Don DeLillo - Americana

"Let's begin," he said. "Grove, I think we'll start with you. Ratings on the warcasts are way down."

"I've been in Tripoli," Grove Palmer said.

"Of course you have. No inference meant or intended. But the problem is there and we have to face it. Pressure is being exerted."

"I'm in favor of live satellite pickup. I've been in favor of live satellite pickup since my pre-Tripoli days."

"We'd never get permission," Quincy said.

"Don't bet on it."

"It's ghoulish," Warburton said.

"As Weede says, the problem is there and we have to face it. They're exerting pressure. I say let's exert pressure in return. Hepworth bought the half-hour for impact frequency. I say let's give it to him. I think we can get clearance for certain battle zones. Obviously you don't want to use tight shots if you can help it. And in any kind of live situation you don't want to use the kind of hard rock background we've been into. But in the brief time since my return from Tripoli, I've done some exploratory work and I think we can get clearance in zones where the tide is in our favor."

"It's ghoulish beyond belief," Warburtori said.

Warburton was the oldest man in the room and, as such, had assumed the position of tribal conscience. This was done with the unspoken approval of everyone. He was the eldest among us, the most informed, the tallest and grayest, the least feared in terms of power potential, idea smuggling and sheer treachery for its own sake, and, as everyone had undoubtedly heard in the twenty-some-odd hours since Jones Perkins passed the word to Reeves Chubb, the victim of a rare blood disease. Nobody ever paid the slightest attention to Warburton's pleas on behalf of humanity and good taste but we all felt, I think, that he was indispensable. He elevated our petty issues to a cosmological level and by so doing made it easier for us to ignore the whole thing on the grounds that we weren't qualified to deal with such high moral questions. It was nice to have Warburton around. He was so tall and gray and dignified. He rounded out the group photo we carried around in our calfskin heads. Without Warburton, we might have been a delegation of insurance salesmen at the annual get-together in Atlantic City-top men, of course, each a member of the million-dollar club, but still insurance agents; with Warburton (third row, center), we were the United States diplomatic mission to the Court of St. James's. Weede Denney referred to him both privately and publicly as his secretary of state. This remark was always accompanied by one of Weede's breathsucking chuckles, meant to indicate he was well aware that the joke was really on him. As the meeting began to melt away in my inner ear-drone-fests, I called these Friday affairs-I jotted down my version of the memo Weede would compose when poor Warburton died.

Re: Theodore Francis Warburton

It is always a sad occasion to lose an old and trusted employee. Theodore Francis (Ted) Warburton was more than that. He was a valuable friend, an invaluable advisor, a staunch advocate of the basic decency of man. Such qualities are rare today. I, for one, consider his passing a great personal loss. It is not often that we come across a man who possesses Ted's humanistic approach to the problems of our age. His untimely death diminishes all of us. I know everyone joins me in wishing his widow the very deepest of sympathies. No man is an island. We owe God a death. The torch has been passed. Ave atque vale.

"Let me ask you this," Mars Tyler said. "What's wrong with Grace Tully?"

"Old image," Walter Faye said.

"Exactly my point. Exactly what we need."

"Her appeal is vegetable. The vegetable kingdom cherishes her. She's their vegetable queen. Look, they're sitting there with twenty-two pounds of the Sunday Times spread all over the floor. The man is about forty-seven years old, wears glasses, never buys a paperback book that costs less than two and a quarter. He's leafing through the special men's wear section, having fantasies about a gold mohair dinner jacket. The woman is sitting there with the magazine section, wondering why the fuck somebody doesn't call them up and invite them over for whisky sours because it's so goddamn boring hanging around the house reading about ghettos and urban sprawl. That's the vegetable kingdom."

"Apropos of nothing," Paul Joyner said, "I understand Grace Tully makes it with anybody and everybody-man, woman or beast of the field."

"Let me ask you this," Mars said. "One, how does the vegetable kingdom differ from any other segment of the audience? Two, I still don't see why Grace Tully and her old image, as you call it, isn't exactly what we need for this particular sector as you yourself defined it. Three-we'll come back to three."

"The vegetable kingdom sits and stares," Walter said. "The animal kingdom just scratches. Basically it's as simple as that."

"There's something counter-productive about this discussion," Quincy said.

"Point well taken," Weede said.

"What was three?" Walter said. "You said there were three points."

"Let's come back to this," Weede said. "I want to generate a little heat on the Morgenthau thing."

"The Morgenthau thing is just absolutely fine," Jones Perkins said.

"What about Morgenthau himself?"

"What about Morgenthau himself," Jones said. "Well, he has just about made up his mind to do it and get it done and the hell with the haircream people."

"But has he definitely committed?"

"I would say he has just about definitely committed."

"In other words we have rounded the buoy."

"Weede, I would go even further than that. I would say he has just about definitely committed."

"Would you say in your own mind that the haircream people do or do not enter into it?"

"The haircream people definitely do not enter into it as far as I can see at this juncture, pending final word from Morgenthau himself when he returns from the islands."

"Which islands?"

"Which islands," Jones said. "I'll get on that right away."

"Let's move to World War III," Weede said.

"Apropos of Grace Tully," Joyner said. "I have it on good authority that back in the old days she used to make it with some of the biggest names on the Coast. Both coasts in fact."

"Let's get together," Weede said. "What I want to know at this juncture is whether the World War III idea is any more viable than it was a week ago in the light of recent developments on the international scene."

"At this juncture," Richter Janes said, "the World War III idea is about forty percent less viable than it was a week ago."

"That's what I wanted to know."

"What I want to know," Walter Faye said, "is why we can't show the toilet bowl in the effects-of-solitude prison thing. We can show toilet bowls in prime time. Why not in the afternoon is what I want to know."

"Kids might be watching," Weede said. "And I don't think the subject is germane at this point. I can't imagine any idea conceived by this unit which would necessitate the on-camera appearance of a toilet bowl. Besides, if we're not going to show the thing in use, there's no reason to show it at all. I believe it was one of the Sitwells who said if there's a gun hanging over the mantelpiece in act one, it had better be fired by the final curtain. Or words to that effect."

"Why can't we show the thing in use?" Walter Faye said. "Just once I'd like to see somebody on TV take a tremendous steaming piss. It could even have dramatic justification. We could think up some reason to make a pissing scene necessary. Maybe our protagonist has to get some poison out of his system; or, if it's a documentary about some disease of the liver or bladder, we could actually evoke some sympathy for our guy by showing how painful it is for him to take a simple piss. I wouldn't care where the camera was. We could stay on his face. The important thing is the sound. If we could just get that sound on the airwaves, just once, I honestly think we could take credit for expanding the consciousness of our nation to some small degree."