I am 76 years old and I am talking to you, Holden Caulfield. I was born around the time you and your little sister Phoebe grew into the imagination of somebody who noticed the relentless pulse of truth inside the loneliness of being human. It is a beautiful, heart-splitting thing, that truth. Now that you are way older than fifteen, and forever older than I am, maybe you can tell me what happens to that inner pulse. Does it thrive, or does it destroy us.

• Hold on. I was born in a book. You don’t get older than what you were born as, when you’re in a book.

Hmmm…seems to me it’s not so different from being born outside of one.

• Lady, you are clueless.

Well, inside or out of a book, I was never your age, and probably never my own age if you factor in a lot more than time. I was 25 when I was 15, and I am 18 now that I am nearly 80. When I was the teen-ager, I would not have looked your way twice. I was too sophisticated, with my nose in the air so I could see sophistication whenever it might turn around some corner into my view. I didn’t like that book you’re in when I read it back in high school. Now I think nobody is sophisticated, that I imagined all that glamor—the rider on the white horse, if you know what I mean. Thing is, if sophistication is even a little bit real, it does not touch the truth inside loneliness. In fact, it obliterates the loneliness. You might think that would be a relief, but the truth goes when the loneliness goes. That’s the trouble.

• You got that right. Okay, inside or out, whatever age you are, it’s the kid inside you that matters. I wanna save all the kids from growing up. That’s the trouble—the kid inside gets smothered by having to grow up. Take my kid sister Phoebe—she is so nice. And she doesn’t have to grow up, cuz she’s in a book!

But if you imagine her grown up . . . .

• No, Lady, she ain’t growing up. I’m gettin’ annoyed.

Okay, okay, Peter Pan. You’re safe inside that book. Safe from growing old. But I wonder if you would grow young, if . . .

• You don’t get it, do you.

All I mean is, some of us grow young, so it’s not such a terrible thing to go through the growing, If you would just listen.

• Why does everybody want me to listen. I’m tired of it if you really want to know. And you look like you’re going to go right on talking.

Because I want to tell you that I grew up backwards. In my youth I was mature and smart, and in my old age I am this startled new person ready for fun, flirtation and banter. As a teen-ager, I was a snobby, quiet old thing, giving the impression to everyone around me—myself included—that I was wise beyond my years. Maybe I was; or maybe I was trying to appear mature and sophisticated, you know.

• Yeah, I know. Kills the kid. See, it kills the kid inside, is what I was saying.

But it didn’t kill the kid inside me, because I grew up. See? I grew up to value the kid inside.

• Well, that’s something, ain’t it.

Yes, that’s something, isn’t it. I am closing the book on you. Maybe another time.

• Time. Man, that kills me. That’s what time does. It kills me. And that’s the truth.

Chapter Two

Another thing about growing up is that I look back and see, to my surprise, that I was a coward. I thought I was taking the high road, not involving myself with trivia. I considered myself above the need for involvement and engagement with people my age. I never thought at the time that I was simply masking my fear of inclusion. Looking back, I see that what I was doing was staying safe—walling myself off from some perception of immaturity. I was not bravely joining in. As I said, I grew up backwards. And now I dream, as the young do, of some elusive significant other, my lover who will simply adore intimacy with me. It’s true, I lust for love. Sex too, I admit it. The 77-year-old new person is a teen-ager. Hard to believe she was that prim old know-it-all more than sixty years ago. Why are you putting that hat on backwards again.

• I like my hat, and what’s it to you. I am who I am, take it or leave it. I don’t grow up or down. Can’t you take a person the way a person is?

Well, how do you know the way a person is? You yourself probably live a lot of different ways in a lot of different minds. Some people might think. . . .

• What’s it to me what people think? Seems like most of ‘em cover up what’s real all the time, even probably in their thinking. So what’s the point of wondering what any of ‘em are thinking?

Hmmm….that’s a good point. And these days, well, the author of you could never have known how far into falsehood a whole population of thinkers would get. It’s as if a fog has settled over the human race, including everybody, including right here in America. We had this president, Donald Trump, who was less fit for that job than the average eighth-grader. He didn’t respect, or even understand democracy, he ridiculed service to the country, and he cheated on his income tax returns and business deals and people he didn’t like. “Of the people, by the people, for the people” never entered his mind. He was of, by, and for himself. He hung out with thugs, criminals, and sleazy lawyers. People tried to treat him like a president, because that’s what he was. He was president but he was not “like a president,” so he confused everybody. The country felt all off kilter. Even before Trump got weirdly elected, the country was crumbling into factions, and people started to doubt factual news reports. Propaganda was rampant on the Internet. I’ll explain what the Internet is next time. In the fog it was easy for people to take advantage of each other, and that’s what they did. It was easy for people to spout off insane ideas, because there was false evidence flying around in support of the craziness. It was easy to believe whatever you wanted to believe. That hat is driving me crazy.

• Deal with it. I like my hat.

Okay. What do you think Mr. Salinger would think about our world today?

• Who the heck is Mr. Salinger?

Your creator, Dummy. You’re in his book. He’s like God to you.

• And you figure I know the mind of God? Lady you need to see a shrink.

I don’t like shrinks.

• Me neither.

Psychics I like. I talked to a medium once who. . . . please stop fiddling with that hat.

• Beats trying to listen to you.

I’m closing the book. You are too real to be in one, and too distracting to be allowed out.

• Works for me. Leave it closed this time. I need a break from your twilight-zone problems.

Chapter Three

• I SAID: Leave it closed. STOP. I don’t want to hear about your Internet. It sounds like a souped-up loneliness machine. You think we don’t have enough trouble here in 1950? Lady, you make me almost like being in this book. Go write your own. And keep me out of it.

If only I could.