Don DeLillo - Underworld

"We didn't have nice times in that car?"

"The drive-in was nice. Not the parking on dark streets. Like criminals."

"That's what we were," he said.

She laughed. She had two teeth that didn't exactly match, on either side of the incisors, and he thought it gave her a sexy smile.

They turned east and he saw a garbage truck and saw Juju's father, who was a garbageman, jump down off the truck and stride across the sidewalk and flip the lid off a can and muscle the can over to the truck and then upend it into the grinder.

"See that guy? That's Juju's father," he said with an edge of pride in his voice.

He admired the graceful action, the long continuous body motion from the cellar entrance to the truck, the way the man wrestled the can across the sidewalk, all forearm action, and the freedom to make noise, skidding the can and running the grinder, and then the hoist and dump, a shoulder motion mainly, and the original pitch of the lid, a gesture of half contempt but also graceful, which he earned by the nature of the work he did.

And flinging the can back toward the wrought iron fence that guarded the basement steps. Also a privilege of the job, Nicky thought.

They reached her building and went inside.

Loretta stood in the hallway and turned to be kissed and he kissed her, moving her up against the mailboxes with her books between their bodies sliding back and forth.

"Who's home?" he said.

"They're all home."

He pressed her into the mailboxes and could hear the friction of her skirt when she moved against the slits in the metal where you could see if you had mail.

" You still think it's for the best I don't have my car?"

"It's broad daylight, car or no car."

"We could park in the parking lot at Orchard Beach. Just the seagulls and us."

She kissed him.

"So steal another car," she said slurringly.

He opened his eyes while he was kissing her and she was looking at him with wide brown eyes that seemed to be thinking seven things at once. She knew he'd had sex with other girls, handjobs, blowjobs, whatever else, putting it in taking it out, putting it in keeping it in, bareback, rubber, whatnot, and she knew who the girls were, from Washington Avenue, from Valentine Avenue, one from Kingsbridge Road, because somebody told somebody who made sure it got back to her, and he knew that she knew, from Gloria passing a remark to Juju, like one of the radio serials his mother listened to, doing her beadwork.

"You'll meet me tomorrow?" she said.

"I work tomorrow."

"They're all home. What can I say?"

"I have to work. What can I say?"

" When's the last time you washed your hair?" she said.

He walked a while and ended up going into the zoo, on an impulse, entering by the big bronze gate, and he went up past the sea lions in a cold stiff wind with the place just about empty of visible humans. He missed his shit-heap Chevy, no plates, no insurance, no license to drive it, transmission shot to hell, the door on the passenger side opening up unannounced every time he made a left turn, driving only at night in a skulking and shadowy manner, mostly alone, smoking, the radio frequently fading out.

He was angry about something but it was something else, not the car or the girlfriend-the thing that ran through his mind even in his sleep.

He walked for half an hour and then stood by the wildfowl pond. When he was in grade school he'd come to the zoo with a kid named Martin Mannion, and Martin Mannion had climbed a fence, it was a day like this, wintry and empty, and Martin Mannion climbed into the buffalo enclosure and stood there waving his jacket at the buffalo, the bison, and the huge nappy animal from off a five-cent piece just looked at him indifferent and Martin Mannion got so mad he took out his dick and peed.

It was beginning to get dark now. He stood at the edge of the pond and lit another cigarette, turning his back to the wind.

"Call me Alan," he says. "Call me Alan."

"I says, What's Alan? He says to me, That's my name." "That's my name."

"I look at him. I says to him, How could that be your name? You already got a name."

"What happened to Alfonse?"

"I says, What happened to Alfonse? You were Alfonse for sixteen years, lour grandfather was Alfonse."

"The both of them."

"Two grandfathers Alfonse. What happened? He says, I'm not them."

"Miserable little cross-eyed."

"I'm not them, he says."

"He's king shit, that's who he is."

"Call me Alan, he says."

"I'm not them."

"I could break his back."

"I'm not them."

"I says, Who are you?"

"He's king shit, that's who he is."

"I says, Who are you, stunat' , if you're not them?"

Giulio Belisario, Juju, had never seen a dead body, including at a wake, and he was interested in the experience.

"Who's gonna die," Nicky said, "just so you can satisfy your curiosity?"

"I missed my grandmother when I had the measles."

"I'm looking around. I don't see any volunteers. You hear about Allie's father?"

"What?"

"You don't know this?"

"What? He died?"

"He hit a number."

"I was gonna say."

"He's buying a Buick. One day he's a fishmonger. The next day."

"I was gonna say. I just saw him yesterday in the market. How could he be dead?"

"How long does it take?" Nicky said.

"I'm only saying."

"One day he's selling scungilli. The next day, hey, kiss my ass."

"Who's better than him?" Juju said.

"I'm driving a big-ass Buick. Stand clear, you peasants."

They were in the grocery that occupied a storefront in Nicky's building at 611. The grocer's wife, Donato's wife, the only name they knew her by, tolerated their presence because she liked Nicky's mother. Outside five older guys were gathered and one of them, Scarfo, was doing broad jumps at the instigation of the other four. Scarfo wanted to take the sanitation test and they'd convinced him he needed to broad-jump six feet from a standing start and he was out there in his good coat and creased pants jumping cracks in the sidewalk, to see if he could do it.

The two young men stood inside the store smoking and watching.

"I saw your father," Nicky said.

"He's picking up in the neighborhood, temporary."

"He ever find anything in the garbage?"

"What could he find? That he brings home? Forget about it."

"He could find something valuable."

"My mother would have a conniption fit. Forget about it."

Donato's wife gave them each a piece of sliced salami and they watched Scarfo work on his jump.

Matty bit his shirt cuff, a slink of a kid with lively eyes, and he looked across the board at Mr. Bronzini, who was smiling twistedly.

"You killed me," Albert said.

"I saw everything."

"You came, you saw and so on. And you killed me."

He knew that Matty loved hearing this. He loved winning at chess and he loved hearing the loser declare himself dead. Because that's what he was, kaput, and it was Matty who'd crushed him.

The boy's mother stood in the doorway watching.

"How many moves did it take? No, don't tell me," Albert said. "I want to preserve some self-respect."

Matty and his mother were delighted.

"He's beginning to think in systems," Albert said to her. "I think this is a sign that good things will begin happening again."

The adults had a cup of tea and Matt stayed at the board, a small floating godhead above the pawns and rooks. The boy had taken some more losses lately, including a rout at the Manhattan Chess Club, and this was deeply disappointing all around because Father Paulus had appeared.

Came, saw, said little and left.

After a while Albert went over to Arthur Avenue, where he saw the chestnut man pushing his oven on wheels, a cartoon contraption, smoke coming out of the bent metal chimney. There was a peach basket appended to one end of the oven to hold the unroasted chestnuts and sweet potatoes.