Don DeLillo - Underworld

"We're less than two hundred miles from Cuba. I know you know this. And I know this. But I still have to say it. Those missiles are just over my right shoulder, dig. A range of one thousand kilometers, which is redundant from our viewpoint but which disturbs me anyway because we haven't even lost the war yet and we're already on the metric system."

And he stood nodding his head, looking semi-jetlagged, a little paranoid, a little overmedicated, his voice subdued and his eyes murky with lunar gloom.

"And we won't get killed for being Jewish. That's the tricky part. They'll kill us for being American. How do we feel about that?"

What a way to begin a night of entertainment. There was a long lugubrious silence. Then Lenny did a standing left turn, posed a moment like some discus Greek and finally shot his upper body forward and pounded the floor with his fist.

A college kid laughed.

"What I love are the names of our protectors. Check it out, Jim."

And he took a clutch of newsclips from the side pocket of the ratty car coat he was wearing. Mumbled some lines of text, made a few Mort Sahlish comments, dropped a clipping and kicked it, speaking briefly in his Transylvanian voice.

"All right, these men are deciding our fate. They're going in and out of solemn meetings all day and night. White shirts, cuff links, striped ties. But their names are where it's at. Adlai Stevenson. Adlai . Gases you right down to your Capezios, right? It's so exclusive it has no gender. This little boy is so special we don't want anyone to know he's a boy. Because, ultimately, dig, being a boy or a girl is so fucking common. And if anyone else uses this name within a five thousand mile radius of our Adlai, we'll pay to have him killed. And all his progeny. Completely extinguish the line. Because this is our family thing. That's it, you see. La cosa nostra . Only they don't have to do it with extortion and murder. They do it with names that no one else could ever think up."

The divorced women laughed. There were lowlifes from the dog track in attendance. Musicians on their night off. Pool boys and out-of-work dancers. There were two tables of travel agents on a junket from Toronto -they thought Lenny was a Scottish comic who did impressions of the royal family.

"All right, dig, Dean Rusk. Dean . Born to lead, to advise and instruct. Born to be bald. No, yes, wise but also tough and shrewd.

Look out for men with one syllable in each name. Unyielding motherfuckers. But here's my favorite, okay. You know what I'm gonna say, don't you?"

An old lady laughed.

"That's right. McGeorge Bundy. McGeorge . How do you survive childhood with a name like that? Was his name reversed at birth? A mistake at the hospital? Of course not. They did it. They marked him for greatness. Besides, he had a grandmother named McMary."

The old lady loved it.

Lenny took a while to riffle through the strips of newsprint, mumbling something.

"Yes, no, here's one. Roswell Gilpatric. Roswell . It's not a put-on. It's real. Look, shown here in the cabinet room. Captured on film. The secretaries, the assistant secretaries, the undersecretaries, the deputy undersecretaries, the advisors on Russian affairs. Alexis Johnson. Alexis . Bromley Smith. Bromley . Llewellyn Thompson. Llewellyn . Four /'s in Llewellyn. Takes balls, baby. Secretly, see, I have to admire them. Because they understand the logic of how to conduct yourself unsentimentally in the world. W Averell Harriman. Averell . This is a man who has his own exit on the New York State Thruway. And here's us, a stone's throw from Cuba. They're not drawn here but we are. Because the atomic bomb is Old Testament. It's the Jewish bible in spades. We feel at home with this judgment, this punishment hanging over us. Illness and misfortune. Speak to us, sweetheart."

But Lenny's paranoia and sense of tragedy may have had a more immediate source. He'd been tipped off at the airport that the Dade County police had planted Jewish detectives in the audience. Yes, Yiddish-speaking fuzz who were prepared to glom onto every vile syllable he uttered in the mother-in-law tongue.

"You want names, I'll give you names. My name is Leonard Alfred Schneider. What was I doing when I took the name Lenny Bruce? I was moving toward the invisible middle. I'm just like you, mister. Don't bug me, man, or insult my ancestors. I'm just another Lenny. Just another Bruce. But that's not what the ordained people do. McGeorge, Roswell, Adlai. They remove themselves from any taint of the big middle. And that's a genius thing. Doesn't matter where they go to church. Their name is their church. They're not only not like Leonard Alfred Schneider. They're not like Lenny Bruce. And I don't blame them, frankly."

He'd spoken quietly, conversationally, in his nasal slant, and didn't expect the large laugh. He put away the papers he'd been waving. The Latin music began to pound the walls and a heckler started talking to Lenny, a drunk with a rolled-up racing form, but Lenny only lifted the mike off the stand and blessed the man.

Then he did an impression of the Queen of England ordering Chinese takeout over the phone.

The travel agents loved it.

"If your name is Roswell or Bromley, you have a real father. Only the most responsible parents give their kids that kind of name. If you're a Roswell, you don't have a father who comes around twice a year and gives you a novelty toy when he leaves. Here, kid, a little something to deepen our relationship. You study the item. It's a rubber vomit blob. Here, kid, put it on your mother's bed." Lenny snapped his fingers and did a shoulder curl. "So happens the Office of Civil Defense is stockpiling rubber vomit in fallout shelters all over the country. They're in a frenzy right now, man. Get those shelters built and stocked. Sanitation kits, medical kits. Phenobarbital, to sedate you. Penicillin, I don't know, for bomb rash. When the radiation makes you too sick to vomit, they hand out rubber vomit, for morale. After the mass destruction of a nuclear exchange"-he looked at his watch- "they're gonna wanna rebuild. And all this cold war junk is gonna be worth plenty, as quaint memorabilia. Those yellow and black signs you've been seeing everywhere but never really noticed until six days ago-Fallout Shelter. Collector's items. All the stuff that's stashed in the storage rooms and laundry rooms that are designated shelters. Drums of drinking water. Saltines. Chapstick, for the flash. Cardboard toilets that double as salad bowls. Incidentally," he said.

A waiter dropped a tray of drinks.

"The Navy boarded a ship yesterday at the quarantine line. First ship boarded. Armed boarding party. Bet your ass it was tense, baby. Turns Out the ship's not carrying missiles. Carrying truck parts and toilet paper. See, there it is, ordinary life trying to reassert itself. That's the secret meaning of this week. The secret history that never appears in the written accounts of the time or in the public statements of the men in power. Those beautiful bombs and missiles. Those planes and submarines. Ever see anything so gorgeous? The weapons get the best engineering and the most poetic names. Meanwhile some old grubby farmer in Cuba is waiting for a carburetor for his beat-up tractor. And he's been wiping his ass with the lettuce crop. They're reminding him he has to be patient, yeah, while they work out their big-power relationships." Lenny did a dip and swivel. "You remember the way your mother talked to you when you were on the potty. Make, sweetheart. Make for mommy." He did a pivot and spin. 'And you cops on special duty. The linguists in the crowd. There's something you oughta know. The word smack, or heroin? Comes from the Yiddish shmek. You know this, experts? A sniff, a smell, like a pinch of snuff. Dig it, he's got a two hundred dollar shmek habit. Next time you bust a junkie who's a coreligionist"-the word gets a little barking laugh from the college kids-"and you stick your rubber glove up his ass to check what kind of stash he's got in there, that smell you smell is shmek , my friend. Which is just another name for ordinary life."