TEDDY AT THE POOL

By Charles Deemer

 

 

In another well-known story in the collection called “Teddy,” a jealous sister pushes a child prodigy into an empty swimming pool. Here the little genius has anticipated and even welcomes his own death.

               --Maxwell Geismar, “The Wise Child and the New Yorker School of Fiction”

 

Salinger depends on our understanding of Teddy’s attitude to make us understand that it is Teddy who dies.

               --Arthur Mizener, “The Love Song of J.D. Salinger”

 

Teddy [is] the story of a strange boy who believes in Vedantic incarnation and detachment, and who vaguely foresees his death.

               --Ihab Hassan, “J.D. Salinger: Rare Quixotic Gesture”

 

He foresees his own death, which he regards not with Western logic as the end of his life but rather as the final fulfillment and reunion with life. The story ends with that fulfillment, precisely the way that Teddy foresaw it.

               --Dan Wakefield, “J.D. Salinger and the Search for Love”

 

Etc., etc. etc.

 

 

               It had been five years since I’d seen Bob Nicholson. We had dated occasionally as undergraduates at the University of Massachusetts, not with any romantic inclinations but because we were friends who shared lecture notes. After graduation Bob went to Princeton, I believe, to continue his studies in education, and I went home to Boston to find employment. After an unsatisfying series of clerical and secretarial jobs, I signed on with Transatlantic Lines, feeling as if I were beginning a great adventure. Instead I found myself doing clerical work in an environment that made me claustrophobic and seasick. My early letters home were filled with regrets at having joined (as I put it) the Navy.

            My situation gradually improved. I developed sea legs, and I was appointed editor of the ship's daily newspaper. Although journalism had been my minor at Amherst, I received the editorship because I was the only one who wanted it. The position offered a daily challenge to fill more than one page. For this reason, before each cruise I carefully searched the passenger list for recognizable names, looking for the politicians and artists and athletes who made good copy. I once met a woman who had taken Transatlantic to Greece and back, and when she told me about her trip, she did not emphasize Piraeus or the Parthenon but the fact that Gary Cooper was reported to be on the cruise home. She had read this in the ship’s daily. Naturally she spent a good portion of each day searching the decks for him, she told me, and although she never found him, his reported presence continued to be the highlight of her foreign travels. I never forgot the lesson. 

When I saw Bob Nicholson’s name on the passenger list, I made only a casual note of it. The name was fairly common, for one thing; for another, J.D. Salinger was also on the list, and his novel The Catcher in the Rye had caused quite a stir when I was an undergraduate. I hoped to get an interview with him into an early edition. For the most part, the paper was a daily announcement of the same recreational activities, the games and contests that were upcoming, the results of competitions that were past. The ship was run to such a rigorous schedule, overthrown only by severe weather, that the challenge was to find any real news at all. I felt the paper looked more respectable when I could staple another page or two behind the first, and an interview with Mr. Salinger would let me do just that. 

I ran into Bob on our second evening at sea. I was on ray way to Mr. Salinger’s stateroom, feeling quite nervous, although it was early, about coming unannounced. The previous afternoon, while crossing the Sports Deck, a steward had pointed him out to me, adding that for a famous author he didn’t seem very sociable. He was on the Sun Deck below us, looking out of place. Rather than sunning, he gave the impression of being out to defy the sun, his arms crossed tightly over a terry-cloth robe, his legs as white as chalk. He wore sunglasses and a ridiculous broad-rimmed straw hat that couldn’t have been purchased in England. In Mexico, perhaps, on another trip. Mr. Salinger was standing perfectly still, apparently in deep concentration, looking straight ahead. I finally looked out to sea, too, expecting to find whales or porpoises or even mermaids. I saw only the endless rolling ocean. When I looked back at Mr. Salinger, he was abruptly walking off. 

"Helen?" 

The voice was tentative, from behind me. I turned in the narrow passageway and recognized him immediately. 

"Then it was you!” I was delighted to see him, and not only because I now had an excuse to postpone my visit to Mr. Salinger.

Bob hadn’t changed much, except that his jacket and trousers were wrinkled. At Amherst his mother often had come up on weekends with a load of pressed laundry. We quickly tried to bring each other up to date but found the passageway, which we were blocking, too confining for easy conversation. Bob suggested a more leisurely reunion over drinks in the ship’s lounge. 

"I really shouldn't in uniform," I said. 

"That’s what it is about you. You look like a nurse. Can you change into something else?" 

"I'll have something non-alcoholic. That should be all right." 

"Not much fun, though." 

"I have a newspaper to get out tonight." 

