed me it really did. The truth is, if you want to know, I’m one helluva liar. I can really string ‘em along if I’m in a mood for it.

So down we went into New York and old Stradlater gets his corny physical and I’m sure they made plans for him to be a general right away or something because he thinks he has this terrific build. I’ll admit he does have a great build. I’m tall, about six two, but he’s almost as tall and weighs probably twice as much. Those Army phonies probably got a good bang out of Stradlater.

So when it’s my turn they call out “Rodgers, Steven” and in I go. They only asked once if I was eighteen and like I told ya I can be one helluva liar. This old Doctor Spenser he had to be three hundred years old and he asks me to strip down to my shorts. Boy, I sure know a lot of perverts and they always seem to get perverty around me. But old Doc Spenser he looks me over and “hmms” and “rrrmmms” in ways that don’t make you feel like you’re gonna be made a General anytime soon.

Turns out maybe he wasn’t a pervert ‘cause he had me get dressed again right away and tells me I’m 4F. In case you don’t know 4F is army talk for too weak to go fight. Like I told you before I have arms like pencils.
“What do I do now?” I ask the old Doc.
“Go home. Go back to school.” He says without sounding sad about it. At least he wasn’t a phony, I hate those kinds of phonies that would make you think you came real close. “Nice try.” They might say. I hate when people tell me nice try.

“What about the Nazis?” I asked him. Then he looks up and kinda stares into my eyes a minute.
“The Army will take care of the Nazis.” He says.

It made me feel sad as hell. Those lousy medical exams. It made me so depressed. It really did. So now I walk out and I’m thinking I can’t make it back to Pencey for any classes that afternoon and what am I gonna do in New York. I’m not gonna go see a picture. If there’s one thing I hate it’s the movies. I’m too damn skinny, if you want to know the truth. I was supposed to be on this diet where you eat a lot of starches and crap to gain weight, but I didn’t ever do it.

Then I hear “Mr. Rodgers?” and turn to see old Doc Spenser hurrying after me. For a guy two hundred years old he could move at a good clip. Now he’s talking to me in hushed whispers.
“You really wanted to go fight the Nazis very badly didn’t you?”
“Yes sir” and he started getting serious as hell.
“We have a new experiment in the Army hospital… It might give you more strength. You might not be 4F after our treatments.”

He had a long speech about how it might be dangerous or even deadly but all I kept hearing is I wouldn’t be 4F. I was wondering if I’d end up sent to the same troop or unit or division as old Stradlater. I was in the Boy Scouts for about a week. You spent a lot of time staring at the back of the neck of the kid in line in front of you. I figured the Army was like that too and with my luck I’d have to stare at that bastard Stradlater’s neck. But maybe the Army would have too much time for us to stand around like the Scouts on account of wanting us all to get over to Germany.

So I told old Spenser “yes” and before you know it I was in this hospital getting a shot of serum. He called it “Soldier’s Serum” I think. It didn’t do much but make me dizzy and give me a headache so they told me to go to sleep and I wasn’t going to argue because all of a sudden I felt like I could sleep standing on my feet.

When I woke up I felt great and all these Army phonies were around me shaking my hand and congratulating me. Like they were routing for me all along when I never saw any of them before this. Some of them were calling me Captain Rodgers. Old Spenser makes his way to me and says it was a success and I had been given the rank of Captain. He tells me I slept about forty years but I was in amazing shape. I should see myself in a mirror. So two soldiers wheel over this mirror and get this; they salute me.

I thought maybe it was some fun house mirror or maybe that serum had left my head reeling because the Steve Rodgers in that mirror was built like a wrestler. He about drove hell out of me. I moved my pencil arm and he moved his arm full of muscles. I have to admit I looked great, I really did. All suave as hell. Except I was wearing this skin tight suit with stars and stripes all in red, white and blue that looked pretty flitty. It wasn’t too gorgeous.

“What’s with the get up? Where’s my Army duds?”
“You’re not just a soldier now Rodgers. You’re a symbol of America. This is your uniform. Everywhere you go you’ll represent America. You are codenamed Captain America.”

I felt like a huge phony for a while but they gave me this indestructible shield and dropped me in the middle of these rye fields in Berlin and it turns out I was a goddam good fighter.