Authors: Don DeLillo
*
“The rate is six per thousand per one hundred R. That’s twenty-four hundred lethal genetic events per four hundred thousand people exposed to one hundred roentgens. Hiroshima supports this formula.”
*
The sun. The desert. The sky. The silence. The flat stones. The insects. “The wind and the clouds. The moon. The stars. The west and east. The song, the color, the smell of the earth.
I headed back to campus through the desert. The sun was low, swept by slowly moving clouds in its decline, a crust of moon also visible, more pure in silence than the
setting sun. I walked quickly, the only moving thing. Nothing else stirred, not even waning light folding over stone and not the slightest flick of an insect at the perimeter of vision. The sound of my feet was the only sound, my body all there was of moving parts. I counted cadence for a few beats in a pleasantly regimental voice, nonchalant and southern. The wind was light and dry. The plants did not move in the wind. I remembered the black stone, the stone painted black. I wondered if I’d be able to find it. It was important at that moment to come upon something that could be defined in one sense only, something not probable or variable, a thing unalterably itself. I ruled out the stone, too rich in enigma. I began counting cadence again. I managed the southern accent fairly well. I had a talent for accents, although I didn’t make use of it very often because it seemed too easy a way to get people to laugh. I marched a bit longer. Then I saw something that terrified me. I stood absolutely still, as if motion might impede my understanding of this moment. It was three yards in front of me, excrement, a low mound of it, simple shit, nothing more, yet strange and vile in this wilderness, perhaps the one thing that did not betray its definition. I tried not to look any longer. I held my breath, fearing whatever smell might still be clinging to that spot. I wanted my senses to deny this experience, leaving it for wind and dust. There was the graven art of a curse in that sight. It was overwhelming, a terminal act, nullity in the very word, shit, as of dogs squatting near partly eaten bodies, rot repeating itself; defecation, as of old women in nursing homes fouling their beds; feces, as of specimen, sample, analysis, diagnosis, bleak assessments of disease in the bowels; dung, as of dry straw erupting with microscopic eggs; excrement,
as of final matter voided, the chemical stink of self discontinued; offal, as of butchered animals’ intestines slick with shit and blood; shit everywhere, shit in life cycle, shit as earth as food as shit, wise men sitting impassively in shit, armies retreating in that stench, shit as history, holy men praying to shit, scientists tasting it, volumes to be compiled on color and texture and scent, shit’s infinite treachery, everywhere this whisper of inexistence. I hurried toward campus. All around me the day was ending. I crossed the highway and walked along the side of the road. There was a car in the distance, coming toward me. The wind picked up briefly. The low clouds moved across the horizon. In time the college’s buildings would come into view. I looked down at the road as I walked. The wind picked up again. I thought of men embedded in the ground, all killed, billions, flesh cauterized into the earth, bits of bone and hair and nails, man-planet, a fresh intelligence revolving through the system. Once again I rebuked myself for misspent reflections. I could hear the car now, just barely, a small murderous hum, as of unnamed sounds at the end of a hall. Perhaps there is no silence. Or maybe it’s just that time is too compact to allow for silence to be felt. But in some form of void, freed from consciousness, the mind remakes itself. What we must know must be learned from blanked-out pages. To begin to reword the overflowing world. To subtract and disjoin. To re-recite the alphabet. To make elemental lists. To call something by its name and need no other sound. I looked up. The car passed me, an army staff vehicle with a large circular antenna. Soon the campus lights were visible and I stopped for a few seconds, watching the day burn out.
The sun. The desert. The sky. The silence. The flat
stones. The insects. The wind and the clouds. The moon. The stars. The west and east. The song, the color, the smell of the earth.
Blast area. Fire area. Body-burn area.
M
YNA
C
ORBETT SAT
next to me in our exobiology class. The instructor was a little man named Alan Zapalac, who liked to be called Zap. He was about five feet four inches tall, not much older than the rest of us, and very mobile in his teaching methods. He had a distinctly limited stride, moving back and forth across the front of the room as he spoke, sometimes stalking the aisles. He spoke quickly, flowing over his own words, laughing almost in embarrassment when he said something he knew was quite perceptive. He waved his arms a lot and smiled maniacally at our more ridiculous statements. Every so often he sat on top of his desk or on the windowsill, his small feet pedaling the air.
