In case you’ve been living under the same rock that, until recently, hid J.D. Salinger, you’ll be aware that selfsame author has died. Passing away at 91 years of age, Salinger’s longevity serves as “proof” of the benefits of homeopathy and ingesting one’s own urine. No one really knows though, since those details  – as with most of the more prurient ones in his life – are all hearsay. Nothing draws more attention than a desire to avoid it. Now that he’s dead, everyone possessing any connection to the man, no matter how tenuous, has seen fit to say his or her piece. In death, Salinger has cemented his status as the white(r) Michael Jackson of the literati.

I can’t claim to have met the man. Hell, the closest I ever came in physical proximity was my college visit to Dartmouth as a high school junior. If things had gone differently, I might have been one in the long string of Dartmouth kids who attempted to find his house, only to be misled by protective locals. An excellent initiation rite, if you ask me – the perfect Ivy League snipe hunt. But I can say that, for a time, I knew so much of The Catcher in the Rye by heart that I could have passed as any of the would-be celebrity murderers who carried around a copy and claimed it as inspiration. The first semester of my freshman year of high school I was Holden Caulfield in my high school’s fall play.

To be fair, I was one of two Holdens. Our director had, in getting her masters from somewhere, been exposed to the idea of “reader’s theater:” productions in which, technically, all the words spoken aloud onstage came straight from the book. The conceit was ingenious for two practical reasons: (1) we could dodge copyright complaints since, after all, we were “just performing a public, staged reading” and receiving “suggested donations” at the door, and (2) we had to get our goddamned lines right, or we’d be much more transparently breaking the law.

The problem was that The Catcher in the Rye rests almost solely on Holden’s inner monologue. Though a lot of it got pushed around to the rest of the cast (I know, it was an odd sort of show) we had a Holden whose job was to give a presence to that internal voice. That was “Internal Holden” in the script. Then there was the Holden who moved through the world: the Holden who got kicked of school, who kissed girls, who got drunk, who had prostitutes sit on his lap—“External Holden.” That was me, and that was how I learned, early on, a lot of the lessons I would forget by the time they could have helped me.

It was through acting out his words that I had my first (staged) fight; I still wonder if the kid who played Percy, whose responsibility was to beat up “External Holden,” is still alive. His name was Nathan. It was Salinger (and his book) that also taught me how to make out with girls (neck with them, I guess, would be the word he preferred). Kissing scenes were a big deal back then. That was why my co-lead Chris was pissed, even though he got to be “H” in the script, and I was relegated to “h” (H-the-smaller as I like to think of it). There was even a pre-rehearsal meeting to practice the make outs – me and one of the girls – even though we’d tried the same thing in a darkened movie theater a few months back, neither of us really understanding what was going wrong. The arm rest? The overly sophisticated art film we were watching? This time there was no supposed romance between me and “Sally” – we brought in toothpaste and everything.

Salinger taught me a bit about “real” romance as well. It was in the pages of my script that a girl first spelled out her “feelings” for me – a senior who we all found, inexplicably in hindsight, to be attractive. She was seated to my left (I think) and she leaned over and began circling letters on the pages I was reading. They were far enough apart it took me some time to decipher the pattern: (i) (l)(i)(k)(e) (u). There might have been a heart, but that I can’t even pretend to remember. Later I’d help her pass Algebra II so she could graduate (we were both taking it, though I was 14 and she was…not). Too bad I took so long to realize that her circled letters were a cover for the boyfriends other than myself. She was the first (and last) time I’d misuse the word: “love.” She’s married now, and I’m very glad it’s not to me.

I met “Phoebe” too. The kid sister who embodied all the things we all should look for. I like to think that Salinger would approve of the fact that I fell in love with her first, and later I’d get to use that word, “love,” again, and rightly. She’s married now too, and all I am is glad for her.

And Salinger let me pretend to be drunk. No method there, just straight pretense – being dizzy and slurring my words. I’d learn I was less wrong than I thought – you just can’t turn the damn thing off.

People came to the show. They clapped and laughed at the right times. I think I made more people than just my mother cry. And I was older.

A lot of people out there met Salinger, or Jerome, or Jerry. And a lot of people who hadn’t kept hoping they would have the chance. I suppose I always wanted him to emerge from his self-imposed exile, but not for me. For his own sake. So he could see how much he meant to so many people.

I’d spent months walking, line by line, scene by scene, through his book, and it had shown me things. Too often I forget that. Too often I grow and forget that five, six years ago I should already have known what I am learning now. Because Holden would have. Because before Salinger retreated into himself, he showed the world itself. Perhaps something had to fall victim.

Too bad it had to be him.