Teddy by J. D. Salinger

Part 9
Nicholson got his cigarette lit, with some difficulty, for there was a light breeze
blowing from the north. He sat back, and said, "I understand you left a pretty disturbed
bunch--"
" `Nothing in the voice of the cicada intimates how soon it will die,' " Teddy said
suddenly. "'Along this road goes no one, this autumn eve."'
"What was that?" Nicholson asked, smiling. "Say that again."
"Those are two Japanese poems. They're not full of a lot of emotional stuff," Teddy
said. He sat forward abruptly, tilted his head to the right, and gave his right ear a light
clap with his hand. "I still have some water in my ear from my swimming lesson
yesterday," he said. He gave his ear another couple of claps, then sat back, putting his
arms up on both armrests. It was, of course, a normal, adult-size deck chair, and he
looked distinctly small in it, but at the same time, he looked perfectly relaxed, even
serene.
"I understand you left a pretty disturbed bunch of pedants up at Boston," Nicholson
said, watching him. "After that last little set-to. The whole Leidekker examining group,
more or less, the way I understand it. I believe I told you I had rather a long chat with
Al Babcock last June. Same night, as, a matter of fact, I heard your tape played off."
"Yes, you did. You told me."
"I understand they were a pretty disturbed bunch," Nicholson pressed. "From What Al
told me, you all had quite a little lethal bull session late one night--the same night you
made that tape, I believe." He took a drag on his cigarette. "From what I gather, you
made some little predictions that disturbed the boys no end. Is that right?"
"I wish I knew why people think it's so important to be emotional," Teddy said. "My
mother and father don't think a person's human unless he thinks a lot of things are
very sad or very annoying or very-very unjust, sort of. My father gets very emotional
even when he reads the newspaper. He thinks I'm inhuman."
Nicholson flicked his cigarette ash off to one side. "I take it you have no emotions?" he
said.

Teddy reflected before answering. "If I do, I don't remember when I ever used them,"
he said. "I don't see what they're good for."
"You love God, don't you?" Nicholson asked, with a little excess of quietness. "Isn't
that your forte, so to speak? From what I heard on that tape and from what Al Babcock-
-"
"Yes, sure, I love Him. But I don't love Him sentimentally. He never said anybody had
to love Him sentimentally," Teddy said. "If I were God, I certainly wouldn't want people
to love me sentimentally. It's too unreliable."
"You love your parents, don't you?"
"Yes, I do--very much," Teddy said, "but you want to make me use that word to mean
what you want it to mean--I can tell."
"All right. In what sense do you want to use it?"
Teddy thought it over. "You know what the word `affinity' means?" he asked, turning
to Nicholson.
"I have a rough idea," Nicholson said dryly.
"I have a very strong affinity for them. They're my parents, I mean, and we're all part
of each other's harmony and everything," Teddy said. "I want them to have a nice time
while they're alive, because they like having a nice time . . . But they don't love me and
Booper--that's my sister--that way. I mean they don't seem able to love us just the way
we are. They don't seem able to love us unless they can keep changing us a little bit.
They love their reasons for loving us almost as much as they love us, and most of the
time more. It's not so good, that way." He turned toward Nicholson again, sitting slightly
forward. "Do you have the time, please?" he asked. "I have a swimming lesson at tenthirty."
"You have time," Nicholson said without first looking at his wrist watch. He pushed
back his cuff. "It's just ten after ten," he said.
"Thank you," Teddy said, and sat back. "We can enjoy our conversation for about ten
more minutes." Nicholson let one leg drop over the side of the deck chair, leaned