“Formic acid trickles through the great halls of the universe. Way out there the thing is evolving, has evolved, is about to evolve, whatever synthesis you can guess at, methane, ammonia, hydrogen, water vapor, all acted on by present or unknown forms of energy to form amino
acids which in turn are developed into proteins which in turn are acted on by nucleic acids to give us life in neon lettering across the sky, what harmony, what religion. Dextrorotation, think of it. I look at your faces and see no sign that this word rings any kind of bell. Somebody give me a sign. The person making any kind of intelligible comment gets to clap the erasers after class. The real point is how to grasp it, how to get beyond pure formulations and discussions of isotope content and get into the mystery of it. Four point five billion years. Science is religion, did you know that? Consider what it is we’re talking about. Earthly origins, meteorites dropping from the heavens, creation of the solar system. But in approaching each other to discuss this thing we have to get through all the barriers imposed by all the allied sciences and disciplines — that of multiple definitions, that of cross-references nobody’s even begun to put in any coherent form, that of terminologies which are untranslatable, that of expensive duplications, that of inconsistencies in even the most sophisticated testing equipment, that of speed outrunning itself in terms of who in what discipline is developing unforeseen procedures which completely wipe out so-and-so in what other discipline. Let me tell you about my childhood in Oregon.”
Myna had a few words with Zapalac after class and then we left with two friends of hers, sisters, Esther and Vera Chalk, and had a picnic behind the Quonset hut. Myna had made meatless and breadless organic sandwiches; one of the Chalk girls brought along raw carrots and celery tonic. The sisters complimented Myna on her funky crystal-beaded suede dress. Then the three of them talked about me as I lay on the blanket with my arms crossed over my eyes. They said nice things mostly, how
well-built I was, how my nose was slightly off-line in a pleasant way. Esther lifted my arms off my face during the part about the nose; she wanted to confirm something. Then we ate lunch and listened to Myna read a short story about a solar system inhabited by oxycephalic creatures who give birth to their own mothers. When it was over, Vera Chalk poured her tonic into a plastic cup.
“Zapalac gives me goose bumps,” she said.
“I just adore that little man,” Esther said. “He conveys a real primitive-appeal type thing.”
“Did you hear him on electron bombardment? I swear he made poetry out of it.”
“I like his teeth,” Myna said.
“They’re real white,” Esther said.
“It’s not that so much. It’s how small they are.”
“Remember daddy’s teeth?” Vera said.
“They were gruesome.”
“They were horse teeth. Gaa. I have a shit fit just thinking about them. Gaa.”
“They were gruesome beyond belief. They were the perfect teeth for someone like him.”
“My father’s teeth are okay,” Myna said. “It’s the rest of him.”
“Raw carrots are good for the teeth,” Esther said. “Most people think it’s carrots for the eyesight, milk for the teeth. But it’s dumb to subdivide things that way. Carrots nourish the body and all the extensions of the body. It’s carrots for whole-body harmony.”
“She’s into carrots pretty heavy,” Vera said.
“How you chew them’s important. You sort of project your jaw outward and then chomp down hard. You’re supposed to think of the numeral seventeen while you’re chewing them. The numeral seventeen is a numeral of
immortal life. Raw vegetables have a link-up with certain forms of numerology.”
“I don’t know how Zapalac’s teeth could chew anything,” Myna said. “They’re so small and tiny. I picture him eating a lot of soup and a lot of strained foods.”
“Tell them about daddy’s thumbs,” Vera said.
“Don’t remind me please.”
“Our daddy had these gross thumbs. They were huge. They were immense, Gary. And they were so ugly they’d make you physically sick just to look at them. But we used to sneak little looks anyway and we were always afraid he’d catch us.”
“Then he’d bite you with his horse teeth,” I said.
“Gaa.”
“Talk about something else,” Esther said.
“Remember his thumbnails? They were brownish yellow. They didn’t have any pink at all. They were scab colored.”
“Oh God please,” Esther said.
