Franny and Zooey, J. D. Salinger, 1961.

 

I met this book in 1967 in Chicago between my junior and senior years in college. To be more precise, I met a small excerpt, five paragraphs, which except for 3 others, were the last in the book. You might recall these paragraphs because Salinger introduces us to the infamous “Last Fat Lady.” One character was reminding another character how a mutual friend had told them both, on separate occasions, to “shine their shoes for the fat lady,” as preparation for their performances which was odd to both of them because their performances were on the radio and clearly the “fat lady” would never see their shined shoes, so why do it? Furthermore, this fat lady sat in an old wicker chair all day, swatting flies with her big veiny legs. What an insult to be shining your shoes for someone who seemed to care so little.

 

Yet the one character who seems to be “preaching” (admonishing) to the other drops two pennies. The first penny is that everyone has a “fat lady” - a person, usually, who calls forth the best in all of us, even though it may not make any rational sense. And the second penny is that the Fat Lady is Christ Himself..

 

I encountered the Fat Lady in 1967 at a summer program of the ICA (nee EI). I was selected by Doris Hahn, one of our pedagogues in the six-week student program, to read the passage while the participants, a group of 50 or so college students, were eating their breakfast together. (Part of the program included hearing various readings over meal times). I was forewarned by Doris so I practiced and I’d have to say in all humility I gave those six paragraphs my theatrical best. Even I was moved.

 

Over the next few years these same words would reappear in our work though over time they dissipated in frequency and potency. I guess they became sort of “politically incorrect.” But, I remember along the way I promised myself that one day I’d read the whole book and find out the context for the passage.

That day finally arrived. Recently I was putting some books from our family library as part of our downsizing into our neighborhood Little Library kiosk and as I was doing so, looking back at me was a copy of Franny and Zooey. I picked it up promising to read it during our annual Mexico Playa Litibu winter sojourn.

 

In doing so I discovered a lot more about Franny, an insecure senior in college, uncertain of her future calling and the target of our famed sermonizing passage, and Zooey, her older brother by seven years and a “sought after” actor who delivered the pointed message. I met their siblings and their mother, Franny’s boyfriend and one of her professors, Tupper by name, who appears in our passage. Another sibling, Seymour, the oldest who had committed suicide, appears in the passage. The profound passage, so long ago, to me and my erstwhile college students, uncertain of our own futures, now fell into context. And its power found a home.

 

 I met another character as I was reading the book – Joe Mathews. He came in and out of the character of Zooey. Zooey was a thespian who had not reached his potential. A cigar-smoking pontificator on all subjects and judged by his mother and siblings a sort of lovable smart-aleck. And the power of Zooey’s two pennies, for me, were rekindled by remembrances of Joe, especially in his talks in Room A and the Great Hall in the late ‘60’s and early ‘70s till his last talk in the summer of 1977. I think of Joe as, more than anything else, a thespian at heart, a profession he sought before being called elsewhere.

 

His every talk was an “event.” He was pure theater. This fact was brought home to me when I had the chance to read the book of his talks. None of them were comprehensible in a rational sense. You had to have been there to experience them. They were happenings, not intellectual dissertations. They were being delivered by someone who was in a way fulfilling his calling to be an actor for the purposes of his audience to discover their own Fat Lady. Joe, I think, knew this, too. Sometimes, as he gave one of his talks, I think he even knew he didn’t know exactly what he was talking about, but he delivered it with such sincere passion that you couldn’t help yourself not believe him. You’ll recall, on occasion, Joe referred to himself as an old Fat Man, an illusion, I contend, back to our passage. This was the role of Zooey, delivering the Word that would set you free even if it didn’t make rational sense.

 

I found another character in the book that I recognized. I was Franny. On the last stage of my college career wondering what in the hell I was supposed to do with my life, and was told to “shine my shoes for the Fat lady.” And, suddenly, it all made sense. I had my calling and direction.

 

I confess there are days (weeks, months, years) when I forget to shine my shoes, and in fact there are days when on purpose I don’t shine my shoes. But mostly, I try to figure out who in my life is giving me the opportunity for me to be my best?  Who or what is calling forth my greatness?

 

And, you? Who is that person who you might imagine sitting in that awful wicker chair with thick, veiny legs and listening to talk radio or TV all-day long, filled with cancer that is giving you the chance to be your best?

 

Jim Troxel

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Jim Troxel

jtroxel49@gmail.com

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