Don Delillo - Players

"It's a fucking crisper, you asshole.”

"Watch the tube.”

"They're green, look.”

"Dial the fucking dial.”

"Neerg," she said. "They're all neerg. These people here are neerg.”

They chattered and made sounds a while longer and got up and walked and stretched and ate-and-drank a little and bumped each other and gestured, this the commonplace aim-lessness of their evenings, a retreat from stress lines and language. Pammy watched Lyle reseat himself near the TV set.

On the screen some people on a talk show discussed taxes. Something about the conversation embarrassed her. She didn't know what it was exactly. Nobody said stupid things or had speech defects. There were no public service commercials showing athletes teaching retarded children to play basketball. It wasn't a case of some woman in a news film speaking ungrammatically about her three children, just killed in a fire. (She wondered if she'd become too complex to put death before grammar.) These people discussed taxes, embarrassingly. What was happening in that little panel of light that caused her to feel such disquiet and shame? She put her hands over her ears and watched Lyle read.

Early the next morning he was with Rosemary Moore in a place with exposed beams, fake, Oscar's Lounge, and a coat of arms of some sort over the bar, sitting at a table in a dark corner, solemnly watching the other patrons. A waiter kept moving in and out of the swinging doors that led to the kitchen, talking angrily as he emerged, beginning to grouse again even before he'd re-entered. For a while they listened to his argument with the unseen chef.

"This is the kind of place," Lyle said, "where the ketchup always comes out of the bottle without having to hit the bottom. Don't ask me what that means but it's true. I like this kind of eerie sameness about this kind of place. It's metaphysical.”

"My drink is way too strong.”

"I'll get another.”

"It's all right.”

"No problem, I'll get another.”

"No, it's all right.”

"It's all right, Lyle," he said. "We're using names today.”

Everything he said and did seemed all right to her. It was all right to come for a drink so long as she didn't stay too long. The walk over here was all right. The place itself was all right. It was all right to sit either at the bar or back here. Again there was a lull as they watched the other customers. Everybody seemed to be having a better time than they were. It was hard to tell whether Rosemary was uncomfortable. There were shades of blandness from genial to serene; hers was closer to the median, lacking distinctive character, dead on.

"So you've been with the firm how long?”

"About three weeks now.”

"Before this, what?”

"I had a job where I was on the phone all day talking to buyers. That was crazy. Then I was a stewardess, which was all right at first, places to see. Then a friend got me a job in a shipping office. That wasn't too bad but I got mononucleosis. I was a temp for a while after that. Then I got this.”

"We hope you'll stay.”

"I have to see.”

"Do you smoke, Rosemary? See, I'm using names. Mustn't forget that.”

"Some people can never quit. I smoke for a few days and then I stop. Getting addicted to things is in your personality. Somehow I can stop.”

"Where do you live?”

"Queens.”

"Of course.”

"You should see the rents, what difference.”

"My powers grow stronger with age.”

"But you have to get there," she said.

"What about when you were a stewardess? You were right there. You lived in a high rise with four hundred other girls in their neatsy-clean uniforms. Always near the phone. Sorry, love, I'm on standby. Roach coach to San Juan.”

"I'm lucky I have friends with a car," she said. "Except the traffic.”

"Can't trust those porta rickens to sit there like civilized folks. I don't mind the cha-cha music but when they start in with the green bananas, it's too much, the FAA ought to do something, banana peels coming out of the overhead compartments not to mention in the seat things inside that wrinkled cloth. You know that wrinkled cloth?”

He caught the waiter's eye and gestured. The man brought two more drinks. Lyle felt a strange desolation pass over him. They sat awhile in silence. He watched a man at the bar put a partially melted ice cube in his mouth.

"This is my last," Rosemary said.

"If it's too strong, I'll get him to take it back.”

"I don't think it will be.”

"Cigarette?”

"I just finished but all right.”

"How did you get your job, this one, if I can ask?”

"This girl I used to know's brother.”

"She was with the firm, or he was, I guess.”

"He used to be in the stock market but not our company.”

"Maybe I know him.”

"I don't know," she said.

"What's his name?”

"George Sedbauer.”

"You see me pause," he said. "That's the guy got shot.”

"I know.”

"His sister was a friend of yours and you met George through her and then he more or less recommended you or gave your name to someone.”

"He told me who to see and all.”

"Did you know him well? I didn't know him at all but a friend of mine knew him and we talked about it after it happened, Frank McKechnie, in this bar right there.”

"I met him at a party type thing. We were introduced. His sister Janet. He was very nice. I used to laugh.”

"How long ago was this?”

"Two years? I don't know.”

"But you had time to get to know him fairly well.”

"I liked his macabre humor," she said. "George could be very macabre.”

Briefly he envied Sedbauer, dead or not. He always envied men who'd done something to impress a woman. He didn't like hearing women mention another man favorably, even if he didn't know the man, or if the man was disfigured, living in the Amazon Basin, or dead. She turned her head to exhale. The waiter came out of the kitchen, talking.

"What about something to eat? I'd like to hear more. We can go somewhere decent. I just thought this place was convenient and not the big cocktail hour with huge swarms.”

"I can't stay.”

"Another drink then.”

"This one's full.”

"I'd like to hear more, really.”

"About what?”

"You, I guess. I think it's interesting you knew Sedbauer. I was a few yards from the body when I guess he died. The man who did it was George's guest that day. Did you know that?”

"Yes.”

"I think it's interesting. I wonder what happened between them. George was in trouble with the Board, you know. Did you know that? The Exchange Board of Directors. George was apparently a little this way and that. Not quite your run-of-the-mill dues-paying member. I wonder what he was doing with this guy wearing a guest badge and carrying a gun. We go through all those days not questioning. It's all so organized. Even the noise is organized. I'd like to question a little bit, to ask what this is, what that is, where we are, whose life am I leading and why. It was a starter's pistol, adapted. Did you know that?”

"Yes.”

"Yes, she said. You are well informed, he exclaimed. Where is the check, they inquired.”

She smiled a bit at that. Progress, he thought. It wasn't macabre, perhaps, but it had a little something all its own.

Pammy was writing a direct-mail piece on the subjects of sorrow and death. The point was to get people to send for a Grief Management brochure entitled "It Ends For Him On The Day He Dies-But You Have To Face Tomorrow." The brochure elaborated on death, defined the study known as grief management and offered a detailed summary of the company's programs ("Let Professionals Help You Cope") and a listing of regional offices. It cost a dollar.