Don Delillo - Players

Nan Fryer clapped her hands, bringing the tapping to a halt. People drooped somewhat, bodies throbbing. The men in class were dressed variously, from track suits to routine casual wear. Most of the women wore tights or flared slacks. Nan walked among them, talking. She wore silver shoes, cut-off jeans and a Dynamic Tranquillity T-shirt. It was an outfit that made her facial scar appear all the more tragic.

"I like your breathing. You're all breathing so well. This is important in that we're concerned with movement and the forces affecting movement. There are areas and awarenesses in you that tap makes accessible. You are accessible to yourself. Notice how calm you're getting. Little by little, deeper and deeper. Unblock your nervous systems. Believe in your breathing. This is so essential to getting the most out of tap. When I first came to tap, I thought it was just a ticky tacky dance. It can be so much more. Movement and force. Force and energy. Energy and peace. You are a free person for the first time in that your whole body is aware of the physical and moral universe.”

Pammy looked out a window at the back of the room. Traffic moved swiftly. There were flushes of sunset in a glass door across the street, a bargain shop. Her hands were over her ears.

"Okay, kids, crossover time.”

The rest of the session Pammy danced intently, cracking down on her heels, definitive contact. She worked awhile on the intermediate routine, step number two, moving sideways across the face of the mirror to confront a radiator and pipes. Nan played an old show tune on the phonograph and danced a set of advanced combinations. The students formed a circle around her. Soon they were all dancing, trying to duplicate the complex floor patterns, tapping, swaying, elbowing out into some private space to strut awhile, quietly, on the hardwood floor.

"Do not tight- ten . Com-plete loose-ness. Re-lax ank-les, Arnold Mas-low, do not tight -ten.”

Lyle stood in a phone booth in Grand Central waiting for McKechnie to pick up and watching people heading for their trains, skidding along, their shoulders collapsed-a day's work, a drink or two causing subtle destruction, a rumpling beyond the physical, all moving through constant sourceless noise, mouths slightly open, the fish of cities.

"You're sure it's not too late.”

"Lyle, say what you want to say.”

"The other day we talked about George Sedbauer. Who shot him, so on, so forth. Well remember you mentioned this secretary of Zeltner's one time? She knows a little about this. I got to know her a little. She first of all knew Sedbauer. She knew the man or knows the man who shot him. That's the key thing. There's a photograph. I saw it. And she knows about the gun, what kind of gun, but the gun she could have read in the paper. The key thing is the man who did the shooting. She knows him. Should somebody be told about this? Or what, Frank?”

"You saw this picture.”

"They were in it. George, her, the guy. Unless she's inventing. But why would she invent?”

"I want you to talk to a friend of mine," McKechnie said. "I'll have him get in touch with you. Yeah, we'd better do that.”

Ethan and Jack came over the next evening with meat loaf leftovers. They all went up to the roof, where management had laid slate over the tar and provided four picnic tables (chained to the walls) and several evergreen shrubs in large planters. Lyle arrived last, carrying drinks on a tray.

"I didn't know this was up here," Jack said.

"It's to give Pammy a look at the World Trade Center whenever she's depressed. That gets her going again.”

"I want to drink something classic," Ethan said. "None of this tequila business. What is that, tequila? I've decided to live after all. No more poison pinwheels.”

"A bit of poetry, that," Pammy said. "Here, somebody serve. Give me a small piece. Are we eating or drinking? I'm confused and we're just getting started.”

"What's that?" Jack said. "Is that the Municipal Building? Is that, what, the Woolworth Building? You can't see that far from here, can you?”

"If you'd brought wine I could give you something classic. I could give you wine.”

"We brought meat loaf. Who else brings meat loaf?”

"You left the wine in the cab, I take it, from past experience.”

"We had this cabdriver coming up here," Jack said. "No spikka da English too good. Tried to come up here via Chinatown.”

"Ah so.”

"Threats of bodily harm," Ethan said.

"Who's what here? I'd like some bread with this. No, I wouldn't. Forget that. Cancel that order, waiter. I'm a dancer now. Austerity is my life. What's it called-an austere regimen. I will accept a drink, however, if one of you turdnagels will pass me a glass, being careful at all times, these being new and extremely high-priced drinking vessels.”

"This salad's fabulous.”

"Thank you, Jack.”

"A salad among salads," Ethan said.

"Lyle tossed it.”

"Loud and prolonged applause.”

"I tossed it.”

"Meaning to ask, Lyle, what's happening on the street?”

"The street of streets.”

"Have you been declared officially antiquated or what? Are you viable, Lyle? We all want to know. Will there be a floor to trade on in the near future? Or does it all pass into the mists of history, ladies and gentlemen, and you are there.”

"I vote for the mists of history. But who knows, really? There's an awful strong argument for the membership's point of view. But the current's the other way.”

"Really, you'd haul it all down?”

"It's not hauling it down. It's opening it up. Of course you don't know exactly what it is you're opening up. That's the trouble with currents.”

"They can take you right over the falls.”

"Right over the falls and your barrel too.”

"Should we be worried?" Ethan said.

"Pick an opening and move right in. That's the only, you know, method of, whatever-maintaining some kind of self-determination, a specific presence. Out into the streets, clerks of history, package-wrappers. Freedom, freedom.”

"You've learned your lesson well, Spartacus.”

It was nearly dark. Lyle went down for more liquor and ice. He dialed Rosemary's number. No one answered. In the kitchen he moved past a glass cabinet and realized there was a flaw in his likeness. Something unfamiliar in the middle of his face. At the same time he felt dampness there. He went into the bathroom. It was his nose, bleeding. He held some tissue there until the flow diminished. Then he put a box of Kleenex on the tray, along with tequila, vodka, bitter lemon and ice, and went back up to the roof. Someone was at one of the other tables. It was a small boy wearing a straw fedora. He stood against the chair, eyes averted. Lyle sensed that the others were watching him to measure the comic dimensions of his reaction to the boy. He walked toward them, looking out over the umbrella that was set into the table. Deliberately he placed the tray down, moving objects out of the way with calculated disdain. They waited for him to say something. He sat, moving slowly as possible. His nose started bleeding again. This became the joke, of course. It was funnier than anything he could have said. He inserted a tissue in his nostril and let it hang there, his expression one of weary forbearance.

"His mother left him," Jack said. "She'd come right back. You leave kids on roofs?”

"He's a forties kid," Pammy said.

"But that hat, I can't believe.”

"He's a forties kid. He's got a two-toned little suit. I bet he never grows up. He'll stay three feet something. He'll smoke a little pipe and never go anywhere without that hat and two-toned suit. His name will be Bert Follett and I'd like to marry him. I'd also like a white wine with club soda please.”