JOHN [reading from 'Catcher in the Rye' by JD Salinger]: “You know what I’d like to be?” I said. “You know what I’d like to be?

I mean if I had my goddamn choice?” “What? Stop swearing.” “You know that song ‘If a body catch a body comin’ through the rye’? I’d like —“ It’s ‘If a body meet a body coming through the rye’!” old Phoebe said. “ It’s a poem.

By Robert Burns.” "I know it’s a poem by Robert Burns.” She was right, though. It is “If a body meet a body comin' through the rye.” I didn’t know it then, though. “I thought it was ‘If a body catch a body,’” I said. “Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around — nobody big, I mean — except me.

And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff — I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going and I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day.

I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d like to be. I know it’s crazy.” JOHN [no longer reading]: It wasn't crazy, and that's what you were for millions of us.

Thank you. Rest in peace.