When we last left our hero, he was in the Lavender Room at the Edmont Hotel. The three ugly ladies from Seattle who he’d been dancing and drinking with got up to leave because they wanted to get up early to catch the first show at Radio City Music Hall, which depressed Holden to no end.
INT. HOTEL LOBBY – NIGHT
Holden sits on a worn, “vomity-looking” chair in the hotel lobby. He’s loosened his tie, undone some shirt buttons and stares out into space, one leg thrown over the arm of the chair.
Next to him, a JANITOR vacuums the lobby rug, standing in one place and only getting what he can reach at arm’s length.
EXT. FRONT YARD – DAY (FLASHBACK)
A Doberman pinscher squats to pee on an immaculate green lawn in front of a well-kept house.
MRS. CAULFIELD, 43, slender with dark hair, opens the front door of the house and steps onto the porch.
MRS. CAULFIELD: Shoo! Get out of here! Go on!
The dog runs off. Mrs. Caulfield comes down the front walk and stands, hands on her hips, staring at the house next door.
When J.D. Salinger died earlier this year, I felt ambivalent, despite the fact that I’d nearly worshiped him in high school as one of the only writers out there who “got” what it was like to be a smart and disillusioned teen. Somewhere along the line, I either stopped being a smart, disillusioned teen or realized that everyone believed themselves to be smart and disillusioned and so rejected it in favor of some other modus operandi.