Don DeLillo: End Zone

"It's a tonguelashing," Bing said. "Coach is hacking at poor old Hobbsie."

"He seems pretty calm."

"It's a tonguelashing," Bing hissed to Cecil Rector, who was edging along the bench to sit next to us.

"How's the shoulder?" I said.

"Dislocated."

"Too bad."

"They can put a harness on it," he said. "We go in six days. If Coach needs me, I'll be ready."

Just then Creed looked toward Bing Jackmin, drawing him off the bench without even a nod. Bing jogged over there. The rest of the players were standing or kneeüng between the 40yard lines. Next to me, Cecil Rector leaned over and plucked at blades of grass. I thought of the Adirondaoks, chill lakes of inverted timber, sash of blue snow across the mountains, the whispering presence of the things that filled my room. Far beyond the canvas blinds, on the top floor of the women's dormitory, a figure stood by an open window. I thought of women. I thought of women in snow and rain, on mountains and in forests, at the end of long galleries immersed in the brave light of Rembrandts.

"Coach is real anxious," Rector said. "He knows a lot of people are watching to see how he does. I bet the wire services send somebody out to cover the opener. If they can ever find this place."

"I'd really like to get back in."

"So would I," he said. "Yellin's been haunting me since way back last spring. He's like a hyena. Every time I get hurt, Roy Yellin is right there grinning. He likes to see me get hurt. He's after my job. Every time I'm face down on the grass in pain, I know I'll look up to see Roy Yellin grinning at the injured part of my body. His daddy sells mutual funds in the prairie states."

Bing came back, apparently upset about something.

"He wants me to practice my squib kick tomorrow. I told himI don't have any squib kick. He guaranteed me I'd have one by tomorrow night. Then he called Onan over and picked him apart. Told him he was playing center as if the position had just been invented."

"They're putting Randy King in for Onan," I said.

"Onan's been depressed," Bing said. "He found out Ms girl friend spent a night with some guy on leave from Nam. It's affecting his play."

"What did they do?" Rector said.

"They spent a night."

"Did they have relations?"

"Are you asking me did they fuck?"

"There goes Taft again," I said. "Look at that cutback. God, that's beautiful."

"He's some kind of football player."

"He's a real good one."

"He can do it all, can't he?"

They played for another fifteen minutes. On the final play, after a long steady drive that took the offense down to the 8yard line, Taft fumbled the handoff. Defense recovered, whistles blew, and that was it for the day. The three of us headed back together.

"Hobbsie laid it right in his gut and he goes and loses it," Rector said. "I attribute that kind of error to lack of concentration. That's a mental error and it's caused by lack of concentration. Coloreds can run and leap but they can't concentrate. A colored is a runner and leaper. You're making a big mistake if you ask him to concentrate."

A very heavy girl wearing an orange dress came walking toward us across a wide lawn. There was a mushroom cloud appliquéd on the front of her dress. I recognized the girl; we had some classes together. I let the others walk on ahead and I stood for a moment watching her walk past me and move into the distance. I was wearing a smudge of lampblack under each eye to reduce the sun's glare. I didn't know whether the lampblack was very effective but I liked the way it looked and I liked the idea of painting myself in a barbaric manner before going forth to battle in mud. I wondered if the fat girl knew I was still watching her. I had a vivid picture of myself standing there holding my helmet at my side, left knee bent slightly, hah all mussed and the lampblack under my eyes. Her dress was brightest orange. I thought she must be a little crazy to wear a dress like that with her figure.

The thing to do, I thought, is to walk in circles. This is demanded by the mythology of all deserts and wasted places. A number of traditions insist on it. I was about a mile beyond the campus. Motion was strange. Motion consisted of sunlight on particular stones. (With the opening of classes I had been brushing up on perimeter acquisition radar, unauthorized explosions, slowmotion countercity war, superready status, collateral destruction, crisis management, civilian devastation attack.) All the colors were different shades of one nameless color. Water would have been a miracle or mirage. I took off my shoes and socks and the stones burned. I saw a long bug. I was careful to keep the tallest of the campus buildings in sight. This was a practical measure, nonritualistic, meant to offset the saintly feet. I remembered then to think of Rutherford B. Hayes, nineteenth president, 18771881. That took care of that for the day. Each day had to be completed. I avoided a sharp stone. Something sudden, a movement, turned out to be sunlight on paint, a painted stone, one stone, black in color, identifiably black, a single round stone, painted black, carefully painted, the ground around it the same nameless color as the rest of the plain. Some vandal had preceded me then. Stonepainter. Metaphorist of the desert. To complete the day truly I had to remember to think of Milwaukee in flames. I was doing a different area every day. This practice filled me with selfdisgust and was meant, eventually, to liberate me from the joy of imagining millions dead. In time, I assumed, my disgust would become so great that I would be released from all sense of global holocaust. But it wasn't working. I continued to look forward to each new puddle of destruction. Six megatons for Cairo. MIRVs for the Benelux countries. Typhoid and cholera for the Hudson River Valley. I seemed to be subjecting my emotions to an unintentioned cycle in which pleasure nourished itself on the black bones of revulsion and dread. Tidal waves for Bremerhaven. Longterm radiation for the Mekong Delta. For Milwaukee I had planned firestorms. But now I could not imagine Milwaukee in flames. I had never been to Milwaukee. I had never even seen a photograph of the place. I had no idea what the city looked like and I could not imagine it in flames. I put on my socks first, as I had been taught, and then my shoes. I was hungry. Pot roast had been served for lunch and I had eaten only some cereal and fruit. Heading back I kept watching for insects. Buildings rose across the plain. I could see cadets marching quite clearly now, bright blue squadrons on the parade grounds. The thing to do is to concentrate on objects. In the room, when I got there, Bloomberg was occupying his bed, prone, on top of the blanket, hands folded behind his white neck-the lone unsuntanned member of the squad. There were two beds, two chairs, two desks, a window, a closet. His white skin was remarkable. Some dietary law perhaps. An overhead light, two wall lamps. Consume only those foods that do not tint the flesh. A desk lamp, two bureaus, a wastebasket, a pencil, six books, three shoes. Bloomberg himself. Harkness himself or itself.

"Milwaukee is spared," I said.

Hours later, after we had both missed dinner, Bloomberg rolled over on his back. He managed this without taking his hands from their position behind his neck. He used his elbows as levers and brakes, as landing gear. It seemed some kind of test-to move one's body 180 degrees without changing the relationship among its parts. Finally he settled himself and stared into the ceiling. I was sitting on my own bed, my back against the wall. This placing of bodies may seem inconsequential. But I believed it mattered terribly where we were situated and which way we were facing. Words move the body into position. In time the position itself dictates events. As the sun went down I tried to explain this concept to Bloomberg.