JOHN WILLIAMS, 23, BUSHWICK

Have you read Catcher in the Rye? It’s in a lot of high school curriculums.

I’ve definitely read that book, but it’s not coming to me.

It’s about a 16-year-old who gets kicked out of a prep school and bumbles about Manhattan. It doesn’t really amount to anything, and that’s the point, I guess.

[Mother yells for John; he disappears inside. Returns.]

So this American guy living in Sweden takes the same characters and experiences and makes a sequel. J.D. Salinger is suing this guy.

If I was the author I don’t think I would. I mean, the guy’s made a lot of money off the book, and he didn’t come out with a second one, so it’s not a real big deal for someone else to make some money if they can. That nigga’s 90, and he’s already made tons of money, so what’s the point of suing?

I guess he feels like the main character Holden Caulfield is his property, his creation. How about if you wrote a book, put together an album, or made a painting, and I got rich by ripping off your ideas verbatim.

Yeah, well, that’s a different story. I’d take a cut of the money—it’d be 25, 30. Otherwise, I’d file a lawsuit.

How about if I only gave you 15, yet I was making thousands of dollars every week.

I don’t know.

What if I’d found a notebook that you’d been keeping and started publishing your stories as my own around the neighborhood. Would you beat me up? Let’s say in my pocket I have a wad of cash some people say I stole directly from you. Are you a violent person?

I’d take issue, but I’m not really down with violence. But the lawsuit? Maybe then.

Have you experienced anything in your life that resembles the Catcher in the Rye lawsuit?

Not really. Somebody I used to work for, he used to take cuts of my money he wasn’t supposed to. Construction security.

So they’d pay you under the table after each shift?

Yeah. He’d take a cut from the money he was supposed to distribute to the rest of us.

How did you find out about that?

He and I were sort of like friends at first, but then I started noticing how he was going about taking money, so I quit. He went to jail over something different. He slipped up.

What did he do?

He had just come out of jail for killing somebody. Then he started making his money for five years—he’s almost 40, like, old-head gangster. Everybody around here knew him, and of his personality and the things he did. Then he got in that situation. He shot somebody. There was this gang-leader type thing in the neighborhood, and they started shooting at my old boss, so he came back to where they’d hang out and shot one of the younger teenagers. He was really crazy.

At first didn’t he talk to them, like, hey, quit shooting at me?

Naw. He was a real aggressive, violent type of guy who’d snap at you for no reason. Anyway, the kid went to the hospital and told on him and he went to prison.

Do you think if authors had guns there’d be less lawsuits?

No. I think there would be more lawsuits.

Where are the gangs around here?

Besides the Bloods and the Crips, there’s E-Block. They’re a gang that mainly lives on Eldert Street. It’s a couple blocks down there. It’s not that bad around here. Sometimes the dangerous people come out.

How do you know if they’re trouble? Do they wear different color t-shirts?

They don’t really do nothin’ like that nowadays—niggas ain’t gonna wear no t-shirts or nothing like that. They’ll just be wiling.

[Car pulls up]

What’s the last book you read?

I’m done, man—my daughter’s here.

-PETER MADSEN

Related posts:

1. WORD ON THE STREET: CATCHER IN THE RYE PT. 1
2. WORD ON THE STREET: CATCHER IN THE RYE PT. 4
3. WORD ON THE STREET: CATCHER IN THE RYE PT. 2
4. WORD ON THE STREET: CATCHER IN THE RYE PT. 5
5. WORD ON THE STREET: ARE YOU RECESSION-PROOF?