Don DeLillo - Americana

"I'll be there," I said.

I hung up and immediately called Sullivan. She answered after the seventh ring. I felt a sudden chill, the vast white silence of my mother's deathbed, candlewax and linen, her enormous eyes, the breathing shallow and bad. Beneath the blanket her body was little more than ash, crumbs of bone; her hands were dry kindling. Death became her well, so horribly well, and when I heard the bells of an ice cream truck I had almost laughed. American sky-chariot come to take mother to the mansion with the familiar orange roof and the twenty-eight flavors. I had almost, but not quite, laughed; and then the chill had entered and she died.

"I have to get out of here, Sully."

"David?"

"I no longer control the doors. Words blow in and out. I can hear them perfectly, with really astounding clarity, but I can't believe they're coming from my mouth. I think it's time to leave."

"Nothing will be solved out there, you know. It's just telephone poles stringing together the cities. Those distances out there will only confuse you."

"I had lunch with a friend recently. He cried. He wanted to build a boat and sail to Tasmania. I laughed at him. A week later he had a cerebral hemorrhage. We learn nothing from the stereotypes around us, not even that we're all the same."

"I know what your problem is. You don't have any Jewish friends. Why don't you come on over tonight? I'm working on something new. I'd like you to take a look at it."

"I'll be there," I said.

I put down the phone. The door opened slightly, revealing the condensed figure of Mrs. Kling, six inches wide, armless and hipless. With the door open just a crack I didn't know whether she could see Binky on the sofa.

"Somebody took my stapler," she said. "It was on my desk when I went into Mr. Denney's office. Now it's gone. I've had it for nine years. My name is Scotch-taped to the bottom of it. I'm telling everybody that if it's not back on my desk by nine sharp on Monday morning there'll be trouble. That gives all of you the whole weekend to make up your mind."

"Reeves Chubb took it. I saw him."

"You're lying. Don't think I don't know how much lying goes on around here. What's she doing on your sofa with her legs like that?"

"She gets these mild attacks," I said. "It's some kind of minor diabetes thing. No cause for concern, Mrs. K."

"I can see bare flesh above her stockings. Why are your hands under the desk?"

"I was just picking some loose skin off my fingers. You know the way the skin gets loose around the fingernails. I was kidding before about Reeves taking your stapler. Walter Faye took it. Say, I like your shoes, Mrs. K. I didn't know Dr. Scholl's had merged with Walt Disney Productions."

After she left I dialed Ted Warburton's extension.

"Warburton here."

"Hello, Ted. It's Dave Bell. I just wanted to say that I enjoyed that remark you made about Chip Moerdler. It's most gratifying to be supported by a man of your stature. What was it you called him-an ignominious baboon?"

"A thundering ignoramus."

"Superb," I said.

"I was sorry to hear your show is being cancelled. It had its faults but it was one of the few programs I made it a point to watch. Don't be disappointed, Dave. You're young and able. One of the turks. I've been hearing good things about you."

"Coming from you, Ted, those are encouraging words indeed. "

"I shouldn't have thought you'd need any encouragement, particularly from an old buzzard like me."

"How long have you been living here, Ted? I've been meaning to ask."

"Since 1951," he said. "I had always hoped to retire to England one day. But in a few months I'll probably be dead. My wife is American, you know."

"No, I didn't."

"You'll have to come over for dinner some night. We weren't able to have children."

"Ted, there's one other thing I'd like to ask you. Did you read the Mad Memo-Writer's latest effort? The St. Augustine quote? Actually I don't usually refer to him as the Mad Memo-Writer. I call him Trotsky. It seems appropriate somehow."

"Trotsky," he said. "Quite good. I like that."

"What I wanted to ask you was whether you could clear up the meaning of that particular quotation for me. You're really the only one around here who might conceivably shed some light."

"I don't think I know precisely what you're talking about."

"The St. Augustine thing. And never can a man be more disastrously in death than when death itself shall be deathless. I've committed it to memory. It overwhelms me. I'm not sure why but it just hits me. It knocks me out."

"It is a somewhat killing remark, isn't it? But I don't see why you think I can unravel it for you. I'm the kind of man who likes to rest his wits with anagrams. Theology is a bit out of my line."

"The endless leagues of China," I said.

"I don't understand."

"You recited that passage from Kafka to confuse them. I was watching your face. You were playing a game with them."

"Weede is an overbearing jabberwock and Reeves Chubb is beyond all hope of redemption; nevertheless, one is my superior and the other a fellow human being entitled to cherish the illusion of his dignity, if nothing more. I abhor deceit and trickery in others and I try to the best of my waning ability to exclude these particularly shabby vices from my own repertoire. No, young man, I was playing no game. I'm afraid you misinterpreted whatever it was you saw on my face."

"In that case I apologize, Ted. I guess I tied the two things together. The memo and your remarks about China. I thought there was a connection."

"You were mistaken. I'm not who you think I am. I'm a man trying to do a job of work and having a bloody difficult time of it if you want to know the truth. These tiresome phone calls don't help any. People ring me up automatically when they need an answer to some infantile question or a question for some ungodly answer. I am not the research department. I am not dial-a-prayer. And I most assuredly am not the Bishop of Hippo."

"I'm sorry, Ted. I really am. Please forgive me."

"We are endlessly dying," Warburton said. "We begin dying when we are born. A short time later we die. By universal consent, more or less, this is known as death. In time the so-called resurrection of the body takes place. Soul and body become joined in what we have already defined as the state of death. But although we are in the state of death we are not dead because body and soul are intact once again and there is no recourse but to resume the process of dying. Or, if you will, the process of living-the words are interchangeable really. And since this process of dying goes on for all eternity we cannot be said to be waiting for death. Nor are we looking back on death, for the simple reason that we cannot look back on something which is not there but here. In this paradoxical, redundant and somewhat comical passage, what Augustine is getting at beyond all the gibberish is that death never dies and that man shall remain forever in the state of death. There is always the chance, of course, that I have misunderstood every word. I managed to obtain a key to the multilith room. I run off the copies after midnight and then distribute them. If I'm not able to get it all done before daybreak, I distribute the remaining copies during lunchtime, as was the case yesterday. I work quickly and stealthily. Naturally I am above suspicion."

He hung up. I kept the phone at my ear for a long moment, almost expecting his voice to return, drumming and bagpip-ing, overwhelming the animistic buzz of the telephone. Then I returned the receiver to its cradle and went for a walk. All the office doors were closed and I opened them one by one as I progressed through the corridors. Jones Perkins was down on one knee, golf club in hand, lining up a seven-foot putt; a tipped-over paper container served as cup. Walter Faye was reading the Kama Sutra to his secretary. Mars Tyler was at his desk, running a strand of dental floss between his teeth. Reeves Chubb was in the process of changing his shirt. Richter Janes and Grove Palmer were pitching quarters to the wall. Quincy Willet was having his shoes shined by the freelance bootblack. Paul Joyner sat on his royal blue sofa, barefoot, in the lotus position. I was like a movie camera catching documentary glimpses of everyday life in a prison, on an aircraft carrier, in a home for the criminally insane. Phelps Lawrence had gone but his secretary, Ellen Quint, was in his office, his ex-office, pacing, eyes red, hair ribbon undone. Carter Hemmings was strumming his guitar. Nobody was in Chandler Bates' office and I did not open Ted Warburton's door.