Authors: Don DeLillo
(11) Washington, D.C., is hit with a 25-megaton device. New York and Los Angeles are hit with SS-11 missiles.
(12) SIMcap dictates spasm response.
The telephone rang. Major Staley turned quickly in his chair, terrified for a long second, and then simply stared at the commonplace black instrument as it continued to ring.
M
YNA RETURNED FROM
C
HRISTMAS VACATION
many pounds lighter. When I saw her, I didn’t know how to react. She was having coffee with the Chalk sisters in the student lounge and I stood in the doorway a moment, trying to prepare a suitable remark or two. She was wearing a white cotton blouse; her hair was combed straight back and ribboned at the nape of the neck. Vera Chalk saw me and waved me over, gesturing urgently her face expressing news of colossal wonders. The sisters put their hands on me as soon as I sat down, scratching at my arms and chest in their glee at finding an object toward which to direct their effusions.
“Look at her, Gary.”
“I’m looking. Hi. I’m virtually speechless.”
“Hi,” Myna said.
“It’s just the beginning,” Esther said. “She’s got twenty more pounds to go. She’s lost twenty and she’s got twenty to go. In other words she’s halfway there.”
“Just look at her,” Vera said. “She’s like a new person. She looks unbelievable. I’m so happy for her. I can’t believe how much better she looks. Gary, what do you think?”
“I think it’s unbelievable.”
“I’m ecstatic on her behalf. I really am.”
“Don’t use that word,” Esther said.
“Ecstatic.”
“You know how much I hate that word, you spiteful bitch.”
“Ec-stat-ic.”
“Now quit it, Vera.”
“You’re not supposed to call me that. Gary, she knows how much I loathe and despise my name.”
“Vera.”
“Ecstatic. More ecstatic. Most ecstatic.”
“Vera beera. One little lira for a glass of Vera beera.”
“Ecstasy of ecstasies.”
“Enough,” I said.
“I’ll stop if she will,” Esther said. “Besides we’re supposed to be discussing Myna. Gary, don’t you think it’s unbelievable?”
“It’s unbelievable. It really is.”
“Are you just saying that? Or do you really think it?”
“I’m just saying it. I don’t know what to think. It’s too early yet. I need time to reflect.”
“Don’t be such a picayune shit,” Vera said.
“I had to do it, Gary. It became a question of self-definition. I was just moping along like an unreal person. I used to look forward to nothing-type things. I never really faced my own reality. I was satisfied just consuming everything that came along. But after only twenty pounds, things are already starting to be different. I’m beginning
to catch my own reflection everywhere I go. I’m being forced to face myself as a person instead of somebody who just mopes along consuming everything that’s put in front of her. Gary, I’ve spent too much time on nothing-type things. I used to think three meals ahead. I used to be satisfied figuring out which dress I was going to wear with whichever dumb shoes. I used to work these things out in my head for hours. It really made me happy working out my combinations. These shoes, that dress, this bracelet. The sweater with the purple star and the dumb blue boots. The sculptured brass peace symbol strung on rawhide and the turquoise dishrag tunic with drawstring neck and full sleeves. These things were my doggy treats. I did a good trick and I got a doggy treat. The whole process took me further away from myself and made my life a whole big thing of consumption, consuming, consume. Purple-star sweaters, antique pendants, beaded chokers, organic nuts, horoscopes, science-fiction movies, four-dollar transparent soap, big English cars, Mexican villas, ecology, pink rolling paper, brownies, seaweed with my pork chops, soy noodles, dacron, rayon, orlon acrylic, Fortrel polyester, Lycra spandex, leather, vinyl, suede, velvet, velours, canvas. I shoveled it all in and all I did was bury my own reality and independentness. The whole business of going to Mexico to do nothing but smoke dope was all part of the fatness thing. Gary, I know you liked me fat but at least with the responsibilities of beauty I’ll have a chance to learn exactly or pretty exactly what I can be, with no built-in excuses or cop-outs or anything. I’m not just here to comfort you. You can’t expect to just come searching for me for comfort. I want other things now. I’m ready to find out whether I really exist or whether I’m something that’s
just been put together as a market for junk, mail.”
“It’s all very existential.”
“Don’t use words,” Esther said. “Either you like her this way or you don’t. You can’t get out of it with words.”
“I have to get used to the new situation. I need time to get accustomed.”
“Are you sure that’s all it is?” Myna said.
“That’s all.”
“Are you sure it’s not that you’re definitely against it? Because if you are, it would be better if you said so now.”
