Syrup and Salinger

If you're going to be 90 years old and living in New England,
you will require certain regular provisions, to say nothing of the
fact that (if you're going to be 90 years old and living in New England)
you won't let any crazy young cowboy - probably 2 years dropped out
of college with sweaty palms - acquire said provisions in your stead,
especially when you're damn well capable of getting them yourself.

With this in mind, I spent the last two weeks staking out the maple syrup
aisle (yes, there's a whole aisle; welcome to New England) at a Cornish,
N.H. general store waiting for a certain Jerome David Salinger to shuffle
in so that I might ambush him. Here is the conversation that followed:

"Jerry? Hello. I -"

"Christ. Please -"

"Oh, let's drop all that, buddy. I only meant to ask
you about maple syrup. I have my pancakes all ready
at home - fluffy as can be - only I find myself
without the most important -"

"Thompson's."

"Sorry?"

"I like Thompson's."

"That's lovely. Just lovely. Thompson's it is. I'm
sure you have it stocked to the rafters. Through
the ceiling, even. Thompson's to the sky, I say."

"Cold."

"What is?"

"Your pancakes."

At this, the venerable author turned to me for the first
time, likely in an effort to lend some finality to his
dismissal, and took care to deliver his words with
the kind of autumnal indifference which would normally
have sent any and all young optimism straight to the
check out line, but I had other ideas.

"That's not at all true, Jerry, no, quite wrong - my
best girl is keeping them warm for me while I'm out.
Can you imagine? She's at home warming my pancakes."

"Married?"

"Hell no! I'm scared to death of her and she is of
me, too; that's our great bond, our charm - we
both think the other might be more talented than
ourselves, and that's just too damn dangerous a
prospect to let loose and have run around where
you can't keep tabs on it."

"High romance."

"Take it easy, Jerry, there's more to it than that.
I was just making maple syrup talk, that's all.
Listen, I want to ask you a serious question, a
question about life - and you'd be a sorry
damn excuse for a recluse if you didn't answer -
I want to ask you if you've found a way out of
all this damn suffering, or even if you haven't
maybe you have the problem figured, and you
might be able to tell me a thing or two about it."

The old man turned his hand basket (which had not
accumulated any contents) upside-down and sat on it,
letting out an immoderately heavy sigh on the descent,
a production which I gratuitously imitated, but took
my seat directly on the floor instead and deposited
my feet, with undue deliberation, left on white,
right on black.

"The problem is birth. Having been born is a hell of
an imposition, spiritually speaking, as well as being
just plain presumptuous in a general sense, like getting
stuck with the bill when your party, endlessly numerous,
disappears at the last minute, leaving you in irrevocable
debt; which is why the more incorporeally fastidious of us
regard death with some appreciable gratitude and longing."

"Cause it pays the bill?"

"Sometimes. Usually interest is accumulated over the course
of a life, which keeps you at the table."

"What if you don't eat? I mean, what if you make it so that
they have nothing to bill you for, you know?"

"It doesn't work - if you don't eat you get thirsty, or
you knock over a vase, or you insult the chef."

"So what do you do?"

"Nothing. God loves nothing more than anything else.
It tickles the hell out of Him, you know."

"But -"

"You just have to learn to eat and do nothing at the same time."

"But -"

"Practice on your pancakes, kid. Good-bye."