The lounge was off the starboard end of the dining room. We were not denied permission to frequent it, a certain mixing between employees and passengers being encouraged. We were reminded before each cruise that we represented Transatlantic Lines at all times and should behave accordingly. Normally I went to the lounge only when pursuing a story, where as often as not I found myself fighting off the interviewee, who had decided, if he was an unaccompanied male, that one pursuit deserved another. 

Despite Bob’s having chosen a table away from the crowd at the bar, my curiosity was drawn to it by a debilitated-looking man with a deep voice. He was telling a story and had the attention of everyone along the bar, and at the near tables as well, as if by the sheer resonance of his narrative. 

After giving the waiter our order Bob said, "That’s Clarence McArdle. He’s a radio actor." 

"Oh?" The prospect of another interview was enough for me to forgive the man, whose loudness was already beginning to annoy me. 

"Serials, mainly. I don’t know how talented he is. He has a son, though, who is something out of this world." 

I raised my eyebrows, as if to ask, In what way? 

Bob tapped his forehead just under the hairline. "Brains, The kid's an absolute genius. I first heard about him from the Leidekker bunch in Boston. I know some of them, Bob Peet, Al Babcock. Al used to teach at Amherst, by the way. They’ve been making a study of him, along with a few other child prodigies. They interview the kid on tape and whatnot. He disturbed the boys no end with some predictions last May." 

"What about?" 

"The lethal one was when each of them would die." 

I smiled, "Now really, what adult would believe that anyone, let alone a child, can predict that?" 

The waiter brought our drinks, gin (neat) for Bob, cola (neat) for myself. Bob waited until he had gone before continuing.

"But the fact remains that the kid tests off the charts. It’s scary." 

I asked, "How old is the boy?" 

"Teddy? Ten, as I recall. Somewhere in that neighborhood." 

I turned to look at Clarence McArdle. His face was red as he continued the story, perhaps as much from exertion as from too much sun or drink, for he punctuated his language with sweeping gestures and exaggerated poses, as if the use of his body was something delightfully new to him after all the years on radio. He was speaking loudly enough for us to listen in, if we’d chosen to, but I had turned not to eavesdrop but to look for a resemblance between father and son.

Bob said, "Want me to introduce you? I met him yesterday, I wanted to clear the air before talking to Teddy, Some parents get panicky when strangers approach their little darlings." 

"Does the boy try to act older than he is?" 

"In a sense, I suppose," said Bob. "But his intelligence is genuine. Why?" 

"Yesterday I talked with a boy who struck me as peculiar, to say the least. He seemed to be keeping a journal." 

"Sounds like Teddy," said Bob. 

I had been on my way up to the Sports Deck to get the names of the entrants in the ship's tennis tournament. It was around ten and a morning fog was still burning off, keeping most of the worshipers off the Sun Deck. A few fanatics were out but I didn’t notice the boy until I had become interested in the girl. 

She looked six or seven and had lovely blonde hair. What struck me about her, however, was not her appearance but the determination with which she was lugging a sand-pail full of water. I smiled as we passed. The girl said, "He’s a creep." 

I stopped and turned. The girl continued for a few steps and then briefly lost her balance on the rolling ground of sea, spilling water on the deck. Then she started off again. I let her put some distance between us before following, my curiosity personal as well as official. We were walking behind the rear row of chairs on the Sun Deck, and when we reached the middle of its length the girl turned, spilling water again, and started toward the front, facing the steaming ocean. 

At first I missed the boy; then I noticed him, the only person in the immediate area, his head visible over the backrest of a deck chair in the second row. I hurried to catch up with the girl and reached her as she was raising the pail. 

"No, you don’t,” I said, grabbing it away from her. The water spilled between us, getting both our feet wet. 

"Booper," said the boy, who in the meantime had escaped to the first row of chairs. He was holding up a small notebook, as if unsure that the spraying was over. “There’s enough moisture in the air from the fog, I don't need a shower." 

"I hate you," said the girl. She was glaring at me.

"C'mon, Booper," said the boy, bringing down the notebook. "You don't even know the man." 

The girl said, now turning to him, "If you swam as bad as me, I’d push you in the ocean and you'd drown and the sharks would eat your carcass for lunch!" 

She went off the way we had cone. Turning at the last row of chairs, she started skipping.

"I'll take that if you don’t mind," said the boy.

I handed him the sand-pail and asked, "Is she your sister?" 

"Yes. I hope her rudeness didn’t upset you." 

He moved forward to his chair but didn’t sit down. His voice had a hoarse quality to it that suggested dissipation more than illness, despite the contrary evidence of his age. He had a long thin neck and small eyes: with the longish unkempt hair, he reminded me of a photograph of Bertrand Russell I recently had seen in the London Times. A Lord Russell. A child Lord Russell. 

"She's the one who seemed upset," I said.

