I think I read Catcher in the Rye for the first time in…crap, I have no idea when, it was a long time ago. Ever since, I’ve remembered Holden referring to his roommate’s ‘mossy teeth’ in this quote. And every time I use this descriptor, no one knows what I’m talking about. So, if we’re ever talking and I bring up mossy teeth, this is what I’m referring to:
He started cleaning his goddam fingernails with the end of a match. He was always cleaning his fingernails. It was funny, in a way. His teeth were always mossy-looking, and his ears were always dirty as hell, but he was always cleaning his fingernails. I guess he thought that made him a very neat guy. He took another look at my hat while he was cleaning them. “Up home we wear a hat like that to shoot deer in, for Chrissake,” he said. “That’s a deer shooting hat.”
“Like hell it is.” I took it off and looked at it. I sort of closed one eye, like I was taking aim at it. “This is a people shooting hat,” I said. “I shoot people in this hat.”
Also, I didn’t know Chinese Democracy had a song called Catcher in the Rye, did you?