Adaptation in My Own Voice - Ho Kyung Sung

Adaptation Essay – Mr. Garrioch                           

  By Ho Kyung Sung

The Catcher in the Rye - Adaptation in My Own Voice

The following is a KMLA adaptation of Chapter 16 from The Catcher in the Rye.

             After I had my dinner, it was only around 5 o’clock, and I’d decided not to do anything productive till 7 o’clock, so I started taking this long walk. I couldn’t stop thinking about old JG. I kept thinking about that abandoned old ice cream wrapper he picked up when our room was coming back from Sosa. I kept trying to picture my other roommate or somebody, or my teacher, or even myself, stopping on their way and going back to pick up garbage. It was hard to picture. Everyone booed Jo when he threw the wrapper on the street, but nobody thought to actually pick it up and take it with him. He was some kind of guy.

I started walking over toward Changui Building, just for the hell of it, because I hadn’t been over there in years. Besides, I sort of wanted to sneak a look at the inside of the new dorm building on the way back. It was this building that the school wanted so badly. The school was too short of dough for that for such a long time. It was supposed to be for girls only or something. I heard it at the lunch with the big teachers. A friend of mine had the idea to use it as a place for old seniors and all, but they wouldn’t buy it. They just said they would think about it. That kinda annoyed me, but it isn’t their entire fault that they’re so sore about anything we say. Phony answers are all they can give.

It wasn't as cold as it was the day before, but the sun was almost down, and it wasn't too nice for walking. But there was one nice thing. I heard someone playing Daegeum at Minkyo-Kwan. I got up closer to see who was playing. It was that quiet freshman down the aisle at the dorm. He was just playing for the hell of it, you could tell. He kept on missing the notes and hollering, but he didn’t care. It made me feel better. It made me feel not so depressed any more.

It was lousy at Changui Building. Nobody was there, and only the brown leaves were sitting on the steps to the front door. The benches all looked like they'd be wet if you sat down on them. It made you depressed, and every once in a while, for no reason, you got goose flesh while you walked.

The new dorm building was all finished and all that stuff, but they wouldn’t let you in. Quite annoying it was. They thought you would mess things up in the new place. It wasn’t all that shining from the beginning, either. The walls were already stained. This old guy was standing right in front, smoking like a horse. He was sort of a nice guy. “No students allowed,” He said in grumpy voice. I was too tired to reply to him, so I just walked past the building.

I walked all the way through the new dorm building over to the baseball field. I knew that whole field routine like a book. My sister used to go to this school seven years ago, and when I had come to visit her, I used to go there all the time. Really, every time. A guy friend she was close with – he was probably the captain of the baseball team and all, I rememeber – always took me there. It always smelled like grass, even though the grass was all artificial, and you were in the only nice, free, open place in the world. The ground was all artificial turf, except around the bases where it was sand. It kind of made me sad to think that all the turf used to be all a bit longer before. Now it wasn’t so different from a flat mattress. It was a nice field, though. Except that in the summer, weeds would grow around the bases like hell and you would’ve had to spend all afternoon just clearing the ones that come up to your knees. It didn't exactly depress me to think about it, but it didn't make me feel gay as hell, either. Certain things they should stay the way they are. I know that's impossible, but it's too bad anyway. Anyway, I kept thinking about all that while I walked.