One rainy November night in 1967 my best friend John and I were standing in line outside Le Scene, a young adult club in the Fountain Square area of Indianapolis.
We went there every weekend. The bus out of Mulberry Grove would get us within a mile of the club and we’d hike through some of the toughest neighborhoods in central Indiana. Le Scene was a hippie haven where young headbangers would congregate on weekends to listen to the best and loudest acid rock music in the Midwest. It was also the place where horny teens would go to meet loose inner-city girls. Yeah, there were lots of girls but John and I had short hair and seemed too lame for women of easy virtue.
Since neither of us drove, we had to catch the last bus on the Indy to Mulberry Grove route at 11:30 so we could make our midnight curfew. I’m sure we were the lamest people at the club.
On this particular night, the owner of the club came outside and cranked-down the green awning over the front windows of a former thrift shop. With a Cheshire Cat grin on his face, he held his hand out to touch the rain. “It’s a perfect night for Banana fish.”Little did he know, he sent my universe into perpetual motion. What in the hell is a Banana fish? As the night continued, I asked myself again-and-again; and louder-and-louder, What is a Banana fish? On the outside chance Banana fish was a term from the drug culture, I asked people in the club if they knew anything about Banana fish. Nobody knew a thing, or at least they weren’t saying.
The next day I rifled through my Funk and Wagnalls Encyclopedia collection – over the years, my mother bought a new encyclopedia each week from the Standard grocery store for the bargain price of $1 a volume. Still, no luck.
I went to the library the following week and searched the stacks for any reference to Banana fish to no avail.
A full three weeks after that fateful night in Fountain Square, I asked one of the English teachers at St. Pete’s High School if he knew anything about Banana fish.
“I’ve heard the term once,” said the only teacher to drink pots of coffee and chain-smoke cartons of cigarettes during his classes. “It’s one of the Nine Stories.”
“Nine Stories?”
“Yes, it’s from J. D. Salinger’s collection of short stories called, Nine Stories.”
I gasped, “The same Salinger who dropped the F-bomb in The Catcher in the Rye?”
The teacher tilted his head like a dog when asked a question. “Yes, he’s the one.”
I really didn’t care for Holden Caulfield but I did learn a lot from Salinger. When in doubt and the novel is dragging, drop the F-bomb or a Zen saying to get things moving again.
I asked, “What happens in the Banana fish story?” He lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. “I don’t know. You asked me if I knew anything about Banana fish. Well, that’s what I know.” As his glare intensified, he grumbled, “That’s all I know.”
I thought dropping the F-bomb was apropos but I resisted the temptation. When I left his classroom, I scampered to the library but they didn’t have the book. Later in the day, I snuck away from study hall and drove to a nearby book store where I finally bought Nine Stories.
That night I was glued to the book while under my covers. My brother and I slept in an uninsulated and unheated second story bedroom. During the winter we routinely saw our breath when we talked, or even breathed. Before climbing into bed, we’d slide a desk lamp under the covers to heat the sheets. Winters of my teen years weren’t completely miserable – when the outside temperature dropped below 0°, we were allowed to sleep on the living room floor.
That night I read the object of my curiosity; A Perfect Day for Banana Fish, twice. Before the week was out, I read the other eight unmemorable short stories, too.
Later that winter I read Salinger’s other major works: Franny and Zooey, Raise High the Roof Beams Carpenters, and Seymour – An Introduction. The more I read, the more I craved learning about other worldly things. I started a notebook with pithy sayings from Salinger’s works, especially those from Zen Masters. My favorite Zen saying was: One of his students asked a Zen Master what was the most valuable thing in the world – to which the Master replied, “A dead cat, because nobody can own it.”
Fifty-some years later, the saying sounds a little lame, but no more so than some sayings and psalms from other religions.
For months I read every Buddhist and Zen Buddhist saying I came across. Then I branched out to read about all other religions. The notebook of thought-provoking sayings has grown to three volumes and is currently located in my top dresser drawer.
The trouble with learning about new things is one’s desire to showoff that new knowledge. A little knowledge can go a long way towards pissing off the uneducated. No, uneducated isn’t the right word. Less educated is a better description of those who don’t fully understand the few nuggets of wisdom floating in cyberspace.
Did you ever try to quantify what you learned in college? I can say quantitatively, I learned how to keep score in bowling. I didn’t know how to do that before I went to a four-year liberal arts college, but now I know what an “X” and a “/” means, and how to perform higher level bowling mathematics.
Some people will note, liberals educated in a liberal arts college will choose a highly abstract life style. We don’t think in the same fashion most people understand. For starters and like Salinger, we are fascinated by abstract religion, especially on the topic of nuns. Do you know Salinger believed nuns are God’s way of getting even with those who believe in religion? Have you ever read a story about nuns with matching tattoos? They have them, you know – nuns with matching tattoos on their arms. They get them after they take Ruler Class. For those who don’t know, Ruler Class teaches nuns speed and accuracy cracking a ruler across a student’s knuckles. It’s sort of a religious S&M obsession practiced by nuns across the world. First she takes the class; then she gets the tattoo.
Along the way, J. D. Salinger taught me how to exasperate a hypocrite. Ask them if they would live their lives differently if they knew there is no such place as heaven or hell. Yes, I can’t think of a better way to start a Thanksgiving Day Dinner Fist Fight than to ask that question.
Every Zen student and Salinger follower knows that good deeds are to be done for the sake of goodness not fear of a vengeful God. If you only do good things because you’re afraid you’ll go straight to hell, then you’re a hypocrite.
To date, I have lost 1,008 “friends” by forcing the issue. That’s not to say all 1,008 of my ex-friends are hypocritical . . . but yeah, they kinda are.
Recalculating . . 1009 and counting; 1010 . . .
Now, if I could only learned to keep my mouth shut and not share my political and religious beliefs with others.
Still counting – 1011, 1012, etc.
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