“I have to get used to it. Time. That’s all. I need time.”
“You’re really sure, Gary?”
“Myna, we’ve known each other for a number of months. We’ve been very close to each other. We’ve shared some unforgettable moments. Would I lie to you?”
“No, I don’t think you would, Gary. Not in a pinch.”
“Define pinch.”
“He’s being picayune again,” Esther said. “If he can’t see what’s staring him in the face, he needs more than time. I think he’s being real dippy about this.”
“So do I,” Vera said.
“He’s being ridiculous beyond belief.”
“For once I have to agree with you. It’s nice to think alike for a change. In fact the situation makes me ecstatic.”
“Oh you bitch. You damn rotten bitch.”
“Ecstatico.”
“And you’re the one who’s into the gospels. Who’s into charity and love thy neighbor. Who comes around yapping to me about the power of miracles.”
“Without belief in miracles, we are like reeds shaken with the wind,” Vera said.
“She’s into miracles real heavy.”
“I’m a miracle freak, Gary.”
I walked back to Staley Hall. It was a blank afternoon, windless and pale, not too cold, the sun hidden, a faint haze obscuring the reduplicated landscape beyond the campus. I went to my room. Bloomberg was in bed, neatly blanketed, reading one of my ROTC manuals.
“They use simple declarative sentences,” he said.
I put my coat away and looked out the window for a while. Then I stared at my right thumb. It seemed important to create every second with infinite care, as at the beginning or nearing the end of momentous ordeals. I spent ten minutes learning a new word. Finally, in my gray corduroy trousers and gray shirt, I went down the hall to Taft Robinson’s room.
I paused in his doorway, realizing suddenly that I spent a good deal of time in doorways, that I had always spent a lot of time in doorways, that much of my life had been passed this way. I was forever finding myself pausing in a doorway or standing before a window, looking into rooms and out of them, waiting to be tapped on the shoulder by an impeccably dressed gentleman whose flesh has grown over his mouth.
Taft sat cross-legged on the bed, his back to the wall, a sagging newspaper spread from knee to knee. I took a chair by the door. The room seemed slightly more bare than it had the last time I’d visited. Perhaps there was one less chair now or something gone from the floor, a wastebasket or magazine rack.
Taft wore his dark glasses. We were silent for a time. He looked at the newspaper. I didn’t experience any particular sense of tension in the room. Sooner or later one of us would say or do something. Then either or both of us would be in a position to decide exactly what had
been said or done. I thought of going to stand by the window so that I might assess more clearly and from a somewhat greater altitude the relevant words or action. Then I realized that the very act of going to stand by the window would be the action itself, the selfsame action subject to interpretation. Taft continued to look at the newspaper. I was getting annoyed at the direction of my thoughts. My eyes attempted to focus upon the room’s precise geometric center — that fixed point equidistant from the four corners and midway between ceiling and floor. Then Taft’s left shoulder twitched a bit, an involuntary shudder, a minor quake in some gleaming arctic nerve. That faint break in basic structure was enough to alter every level of mood. It was all I could do to keep my lips from inching into a slight smile.
“A hundred thousand welcomes,” he said.
“Thought I’d drop by.”
“Come right in. Find a chair and make yourself right at home. I see you’ve already got a chair. If I’m not mistaken, you’re already in the room and you’re already seated.”
“That’s correct. I’m here and seated. What you see, in fact, is exactly what you think you see.”
“We might as well begin then.”
“Begin what?” I said.
“The dialogue. The exchange of words. The phrases and sentences.”
“I don’t really have anything to say, Taft. I just came by to visit. I like it here. It’s a nice room. It appeals to me. I really like it. We don’t have to talk unless you want to.”
“I wouldn’t mind talking. But what’s there to talk about?”
“I was thinking the same thing when I came down the hall. That’s why I say we don’t have to talk unless you want to. Or unless I want to. One of us at any rate.”
“I’m not very talkative, Gary. I go whole days without saying a word. Although there are times when I get the urge to babble. No subject in particular. Just babble on. Any kind of talk just to talk. But I don’t think this is one of my babbling times. So we may have to work at it. I mean what’ll we talk about? If we can get together on what to talk about, I’d be willing to talk.”
“So would I,” I said.
“Should we think separately about possible subjects for conversation and then report back to each other? Or what? I’m open to suggestion.”
“There’s always the common ground. There’s football. I’m sure there’s something in the whole vast spectrum of football that we can discuss for a few minutes to our mutual profit. For instance, I might point out that time is flying right along. In three months, you know what — thwack, thwack, thwack. We’ll have the: pads on. We’ll be hitting. Three months plus a few days.”