“It was real scary being anywhere near those thumbs. They were horrible-looking things. And he liked to use his thumb to pick his nose.”
“Oh please no.”
“We’re here to comfort each other,” Myna said.
After the picnic I went to my room. Bloomberg, wearing shorts with little slits in them, was on his bed, turned to the wall, asleep. After a while I was called to the telephone. I assumed someone in my family had died. On the way to the phone I wondered who it might be, which death would cause me the most grief, whether it was an accident or natural, and whether I would have to go home for the funeral if it was just an uncle or aunt. Then I picked up the phone and heard my mother’s voice.
“How’s your laundry?” she said.
“Fine — how’s yours?”
I wasn’t particularly relieved that no one had died. When we were finished talking I returned to my room. Anatole was on his back. His body rose and fell through a tidal sleep. I spent the afternoon looking out the window. That evening we went down to a team meeting. Tweego and Hauptfuhrer yelled at us for our performance of two days before, our sixth game. We had won 27–10 but it had been our worst game by far. We lost the ball four times on fumbles. Bing Jackmin missed an extra point and three field goals. The defensive unit wasn’t aggressive, giving up just ten points only because the opposition was so pathetic; we knew it wouldn’t be much of a contest when we saw their quarterback wearing number 78. Garland Hobbs didn’t show much either. He threw only long passes in the first quarter, as if a sustained drive was too much trouble, and he missed his first six and then got intercepted before Creed placed a hand on his shoulder and spoke softly into his face. All these thing we were reminded of as we sat in the long low stone room under Staley Hall. Coming up was Centrex, the game that would make or break the season. In six games we had scored 246 points and given up 41. It didn’t mean a thing if we couldn’t win the next one.
“You got five days to get ready,” Hauptfuhrer said. “This isn’t Snow White and the seven dwarfs you’re facing this time. This is a bunch of head-hunters. They like to hit. They have definite sadistic tendencies. This isn’t another humpty dumpty outfit. This is a squad that’s big and mean. You people got a long way to go in meanness. You think you’re mean but you’re not mean. Centrex is mean. They’re practically evil. They’ll stomp all
over you. It’ll be men against boys. You better execute out there. And you better play mean. They’re head-hunters. They like to humiliate people. That’s their stock in trade. You better get ready for the worst.”
“Let me tell you about their head coach,” Tweego said. “I know Jade Kiley. I’ve known him for years. I know every wart on his hide. And he’s mean.”
“You better believe it.”
“And his boys are mean.”
“They’re quite a contingent,” Hauptfuhrer said. “They like to hit.”
“A Jade Kiley team likes to hit. That’s been his trademark down the years. I’ve known Jade Kiley I don’t know how long. His teams have always liked to hit. Jade Kiley doesn’t let you put on a uniform unless you like to hit. Jade Kiley teams are hitting teams.”
“They like to humiliate people. They’re quite a contingent.”
“You got your work cut out for you,” Tweego said. “You got five days to get ready. We can help you get ready but we can’t play the damn game for you. We can take you right up to kickoff. Then you’re on your own.”
“They’ll stomp blue shit out of you,” Hauptfuhrer said.
Creed didn’t make an appearance. As the season progressed he had become more remote. We saw him only at practice and at the games. He no longer had his meals with the squad. At practice he stayed up in the tower or sat alone in the last row of benches in the small grandstand section used during the baseball season. During the games he remained in one spot on the sidelines, right at the midfield stripe, letting his assistants make all the decisions and control the flow of players. He seemed to be losing weight and he moved slowly now, with a slight limp.
When the meeting ended Raymond Toon and I went up to his room to watch television. I wanted to look at the replay of a game between the Detroit Lions and the Minnesota Vikings. It was a little early but he turned on the set anyway and we watched a program composed of film clips of hurricanes, tornadoes and avalanches. It was one of the most fascinating things I had ever seen. Raymond, stretched out in his chair, nearly spanned the walls.
“What do you think?” he said. “Can we beat them?”
“I’m watching this.”
“They’ll be tough. We’ve had it too easy all year. It’ll make them seem that much tougher. But I guess all we can do is go out there and do the best we can. The man upstairs decides these things.”
“Who do you mean, Toony?”