Spencer exhibits several characteristics of older men, and Holden wonders why the teacher even bothers to continue living. Spencer yells instead of talking. He wraps himself in a beat-up Navajo blanket that he loves. His ratty bathrobe exposes legs that are too white and hairless. Spencer’s chest is bumpy, and he picks his nose. He consistently misses as he tries to toss objects onto the nearby bed. When Spencer goes into his nodding routine, Holden doesn’t know if it’s because the old man is wisely thinking or because he “doesn’t know his ass from his elbow.”
Beneath all of the aggravation and age stereotyping, however, Holden often reveals his compassion. He sincerely cares about the ducks in Central Park. He sympathizes with the parents at Elkton Hills who were not attractive or fashionable and were objects of Haas’ disdain. Even as he is trying to escape form Spencer’s lecture, Holden feels “sorry as hell” for the teacher. He realizes that the old man genuinely cares about him. Holden ultimately thinks of the bathrobe as “sad” rather than “ratty,” and he understands that the quirks are beyond Spencer’s control. But Holden can’t take it any longer. He and Spencer are, according to Holden, on “opposite ends of the pole,” and he has to leave. We might suspect, also, that Holden feels uncomfortable when he sees some truth in Spencer’s statements.