He rubbed his nose with the length of a ballpoint pen. "Booper doesn't mean anything by it. She dislikes me, not you. She was angry with you because you stopped her." 

"Well it didn’t seem like a very pleasant practical joke." 

"I didn’t say it was a practical joke. She meant it much more serious than that."

What I read as arrogance in his manner was catching: I heard myself say, "More seriously." 

"I was modifying the it, not, the meant. Anyway, I should thank you. I prefer not to get soaked that way, to be honest." 

"Then you're welcome," I said. 

He said, "Goodbye." 

"Goodbye." 

A few rows behind him I turned and saw that he was sitting again, the unkempt head of hair sticking up over the backrest. I returned and he looked up from the notebook, then allowed it to close. 

“Do you want something else?" he asked. 

"I couldn’t help but notice that you were writing in the notebook." 

"Yes, you could have. You could have left." 

"I'm the editor of the ship’s newspaper." He didn't seem impressed. "A few cruises ago I gave a girl a poetry column. She was eleven and very good at sonnets." 

He looked like an impatient parent. 

"I have my swimming lesson soon and would like to finish something first." 

"Well," I said, understanding that I was over-staying my welcome, "if you ever write anything you want to share, I’d be happy to look at it. The girl's column was very popular with the passengers." 

"I don’t like to read poetry, so I hardly can be expected to write it," he said. "At least not the poetry you mean." 

"I'm not saying I’m limited to sonnets. Free verse is fine if--" 

"I mean American poetry. English poetry, poetry in the Western tradition.  Whatever gives emotions to things that don't have emotions." 

"Oh, I see," I said, not sure if he was expressing anything beyond a dislike for poetry. I wished I’d never brought the matter up. 

"No, you don’t see. Or you never would have asked." 

I said, "See you around, smart-ass," and left. 

 

 

Bob laughed, "You didn’t really tell him that." 

"I did. What I really wanted to do was smack him one." 

There was a great roar from the bar, and I turned to find red-faced Clarence McArdle laughing along with his audience. The woman at the stool beside him got up and headed for the restroom, which brought her past our table. When our glances met, her eyes briefly rolled heavenward.

Bob said, "Word is they fight like cats and dogs." 

"What was their boy's name?”

“Teddy. Theodore, actually." 

"He said something yesterday about not liking American poetry because it was emotional." 

"He'd say something like that. It all comes out of the whole Oriental, Eastern attitude he's interested in." 

"That may be. But his sister is a very emotional, distraught little girl, I’ll tell you that. And if his parents fight as you say, then that boy’s probably terrified to death of emotions.'' 

Bob suggested another drink but I begged off, citing my deadline for "tomorrow's paper. We made a date for breakfast, and I left by myself. In the passageway on the way to my stateroom, I remembered Mr. Salinger. It was too late to knock on his door unannounced but I decided it wasn't too late to slip a note under the door. If it was true he was not sociable, better to warn him of my intentions. I turned into a restroom, tore a sheet of paper from the notebook I carried in my purse and, using a shelf for support, wrote: 

 

Mr. Salinger, 

I am the editor of the ship’s daily newspaper. I’ll be looking you up in the next few days, hoping to arrange an interview with you for the paper. I enjoyed your novel. Thank you. 

 

I signed it, folded it in thirds and started the long walk through a maize of passageways to deliver it. On Mr. Salinger's door was also a note. It was a pronouncement really, a bold declaration that had me crumpling my own note in my hand. It was printed in large capitals, in crayon, childlike, but unmistakably serious: UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES KNOCK! IN FACT GO AWAY!

 

"You missed a dozy last night," Bob told me over breakfast. "The cats and dogs turned into piranhas. Blood was everywhere." 

“Who won?" 

“That, I think, depends on one's point of view. For histrionics, of course the actor. He kept saying that if there weren’t so many witnesses, he’d bust open a couple of whiskey bottles and carve her to shreds. It was straight out of a two-bit western, except I had the distinct impression that he was serious." 

"What did she do?" I asked this more for Bob’s benefit, for he obviously was enjoying telling me about it. I kept thinking of the poor boy, locked up in a family of angry actors.

“Well, that came later, after he stormed off. He said he was going to pick up a lady steward." 

"G1ad I missed him," I said. I blew into my coffee. 

"Then she played tit for tat." 

I looked up, and Bob was red. 

"Why are you blushing?" 

"Excuse me, I didn’t mean that as a pun. But she did make herself available in a pretty forward way. She actually smooched a while with one guy, that is until the bartender asked her to leave. She called him every name in the book before she did.”

“They’ll be banned from the bar,” I said. “The second chance is the last. The poor boy,” I thought again, but aloud. I bit into a piece of toast.

“We’re the poor ones,” said Bob. “The kid’s IQ is out in the stratosphere somewhere.”

