The Catcher in the Rye is Dead
J.D. Salinger died a few weeks ago, but really he may as well have died 20 or 30 years ago. Now don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of the book he wrote, I kept a copy in my back pocket one my first deployment to Iraq just to seem like a nut, but also to have something familiar to read in those boring times between movements and work shifts. (there was really only one wasn't there?) But what else has he done since it's publishing to deeply impact the world as much as that tome? I like to think he was remaining true to himself and hiding himself away from the phonies in an attempt to remain true and pure, but the whole world has the word "fuck" scrawled across it and the news only exists to point this out to us streaming in HD into our living rooms as we eat the microwave dinners not daring to make eye contact with one another. I hope he lived his life on the lamb from the bullshit and rigmarole of what seems to pass as daily life now-a-days.
I was raised by two loving parents. I was taught to respect people for who they are and genuinely trust my fellow man. I wasn't taught about how evil people were capable of, or maybe they were, just in far off lands, or in the movies. Then I went out and got a look at the real world and saw the movies just paint a pretty picture and put a nice frame on some of the ugliness the world is capable of manifesting. There isn't an ending, the hero never gets the girl and the horse breaks its' leg while riding off into the sunset. Even through that all I kept thinking when I came home, when I was done being in the Army that my fight was over and the bullshit would somehow magically end and I'd just have a quiet normal life on a sleepy seaside town that basically shuts down in the winter and is far too alive in the summer for its' own good.
Maybe I was too naive or maybe I had missed some lesson they pull early 20's kids to the side for, but the bullshit was just beginning. The irony and hypocrisy I saw even just trying to live in New Jersey was unbearable... it made me want to run back into the uniform and hide in the bosom of the US Army again clutching a belt fed M-249 SAW like a security blanket and gas-mask plastic pacifier to occupy my clenching jaw. I didn't I lived my own life on the lamb as it were by taking contracting job after contracting job first in Washington DC, then Iraq, then back to NJ for a few months, then back to Iraq, and now in Tampa. The last 5 years have been a flash to me, traveling, flying, logging miles, seeing millions of faces in crowds, and lines at airports. That 20 something 'kid' with the look on his face a thousand yards off, that's me. The guy typing away on his laptop actually pretending or thinking he's getting work done at an airport terminal and looking for a goddamn fax machine to send off his latest expense report... yup... that was me too... but then something happened...
I paused, I caught my breath and I thought I could see through the clouds of confusing gas that was my joyful youth rushing by at a hundred miles an hour. I thought I could pick a flower and fall in love and actually defeat all the bitter anxious people and divorcees I met at airport bars and smoking areas. I thought just being true to myself and being honest and doing all I could do to show someone I was genuine and a real human being incapable of lying for real and still hopeful about having a real love and life and something true. She'd already ran through the rye and fallen off the cliff and I couldn't save her. It's not often we actually fall in love at first sight, and I guess it's even more rare that it's returned... the movies were all fiction when it came to that department, most of the books were too, unless I was reading the wrong ones. Holden Cauffield basically explained the title of the book as if he were some hero in the rye catching kids before they fell off an imaginary cliff into the mire and bullshit of the real world. Despite my three tours in Iraq and few others around the world I hadn't fell or jumped off that cliff yet. It took giving my heart to someone who had already fallen off it for me to get dragged down. I was just trying to catch her, but she'd already fallen way down, and by proxy I jumped right in after her, maybe I was dragged down violently by my own veins and arteries. That's the price you pay for wearing your heart on your sleeve. She didn't mean to do it, and now, I don't even feel the same about her, she's behind a wall that I should have put everyone behind in order to protect the kid that was just trying to save the world, but I never wanted to have one, it wasn't written this way, where's my sunset and heroin?
It got me down, I was in a bad place for a little while. Listening to songs laced with heroin references by Ryan Adams and staring at paintings by Dali trying to find the hidden meaning in surrealist images. It took another girl, another friend who came down to visit me to realize that I needed to change. I needed to grow and adapt and maybe a little armor once in a while isn't a bad thing, but an enabler to keep you going amdsit the combat that is modern sociological situations. When the shit hits the fan its' never evenly disbursed, I've gotten more than my fair share but that's alright with my newly found suit of armor, maybe more like scar tissue, tougher than normal skin, and the owner now more wise to the bastards out there waiting to stab at him physically or emotionally, on purpose or by accident.
So, it's a Friday now, I'm gearing up for another weekend of drinking life from a plastic cup at dittos or some other bar that resembles all the others surrounded by boys and girls that all resemble boys and girls at other bars in every town throughout this country of ours. Ready for another around of the bullshit and conversations and toothy smiles aided by another shot of whiskey, and beer for me, a Cosmo, and appletini for her, maybe I'll get to see what her apartment looks like. With my new tougher skin I can always be a winner, if I try to just dive in head first and meet and socialize with a dozen girls one night, some might look at me in the eye and laugh... oh well, not a loss for me anymore. I no longer seek out the one perfect girl at the bar and set my focus on her, I seek out the 15 good enough girls and try a little charm and with with each, maybe they have something to offer aside from a nice smile or interesting conversation, maybe they don't. who cares anymore, let them go, stop trying to save the world from all the scumbags out there I tell myself again and again now-a-days. If they want to ignore the goodness I'm barely letting seep through the armor than fuck them they're dead to me. I can get shot down and laughed at now, I'm okay with it because they don't know the real me. I only need to win once in the night for the whole evening's expeditions to be a victory. Basically, don't show all your cards at once, only hint and wink and grin like you've got a full house. (even if you don't have anything to speak of) It's sad you have to make someone fall for an act, and then gradually let on that the real you is a nice genuine loving person. If you show that too soon, too quickly at first then the game is over and they can read the cards on your face and see your heart on your sleeve. Don't do it, and I know that goes against everything Mr. Salinger and his hero Holden Cauffield pined on about. But to survive in the real world now-a-days can you be honest at first and NOT be seen as a chump? Sadly, no, unless the stars align and you find someone else on the exact same page in the same book that you are, these things never seem to work out.
I hate to sound like a heartbroken bitter old man (hell I'm still only 28) and I am not. I still love going to the bay at sunset and watching the clouds and horizon defeat another day. I can still buy flowers and appreciate a friendly pup. The thing is, at this stage of the game, it's rigged. Simple true love isn't out there, and the nice guy that's looking for it is either in hiding, or still out there, in the rye trying to save the world and catch all the people he can. I'm just sad that I left the field, but it's okay, just as we can't catch them all, sometimes when we try we end up throwing ourselves off the cliff with them. But I don't want to hide from the world anymore, and I'll be damned if people think I died years ago.
