All of a sudden - for no good reason, really, except that I was sort of in the mood for horsing around - I felt like jumping off the washbowl and getting old Stradlater in a half nelson. That's a wrestling hold, in case you don't know, where you get the other guy around the neck and choke him to death, if you feel like it. So I did it. I landed on him like a #*!$* panther.

"Cut it out, Holden...!" Stradlater said. He didn't feel like horsing around. He was shaving and all.

"Wuddaya wanna make me do - cut my..., head off?"

I didn't let go, though. I had a pretty good half nelson on him. "Liberate yourself from my viselike grip," I said.

"[Jees!]...." He put down his razor, and all of a sudden jerked his arms up and sort of broke my hold on him. He was a very strong guy. I'm a very weak guy. "Now, cut the crap," he said. He started shaving himself all over again. He always shaved himself twice, to look gorgeous. With his crumby old razor.


J.D. Salinger - The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger. 1945. p. 30