“Spring practice,” he said.
“Boosh, boosh, boosh. Thwack, thwack.”
“There’s not too much for me to say on the subject of spring practice, Gary.”
“Why not?”
“I won’t be there. I’m all through with football. I don’t want to play football anymore.”
“That’s impossible. You can’t be serious. What do you want to do if you don’t want to play football?”
“I want to concentrate on my studies.”
“Studies? Concentrate on what studies?”
“There are books in this room,” he said. “I go to class
every day. I think about things. I study. I read and formulate. There’s plenty to concentrate on. I’m instructing myself in certain disciplines.”
“Taft, you can always fit it in. I mean it’s football we’re talking about. Nobody reads and studies all day long. You can easily make time for football. I mean it’s not swimming or track or some kind of extracurricular thing we’re talking about here. It’s football. It’s
football,
Taft.”
“Great big game,” he said. “I’m after small things. Tiny little things. Less of white father watching me run. Prefer to sit still.”
He did a curious thing then: untied his shoelaces. I took a moment to scan the walls for tape-remnants. Poster of Wittgenstein, I thought. Maybe that’s what he’d had up there, or almost had. Dollar ninety-eight poster of philosopher surrounded by Vienna Circle. Two parts to that man’s work. What is written. What is not written. The man himself seemed to favor second part. Perhaps Taft was a student of that part.
“You have to admit that football represents a tremendous opportunity,” I said. “There’s money at the end of all this. And what money can’t buy.”
“You mean the crowd.”
“The everything,” I said. “The sense of living an inner life right up against the external or tangible life. Of living close to your own skin. You know what I mean. Everything. The pattern. The morality.”
“Maybe I crave the languid smoky dream,” he said, slowly and softly, with barely evident self-directed humor, dressing the words in black satin. “That’s living close to yourself too. You talk about bringing the inside close to the outside. I’m talking about taking the whole big
outside and dragging it in behind me. What’s the word they use in northern parts of Africa for that stuff they smoke? Not that I’m planning any kind of holy weed mysticism. I’m too hard edged for that. But there are rewards in contemplation. A new way of life requires a new language.”
“All right then, damn it. Money aside. Metaphysics aside. It becomes a question of pursuing whatever it is you do best. It’s a damn shame to waste talent like yours. It almost goes against some tenuous kind of equilibrium or master plan. Some very carefully balanced natural mechanism. I’m serious about that.”
“If I don’t play football, the bobcat will become extinct in Wyoming.”
“You’re an athlete, Taft.”
“So are you, Gary. But I’m not going to talk you out of quitting if you want to quit.”
“As an athlete I have serious lapses. I don’t play football as much as drift in and out of cloud banks of action and noise. I’m not a one-hundred-percent-in-the-American-grain football player. I tend to draw back now and again in order to make minor discoveries that have no bearing on anything. I conduct spurious examinations. I bullshit myself.”
“Gary, you’re a credit to your race.”
He looked down at the newspaper. I took this as an indication that we had reached the end of the introductory phase. I went to the window and stretched. A two-part yawn elongated the faint reflection of my face. There was little movement to be seen on the campus. It wasn’t quite dark yet. A man (perhaps a woman) stared at me from a window of the nearest building. It disturbed me that I couldn’t be sure of the person’s sex. It’s always
interesting to stand by a window and exchange looks with an unknown woman in another building. But in this case I couldn’t be sure whether I was looking at a man or woman. Therefore it seemed dangerous to get interested. It was definitely much too delicate a matter to involve myself with at the present time. I went back to the chair and sat down. Hunched forward I studied my shoes. I thought of going down to the equipment room to check out the rumor about new uniforms. According to the rumor, the coaching staff had decided on a few slight design changes for next season’s uniform. At this very moment people were probably crowding into Billy Mast’s room or Randy King’s room to talk about the rumor, to embellish it, to swim and play in it. I could go down to the equipment room, check things out, then rush up to Billy Mast’s room with whatever information or misinformation I had managed to gather. Then we could all discuss it for an hour or so. I wondered whether the designation
CAPT
or
CO-CAPT
would be included on my uniform below the right shoulder or above the number 44 on my back. I hoped the rumor turned out to be true. At the very least I hoped we’d get new headgear. I didn’t like the old helmets much. I’d be satisfied with new headgear and with the designation
CO-CAPT
above my number.