In 1989, I made my oddball Cornish, New Hampshire, pilgrimage.
I learned of his midday saunters to the post office from a local scandal sheet. Asking him to sign The Catcher in the Rye would look awkwardly amateurish. Instead, I’d stroll alongside, conspicuously clutching The Satanic Verses. At the time, Salman Rushdie was eluding those deranged fatwa adherents. This might be the key.
Zero hour. The face was worn but recognizable. We were abreast. Out came the book.
“Mr. Salinger. Have you read it?”
“Goddamn shitty fame,” he murmured, glancing both at me and my now failed conduit.
He bolted away.