Conversation with Salinger #8

ETHEL NELSON: With Jerry’s withdrawal, the part that hurt the very most for me is when my mom and I went to his new house. He had the first house where his kids grew up, and then he moved to this other house across the road. His new house had a big porch on it and a driveway, so he could could step on the porch and look down at the driveway; he hollered at us to go away and don’t come up. I said, “Jerry, we’re here for the Red Cross drive. You always give to it.” He said, “You take any more steps toward me and I’m going to shoot at the ground right in front of you.” He had his gun in his hand. He did not want people trespassing on his land. He said, “You wait a minute. I’ll go in and write a check and I’ll throw it down to you.” That’s how distrusting of people he had become. And that hurt, because we’d always been friends.