“Intelligence isn’t everything. Besides, if you ask me, he’s walking on thin ice in a family like that.”

“With is brains, he can rise above them.”

“If you could have seen the hatred in that little girl …”

“Teddy, I mean. He’s one of a kind.”

“I should hope so.”

Bob concentrated on breakfast, and I wondered if he thought we’d been having an argument. My answer came when he stood up and said, “I’ll see you later.”

“What are you mad for?”

Bob took a slow audible breath, and I thought of Clarence McArdle.

“I think Teddy deserves a little respect,” he said. “The kid’s a genius, after all.”

“A ten-year-old genius.”

"Age has nothing to do with it." 

"There are ages, and there are ages." 

Bob looked hurt. I said, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you." 

There was a pause, during which he lit a cigarette. 

"Let’s have dinner together." I made an effort, although I was out of practice, to put on my most pleasant Phi Mu face. "I still haven't found out what you’ve been up to." 

Bob nodded, not exactly a commitment. 

"Oh, stop pouting,” I said, slightly seductive. 

Bob shook his head and managed to grin. "I'm sorry. I think his parents give me the willies. Can I see you later?" 

"In the dining room this evening. Around six?" 

"Six, it is.”

“Ciao." 

"Ciao." 

When I had finished breakfast, I took the forward ship stairways all the way down to E Deck, where the pool was. The pool was reserved for employees until nine, and after breakfast I liked to splash around in the shallow end, planning my day. At nine the ship’s weight-reducing club, the Hearty Breathers, took over the pool and at ten-thirty the children whose parents had decided they should have swimming lessons, as mine had never done. I had written a story on neither activity yet and, needing material just to fill tomorrow’s single page, I decided to remain poolside through the Hearty Breathers and lessons, drafting my stories on each. I had learned that the fitness types, more than others, liked to see their names in the paper, as if this proved what was still only tentative on the weighing-in scale. 

After Charlie, the swimming coach, had the Hearty Breathers lined up for warming-up calisthenics, he introduced me. I told them I would be writing about their club and therefore would need their names, for which purpose I had put sign-in sheets in each dressing room. I would also be available between ten and ten-thirty, if some of them would be willing to tell me why they had joined, what they expected to accomplish, and so on. After thanking them, I carried a deck chair a polite distance away and waited for the huffing and puffing to begin. 

After ten, I was besieged outside the dressing rooms by a motley assembly of men end women who wanted to tell me how much weight they planned to lose. Feeling oddly like a priest at confession, I scribbled notes, thanked them again and removed myself to the deck chair to do the story. 

"Hi there, Booper!”

It was Charlie, and I I looked up to see the girl approaching the pool with a trepidation I understood very well from my own childhood. 

"Come on," said Charlie. "The water won't bite." 

I returned to my story. Writing about the Hearty Breathers was easier than about children at their swimming lessons. So many of the latter were like Booper, there only because their parents wanted them there. 

I did not look up again until I heard the scream. It came suddenly, a piercing screaming that didn’t stop. I looked up and saw that Booper had fallen into the pool and was screaming as if screaming itself would sustain her, although Charlie already had the long lifeguard’s pole under her for support and was guiding her to him. But Booper’s panic remained, her screams continuing to echo acoustically within the four tiled sides above the water level of the pool.

Then I noticed Teddy. He was standing back from the pool, opposite from where Charlie was guiding the frightened girl to safety, but on the same side at which Booper had fallen in.

Bob Nicholson rushed up to me, asking, “What happened?”

I thought I knew but said nothing. I stood up as Bob, who was out of breath, continued.

“I could feel in my bones that something was wrong. I ran across Teddy up above and was grilling him about philosophy. He started getting pretty excited. Voice rising, speaking faster and whatnot, like he felt backed into a corner. I had a hunch that something was wrong as soon as he left for his lesson. I’d never seen him that way before. He was getting pretty excited. I got down here as quick as I could.”

We approached Teddy. Across the pool, Charlie had Booper to the edge now and was lifting her out. Her screaming had stopped, and she was bawling.

“Teddy?” I said.

His eyes were closed. Near each leg of his swimming trunks, a small hand formed a tight white fist. When I was close enough to touch him, I saw that he was trembling.

“It’s all right,” I said. “She’s okay. You scared her, is all.”

Bob asked quietly, “He pushed her in?”

I nodded.

“Teddy?”

Eyes locked tight, fists squeezing blood from his hands, he did not heed our presence. It was as if he had seen something that frightened him as much as water frightened his sister, as if an act as ordinary as one child pushing another into a swimming pool had, for him, consequences and implications of terrifying significance – as if Teddy weren’t like an American poem at all but instead was something in which emotions properly belonged.

 

/end